The Gold Standard Revisited

[carmen510]

Hey guys, you know what else doesn't ever decrease in value?

Real Estate.

[etzel33]

The world bank adopted the gold standard in Dec. 2010. Victory? lol

[macroman52]

There was not a single argument presented in that videao. All we got was 'Mises like it". So we must follow the words of the Messiah with no futher discussion?

[evadidio]

GS presents an obscure shade:the fixing.If I' m a ruler and I can fix the gold tax, I can say an ounce of gold is valuable as a car. And all the people who don't have any? This is slavery and feudalism. GS is not as fair as it seems. Could be a major X than the fiat.

[RKAddict101]

@evadidio The market fixes the value of gold, not the government.

[63gstone]

When we went off of the gold standard they (the government) told us that the dollar would be back be the "good faith and trust of the United States governmemt".

Need I say more...

[Rico8458]

paper dollars will destroy the world. metal was slower but better for mankind.

[VUriyV]

Its not governments that print bills its the banks. No credit/ debt no money for the bank and as we all know banks don't care about people, children or the environment. There in it "FOR NOW" only. They never look to the future of to advance the species. In sort money is nothing, gold is real, no one cares about ours spices surviving, 98% of the people believe in a god and that means 98% of the world is STUPID.

[dojufitz]

The USA will have to experience real pain like Hyperinflation to understand the problem.

Until the USA people loose all and wonderabout "what it thought was wealth" only THEN will the citizens understand.

[imperialcrypt]

Agreed, like the video says. Only a crisis can focus the mind. So most wont take any interest until its too late., and Youtube being the 3rd most visited site on the internet..the amount of views on videos like this is an indicator of how many are actually aware of whats coming down the pipe. While videos of some whack job crying about Britany spears and dog barking get 20 million views. Its pathetic...

[bossman068410]

We have had the gold standard.. It was also manipulated like the Diamond industry. We need to go back to a NON fiat based currency not based on gold or silver.

[justingaylor]

Hmm...Interesting. I've heard this before. What would you propose to back the currency?

[bossman068410]

It would be the same type of currency today but it is tied to GDP or something similar. The more I study the history of money I am more inclined to agree with the gold people. The Money in the hands of government has always resulted in devesating effects, even with the roman empire. We need to rid ourselfs of 2 things, Fractional lending, and artifical inflating of currency.

[justingaylor]

I'm in 100% agreement that we need to both end fractional reserve banking and fiat currency. I suppose I've heard gold can be cornered, and also if we suddenly switch to gold, I would be broke immediately (I'm just out of college with no savings).

I've heard about something called LETS in which hours of labor are the unit of currency. I haven't researched it too much.

Thanks for the response!

[ClanRooster]

Buckyballs?, synthetic stem cells?, superconductors?

We have used lots of different things as currency in the past - could the above be used to back a currency in the future?

[justingaylor]

I'm not sure that those would be good choices for currency-backing because they can be easily created (not sure about buckyballs, but anyway). Since money can be thought of as representing a percentage share in the total goods available in the economy, if we can easily create the money without also creating goods, our share of the goods will drop (inflation). As scarce as goods are, so too must money be scarce. This allows for efficient allocation of labor and rationing of goods.

[madcatzy]

Sound money is the real money...the dollar is dead!

[Jordan22473]

Gold standard is not the awnser this video promots zionest usery. only goverment must be able to create and take away money as it sees fit.

[601373]

Saying that the gold standard is not the answer is idiotic. Every world power in the history of our existence, which has gone off the gold standard or developed a fiat currency (money printed by the government which is irredeemable for precious metal) has gone bankrupt and ceased to exist.

[justingaylor]

I am interested in finding a viable alternative money system, but just saying that this video promotes zionist usery doesn't really help me understand.

What are the problems with having a gold standard?

And, even if we have government printing the money, what is the guarantee they will use discipline? Gold or silver are attractive because they cannot be created, only extracted from the earth.

I am not trying to be smart, I am just looking for answers. Thank you.

[ftorresgamez]

"What are the problems with having a gold standard?"

The problem is with the "Standard" concept, because it sounds like an imposed thing. Free market money WILL lead to people using gold and/or silver as currency, or a natural standard. The problem with an imposed "standard" such as fixing the dollar to gold is that the government can perfectly renege of its debt by simply imposing a NEW conversion rate between its dollar and gold, until the convertibility becomes meaningless.

[justingaylor]

Good point.

[Piscivorus]

It's basically price fixing.

[KraljevicPavle]

Wouldn't increasing the value of a dollar in gold cause prices to go down, and reducing it do the opposite?

My point being that it wouldn't really change anything, since all things will still be worth the same amount in gold. People would look beyond the dollar's value to what is backing it. Please clarify.

[ftorresgamez]

The issue with the gold "standard" before 1933 was that the Fed still issued bills above the amount of gold redeemable, thus creating inflation and a bubble. The USGov had to expropriate people's gold in 1933 so that the fiction of a "backed up" dollar could be maintained. What's needed: get rid of Legal Tender laws which grant the Fed a monopoly on money & let people use gold freely in contracts and trades.

[worldnewsbbc1]

@ftorresgamez People can use gold freely in contracts dummy. Gold clauses were legalized in October 1977 in accordance with 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2).

[ftorresgamez]

@worldnewsbbc1 Read again: In contracts AND trades. Right now, you can place gold "clauses," which is not the same thing.

[yogiudo]

The US dollar has turned into a hot potatoe.

Nobody wants to hold them.

Once in a while (too often) they circulate and you'd better get rid of it because you don't know what it will do next.

[justingaylor]

Like all those who love power.

[itsmesunny]

i attended this event and it was absolutely terrific - of course!

i urge everyone to attend a summit at mises~

[threelegduck]

god hath sent Mesus thy golden standard, and on behalf, thereof, for the stone tablet and the scripture upon which it werth spoken, and the authority of the book of books, amen

[WHEREtheFUNK]

I want to be a farmer.

[spanishaustralian]

Dam these austrians a good!!!!!!

[TehBANN3D]

No standard.

[LibertyOrBust]

This crisis has once and for all vindicated GOLD!!! Gold is not the common denominator between crises under the gold standard and paper standards.

GOLD is NOT GUILTY on ALL CHARGES. It must be released from prision!!!

[Theman77779]

I think you should change the dates since Halloween is not a good time for economics.

[EchoesUnlimited]

this background music is to gloomy.

[Klarkster]

Would be nice to see a Misesian pundit on the mainstream news talking economics. Like that's gonna happen!?!

Still, no status-quo media outlet is going to entertain a view, that suggests the mere existence of the State and it's interventionist policy, is at the root of the business cycle.

[Moragauth]

Peter Schiff comes close enough.

[Hawk999]

Klarkster wrote: (19 hours ago)

"Would be nice to see a Misesian pundit on the mainstream news talking economics. Like that's gonna happen!?!"

It HAS happend. Ron Paul is a Misesian.

[CurtHowland]

Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Ron Paul all get lots of talking time on the major news outlets, because the talking heads sometimes have to find SOMEBODY who will disagree with print print print spend spend spend.

Just to provide a counterpoint. Then the pundants and idiots can point to them and say "Gold Standard" and dismiss their arguments out of hand.

[PleaseNoPolitics]

This fear of a gold standard is baffling. All it takes is a little study into the matter to see that a market-borne, commodity-backed money solves so many unnecessary economic problems all by itself.

If I can learn it and understand it, these establishment pundits certainly can.

[CurtHowland]

I think they do know it and understand it. They just refuse to believe it.

Government is like religion. Once you put your faith in government, government is always the answer regardless of evidence to the contrary.

[PleaseNoPolitics]

No kidding. The older I get, the more amazed I am of how people treat government as what Mises would have called an "Ultimate Given".

We Americans used to understand that government taking control of things is dangerous. What's happened to us?

[CurtHowland]

"What happened to us?"

My honest opinion: Government schools.

For 13 years, the youth are subject to imprisonment, continually lectured about the "need" to be there, and the one over-riding assumption that pervades everything done day in and day out, year after year, is that it is "by government, for your own good."

[PleaseNoPolitics]

I agree. Some bargain we get there, huh? I've noticed here that the biggest cheerleaders for the global warming farce are government school students.

Government educating our kids begets kids who love government. We've not only not kept the faith of the founders, we've recanted it.

[MetaMorphy]

They can understand it. They just don't want to give up the power. Sadly, if Friedman had fought harder for it, things may be better.

[yogiudo]

It isn't that they don't understand it. It is that they do not want to lose the ability to print money at the drop of a hat.

Thus it is their own enjoyment of their own control of fiat money that stops them from wanting to give up the power.

[StopTheRobbery2]

@PleaseNoPolitics

The problem is not by what the money is backed, but who issues it and whether or not it is loaned at interest.

[evadidio]

@PleaseNoPolitics GS presents an obscure shade:the fixing.If I' m a ruler and I can fix the gold tax, I can say an ounce of gold is valuable as a car. And all the people who don't have any? This is slavery and feudalism. GS is not as fair as it seems. Could be a major X than the fiat.

[evadidio]

@PleaseNoPolitics you think? In my economy studies I have learned that in a stagnant economy, the fixing of the GS can bring a profund and feudal Depression, cause if you cannot inflate the currency ( gold doesn't inflate ), you cannot neither restart the manufacturers' production.

[RKAddict101]

@evadidio This is a unbacked claim. Why would the economy be stagnant? When has this happened in history? Why wouldn't people be able to keep exchanging? The government is necessary for the ability of people to exchange goods and services? Inflation is necessary to restart production? Prices need to go up for production to restart? None of that makes sense.

[worldnewsbbc1]

@PleaseNoPolitics You haven't done your home work. FDR took the country off the gold standard in 1933. From 1913 until 1933, inflation was 1.51% per year and real per capita GDP grew at an annual rate of -0.39% per year. That's why pundits fear the gold standard dumb ass.

[RKAddict101]

@worldnewsbbc1 Gold standard works in capitalism. We had a federal reserve at that time, so the gold standard we were on wasn't really a gold standard.

[jokertim777]

I expect those that tune in will find that a gold standard isn't at all like its detractors try to make it out to be. Mistaken concepts about what the term means and how money works are the two main reasons people oppose a gold standard. Read "Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles," by DeSoto (available free on Mises-dot-org) to understand why our current system is a fraud. You will also learn about the Bank of Amsterdam, the most stable bank in world history (It used a gold standard).

[NicNasty1981]

just 2 days til the live broadcast but at what time and in what timezone?

[Moragauth]

The reader has awesome diction.

[minnesotachris]

That's the voice of the great Dr. Floy Lilley; she's an expert on the global warming scam, but as a side job she's also recorded many audio books and articles for the Mises Institute.

[barneyhoot]

Keep up the good work!

[hpso12xu]

AMEN!!

[ball4thegame]

ugh. i of course figured. so sad. oh well, i will definitely be watching online!

[ball4thegame]

man i wish i could go for it...are there still spaces for students?

[jortizz]

Awesome! Can't wait to watch it.

[firefox8192]

the federal reserve is unconstitutionsl. ARTICLE 1 SECTION 8 OF THE CONSTITUTION. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FEDEREAL RESERVE.

[SuperTofu93]

@firefox8192 To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures. That pretty much gives the power for the federal reserve...

[jkraze3]

@firefox8192 also Article 1 Section 10 "No State Shall... Make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payments of Debts"

[Seiku]

Wow, I gotta watch that.

[discojoe3]

Cheers.