Pete HENDRICKSON's Lost Horizons - Solutions?

[bobbinville]

The problem with that analysis is that during our history, a large increase in the supply of either gold or silver raised havoc with our economy; and when there was too little gold around to provide us with an adequate money supply, our economy suffered -- that's why countries like the US and France, which stuck to the gold standard as long as possible, suffered worse than countries like the UK, which abandoned it during the 1920s. Then, look at Spain -- all that gold and silver extracted from the new world didn't make them into a world power. In fact, it did the opposite.

Another factor to consider is the supply of gold and silver in today's world. It's getting harder and harder to get the stuff out of the ground; and the countries which still produce a lot of it have enough of it so that they could, if they so chose, manipulate metal prices (and thus our money supply) just like OPEC does with oil. Sorry -- but after having seen gold and silver soar in price since 2008, and then give back over half of the gains, I don't buy the premise that a silver-backed dollar would remain relatively stable.

[Bentley]

The problem with that analysis is that during our history, a large increase in the supply of either gold or silver raised havoc with our economy; and when there was too little gold around to provide us with an adequate money supply, our economy suffered -- that's why countries like the US and France, which stuck to the gold standard as long as possible, suffered worse than countries like the UK, which abandoned it during the 1920s. Then, look at Spain -- all that gold and silver extracted from the new world didn't make them into a world power. In fact, it did the opposite.

Another factor to consider is the supply of gold and silver in today's world. It's getting harder and harder to get the stuff out of the ground; and the countries which still produce a lot of it have enough of it so that they could, if they so chose, manipulate metal prices (and thus our money supply) just like OPEC does with oil. Sorry -- but after having seen gold and silver soar in price since 2008, and then give back over half of the gains, I don't buy the premise that a silver-backed dollar would remain relatively stable.

Greetings bobbinville,

And what do you use as a comparative yardstick... the FRN? When was the last time the fiat dollar held a steady value? What has the value of the FRN done for the last 100 years? Nixon was the president that finally took us off the gold standard circa 1971. Low and behold, now we have a 17 trillion dollar debt. The two observations are inseparable. The debt we have today is a direct result of coming off the gold standard. Commodity based money will act, at least, as a throttle of runaway inflation. Right now we have nothing but incurable inflation, and it will only get worse.

Bentley