Until around 50 years ago, most countries in the world still used gold or silver coins as currency - at least to some degree. The US stopped printing silver dimes, quarters and halves in 1965. Then it went off the gold standard (paper money was redeemable for gold) "temporarily" in 1971, never to return. Most countries have some kind of similar story.
A $5 roll of 1964 US silver dimes sells at bullion dealers for about $100 now. A $10 roll of silver quarters is about $200. So the US money is worth 20x less than it used to be, since adopting fiat currency!
I understand that printing money is an incredible source of authority that can be used for nepotism, self-enrichment, political power. I understand the incredible temptation for governments to print "free money" rather than money they must mine or purchase.
Why did EVERY government in the world abandon sound money? And how have they gotten away with it for so long?
Is there anywhere other than El Salvador (where BTC is legal tender) that has re-embraced the concept of hard money? BRICS?
I'm sure someone will provide a more detailed answer, but basically the US insisted on everyone using the dollar as their reserve currency. After going off the gold standard, the petrodollar was created, which was a deal with the Saudis (and OPEC?) to only sell oil for dollars. That created an enormous global demand to hold dollars.
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281 sats \ 5 replies \ @TomK 16 Jan
The Petrodollar was the big geopolitical thing that feed the Eurodollar market's growth, indeed. All the rest that happened on FX markets had been controlled by the military and was nothing more than a reflection of the most important source of energy: oil.
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The big question is
Why OPEC needs to control the supply and demand of oil ?
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280 sats \ 0 replies \ @TomK 16 Jan
To set the price and rent-seek and have geopolitical leverage.
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Control Scarcity and ensure that it is a proper duplicate for Gold/ Silver which was the base of money till 1971 ?
When Nixon said no more gold for dollar immediately dollar fell down from 35 to 700 ( todays 2700 inflation adjusted )
Then switched to crude oil backing instead of gold ???
just my doubts.
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That's a wide field. But Your thoughts clearly point into a proper direction
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It's a different form of backing, because there's no peg of a particular amount of oil per dollar. Dollar demand is just artificially inflated by the monopoly it had for use in oil markets.
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Probably created a pseudo demand for oil
  • otherwise if the demand was not pseudo why would oil supply need to be controlled by OPEC?
  • Properties of money being -- Divisibility -- Scarcity -- Portability -- Fungibility -- Durability
All met by Crude oil barrels also in a limited way
Read more in my article https://bit.ly/dollarhyperinflation
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would oil supply need to be controlled by OPEC?
It's just an ordinary cartel. The demand is real, but the supply is artificially limited to drive prices higher.
Russian and American production undermines OPEC dramatically, but American production is good for the petrodollar. OPEC can withstand that competition, because its members have cheaper to produce oil reserves.
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I've wondering this myself - specifically, why did Switzerland move away from the gold-backed Swiss Franc.
A little research reveals this (from Wikipedia):
The Swiss franc has historically been considered a safe-haven currency, with a legal requirement that a minimum of 40% be backed by gold reserves.[17] However, this link to gold, which dated from the 1920s, was terminated on 1 May 2000 following a referendum, making the franc fiat money.[18][19] By March 2005, following a gold-selling program, the Swiss National Bank held 1,290 tonnes of gold in reserves, which equated to 20% of its assets.[20]
...but this can't be the whole story. Anyone got more?
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Because they cannot print gold or silver...
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BINGO!
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Exactly!
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Imagine you REALLY like sausages, no, you LOVE sausages. You love sausages so much that you spend every spare bit of money you have on sausages, and only sausages. You take on debt to buy sausages, you work 3 jobs, to buy sausages. You love sausages.
Then, you look over at your neighbour, and they ALWAYS have sausages. There are just sausages everywhere, whenever you look over the fence, sausages spilling out of the windows, all over the back garden, it's a sausage fest.
You think, "Why can't I have so many sausages? I love sausages." You ask your neighbour how come they always have so many sausages, and they tell you that there's this weird hole in the basement that just spits out millions upon millions of sausages.
I've forgotten how this relates to your question, other than to say - how fucking nice are sausages?
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Excellent question and well written. Excellent answers 👌
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Read Broken Money
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As a gold country, you can't compete with fiat countries. I feel there's serious difficulties when you can't print but another can. Your currency and economy gets too expensive for outsiders/people that import from you, so you become an isolated and very expensive country. People start buying your currency purely as an investment/savings tech (like Bitcoin). There's serious risks of getting outcompeted on everything you produce. This is probably why the Swiss abandoned the gold standard, to not lose their competitive edge completely.
Similarly, in a war, a country on a gold standard will most likely lose against a country on a fiat standard that can tax people more easily through printing and inflation. The gold standard country can only raise taxes, which is much more difficult to get done.
It's probably a race to the bottom in a globalized and competitive world. Who can screw his citizens the most and become the cheapest producer?
This probably means that a full Bitcoin standard is a challenging concept for a country/economy in a globalized world. But there's probably some nuances to that, so hope more people can chime in.
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Great answer. Similar to how if other companies are manufacturing all their products in China, you can't really compete with them if you are manufacturing in an expensive Western country. It's a race to the bottom.
And with fiat money printing causing inflation, companies can no longer afford to manufacture in Western countries. They just don't have a choice if they wish to remain profitable. Eventually almost everything becomes "Made in China." Probably the same with printing-and-spending governments: they can't compete using sound, honest money when everyone else isn't.
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Because much of the world was recovering from near total destruction and America, protected by it's two oceans and near slave labor force expressed its power.
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Best Reply
  • The world wars destroyed europe and asia - not America
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BINGO!
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @fm 16 Jan
Why did EVERY government in the world abandon sound money? And how have they gotten away with it for so long?
Because very few governments care for their country or people. They are corrupted by the money masters lobby. These are important questions to understand money and how its used to enslave people nowadays. Slavery did not end, they just put most of us under a fiat paycheck. Wicked
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The more the governments take debt and spends the more likely the political party to win the elections again.
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Probably because the countries that have gone Fiat already have an incentive to make the others join.
If the almighty US Government decides to go Fiat, it doesn't want some other little country to stay in the gold standard. Because their currency provides an easy way for US citizens to escape debasement, and makes it obvious that debasement is happening.
And so, you get something like Bretton Woods.
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And World Economic Forum was founded by Klauss Schwab in 1971
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Countries like china if they start redeeming their Dollar Reserves for Gold now, US doesnt have enough gold reserves to pay back.
The total mined gold is somewhere around 2,08,000 tonnes max amounting max to 15 trillion dollar around maximum
And federal reserve does not own any gold, US Treasury does. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/does-the-federal-reserve-own-or-hold-gold.htm
As of 2019, the vault housed approximately 497,000 gold bars, with a combined weight of about 6,190 tons. ( 0.44 Trillion )
Total Gold reserves of all countries combined is around 32414 tonne ( 2.3 trillion )
This above link gives an estimated 90.4 trillion total broad money supply
So it is 90.4 trillion paper money against 2.3 trillion of Gold reserves
So effectively i think the value of gold is at least 39 times than it is today
Read more in my article at https://bit.ly/dollarhyperinflation
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This is nothing new - Had done many times in history previously.
The Currency Act 1764 (4 Geo. 3. c. 34) extended the 1751 Act to all of the British colonies of North America. Unlike the earlier Act, this statute did not prohibit the colonies from issuing paper money, but it did forbid them from designating future currency issues as legal tender for public and private debts. This tight money policy created financial difficulties in the colonies, where gold and silver were in short supply
Read more in my article https://bit.ly/dollarhyperinflation
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Dollar was at 20 USD per ounce till 1934 ( Gold Reserve Act ) It was changed overnight to 35 Dollar per ounce - Page 58 of the act says that there were 12 times debt dollar in circulation than Gold dollar
by 1960s many countries started to redeem gold against dollar and by 1971 Nixon said no more gold for dollar
From 1971 Gold price shot up from 35 dollar to around 700 dollar ( 2700 plus in todays inflation adjusted rate ) to make the all time high for gold
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Simply because it was an easy solution to manage their insolvency without needing to practice fiscal discipline. And practicing fiscal discipline is a political suicide when government has already become a major source for a lot of handouts.