CNBC Poll: Do You Support A Return To The Gold Standard
With slightly less than 6,000 votes cast, a majority (64%) say yes. Cast your vote now.
CNBC
Some are calling for a return to the gold standard following the explosion of government debt in Europe and the U.S.
Before 1944, the standard meant governments linked their currencies to gold at a fixed rate. Since then, currencies have been linked to the dollar, meaning money has no underlying asset to back its value, with most currencies trading freely on the foreign exchange markets.
Declining confidence in the dollar and questions about its viability as the world's reserve currency have also made the gold standard appealing.
Proponents of such a standard argue that it would bring back fiscal stability. With a fixed money supply, they say, inflationary pressures would be largely contained and large increases in government budget deficits and public debt a thing of the past.
Skeptics say getting the world to sign on to gold, or any other type of metal, is too big a hurdle and worry about unintended consequences.
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Aug 31, 2011 at 1:46 PM
Reader Comments (18)
Yes
67%
No
27%
Unsure
6%
Total Votes: 8740
Yep...I said YES................AB
To review, the U.S. was supposedly on the gold standard until August 15, 1971, when Milhaus shut the window. So from 1934 'til then, you could--in theory--walk up to that window with $35MM and walk away with 1MM ounces of the good stuff.
Problem was (stop me when this sounds familiar), the U.S. was running deficits to fund expensive wars in a far-away country filled with off-white menaces. That drew into question the ability of the U.S. to back up the claim that its world-reserve currency status was deserved and indeed backed up by money--physical gold--that can't be printed.
deGaulle knew the U.S. was full of shit, and pressed his point at the window. In response, the U.S. resorted to trickery and thus the London Gold Pool was born. Like all magic tricks, the truth behind it was eventually revealed, followed shortly by the very real click of the gold window going shut. 40 years later, gold has floated up some 50 times from its astonishingly low price of $35.
Do we really want a return to a gold standard? I dunno. First thing I'd like to know is how much we have here in the officials coffers of the U.S. To know that, we'd have to trust what a tax cheat at Treasury and a willful moron at the Fed tell us. Second thing I'd like to know is what data they're relying on. Their history of forthright disclosures leaves a bit to be desired.
"[I]t has two defects. It isn't hard enough. It wears out quickly, leaves itself on the linings of our pockets and in the sweat of our skins. Every year, the world's stock is invisibly reduced by friction. I said that gold has two defects." Colonel Smithers looked sad. "The other and by far the major defect is that it is the talisman of fear. Fear, Mr Bond, takes gold out of circulation and hoards it against the evil day. In a period of history when every tomorrow may be the evil day, it is fair enough to say that a fat proportion of the gold that is dug out of one corner of the earth is at once buried again in another corner."
Talisman of fear. Remember that phrase the next time you check on the price of yellow metal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ey07aRKc8o&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I myself am going to the brass and lead standard.
A wise old friend told me after the crooks, idiots, radicals, and religious fanatics, finish destroying the country, the twenty two rim-fire cartridge will become a standard unit of exchange. I hope to have at least a few hundred rounds acquired when the crap hits the fan.
If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs-Thomas Jefferson
If you are right and Jefferson was wrong...we are DOUBLE FU-KED!!!!!!!!.....AB
Food, water, wiskie, sex, and Americas Got Tallent n Hells Kitchen,, is gona get ya one more day on this planet. No realy, it worked before, but im not so sure it will now.
Holly-Fuck, we may not have an Oz, other than the 13 teeth in my mouth......................Keep yr mouth shut Dar !
CB