[egh]

This is a great comment because while it's completely wrong empirically, it also completely misses the point of the good question about free silver.

Like the question of what was the US civil war about (slavery) the question of what silver v gold was about has been completely obscured by interested parties seeking to complicate the issue in such a way that nobody understands it any more.

There are complications, which I don't really understand, but all you need to know is that silver vs gold was about inflation vs deflation. The free silver people were farmers (who are always debtors) and they supported inflation, because inflation is good for debtors. The supporters of gold were creditors, and the supported deflation, because creditors like deflation.

It's that simple. The author of the above comment apparently thinks the populist farmers were completely wrong and they should have been against inflation. This may be true (it's not, but let's stipulate) but the commenter prefers to obfuscate the issue rather than confront the clear fact that free silver populists supported it BECAUSE it was inflationary.

[billytetrud]

> completely misses the point of the good question about free silver

Oh the irony... talking about missing the point. I didn't miss the point. I just had nothing to say about that point.