Gold Standard

Swiss reject using more gold to back money

Writer-Moderator Gold Standard, Real money 0 Comment

An article on Seeking Alpha reported that the people living in Switzerland rejected a measure that would have forced the “central bank” to have on hand enough gold to represent 20 percent of outstanding francs. In an ideal world, there would be 100 percent backing, and as reported in the article, the Swiss franc recently had 40 percent backing. The measure also would have required all Swiss gold to be moved back to the country.

The article did note that the referendum raised awareness about money and gold. It’s a long road back to monetary sanity, and this referendum was an important step.

See article.

Texas school board mandates gold standard study

Writer-Moderator Gold Standard 0 Comment

Individuals studying economics in Texas schools will soon be required to “analyze the decline of the U.S. dollar including abandonment of the gold standard.” While it’s deplorable to mandate that all students study anything, since people have wildly different interests, even within economics, at least economics students will learn the truth. Or at least it’s hoped. Hopefully the textbook won’t argue that going off the gold standard was a good thing. For the record, the phrase “going off the gold standard” is a euphemism for “We’re not redeeming Federal Reserve bank notes for gold any longer. We took your gold and you’re not getting it back. But you can still pass around those notes, which are now just colorful pieces of paper.” Please add that to the textbook in case you publish one.