Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site frog.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!tdh From: tdh@frog.UUCP (T. Dave Hudson) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory Subject: Re: The gold standard. Message-ID: <158@frog.UUCP> Date: Wed, 27-Feb-85 11:41:30 EST Article-I.D.: frog.158 Posted: Wed Feb 27 11:41:30 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 2-Mar-85 03:46:41 EST References: <613@ukma.UUCP> <94@ucbcad.UUCP> <420@ssc-vax.UUCP> <686@ccice5.UUCP>, <449@ssc-vax.UUCP> Organization: Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA Lines: 18 >From: eder@ssc-vax.UUCP (Dani Eder) > When you are on a gold standard, or silver standard as the US was >until 1964, the price of the precious metal is fixed BY DEFINITION. Fixing the price of gold or silver in terms of dollars is not a gold or silver standard. If I remember correctly, it is a gold/silver *exchange* standard. A gold standard is far less susceptible to monetary machinations than a gold exchange standard; sort of the difference between a hot dog and a turd. >The Dollar was defined as a coin containing .78 ounces of silver, hence Bullshit. Once the U.S. moved from the bimetallic standard to the gold standard, silver coins were only token money; their value did not come from their silver content, but rather from their exchangeability with gold (and later fiat money), until the inflationists had robbed their owners of it so badly that their silver content was worth more than what the government was willing to