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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
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>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