Poll
Question:
Which do you prefer?
Option 1: Gold Standard - Sound money
votes: 7
Option 2: Free Silver - You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold!
votes: 7
The defining economic issue for a good three decades in the U.S., from the 1870s-1900s. What's your stand?
No crazy talk like chartering a Third Bank of the United States :mad:
Sound money. Just because farmers want to fuck everyone else over so they can get out of their loan agreements doesn't mean the rest of the country has to go along with it.
That German feller Marx has some interesting ideas. :hmm:
Could somebody please explain to me why Gold is sound but Silver is not? They both seem equally sound as a basis of currency.
Quote from: Valmy on October 30, 2012, 01:34:59 AM
Could somebody please explain to me why Gold is sound but Silver is not? They both seem equally sound as a basis of currency.
Disclaimer - from wikipedia.
QuoteTo understand exactly what is meant by "free coinage of silver", it is necessary to understand the way mints operated in the days of the gold standard. Essentially, anyone who possessed uncoined gold, such as successful prospectors, or those to whom they might have sold it, could bring it to one of the United States mints and trade it for its equivalent in gold coins, less a small deduction for seignorage. Free-silver advocates wanted the mints to accept silver on the same principle, so that anyone would be able to deposit silver bullion at a mint and in return receive nearly its weight in silver dollars and other currency.[3]
Through most of the years when silver dollars and smaller denominations were minted in actual silver, the melt value of the silver was substantially less than their face value. As a result, their monetary value was based on government fiat rather than on the commodity value of their contents, and this became especially true following the huge silver strikes in the West, which further depressed the silver price. From that time until the early 1960s the silver in United States dimes, quarters, halves, and silver dollars was worth only a fraction of their face values.[4]
Since I support a fiat money system, sounds good to me.
Silver sounds like a thoroughly bad idea then.
Gold or silver, not both.
Quote from: Valmy on October 30, 2012, 01:34:59 AM
Could somebody please explain to me why Gold is sound but Silver is not? They both seem equally sound as a basis of currency.
The way I understand it, including silver would have increased the money supply, which would have had the effect of lowering interest rates. As Habbaku mentioned, the whole point of the debate was the farmers who were overextended on credit.
Quote from: Tyr on October 30, 2012, 05:12:33 AM
Gold or silver, not both.
:hug: Bimetallism is insane.
Quote from: Habbaku on October 30, 2012, 12:37:32 PM
Quote from: Tyr on October 30, 2012, 05:12:33 AM
Gold or silver, not both.
:hug: Bimetallism is insane.
Pot calling the electric kettle non-functional.
Quote from: Tyr on October 30, 2012, 05:12:33 AM
Silver sounds like a thoroughly bad idea then.
Gold or silver, not both.
Elaborate
Who is this Silver we are talking about? Why is he locked up? And why should we want to free him?
The Lone Ranger's horse.