I had a thought over he weekend. Many people, myself included have always said, gold and silver will not be carried around in wallets. How silly, carring around bits of metal in your wallet... ... Until the silliness of the statement occured to me (yes I'm sometimes slow). We already are. Today: -High value units = Paper Dollars -Low value units = metal coins (and at times, containing silver, etc) Perhaps tomorrow that can reverse? Think long on this though. Would not many of the world problems reverse if physical metal take the premier position. Nothing would need change about a person, apart from which part of the wallet\purse the real value is stored in. I don't seriously think this will occur without a long drawn out depression coupled with a expose of banker trials, but at lease consider thee thought that this is not impossible[1] [1] Apart from the fact that there is not enough gold and silver in the world to allow everyone to have more that 1-2 coins of each without extreme fractionals, lol....
Have heard that idea floated before... make coins the high value currency. Worked in the past - around a billion gold sovereigns were minted from 1817 onwards. Worth a pound sterling. I think the average wage in Australia in 1900 was around two pounds per week - in May 2011, full-time adult ordinary time earnings is quoted by the ABS as $1305.40, so that's kind of like having $650 face value coins if you assumed two sovereigns were equal to average pay in 1900 (idea being your pay could be paid as just two coins). Picked 1900 as the Perth Mint started striking sovereigns in 1899, so it was kind of a relevant date. Could have picked 1855 for Sydney instead though.
Provided the notes are backed by specie there is no reason not to use promisary notes and not carry around actual metal. This means that there is no need for anyone to change any of their habits
A silly enough idea until you see the pm vending machines at Dubai airport - I mean, it's not like the place isn't dripping with the stuff in cases everywhere through duty free already... And people queuing up to buy with... credit cards. Kind of sums it up really. VRS x
"Provided the notes are backed by specie there is no reason not to use promisary notes and not carry around actual metal." Until you find out that they are NOT backed, the paper collapses. How do you think fractional reserve started in the first place? Whats a bank run in an age of gold certificates? The problem is trust. Trust in others not being fraudulent. How far has this gotten us? Would you prefer GOLD or GLD? Only a one letter difference! I agree with you though, long term, but this problem we have today needs to be busted wide up and much pain felt before egold \ bitcoin \ gold backed notes could be considered a store of wealth. (On that subject if we just stop considering fiat a store of wealth many problems will be resolved.
