ONCE
WHEN I BELIEVED
that money should have value. You know, that old ‘be a mutually acceptable easily exchangeable ready-use store of value’ sort of thing. Real value, objective value. Enduring value.
It did/was, once, too … back when money meant gold and suchlike.
The world has moved on since then and money nowadays is either:
(a) very rarely seen, or
(b) never seen.
But don’t get me started—been there, done that—now quietly coasting to the finish line and hoping that ‘money’ doesn’t achieve its true worth in the years I have left. Brrrr.
THIS RANT
is triggered by this article—
—from this morning’s New Zealand Herald (online).
When money was money (was too, once. Several times …) you (meaning they) couldn’t fiddle about with it. Not too much.
An ounce of (say) gold was an ounce of gold, end of story: it was the same ounce in the US or Russia or Afghanistan or Mombasa or Antarctica … (and fortunes could be made by the astute exchanging their cheap junky trinkets for someone else’s cheap junky metal).
Voluntary exchange to mutual satisfaction? Aaaahhhh … free market* …
* (Forgive me, Lords, for I have used a naughty four-letter word).
And precious metals keep up with inflation. A 1946-1964 circulated silver dime is now worth $2. A 1965 clad dime…still 10 cents. Certainly would’ve made retirement easier to leave the gold standard.
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To keep the gold standard in place didn’t stop inflation, but the money kept up with it, so essentially there was near zero inflation.
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At various times in various places ‘money’ has diminished in purchasing power (!).
I posted several times that photo of the Zimbabwe (what was it, exactly? I lost track with all the zeroes) “hundred trillion dollar note” (of which one needed a whole barrow full to buy the matches to burn them with). Same-same in many countries at different times (Germany just after WW2 being a prime example).
Now try that with gold, or silver … when TSHTF anything of value becomes currency—and what makes it ‘valuable’? Perhaps we need freedom; to pick and choose our everyday ‘means of exchange’ rather than have the government impose it on us. (If ever that happened good ‘money’ should drive the bad under the carpet*.)
* Not. Gresham’s Law would kick in … people tend to hold on to the good and use the bad.
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