| > Gold is the only currency that kept it's value through time. Papers have been written on how it does not: * https://www.nber.org/papers/w18706 * https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3667789 See also Roy Jastram's The Golden Constant: The English and American Experience 1560 to 1976 on how it's no good against infaltion: > Andre Sharon, head of the international research department at Drexel Burnham, Inc., notes, “the value of gold essentially derives from its capacity to preserve real capital and purchasing power.”† I select this particular quotation because of the prestige of the organization and the position of the spokesman, but statements in this vein can be found in great numbers. They can be traced back for generations and in many countries. How can this proposition so contrary to statistical fact become so widely believed and quoted? Possibly because gold has preserved capital in cataclysmic cases it is easy to infer that it can be trusted to do the same in less severe circumstances. To extrapolate from gold’s protection in singular catastrophes to its use as a strategy against cyclical infation is an example of faulty inductive reasoning. * PDF: http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/RoyJastram... * https://www.pwlcapital.com/will-gold-save-the-day/ Having gold as one's monetary base (e.g. Gold Standard) doesn't even help in stabilizing currencies: * https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/08/why-the... * https://archive.ph/FWKcL > Big rocks as currency is purely anecdotic. Big rocks as currency is one example of how any arbitrary object can be treated as such: * https://americanhistory.si.edu/the-value-of-money/origins-mo... Gold (or silver) bars and coins are nothing more than shiny rocks and are just as arbitrary. |