In an economy without a government, prices of new products gradually drop - people become better when repeating jobs / more experienced in the production and competition drives price lower. The house market is one of the biggest new money receivers, and what of the biggest expenditures in ones life, so what happened to house prices since mid 80's - what happened to the wages? And another comparison: what was the working pressure in the real economy (not States's busykeeping) then versus now? Progress, was due to a population part working more / doing the job better, DESPITE governments theft. A gold standard, makes the latter harder, and is irrelevant to the former. Though, worth to mention is that the key element the gold production cost is. For ex, in the nineteenth century, the new world discoveries (both gold and silver) troubled the government thieves because others / citizens could do the same that governments wanted as a privilege for themselves: buy other ppls products / services with little effort in return. But events as discovering a new world are rare so today only technological progress can influence this, alike the fracking on the oil / natural gas market, and it's again just temporary. A real boom has a general welfare scope, and is caused by ppl becoming better in what they do. All other booms are mere shifts from losers to winners, and if orchestrated by governments, be sure that the winning side consists of a bunch lazy butts, and the losing side again having to work harder for the same.
Hi P, Unless you are saying gold standard is controlled society, the price of anything is what someone will pay for it. So if Australian gold boom was a diamond boom, and Australia didn't have much gold, the price of few decent housing in the closest town wouldn't go up, because there was not much gold to go around? The gold standard will have the same limitations. Just like there was many who bought silver and gold to increase wealth there was as many people who converted AUD to USD when the currency was at parity No monetary system is perfect. What made everyone leave the gold system and if we went back why wouldn't it happen again.
I think you have it all backwards. The US as the reserve currency left the gold standard in 1971 because it was broke. It had printed far too many $ to fund its wars (Vietnam) and social plans. The French wanted the gold and were shipping $ back to the US. So the move off the Gold Standard was all about money printing and the devaluation of the $. When this corrupted scheme of central banks collapses lets see what will be used as money. I think Gold did really well in Zimbabwe. Its not about how much gold you mine or paper you print, its about wealth. So now you have a choice: save your assets (fruits of your labor) in debt instruments (like bonds or cash) or in speculative products (Stocks) or in tangible goods like land, gold and silver. Your choice - choose wisely as you only get 1 chance.
So if listening to the experts is dangerous, then who should we listen to or follow when investing in Silver or Gold ?
Listen to yourself and follow no-one. The significant majority (if not all) are after your cash so it's in your best interest to educate yourself and separate the little bit of wheat from the mountain load of chaff As you can see, the list of those to avoid (or listen to cautiously) is quite big- http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-63060-the-list-precious-metals-pumpers.html
Rickard's "Case for Gold" and "the Big Drop" are good. Lots of free information and signposts on the web too, especially some of the YouTube clips. Zero Hedge too:
watch out for the chief expert himself https://youtu.be/F7XMPn-d5Xc and particularly watch out for the traditionalist experts https://youtu.be/2NJnL10vZ1Y?t=4m27s
@JulieW, thanks for the offer and generosity, I've already got the The Big Drop book. What I'd like to read is the Case of Gold: http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/New-Case-for-Gold-James-Rickards/9780241248355
