France pulls last gold held in US • Hacker News Board

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#341

Post by throwawayqqq11 » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 10:49 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #340

1718627440 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem here is, what if the demand for dollars increases? The price for gold and dollar would rise, until the worth of dollars is as high as the demand is?

> The price for gold and dollar would rise, until the worth of dollars is as high as the demand is? The name for that is deflation.

To explain why de/inflation is bad:

The primary function of money is its trade value, to "lubricate" the real economy to let goods and services flow. When the value is unstable, people are inclined to not spend or not accept that currency, which contradicts the free flow of it and in severe cases harms the economy.

Crypto'currencies' have the same problem. By nature, they are no currency but investment for which instability is required. No crypto bro would hype their 'currency' because there would be no pumping. Arbitrage trades are considered being for fools or insiders.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#342

Post by stinkbeetle » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 10:55 AM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #333

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.

So as trade increases, and the need for dollars increases, gold and the dollar increase in value together. That sounds benign until you realize that is: deflation. It incentivizes everyone to hold their dollars instead of spending them, and parasitically gain from gold's increasing utility use as currency by others. This further decreases dollars available on the market to use in trade, further increasing their value…

Can you make the same arguments for holding land and activity that requires land? Or holding any other valuable, limited commodity vs activity that requires that commodity, copper for example?

Investors in those things haven't caused an economic death spiral. It's considered shrewd and good business to buy and hold things that are seeing increasing demand.

> This further decreases dollars available on the market to use in trade, further increasing their value.

... thereby reducing the amount of dollars required to trade a given amount of other things. Where does the spiral come from?

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#343

Post by CyberDildonics » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 12:18 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #337

CyberDildonics wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense, do you think people are talking about using gold coins instead of paper money in their wallet?

In effect, some of them are. Look how many decry the death Breton Woods. They don't want to necessarily have good coins on them, but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

In effect, some of them are.

No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough".

but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#344

Post by RealityVoid » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #343

RealityVoid wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In effect, some of them are. Look how many decry the death Breton Woods. They don't want to necessarily have good coins on them, but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

In effect, some of them are. No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why? That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.

> No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough".

I think my point still stands. If you can't create more gold [1] and you say - I am pegging 35 dollars to an ounce of gold. Then you are limiting the amount of dollars to the mass of gold[2]. The money works as an IOU for gold. You aren't exchanging pieces of gold, but the idea that you have 35$ is as if you have 1 ounce of gold, _that is what people pine for_. It's effectively, an IOU for 1 ounce of gold that you keep in a safe. Yes. I think the point still stands that in effect, that's what people are asking for.

[1] - You can, but it's a much slower process, deff rate limited, it's actually what people really seem to like about gold.

[2] - Yes, I am aware about the concept of fractional reserve, but that's exactly the part that goldbugs want to avoid.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#345

Post by CyberDildonics » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:08 PM UTC

cyberax wrote: post #324

CyberDildonics wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake economics to "stable money causes hitler" in two sentences. Countries used gold or metals either directly as currency or to back paper currency for hundreds of years. If their governments overspent they collapsed. Saying you need inflation or you get hitler is pretty wild.

> Saying you need inflation or you get hitler is pretty wild. Not really. You need inflation, or you end up with stagnation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%B6rgl#The_W%C3%B6rgl_Expe...

Your proof that the economic system that worked for hundreds of years doesn't actually work is a small town that issued their own currency, which allowed them to nominally pay people less and there were more jobs?

That's what inflation does, everyone gets paid less, but they don't realize it because they just see the same number coming in and more going out.

And then because of that, somehow noninflationary currency results in hitler in 8 years (even though it was used for hundreds of years).

I think you should look at the other end, which is governments going broke and not being able to inflate their way out of it.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#346

Post by CyberDildonics » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:21 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #344

CyberDildonics wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In effect, some of them are. No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why? That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.

> No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". I think my point still stands. If you can't create more gold [1] and you say - I am pegging 35 dollars to an ounce of gold. Then you are limiting the amount of dollars to the mass of gold[2]. The money works as an IOU for gold. You aren't exchanging pieces of gold, but the idea that you…

I think my point still stands. I think the point still stands

I'm not sure what point you are making, it seems like you're just describing a gold backed currency and repeating the same things multiple times.

If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much? People did this for hundreds of years, this isn't some theory or experiment, it's basically how the world worked for most of human history.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#347

Post by RealityVoid » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #346

RealityVoid wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". I think my point still stands. If you can't create more gold [1] and you say - I am pegging 35 dollars to an ounce of gold. Then you are limiting the amount of dollars to the mass of gold[2]. The money works as an IOU for gold. You aren't exchanging pieces of gold, but the idea that you…

I think my point still stands. I think the point still stands I'm not sure what point you are making, it seems like you're just describing a gold backed currency and repeating the same things multiple times. If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much? People did this for hundreds of years, this isn't some theory or experiment, it's basically how the wor…

> If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much?

If you peg an amount of money to a mass of gold, would you or would you not limit the amount of money in existence?

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#348

Post by kccqzy » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #343

RealityVoid wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In effect, some of them are. Look how many decry the death Breton Woods. They don't want to necessarily have good coins on them, but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why?

In effect, some of them are. No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why? That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.

Mild inflation is a good thing, at least according to modern economists. In a deflationary environment, money is worth more when you don’t spend them. And when people don’t spend them, there’s no economic growth. It’s just like having very high interest rates but the central bank cannot act to lower them.

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#349

Post by CyberDildonics » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 3:57 PM UTC

RealityVoid wrote: post #347

CyberDildonics wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think my point still stands. I think the point still stands I'm not sure what point you are making, it seems like you're just describing a gold backed currency and repeating the same things multiple times. If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much? People did this for hundreds of years, this isn't some theory or experiment, it's basically how the wor…

> If you aren't using gold directly how would there ever be "not enough" unless a penny became worth too much? If you peg an amount of money to a mass of gold, would you or would you not limit the amount of money in existence?

It worked before, you do know money is divisible right?

There is already a quantifiable amount of money in existence, can we at least establish that?

Re: France pulls last gold held in US

#350

Post by CyberDildonics » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 4:11 PM UTC

kccqzy wrote: post #348

CyberDildonics wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In effect, some of them are. No, not in effect, no one is talking about physically exchanging gold coins, so it doesn't make sense to say "there isn't enough". but they want them to be tethered as a proxy. Why? That's a completely separate issue. People want to not have to deal with inflation where they are on a treadmill of needing to get paid more to support the fact that companies can raise their prices easily.

Mild inflation is a good thing, at least according to modern economists. In a deflationary environment, money is worth more when you don’t spend them. And when people don’t spend them, there’s no economic growth. It’s just like having very high interest rates but the central bank cannot act to lower them.

This thread was someone saying you can't peg a currency to something else because "there isn't enough of it" which is nonsense.

there’s no economic growth

Printing money doesn't create economic growth, it just inflates assets and depresses nominal wages.

money is worth more when you don’t spend them

People say this stuff like it's gospel, but if someone understands currency dynamics in the first place they would have their money in investments, which already should appreciate and act like a deflationary currency. People can already buy stocks and leave money there to get more valuable, so why does anyone spend money now?

You also have to figure out why it already worked for hundreds of years. People act like it would be an experiment. Floating currency is the experiment and it has lasted 50 years so far. Currency has lost almost all of it's value from before the 70s and minimum wage is a fraction of what it was nominally while asset prices are sky high, then people wonder why people can't afford a house or beef or gas or just to live alone.