Recently posted on CNN was an article whose author stated that no country would/could go back to the gold standard. This was posted just the other day on CNN. I am a very green beginner in AE and wonder what how to refute that idea that the gold standard made the downturn of the 1930’s into the Great Depression and that the markets will never take the revial of the gold standard seriously.
This stuff is great and liberating to the mind; coming from an AE rookie.
Wow. The person who wrote that must be able to see the future to make a statement that bold.
You should read “America’s Great Depression” and “PIG: The Great Depression”
Check out what you can get for free on this website, too. There are plenty of articles to scope out, and some books as well.
The Mystery of Banking
What Has government done to our money
“…take the revial of the gold standard seriously.”
did you mean revival?
Thanks. I will check out your recommendations!
Thanks. I will check this out.
Yes. That was what I meant.
Thanks for the post. That was very helpful!
Dear Dave
These freshly printed paper US Bonds, T-Bills, Dollars and other security instruments that the US government sells to people in industrialized nations have no value, except that they are redeemable for title to privately owned businesses, factories, casinos, hotels, farms, land, ports, breweries, refineries, forests, ports, breweries, refineries, and other privately owned assets located in the USA that were created by previous US generations instead of Gold.
Some sources estimate that the title to 25% of privately owned US located assets with recorded deeds and/or titles are now listed as foreign owned (http://economyincrisis.org/articles/show/1072) and this percentage is increasing rapidly.
Did Greece print and sell a lots of paper bunds to provide their population with all sorts of free government provided services, government payroll jobs, and pay for all of these government expenses with “borrowed” funds? Did the Greeks stop generating national wealth, and decide to start deficit spending to mimic the US financial operations that appeared to be very successful?
Will the US face similar consequences when foreign individuals will no longer purchase any of the freshly printed new paper US Bonds at the periodic US Federal Reserve (FED) auctions to continue our US government operations.
Germany is asking Greece to sell some of its islands to pay off some of their (worthless) paper bonds.
A gold standard would not let the USA and other countries print and sell paper bonds to raise funds for the governments to spend (to buy votes).
Your link isn’t working.
From what I know, the answer is “Yes” to all the q’s.
Greece is one giant welfare state, with huge deficit spending. Poor fellows are in trouble because they are not in charge of the printing press, so they can’t print Euros and pay the bills.
As I understand it, the ones who run the Euro are the Germans. They are torn about what to do.
On the one hand, they don’t want to give away their hard earned money to Greece. After all, why shouldn’t Greece do the same thing next year and on forever? Plus, plenty of other countries are in the same situation, and rest assured they will be waiting in line if Greece gets bailed out.
On the other hand, what else can they do? Kick Greece out? And all the other countries in the same situation? The EU is there for a reason, to benefit Germany. [I’m not very clear about how it does, but that’s what I’ve read]. Breaking it up will hurt them.
Kakugo is a very knowledgable guy on this forum on all things European
Real wealth, jobs, industry, and real monetary value is created and/or acquired ONLY when the members of a family (or a nation, tribe, city-state, etc.) plant, grow and/or harvest something of commercial value from the earth, extract something of commercial value from the earth, provide professional services (medical, legal, dental, engineering, architecture, accounting, land surveying, technology, etc.) to others outside of that family, and/or manufactures or constructs something of commercial value that is consumable (or permanently useful for income or rent) and then sells, leases or rents these items and/or services to parties outside of their family, in return for a net transfer of gold, currency or commodities from other parties outside of their family into their own family. The members of that family can reflect their real wealth and financial security with the accumulation of grain, gold, cattle, jewels, land, buildings, commodities and/or other marketable products for reserve use in times of emergency and/or also to raise the standard of living for the members of that family.
Did the Biblical Jacob squander his assets unwisely and then became hungry when a famine occurred? Did Jacob sacrifice all of his cattle to his god? Trade or sell his assets for food & wine to have a bunch of parties? Did Jacob burn his tents, grain and other assets as a sacrifice to his god? When Jacob’s family faced starvation, Jacob took his family to Egypt where there was grain stored and hoarded by the greedy Egyptians to insure the survival of Egyptians during times of drought and famine. Jacob and his descendants probably submitted themselves to be slaves of the Egyptians in return for food and shelter. Is the US government repeating these actions?"
That’s scary, Gerald.
Dear Smiling Dave:
The USA cannot sustain our lifestyle if we only cook hamburgers for each other, sue each other, sell each other life insurance, clean each others houses, work for the government, and not create any of the things that we consume.
Tax payer supported jobs such as police, teachers, military, finance, social services, welfare, environmental and other bureaucratic jobs generally do not produce any of the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life or create any wealth for the nation.
The citizens who work to produce the necessities of life have almost always been taxed for a portion of the wealth that they generate to pay the government employee salaries of these government jobs are that are needed to support and protect the citizens that do produce the things that society needs to survive, but a lot of these government jobs could be eliminated. The communist form of government where everybody works for the government because the government owns everything does produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life.
Most of the individuals in communist countries want to work at something other than producing the basic food, shelter, clothing and other products required to sustain life. They usually become a nation of non-producers wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the elite can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, etc.
The elite will then let, require, and/or force those that the elite have deemed lower class to work hard and produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain the life of the nation including the elite class of the government employees.
Gold standard is ancient history
But you can wait for it come…same way some people are waiting for jesus to come one day.