Why was getting off the gold standard good?

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From my understanding, remove from the gold standard just allows government to arbitrarily make up the value of the now fiat currency, which is why we now struggle with inflation and soaring debt.

It seems obvious that you’d want your dollar to theoretically be fixed to another medium with a readily appraisable value simply to maintain stability and prevent government corruption through manipulation of the monetary supply.

But then again, I’m no economist.

In: Economics

18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Gold back currencies never worked how some people thought they did. There was never a 1 to 1 relationship between how much was printed and how much was in the bank vault.

Countries would lie, say they have a trillion in gold reserves, then print 10 trillion in notes. Reserve would sell their gold, then place an entry in the accounts that if there was a requirement to, they would buy it back. Value of gold would go up, yay free moeny run the printers, gold price declines, no note callbacks.

It always has been a confidence game, how capable do you think this govenment is at providing a value equal to this piece of paper?

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