Re: Free Trade and Crack-up Booms

From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Mon Sep 11 2000 - 10:28:43 MDT


Forrest Bishop wrote:
>
> With gold, "the buck stops here." People have always accepted
> gold as payment in full and always accepted it in trade. In
> practice gold has _never_ acted like an IOU that might not be
> good anymore. Fiat eventually always has. And additionally, if
> history is any guide at all, because of "inflation" you can be
> absolutely certain those fiat certificates -- unlike the gold --
> you've been stashing under the mattress will buy less at year's
> end than they do today. Fiat virtually NEVER goes up in terms of
> what it can buy -- except in rare cases when productivity in
> isolated products temporarily out-runs money-supply inflation.

This central claim is pure bogosity. Today, one ounce of gold is worth 1-5 days
work by the average worker. 200 or more years ago, one ounce of gold was an
entire season's wages. This is clear evidence that gold has deflated in value.



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