100% true.... But why do you think every gold/silver based civilisation debased their currency? Since you dont delve into WHY ALL the Gold/Silver standard civilisation debased their economy, are you just repeating a common simple mantra. I think had you considered WHY, you would not even put out your statement as an counter to my post.
^^^ WHY? Let me explain it to you in the simplest terms so that even you can understand it. All governments and the money issues/changes that control them are inherently evil and dishonest psychopaths, and it has been that way since time immemorial. So the greed, temptation, and opportunity to screw over the peasant slaves by slowly adding worthless base metals to the silver and gold coinage has proved irresistible to them over the ages. I know that is not what you are taught at school these days, but the notion that it was because there was not enough gold and silver to go around is pure bullshit. The elite ruling classes have always wanted to keep the precious metals to themselves and not share them with the wider population, as this allows them to inflate the worthless currencies and steal from the working classes. Same as it ever was.
Why have governments historically sold gold on market if the ruling classes conspire to keep them for themselves? The only 'ruling class' who seem to still have this mentality are the darling dictators of the anti west apologists/conspiracy theorists.
^^^ First, you need to educate yourself and find out who the true ruling class is, heartastack. And let me give you a clue, it is not the puppets in governments. And secondly, the gold that was sold by the governments belonged to the peoples and was sold without any consultation or agreement of the citizens of those countries involved, so quite a treasonous and illegal sales of public assets. And thirdly most of that gold was sold cheaply to front companies of the same ruling elites. If you are still having trouble understanding who they are, I will give you another clue it is the same entities who control Blackrock and Vanguard.
I don't trust anyone who thinks they know how the world works and around here you seem to have the strongest convictions of anyone.
We can just as easily spin it the other way too: Every single fiat currency that ever existed failed. It is nearly irrelevant what an ounce is worth in dollars, because dollars go to zero. The only thing that matters is weight. And gold and silver don't really matter in boom times, until finally... they do.
The inverse of that is you trust people who don’t know how the world works. That’s quite dangerous. I don’t pretend to know how the world works, but I like to think I have a solid idea of where we are heading. Without that, what is the point in any activity to advance ourselves?
I trust the scientific method, calculated risks assessments and constructive arguments. Already shelved mushybrainedyakka after he was lecturing me about the aliens and underground bases in Darwin.
Imo every market can be manipulated in a certain shape or form and rarely benefits those without prior knowledge or connections. In 1933 while still on the gold standard admittedly, the government confiscated the people's gold as trust in fiat and gov was low they then devalued it. So as long as the value and benefits kept low and profits made elsewhere yes I'd agree that it doesn't interest them but only as it under certain controls. I like to understand when possible conspiracy facts rather then conspiracy theory but I'm def 1 of those who see a dark agenda in most things and it's not even hidden these days
See it how you will - if you have an upset stomach do the bacteria have a dark agenda or are they just being opportunistic because you fed yourself shit and garbage? That's the ruling class.
Haha that's true but depends on your perspective exactly as you stated, we define reality and truth by what we've seen and experienced...and also documented "evidence" just depends whether or not we're able to see past our own convictions
All limited in their usefulness by the physical limitations of human intellect. Have to leave a little space for intuition, inspiration and interpretation!
You are one of a few members of this forum whom I don't think are capable of changing their minds about anything or engaging in good faith discussion, so this reply is not addressed to you directly, but for anybody on this forum curious and reading this thread, this isn't true. There are plenty of societies which refused to debase their currency. The Athenian Drachma, for example, was never debased even as Athens was conquered, lost their empire, and disappeared from relevance. Confidence in the drachma was strong that it was used by Alexander's empire as the standard, and it was in circulation all throughout eastern Rome centuries after Athens was incorporated into the Macedonian and Roman empires, until eventually it got Gresham's Law'ed - the drachmas in the state coffers were melted down for newly debased (Roman) coins, and the rest which remained in private hands disappeared from circulation. Yakka is correct when he says it is the government needing money. I don't agree that it could be described as evil, but the reason is the same. The government/king/state etc. needs the money for one crisis or another, whether war, or famine, or whatever - there is every example throughout history. It can't tax the people more because the people will starve, and if the people starve, they will revolt, the government won't survive. To pay for the upkeep of the government, army, etc, the state has to either debase the currency, if it is on a gold or silver standard, or issue paper, or issue even more paper if it already issues paper. It has been this way for thousands of years and it's remarkable people even bother denying this. I don't think it's good or evil, it just is. Arguably a government can debase or inflate for good reasons, such as defending itself against aggressors. But to deny reality despite having the advantage of hindsight is crazy. To say there is a shortage of money is equally ludicrous. There cannot possibly be a shortage of money. The statement itself is just bonkers. What is really meant is that there is a shortage of assets in relation to liabilities. This could mean a huge army that needs to be paid, a large amount of sovereign debt, or whatever. Any sort of liability. And a shortage of assets in the state coffers. That doesn't mean there is a shortage of money in general. It just means the government has brought upon itself too many obligations, and cannot service those obligations through regular means - taking it directly from the people. It has to do so indirectly, via what is essentially just an accounting trick to rebalance assets and liabilities. For a good historical example on this particular question of "enough money" I would point anyone curious to read about French monetary history from 1600 to 1800 where a lot of these experiments were tried and tested thoroughly, especially pre-John Law. The answer par excellence was the periods in which the king was forced to cut his budgets and the people were taxed to the bone, times were (comparatively) not awful. When the king spent whatever he wanted and taxation could not be levied further, there was extreme suffering and mass starvation. Eventually over hundreds of years along came Napoleon, who had thoroughly learnt the lessons of the past 200 years of French history, but especially the very recent history of the Assignat. The gold and silver standards Napoleon introduced lasted far after his defeat (he refused to debase the currency) and were the standard throughout Europe until 1914. In this manner you can make some allusions to the drachma, I suppose, they're historically quite similar from a monetary perspective.
Power corrupts, a story as old as the bible and therefore fundamental to human nature. The way a good chunk of people here think is incompatible with advanced society - you will never be able to have your cake and eat it too, just like the utopian socialists won't without turning into savage dictators themselves.
I can definitely see gold hitting 10k and thats only 5x which isnt a big move at all. That still wouldnt be enough to offset the debt created but a good start.
