Abraham Lincoln
Are there Greenbacks or a gold standard in our future?
12/February/2009 12:45 Filed in: Web News
| Oikos
Thoughts
Today on Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday, we should
pause to reflect on one often overlooked benefit of
Honest Abe’s administration. That was the creation
of the original Greenback Dollar, which put the
United States monetary system on a solid foundation
after the Civil War. Until it was replaced by The
Fed in 1913, that Greenback maintained and fueled
the growth of a half a century of continual, if not
always steady economic growth.
In our columns over the not so recent history, we have outlined the need for a similar world money supply that actually meant something. Just as investors have found out as their investments have disappeared on Wall Street, the unworthiness of major banks and other financial institutions become more apparent, and government debt now is habitually described in trillions, what are people to do with the limited funds they might be hoping to save for a future monsoon of inflation?
Humorously the concept of burying it in the backyard, or putting it under the mattress have been used. Most of those concepts stem from the Great Depression, where the lack of money was universal, but its value was not questioned. Today that concept has change to the point, where world governments, led by the US Treasury and The Fed, are creating ex nihilo money in a fashion not much different from paper companies making high end toilet paper.
Precious metals throughout human history have been the source of maintaining wealth in turbulent times. Calling February 2009 a turbulent time is pretty much an understatement. There is a significant database on the Internet forecasting the demise of western civilization essentially on the lack of a foundation for the world’s money. Just as with all commodities, precious metals, along with energy and currencies themselves are subject to manipulation by market making players, using abhorrently leveraged electronic transfers of these colorful pieces of national sovereignty.
The thing that makes precious metals attractive these days is that you can take possession of it physically and bury it in the backyard or put it under your mattress if you so choose, even though a more secure storage is advisable. As uncertainty increases however, there will be an increasing call to put currencies back on the gold standard. One of the those advocates is Judy Shelton who’s recent column, Capitalism Needs a Sound-Money Foundation in the Wall Street Journal, makes that case.
There may be gold already in your backyard, or back forty, if you are a rural landholder. If you would like to know for sure I will be more than happy to help you get it into a form that can be marketable. However most people really have no concept of how small $1000 of gold really is in today’s market, more like a bean than even a cherry. Silver today is about $13.50t/oz and you can buy an old fashioned silver coins, which are 90% silver, in straight or mixed bags. I found non-collectable silver dollars priced from about $16 -20 depending on quality. If things get really bad it can be used as de facto money, even if it is more fact than paper tender. The same can be true for old silver coins of all sizes.
Precious metals have never been worth nothing, never. Money, paper money or electronic bits, can be made to have real value if governments were or are willing to reel in their historic inflationary tactics. Don’t expect that to happen soon, we still have a number of economic stimuli and related economic noise to fund before that opportunity presents itself. In the mean time, a few silver coins, or small silver bullion bars, will give you some security for the uncertain financial future.
In our columns over the not so recent history, we have outlined the need for a similar world money supply that actually meant something. Just as investors have found out as their investments have disappeared on Wall Street, the unworthiness of major banks and other financial institutions become more apparent, and government debt now is habitually described in trillions, what are people to do with the limited funds they might be hoping to save for a future monsoon of inflation?
Humorously the concept of burying it in the backyard, or putting it under the mattress have been used. Most of those concepts stem from the Great Depression, where the lack of money was universal, but its value was not questioned. Today that concept has change to the point, where world governments, led by the US Treasury and The Fed, are creating ex nihilo money in a fashion not much different from paper companies making high end toilet paper.
Precious metals throughout human history have been the source of maintaining wealth in turbulent times. Calling February 2009 a turbulent time is pretty much an understatement. There is a significant database on the Internet forecasting the demise of western civilization essentially on the lack of a foundation for the world’s money. Just as with all commodities, precious metals, along with energy and currencies themselves are subject to manipulation by market making players, using abhorrently leveraged electronic transfers of these colorful pieces of national sovereignty.
The thing that makes precious metals attractive these days is that you can take possession of it physically and bury it in the backyard or put it under your mattress if you so choose, even though a more secure storage is advisable. As uncertainty increases however, there will be an increasing call to put currencies back on the gold standard. One of the those advocates is Judy Shelton who’s recent column, Capitalism Needs a Sound-Money Foundation in the Wall Street Journal, makes that case.
There may be gold already in your backyard, or back forty, if you are a rural landholder. If you would like to know for sure I will be more than happy to help you get it into a form that can be marketable. However most people really have no concept of how small $1000 of gold really is in today’s market, more like a bean than even a cherry. Silver today is about $13.50t/oz and you can buy an old fashioned silver coins, which are 90% silver, in straight or mixed bags. I found non-collectable silver dollars priced from about $16 -20 depending on quality. If things get really bad it can be used as de facto money, even if it is more fact than paper tender. The same can be true for old silver coins of all sizes.
Precious metals have never been worth nothing, never. Money, paper money or electronic bits, can be made to have real value if governments were or are willing to reel in their historic inflationary tactics. Don’t expect that to happen soon, we still have a number of economic stimuli and related economic noise to fund before that opportunity presents itself. In the mean time, a few silver coins, or small silver bullion bars, will give you some security for the uncertain financial future.