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by dgordon 6375 days ago
Neither Andrew Jackson nor anyone else had more than two terms as president except FDR, who took the US off the gold standard by stealing everyone's gold in 1933. (That's where the gold in Fort Knox came from.)

Besides, the US used a gold (and sometimes silver) standard most of the time before 1913, and in that time grew from thirteen largely agrarian colonies to the largest industrial economy in the world, so I can't understand why you say that "a big Ponzi scheme" is "really the only way to manage a monetary system so it allows for economic growth."
2 comments
daniel-cussen 6375 days ago
>...who took the US off the gold standard by stealing everyone's gold in 1933.

Yeah, right...(command-k Fort Knox)...Holy shit, you're right. He took everyone's gold and payed $20.67 an ounce, then printed dollars until gold cost 35 bucks an ounce. I'm dumbstruck...so blatant.

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RobertL 6375 days ago
dgordon. When you grow from nothing to something 13 times doesn't mean too much. That argument is totally irrelevant.

There is no way we could have had the kind of growth we experienced post WWII if we had stayed on the gold or silver standard. The monetary system we use now is not perfect, it's just the best we have available.

But it's definitely broken. We need to fire some of the people who should have warned us about the crisis we are now in but didn't and then move on.

I feel very badly for those who have suffered unfairly, and this includes millions of innocents, but these things happen.

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dgordon 6375 days ago
Growing all the way to the largest economy in the world is irrelevant? I don't follow. Nor did I say anything grew "thirteen times."

"There is no way we could have had the kind of growth we experienced post WWII if we had stayed on the gold or silver standard."

What's your evidence?

"The monetary system we use now is not perfect, it's just the best we have available."

Again, what's your evidence? Why is this system better than systems based on precious metals (the choice of most civilizations to use money) or systems that, while they use fiat currency, do not allow (in theory...) arbitrary creation of such currency?

"I feel very badly for those who have suffered unfairly, and this includes millions of innocents, but these things happen."

These things happen because the economic decisions of those who govern guarantee they will happen.

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