# The Gold Standard - Actually prefferable to fiat? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 20, 2016, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639 "2016-03-20T13:03:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/101 "2016-03-24T04:42:32Z")
I like these commercials on TV telling me that the world is coming to an end, and I need to give them my worthless dollars in exchange for a solid, tangible store of value like gold. If dollars are so bad, and gold is the way to go, why are they giving me their gold for my dollars? ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/102 "2016-03-24T17:41:27Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > We should make this a meme. It is both accurate and it would blow the minds of the right wing gold bugs. Your definition of “free market” sounds bizarre. The government confiscated one form of money, and force everyone to use their own scrip. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/103 "2016-03-24T17:47:13Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I like these commercials on TV telling me that the world is coming to an end, and I need to give them my worthless dollars in exchange for a solid, tangible store of value like gold. > > If dollars are so bad, and gold is the way to go, why are they giving me their gold for my dollars? If it’s that bad, invest in canned goods and ammunition, not gold. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/104 "2016-03-24T17:49:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Are you a young earth creationist? Gold and silver have existed for a lot longer than five thousand years. > > Or are claiming that gold has maintained a steady value for five thousand years? If so, that’s nowhere near reality. The price of gold fluctuates wildly on a year by year basis, much less across centuries. Are you able to read? Use as money goes back 5000+ years. Of course I never claimed that gold maintains its value precisely, but the track record far exceeds anything else. It’s just not even close. Try again. ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/105 "2016-03-24T17:53:24Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > I like these commercials on TV telling me that the world is coming to an end, and I need to give them my worthless dollars in exchange for a solid, tangible store of value like gold. > > If dollars are so bad, and gold is the way to go, why are they giving me their gold for my dollars? That’s easy. The coin shops don’t particularly care what the price is, nor whether the trend is up or down. They make money on the “spread” or bid/ask. When you buy or sell from a dealer they make an immediate buy or sell to offset. Markups are pretty low, usually coins can be bought or purchased for just a couple percentage points over the prevailing spot price: ---
**Author:** ![Common\_Tater](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/common_tater/32/13846_2.png) [@Common\_Tater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Common_Tater)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/106 "2016-03-24T18:09:19Z")
> [@naita](#): > > That’s an asinine statement. There’s no meaningful comparison there in the first place, and in the second, as has been pointed out, every economy on Earth moved away from gold as currency decades ago when it became apparent that fiat worked a lot better. > > You’ll probably reiterate a bunch of arguments that have already been refuted, but to just pick what seems to be the favourite of every fiat-money-skeptic out there. The government messing with the money is certainly a problem, but commodity standards are no where near a cure and will kill the patient. Works a lot better for who? It’s inexplicable that we have precise standards for everything under the sun, but when it comes to money, well let’s just issue funny pieces of paper and declare any alternative illegal. You guys keep setting up these strawmen and false choices, faulty premises, and probably a few more logical fallacies I’m not necessarily up to speed on. My contentions are not “asinine” they are a matter of history and public record. Facts are inconvenient things, and it is offensive to declare someone “uneducable” for pointing out the obvious. Gold as money, as the unit of account, has a lot of problems. As near as I can tell it is very inconvenient when a government wants to renege on their contractual obligations. That’s not a dig against objective standards. This has been my argument, it is a little disturbing that humans haven’t managed to find a superior alternative, much less one that doesn’t require coercion to work in the first place. Jeeze Louise. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/107 "2016-03-24T18:18:08Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Your definition of “free market” sounds bizarre. The government confiscated one form of money, and force everyone to use their own scrip. Yeah, they confiscated gold. When we were on the gold standard. Now that we’re not on the gold standard, they don’t care how much gold you have. You’re not forced to use government scrip, you could use gold coins or cacao beans. You’d have to buy some scrip to pay your taxes, but that’s pretty easy, since your gold coins/cacao beans are real money whose value doesn’t evaporate like fiat money. You are not forced to use government scip, except to pay your taxes, and as a payment of debts owed to you. Yes, it’s true that if somebody owes you money you are obligated to accept repayment in fiat dollars if fiat dollars are offered. The simple solution is to stop lending people money and they won’t be able to repay their debts to you in dollars because they won’t have any debts to you. Again, you can actually get gold coins for your dollars in 2016. Yes it’s true that there is no legally fixed relation between a dollar and a gold coin, just like there’s no legally fixed relation between a dollar and a cup of coffee or a tungsten rod or a bushel of wheat. You’re free to buy and sell gold at whatever price you can negotiate. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/108 "2016-03-24T21:35:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Common Tater** : > > Works a lot better for who? It’s inexplicable that we have precise standards for everything under the sun, but when it comes to money, well let’s just issue funny pieces of paper and declare any alternative illegal. Who declared any alternative illegal? I’m sure that all of the many private companies that have issued their own money in this nation would be surprised to hear that. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/109 "2016-03-24T21:41:40Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Are you able to read? I read the words you posted. Don’t blame me if your words don’t match what you wanted to say. Have you decided yet whether or not you’re arguing in favor of a gold standard? And you’re wrong about gold having the stablest value. Forget about five thousand years. In the last fifteen years, we’ve seen the value of gold triple. I guess it would suck if you had bought a house in 2001 with a fifteen year mortgage and had had to pay it off in gold, huh? Of course it would have been great if you had gotten that same mortgage back in 1979, right before gold took a long decline where it lost three quarters of its value in twenty years. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/110 "2016-03-24T22:44:32Z")
**Common** (I can call you **Common** , can’t I?), I have a pretty simple question: Total spending, public and private, in the US in 2015 was approximately $6.5 trillion. At today’s spot price of $1222, that equals the value of all the gold that has ever been mined since the dawn of time on this planet (my math makes that out to be $6,564,544,896,000.) Exactly what is the rest of the world doing if we will be using all the gold? And how, exactly, are we going to get every other nation on the planet to give us all their gold for your little gold standard experiment? Where are we going to find all the gold that is in jewelry, computers, historical artifacts, and the thousands of other uses in today’s world? I don’t even want to add up the total of every country on the planet’s spending per annum. How would any of that take place if we used gold? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/111 "2016-03-24T23:35:45Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Your definition of “free market” sounds bizarre. The government confiscated one form of money, and force everyone to use their own scrip. But the value of currency relative to other currencies is set by the free market. When this is not true there is a good chance that the government is autocratic and does not trust the market. See China in the old days. During gold standard days devaluation was done rarely and it was a big deal, and got out of sync with reality. I lived once in a country where this was true. We lived across the river from a country with a harder currency. You could buy that currency at the official rate, go across the river, have a really good lunch and buy some stuff, run into a black market currency trader, and return with more money than you started with. That does not happen with a true free market. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/112 "2016-03-25T00:34:51Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > That’s easy. The coin shops don’t particularly care what the price is, nor whether the trend is up or down. They make money on the “spread” or bid/ask. When you buy or sell from a dealer they make an immediate buy or sell to offset. Markups are pretty low, usually coins can be bought or purchased for just a couple percentage points over the prevailing spot price: And the reason that they are okay with that is that they realize that fiat currency can buy more gold, along with anything else they need or want. They only use gold as a means to obtain more fiat currency. If fiat currency is inferior to gold, wouldn’t they be trading fiat currency FOR gold and then make those buy/sells of the currency when it fluctuates? Even under your assumptions, these businesses are using gold as the product and fiat currency as the store of value. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/113 "2016-03-25T02:10:41Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Your definition of “free market” sounds bizarre. The government confiscated one form of money, and force everyone to use their own scrip. The government doesn’t force anybody to use dollars except in a few cases. If you go to your local store and offer to buy products from them with gold nuggets, they’re free to accept and no laws are broken. The reason dollars are used so widely - including in other countries where the American government has no jurisdiction - is because people want dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/114 "2016-03-25T02:11:00Z")
> [@Common\_Tater](#): > > declare any alternative illegal. You keep saying this. Prove it. Under the law of freedom of contract, there’s nothing illegal about you and the other party to the contract agreeing that all payments under the contract will be made in gold, by weight. You don’t have to use dollar notes. If you’ve got anything to back up your argument that it’s illegal for parties to a contract to determine their own medium of exchange, please provide it. > [@Common\_Tater](#): > > You guys keep setting up these strawmen and false choices, faulty premises, and probably a few more logical fallacies I’m not necessarily up to speed on. It’s not strawman when the other party to the debate (that would be you) coyly refuses to make any commitments and just takes potshots. So here’s two questions to you, to avoid any allegation of strawman: \*\*1. Do you think the US should go on a gold standard? Yes or No? \*\* Because so far, you’ve talked a lot about gold, but refused to say even if you support a gold standard, so other posters are having to make guesses about your position. Let’s avoid strawmen: what is your position on this issue, so we can debate with a full understanding? **2. If not gold, what standard are you proposing that is (a) “objective” and stable (which you keep mentioning as an important characteristic) and (b) not subject to government maniplulation, the way a gold standard is?** Help us out here: what is your position, so we aren’t engaging in what you see as strawmen discussions? And by the way, while you’re criticising other people’s debating tactics, are you prepared to admit you had the facts wrong when you said that the US dollar was the only one where all notes still have face value, regardless how old? We’ve pointed out at least four other countries where the oldest notes still have face value (five, if you count Ireland’s and pre-euro punts). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/115 "2016-03-25T20:32:26Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Are you a young earth creationist? > [@Common\_Tater](#): > > Are you able to read? Both of you knock it off and play nice. These sorts of comments and similar ones are not appropriate. The discussion is not moved forward by sniping. EVERYONE else, keep it civil, as well. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/116 "2016-03-26T05:36:37Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Look at prices during the classical gold standard. Steady fall in prices, and very very slow increase in nominal wages meant a booming real wage increase. I’ll take that over the post Breton-woods wage stagnation any day. You’d hate it. You’d have to deal with [periodic panics and bank failures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_economic_crises#19th_century). We haven’t had an economic crises that matches up to the worst pre-Bretton Woods melt-downs. Pro-gold people think the economy was a smooth running machine when we were on the gold standard but it’s not true. It was worse. For example, William Jennings Bryan almost made it to the White House campaigning against the real problems caused by the gold standard (see his [“Cross of Gold” speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_speech). There are very good reasons we aren’t on the gold standard. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/117 "2016-03-26T07:49:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I’d like a cite that \*every nation on earth \*outlawed gold and confiscated it all. :dubious: Word. If that’s the case, what’s the deal with jewelry? Also with Krugerrands. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/118 "2016-03-26T09:08:53Z")
It occurs to me that the total amount of non-gold wealth that exists in the world keeps getting bigger from year to year (years of global economic contraction being exceptions). By comparison, the total amount of gold that is out of the ground remains relatively stable. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t track to keep parity with the total amount of non-gold wealth, anyway. Doesn’t this alone make going on a gold standard infeasible? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/119 "2016-03-26T13:28:53Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > It occurs to me that the total amount of non-gold wealth that exists in the world keeps getting bigger from year to year (years of global economic contraction being exceptions). By comparison, the total amount of gold that is out of the ground remains relatively stable. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t track to keep parity with the total amount of non-gold wealth, anyway. > > Doesn’t this alone make going on a gold standard infeasible? There’s an even more fundamental issue: population growth. The birth rate is significantly higher than the gold production rate. If wealth is measured by a gold standard, then everyone gets poorer every year as the average amount of gold per person decreases. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639/120 "2016-03-26T17:05:47Z")
Then add in the fact that for the first time in history, gold isn’t being recycled. Well, in some cases. The amount of gold used in each computer or other device is too small to be economically recycled, yet on a macro scale that amounts to lots of gold \*\*not \*\*being retrieved and reused. The gold standard is hokum and the delusion of people who don’t understand economics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gold-standard-actually-prefferable-to-fiat/749639.md?page=7)