I am well aware of this. A year ago I wrote MA thesis for my girlfriend with focus on private central banks vs state owned ones. I devoted one of the chapters to Reichsbank, a private central bank in Germany that gave up the gold standard. As soon as the gold standard was abandoned, the bank created a mass hyperinflation in the country in 1924. People were starving to death and in fact became slaves of the bankers. This was probably what helped Hitler get to power and receive almost 100% support from the masses. I wish Americans all the best in their efforts to abolish the FED. Do it quickly before another Adolf is created.
Sounds like it was a fascinating study. Nice to talk to someone who actually knows something about the subject - (unlike those who ape what they read in some list of political talking points.) I find it fascinating that they call the fiat money system the only viable one possible - - - given the reality of whats happening now right before our eyes. As you probably discovered in your MA studies, Lugwig von Mises predicted all this. He provided advice to the government of his native Austria, which enabled them to fare far better than Germany did. (Though later he wondered if that turned out to be a good thing or not.) A story was told that when asked by the Austrian govt what they could do to turn around the economy, he asked the ministers to meet him late at night at a particular address. They were puzzled, but did as he requested. When they met he told them to stop and listen. They heard the noise of machinery, and Mises said "Stop that racket". The sound was of the printing presses cranking out paper money 24 hours a day. The presses were stopped, and Austria's economy was back on the mend. - - Best regards, - - -
My buddy with the gold mine (this is true) though, he could make his own money, right? Granted, he might have to work a bit longer than a stamping machine to make a coin look genuine...
It was really fascinating. The girl got highest mark. Her professors could not believe the FED consolidated statements. Neither could I for a moment The basic solvency ratio (Equity/ Total Liabilities) was something around 2% or even less, which is considerd a bankrupcy for any bank in Europe. The minimum requirement for a bank is 7%. Because there were limited data on FED available, I still have some questions not answered, e.g. which of the 12 regional FEDs prints the money? If all 12 print money than what are the proportions of printing? It is my guess that the regional FED that prints most the money has bigger benefits over the remaining 11 regional FEDs. And so are bigger benefits of the owners of this particular printing FED, etc. Noone I sent e-mails could answer this one I am familiar with the Austrian school quite well. What I didn't reserach indepthly was the distribution of gold among people of the world. There are data available on the gold assets of governments. But the gold assets of ordinary people remain unknown. It is e.g. known that Russian families have lots of gold (not reported because of Communism) Therefore I could not make any simulation on how the wealth would be ''shifted'' from e.g. fiat wealth holding US citizens towards gold wealth holding nations e.g. Russians or Jews, should gold standard be implemented (simultaneously? in all countries?) Regards
Ricter, In general there are 2 systems that a country can follow: 1. The country may decide that the issuing of the money should be monopolized by one company. In this case the monopol should be granted to a state owned company (NOT a private one), or 2. The country may decide that there should be no monopoly over money issuance and opens the market to many, many, many private companies. Your buddy could print the money if the country he lives in adopts the latter model.
I don't think it necessarily HAS to be gold and silver from my understanding, gold and silver are just the generally accepted standards that have lasted throughout history. From what I've studied we traded with all sorts of currencies ages ago, Henry VIII created a system of currency where they traded with wooden measuring sticks because he saw what was happening with the banking system. Tons of leaders throughout history have had severe problems trying to deal with banks like the Federal Reserve because they always want to control the currency. The banks had originally started out as goldsmiths, the currency WE use now was originally a form of debt but the banks have basically tricked everyone into thinking it's real. They originally had the actual gold stored in the banks but people found it was more convenient to trade with the paper money instead and they used that idea. I would have thought that even copper could be used depending on how much was needed, hell we have copper coins right now so why not?
Imagine a world where credit card transactions did not exist... Imagine commerce over the internet... Gold is dumb... Fiscal self control, a constitutional amendment for a balanced budge is smart...
Hi OPTIONAL777, With the gold standard / copper standard / silver standard / whatever tangible asset standard you would still have paper money and you would still use electronic money.