Another US state reinstates gold and silver as legal tender.

[ZenOps]

http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/david-nicklaus/missouri-s-sound-money-bill-is-really-a-protest/article_a83cf68a-8d8d-11e1-a213-001a4bcf6878.html

That makes two US states that have partially gone back to a "gold standard", the first to return to gold and silver was Utah last year.

Strange that we are getting rid of pennies at a time when the US is actively legislating a return to metal money after making it on and off illegal since 1933 and 1971.

[Piro21]

So I can destroy their economy by opening a mine?

[stealth]

So I can destroy their economy by opening a mine?

Go for it ;)

Guess I may as well chop down all my money trees for firewood.:D

[Hitman21]

This is a good start, the US needs to go back to the gold standard

[zz000ter]

This is a good start, the US needs to go back to the gold standard

I wonder how many people even know what that means.

The value of gold is fictitious.
One year it is $300 an ounce and then a few years later $900 an ounce and then $1,500 an ounce.
It is all BS

The supply of gold increases every year.
So mining gold is really no different than printing money - is it?

[Piro21]

I wonder how many people even know what that means.

The value of gold is fictitious.
One year it is $300 an ounce and then a few years later $900 an ounce and then $1,500 an ounce.
It is all BS

The supply of gold increases every year.
So mining gold is really no different than printing money - is it?

Ask him for a good economic explanation as to why he thinks that. I'm pretty sure it'll just be a list of Glenn Beck talking points.

[zz000ter]

Alaskan hillbillies making gold standard money
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/bering-sea-gold/

I don't know if fiat currency is the problem - by itself
"money" is just a form of record keeping

The problem is "financial speculation" by those that are rich trying to get richer
and the fact that banks can "create" money by lending out $9 for every $1 they hold.
and the concept of "inflation"

I wonder if I would do away with the concept of interest rates.
- but if I did then why would anyone lend anyone else any money to do anything?

[ZenOps]

You could say the value of the paper dollar is ficticious and the value of gold, silver, nickel and copper is perfectly stable.

The US Monetary supply of paper and electronic money basically tripled in from 2008 to 2011. Does that mean that corn cotton and coffee should cost 3x as much? Its a reasonable assumption.

If its just an account of "value", then does Danicka Patrick really deserve a $100 million salary on five years to drive a car around a racetrack (and not even win)? She primarily consumes, but arguably creates the one thing that the US prizes and overpays for - "entertainment". Should a bottle of water be free, or should it cost $2 per litre? If you print up three times as many dollars is that bottle worth $6? What is the correct price for a house? $8,500 average house price in Detroit, or $800,000 in Vancouver?

Noone created any extra goods, wealth or real productivity in the last three years or so, and yet there are three dollars chasing the same goods that one dollar used to buy.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE

[gei]

I don't know why people always harp on about a 'gold standard'. Gold and Silver are not particularly useful compared to many other metals - their value is based entirely on speculation and manipulation as much as paper currency.

If society as we knew it crumbled, and paper money became useless, gold and silver are NOT really the things I would like to have.

[ZenOps]

Gold is money because it requires labour to bring to fruition. It is a physical commodity.

Iron is not money, but it requires labour to bring to fruition. Globally the world produces 2.6 Billion Tons of iron each year.

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=iron-ore&months=360

It is near impossible to hide "paper printing" effect, inflation on the most common metal on earth, Iron. Some would say that the US dollar has depreciated in value 3x in the last 3 years. But going by iron - it has depreciated in real purchasing power of a physical good like iron by a factor of 10x in three years.

While there may be some "speculative fluff" in gold and silver, there is almost none in iron. Noone really speculates in iron, it is the basest of base metals, and probably a truest indicator of inflation and general physical productivity.

[anyasok]

You could say the value of the paper dollar is ficticious and the value of gold, silver, nickel and copper is perfectly stable.

The US Monetary supply of paper and electronic money basically tripled in from 2008 to 2011. Does that mean that corn cotton and coffee should cost 3x as much? Its a reasonable assumption.

If its just an account of "value", then does Danicka Patrick really deserve a $100 million salary on five years to drive a car around a racetrack (and not even win)? She primarily consumes, but arguably creates the one thing that the US prizes and overpays for - "entertainment". Should a bottle of water be free, or should it cost $2 per litre? If you print up three times as many dollars is that bottle worth $6? What is the correct price for a house? $8,500 average house price in Detroit, or $800,000 in Vancouver?

Noone created any extra goods, wealth or real productivity in the last three years or so, and yet there are three dollars chasing the same goods that one dollar used to buy.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE
+1
Good points

Money is an abstract concept and fiat money is even worse so as its not backed up by anything. Resources in general should not be subject to either fiat money or gold or anything else. Resources are resources. Period.

But yeah, the supply & demand of capitalism and the whole free-market enterprise is the most inefficient and wasteful mechanism the world had ever seen.