George Gilder proposes we should go back on the Gold Standard. Not because of gold’s intrinsic value, but because the TIME it takes to mine and refine gold is a known value.
Rather than trust our Federal Reserve to print US$ in massive amounts to match whatever economic theory is in vogue at the time, we’d have a means for actually setting reliable values to all our transactions and that measuring stick would be time as observed in the value of Gold.
Sound crazy? Well if you advocate for the use of Bitcoin, then you’re in Mr. Gilder’s camp (we can discuss how Bitcoins are created in the comments).
They start discussing the premise of his book at the 7:10 mark (which you can go directly to underneath the video in the transcript section).
If you want to read Gilder’s book, you’ll find it here
1. Time is money.
2. Money talks.
3. Talk is cheap.
“Wait a minute…!”
😉
How about letting the free market operate? Why should anyone or the govt interfere with a voluntarily chosen medium of exchange between agreeable buyers and sellers?
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that gold and silver would be very popular. Menger and von Mises argue persuasively that those were commonly chosen exchange media before the thugs took over money and especially before legal tender laws put us all in monetary straightjackets.
Without a debt based system we can’t keep the dream alive. MOAR is the way the system works now, they call it “growth.” Growth is an unfortunate measure of success, in the way our economy measures it. We should instead gauge success thru prosperity. Make a lifetime tool, make it last a lifetime instead of the 2 year lifetime of the company who makes the tool. Because I need to buy the same wrench once every 2 years erodes confidence and productivity. When the company stays around for a lifetime selling lifetime tools we all prosper. Enter fiat currency where the tools evaporate out of your box without even using them! That’s the ultimate other P-word: Poverty.
Would that eliminate EBT cards, or would they count the time those freeloaders sit around on their asses?
Check out the film section of
“The Treasure Of Sierra Madre”;
where Howard explains golds
value as “the work that goes
into the findin and the gettin of it”
to the guys in the flophouse.
Great Movie BTW.
The precious metals markets are so manipulated it isn’t funny.
That said, I wouldn’t be without them any more than I would…err…LEAD. It’s sound insurance.
The Spartans used iron. If you had a fortune, you couldn’t carry it cuz it was too heavy. Theirs was a highly statist society that discouraged amassing wealth.
I like the idea of using toilet paper as the means of exchange – there are so many assholes out there, it just makes sense.
Time and effort expended to obtain something only goes so far in determining value. The rarity, attractiveness, and uses of gold have always been the primary price determinant. It took much more to find and recover coal from the Titanic than it does to mine gold, but it’s still only coal. You can buy a chunk of it online for a few bucks. Not so with gold.
🙂
Baltimore and Ferguson looters were way ahead of you on that one.
; D
Yeah, like the assholes that control the banks, governments, and armies are going to go for that.