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France pulls last gold held in US

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Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#281

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #274
kccqzy wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to imply that Charles de Gaulle and his policy of converting dollars to gold caused the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. That was a myopic view. The whole Bretton Woods system was doomed from the beginning due to design defects. The system was conceived with the primary goal of maintaining balance of payments equilibrium for all countries at the expense of economic growth and liquidity. It had become cl…

I agree with you that Bretton Woods was doomed from the beginning, both Keynes and Friedman said so, and this should be a better known POV. Economists are not historians though, and historians write human-driven stories (i.e., it was Nixon who ended Bretton Woods, it's not that it was going to inevitably collapse as an econometric question). All that said, Bretton Woods matters because people look at the gold standar…

Perhaps you could expand on why you're convinced the entirety of neoliberal economic dogma isn't "me me me"?

The gold bugs are almost entirely on the right. The left are far more likely to be MMTers.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#282

Post by stephbook »

cladopa wrote: post #25

This is not gain at all. At least in theory: You own some tons of gold at the start of the process, you have the same tons of gold at the end of the process. The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything. In other words, you had "paper gold" or "virtual gold" that the US can confiscate anytime, for example after invading Greenland, bla…

> The only real gain is that you have gold in the US custody and the US can be tempted to just use it without telling you anything.

What if you're at war, you can't risk to get your gold out and the US doesn't sell you anything because.. you can't pay?

If your solution is to "write France's debt on a piece of paper and hope they honor it", I've got some news to tell you about the system you just "invented."

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#283

Post by pessimizer »

kccqzy wrote: post #235
u1hcw9nx wrote: post #105

>However, an operation to repatriate its gold holdings began in the 1960s leading up to the US termination of the Bretton Woods system, which effectively stopped foreign governments from exchanging dollars for gold. French-US monetary history after WWII: Under the Bretton Woods agreement (1944-1971), the US dollar was the world’s reserve currency, and it was pegged to gold at $35 per ounce. Other countries pegged the…

You seem to imply that Charles de Gaulle and his policy of converting dollars to gold caused the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. That was a myopic view. The whole Bretton Woods system was doomed from the beginning due to design defects. The system was conceived with the primary goal of maintaining balance of payments equilibrium for all countries at the expense of economic growth and liquidity. It had become cl…

All the facts are true here, but "design defect" is silly. The entire purpose was to keep a country like the US from exploiting its position, and becoming the "world's reserve currency" which is just a euphemism for running up massive debts to poorer states.

Bretton Woods was sabotaged by the US and the USSR through the single vehicle of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dexter_White. Without a Bancor, the entire system simply became a mechanism to exploit the poor.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#284

Post by simgt »

byroot wrote: post #121
hypeatei wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De Gaulle was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical of the control that the US had over Europe through NATO. He left the alliance to build an independent French nuclear program which is paying dividends today amid the current leadership situation in the US.

Nitpick, but France never left NATO proper, only the integrated command, and reintegrated it in 2008 under Sarkozy.

Sarkozy, who renamed what descended from De Gaulle's party into "Les Républicains" because of his obsession for the US. Who also got sponsored by Gaddafi, and invited him to pitch his tent in the Elysée's garden. And who ten years ago was still spewing climate change denial crap. He probably still would, but he's too busy talking about how his 10 days in prison was the most atrocious experience a human being had to endure.

Funny how much his pathetic 5 years in office keep on giving.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#285

Post by doctorpangloss »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #281
doctorpangloss wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that Bretton Woods was doomed from the beginning, both Keynes and Friedman said so, and this should be a better known POV. Economists are not historians though, and historians write human-driven stories (i.e., it was Nixon who ended Bretton Woods, it's not that it was going to inevitably collapse as an econometric question). All that said, Bretton Woods matters because people look at the gold standar…

Perhaps you could expand on why you're convinced the entirety of neoliberal economic dogma isn't "me me me"? The gold bugs are almost entirely on the right. The left are far more likely to be MMTers.

> The gold bugs are almost entirely on the right. The left are far more likely to be MMTers.

see, i don't want to generalize about left and right. it's much simpler than that. look at what this thread is actually about: "chart for $/GLD is going up and to the right, therefore, gold good." okay? it's not complicated. it's not left vs right as much as it is, for every 1 person who's like, "things are complicated, economics are interesting, let's talk about it" there are 19 who live day to day in a relentless grind, and get-rich-quick is literally their only apparent salvation. they want the world to be ordered where they are a Green Wojack, where some random bet or gamble makes them a ton of money. that's why we're talking about it, not to figure out economic policy. same reason we talk about cryptocurrencies and startups. to most regular people - and programmers are regular people - it's about, $$$.

it is a totally valid complaint to say, "floating exchange rates do not produce charts that go up and to the right." I mean, that's their problem! They made the wages per hour chart stop going up and to the right! It's not that they are bad policy!

Do people on HN care about joe schmoe hourly worker? No. You can certainly make tons of money trading currencies, but look, these people are not trading. They're gambling. This class of get-rich-quick person likes: real estate, cryptocurrency, gold, startup stock... are you getting it?

You are making it about, "neoliberal dogmas" and "gold bugs" or whatever. Trust me, those people are not the morons. The gamblers are 10x as stupid. They are the antagonists.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#286

Post by RealityVoid »

regnull wrote: post #273
kccqzy wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to imply that Charles de Gaulle and his policy of converting dollars to gold caused the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. That was a myopic view. The whole Bretton Woods system was doomed from the beginning due to design defects. The system was conceived with the primary goal of maintaining balance of payments equilibrium for all countries at the expense of economic growth and liquidity. It had become cl…

Ok, bear with me for a moment - what if the US would use actual physical gold coins instead of dollars? Then your argument of "gold would flow out" would not hold - so the only reason for it to flow out was that the gold standard was fake - the lax money policy of the US was the issue, not the gold standard itself.

Gold is silly as a measure of value. It's just a piece of shiny metal. The amount of value in the world is increasing so you want to exchange medium to grow with it else you're pulling breaks on the actual economy.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#287

Post by slopinthebag »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #279
slopinthebag wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

government policy definitely has the greatest power to create (or destroy) wealth, there are a lot of things wrong with economic policy in this country, but floating currency exchange is not one of those problems.

I would argue that any policy that allows the government to print money freely and inflate the currency is a major thing wrong with a country.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#288

Post by kr1m »

cyberax wrote: post #278
regnull wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, bear with me for a moment - what if the US would use actual physical gold coins instead of dollars? Then your argument of "gold would flow out" would not hold - so the only reason for it to flow out was that the gold standard was fake - the lax money policy of the US was the issue, not the gold standard itself.

> Ok, bear with me for a moment - what if the US would use actual physical gold coins instead of dollars? You'll get a bear economy, leading to the eventual deflation and collapse. Fun fact: it was not hyperinflation in Weimar Germany that led Hitler to power but _deflation_ because of its insistence on sticking to the gold standard.

> Fun fact: it was not hyperinflation in Weimar Germany that led Hitler to power but _deflation_ because of its insistence on sticking to the gold standard.

Do you have a source for this? AFAIK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_R...

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#289

Post by timeinput »

slopinthebag wrote: post #287
doctorpangloss wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

government policy definitely has the greatest power to create (or destroy) wealth, there are a lot of things wrong with economic policy in this country, but floating currency exchange is not one of those problems.

I would argue that any policy that allows the government to print money freely and inflate the currency is a major thing wrong with a country.

Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#290

Post by doctorpangloss »

slopinthebag wrote: post #287
doctorpangloss wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

government policy definitely has the greatest power to create (or destroy) wealth, there are a lot of things wrong with economic policy in this country, but floating currency exchange is not one of those problems.

I would argue that any policy that allows the government to print money freely and inflate the currency is a major thing wrong with a country.

the best way to expand your worldview is to consider that time series charts do not tell a whole, or even accurate, story, a lot of the time. for example, looking at a chart of a line going up and to the right for money supply isn't as meaningful as you think it is.
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