50 years since abandonment of the Gold Standard

[BritDownUnder]

It was mentioned on the TV news tonight that today, meaning 15th August was the 50th anniversary of the abandonment of the Gold Standard by President Nixon. Cue inflation, mass unemployment and fiscal deficits to name but a few.

It has probably all been lost in the Kabul events today but is fairly significant as well.

[Stumuz2]

Specifically, Nixon announced that he would “temporarily” suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold!
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/why ... spise-gold

[adam2]

We often hear of increases in the gold price, but it might be more accurate to say that gold has kept roughly the same value, and that dollars and other paper money have fallen in value.

This somewhat reminds me of pre-war Germany, when there was a reluctance to admit that German money was becoming worthless. "The dollar rises again" was the accepted term, never "The german Mark falls again"
Just as "gold rises again" is the accepted term rather than "the dollar falls again"

Gold has VERY ROUGHLY kept its value since ancient times. In ancient Roman times, an ounce of gold was said to be worth about 300 or 350 loaves of bread. An ounce of gold is still worth very roughly that much bread. No great accuracy may be claimed as "a loaf of bread" varies in price a great deal according to size, quality, and where purchased.

A reasonably quality suit of clothes has been worth about an ounce of gold for many centuries, and this is still the case if considering hand made garments. A basic machine made suit is much cheaper but that is an unfair comparison as machine made garments were not available centuries ago.

[dustiswhatweare]

We often hear of increases in the gold price, but it might be more accurate to say that gold has kept roughly the same value, and that dollars and other paper money have fallen in value.

This somewhat reminds me of pre-war Germany, when there was a reluctance to admit that German money was becoming worthless. "The dollar rises again" was the accepted term, never "The german Mark falls again"
Just as "gold rises again" is the accepted term rather than "the dollar falls again"

Gold has VERY ROUGHLY kept its value since ancient times. In ancient Roman times, an ounce of gold was said to be worth about 300 or 350 loaves of bread. An ounce of gold is still worth very roughly that much bread. No great accuracy may be claimed as "a loaf of bread" varies in price a great deal according to size, quality, and where purchased.

A reasonably quality suit of clothes has been worth about an ounce of gold for many centuries, and this is still the case if considering hand made garments. A basic machine made suit is much cheaper but that is an unfair comparison as machine made garments were not available centuries ago.

I just love it when you come up with this sort of thing Adam

[Tarrel]

Crikey, has it really only been 50 years?

[adam2]

This reminds me of an ALEGEDLY true story from pre war Germany.
A man had a large supply of small banknotes, each one of very little value, but a useful sum in total.
They packed the notes in a large wicker laundry hamper and took them to the bank in the hope of changing them.
In view of the bulk, weight, and relatively low value, they chanced leaving the hamper of money outside the bank whilst making enquiries.
On emerging they found that someone had stolen the wicker laundry hamper after dumping the near worthless money in the road.