so price manipulation never happens in commodities, nobody has ever cornered the silver market my first post described how the Romans took advantage of the gold to silver ratio.What makes you think that won't happen again. The real problem with any money form is somebody finds a way to profit from money itself without creating anything of value. real wealth is taking something form the earth and laboring it into something useful. whom ever does the labor is creating value and should get rewarded the full value of that labor.But if you have to borrow money at interest somebody is making money without creating wealth. that is what happened in the colonies forced to buy gold at interest. all the wealth will eventually be siphoned off to England. only a system that gives the producer the wealth and not the bankers could be considered sound money. but i can see you have your monetary gods and are unwilling to go beyond their gospel. condemning a book without reading it is the true path to enlightenment and critical thinking
Price manipulation happens all the time but what seriously makes you think that the system is any better under government? At least if people severely bugger things up then the people as a whole have a chance to correct it. We can't do anything peacefully when it is the government or an entity like the federal reserve because if they have organized rates purely to benefit them then they are corrupt and more than likely we have to oust them the traditional way of simply marching to their homes and either beheading or exiling them. Letting the people decide what the best currency is is the best peaceful option. But no, I won't bother arguing with you over this, I can already see you're just trying to sell me a freaking book and the only argument you seem to have against a gold or silver standard is the roman empire and what you are describing is fractional reserve banking anyway and has nothing to do with a full reserve system decided by the people. Also people get money from producing nothing all the time, that isn't the problem, the problem is inflation and the fact that it is one entity within billions of people that controls the money supply.
governments don't control interest rates the or the amount of currency created this is a function of the private central bank and it's web of commercial banks. you can download the book for free enjoy http://rapidsharedownload.net/dl/THE+LOST+SCIENCE+OF+MONEY.html
First off, kings found way to devalue their silver and gold currencies. Have you ever heard of clipping, for instance? It isn't the fiat currency part of the equation that bothers most goldbuggers. It is the keynesian application of that fiat currency. The goldbuggers believe that a gold standard would limit the keynesians. They are only partially correct. Keynesian economics has been failing since before Keynes was even alive. In fact, the Tulip mania and South Seas bubble both happened because of an increase in the money supply due to government tinkering. The tulip mania was partially a result of a massive influx of money (gold) into their banking system. Amsterdam, afterall, had the safest banking system in the world at that time. The irony is that the Tulipomania happened AS A RESULT OF THE GOLD STANDARD, not despite of it.
and the Renaissance would have never happened without the plundering gold of the crusades. The soundness of any currency comes from who or what controls it's value. just because gold can't be reproduced doesn't mean it's priced can't be controlled and manipulated. The myth of a free market is a trap most gold bugs fall into.As if a mysterious force will somehow stop men from coming up with ways to control currency.
I see what you are saying, I believe. I have been trying to work through some of these issues and my own questions. I read something to the effect that if, after the Revolution, the money stock would have stayed constant (and after the big inflation), there wouldn't have been a problem with a big depression. That makes sense and I am sure there are many other time in history that can be pointed to as well. However, what I keep coming back to is that, while gold and silver can be manipulated, it is likely much more difficult to do so. On the other hand, it is much easier to manipulate and expand paper money. We see right now the promises politicians have made out into the future and the likely "cure" will be more money. These promises won't end either because worldwide people are realizing they can vote themselves money. With that said and while I understand your statement that paper money is the same as gold, over time, IMO, people will choose to hold gold vs paper money. That doesn't negate your point that they are the same (a medium of exchange), but one tends to hold its value better.
The value for gold resides in its use as a medium of exchange. I don't believe that value should be underestimated. Sure paper money is a medium of exchange too, but not one with as much confidence behind it (at least down the road and probably not now).