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US Gold Reserve Act

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Re: US Gold Reserve Act

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>countries will have to return to a gold standard and when they do Every single one of the 200+ countries left the gold standard since the evidence on how bad economies fared tied to the rate you can dig up gold became irrefutable. Hopefully no major countries get dumb enough to revisit that fiasco. For example, read the academic work showing that trying to stay on the gold gold standard during the great depression l…

First, there are fewer than 200 countries. Second, they've only left it since the 1970's in the current era and that was because the US could use its dominant position to do so (the Petro-dollar). Third, it doesn't matter if it's a "rock" or not, as long as it's scarce. In this case, this rock has all of human history recognizing its use in this capacity. You have to remember that the monetization of a scarce materia…

>First, there are fewer than 200 countries.

UN recognizes 251 countries and territories. Many territories have independent currencies. So for the sake of this discussion, there are over 200 places that left gold standards. Not a single country (or territory) remained on one. Not one. So by that metric, every currency that was not fiat has failed. If a gold standard resulted in a better economy, don't you think maybe one country would have kept on it and demonstrated this superiority? Or maybe if a gold standard is demonstrably inferior, would not every country eventually realize it and leave? Which does evidence demonstrate?

>Second, they've only left it since the 1970's in

That's false. Most left it in the 1930s [0] as it became clear the gold standard was bad for economic recovery. There's a good reason the world economic growth was so slow for centuries but really grew after countries stopped tying their growth to the rate they can mine. It's silly to limit the total value of transactions across goods to the rate one can dig up gold. It slows capital.

>Because since his tenure we went from $3 trillion to $28 trillion before the Federal Reserve stopped reporting money supply

If your claim is that lack of gold standards results in debt, then why is this not the case in all the countries? Oops. It's simply not. The US debt or lack of other country debt is simply political fiscal policy - nothing about a gold standard prevented past countries from getting into debt. So this is irrelevant.

The US had public government debt longer under the gold standard than it did not being on the gold standard, since it started public debt in the 1700s. Public debt is simply borrowing, and can happen with or without a gold standard, and history shows.

As to the Fed "stopped reporting money supply", here are at least M1 [1], M2 [2], and multiple flavors [3] of money supply as reported by the Fed. They all track from at latest 1960 through (checks date) Aug 2021. There's plenty more places to see the Fed reports on the money supply. What do you mean when you claim they don't report any more?

The only places making this claim (as usual) are places like shadow stats and zerohedge. If you want to do a neat experiment (I have), take claimed historical inflation from zerohedge, integrate it to get compound for say the past 20 years, then look at BLS claimed inflation for the past 20 years, then get ads from then and now, and see which places are closer to reality. I've used this simple, do-it-yourself demonstration many times to show people that those sites are crap.

The Fed (and Census, and BLS, and every agency) from time to time changes things to better reflect current needs. I suppose the Fed changing how it reports is what you're referring to, an action that every time flips out the zerohedge crowd. Here's a decent explanation [4].

>Or just compare the US to Germany in the same time period with its hyperinflation. Which fared better?

We're nothing like Germany hyperinflation. Panic and doom nonsense. Germany entered a gold standard, and tried to hold onto it after WWI, but reparations made them lose enough gold, that they imploded fiscally trying to maintain it. Had they not wanted to limit themselves to gold (which they ultimately didn't since it proved impossible economically - again an example that tying one's economy to the amount of gold one owns is stupid), they would have had a smoother transition after WWI and leading to their hyperinflation.

This also clearly demonstrates that having a gold standard does not prevent a country going into hyperinflation - Germany had one, it imploded due to debts, and they hyperinflated. Of course you can claim "they stopped the gold standard!" Of course they did, as did every country that claimed to be on one until fiscal irresponsibility or external hazard caused it to implode. A gold standard is no insurance against hyperinflation - and history (and academic literature) has plenty of examples.

The evidence now is that gold standards harm economies.

[0] https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-history-of-the-gold-s...

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M1SL

[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL [3] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/current/default.h...

[4] https://rationalreasoning.substack.com/p/on-the-feds-discont...

Re: US Gold Reserve Act

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep arguing my words and not my point and I’m not sure what you think that type of sophistry is going to win you. You are well aware that the Denarius went from pure silver to .02%. You know it’s a classic example of inflation bringing an empire to its knees. Why split hairs to point out that there was still a sliver of silver? My point is that history is filled with stories of inflation and its disastrous conse…

> You know it’s a classic example of inflation bringing an empire to its knees I mean, its not, though its frequently cited as such by those obsessed with pure commodity money; at that level of reductionism it would be more accurate to say you are reversing cause and effect, as the Empire tried to cope with decline by debasing currency. > My point is that history is filled with stories of inflation and its disastrous…

> the Empire tried to cope with decline by debasing currency

That sounds like, "The spouse tried to cope with the failed marriage by cheating." Maybe, but maybe also it played a role in the marriage failing. Can you truly separate the two things?

Listen, you could be right. I would definitely say that I've never been one to be "obsessed with pure commodity money." But I've also steadily lowered my respect for the entire branch of Economics over time. What's that H.L. Mencken quote? "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his income depends on his not understanding it." When you watch the film The Big Short, it seems to talk down to the audience but it's also talking down to the entire finance industry and population at large. It all seems so patently obvious in hindsight -- but it was obvious in foresight too, if anyone wanted to look. (Note: We're facing the same thing now, in greater degrees, but with different names (CDO's? Horrible! BTO's? Sure!) and we're about to be humiliated once again.)

I'll repeat what I said initially. I used to be Keynesian. I used to think that inflation allowed for growth. It encouraged investment. I saw the opposition as a fringe group: gold bugs and conspiracy theorists, frankly.

But what I came to realize is that, long-term, it can't work. It's not a Nash equilibrium (see: https://blankpoole.com). It doesn't encourage investment; it demands it. And that, to repeat myself, removes the coupling to value. Your local coffee shop is only worth so much, based on its revenues. Period. If you go above that, you're speculating -- fine; but you continue past that and you're in "growth investing" land, where you quite literally know that the coffee shop isn't worth that but you expect someone to be the greater fool.

People right now, unironically, say that the market always goes up. I'm not joking. You've probably heard it yourself. Economists could fight it but they enable it instead. "Just put your money in the market and wait. There is always a greater fool." Shame on them.

As that article I linked to points out, while the coffee shop shares can only be worth so much, any scare resource widely viewed as a currency, such as precious metals, have no such restriction. It's a Nash equilibrium. If field of Economics was minutely honest, if it had a mote of respectability, it would recognize that and stand firm despite what its income depends on.

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