[throw0101d]

> He wrote about how the gold standard created responsible spending and more equality in the world:

The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age

It should also be noted that the gold standard did not bring any kind of price stability:

* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/business/arch...

Further, sticking to the gold standard made the Great Depression worse as it reduced flexibility and options of central banks had, and made deflation worse:

* https://www.nber.org/papers/w3488

The sooner countries left the gold standard the sooner they started recovering from the Great Depression:

* https://www.nber.org/papers/w27586

[BigTTYGothGF]

> The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active

I've got some news for you about modern levels of inequality.

[throw0101d]

I am aware of today's inequality (e.g., I read Piketty back when he was making a splash). But the critique is that Greenspan argued gold standard = less inequality and that fails on the historical record.

If we want to talk about the causes of the 'New Gilded Age' that's something else. As a general starting point I'd begin with:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_doctrine

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thatcherism

[curiousllama]

Yea, that's his point. The gold standard neither prevents nor encourages inequality, except inasmuch as it limits policy flexibility (which, similarly, could be used to promote or limit inequality).

[Noaidi]

The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization. This rapid industrialization began when the US was off the gold standard during the civil war. The 1920's gilded age was fueled by fiat money, the greenback.

The great depression was triggered in part by imbalanced gold flows when we returned to gold back currencies.

https://explaininghistory.org/2025/06/12/golden-fetters-the-...

We are essentially replaying the greenback inflation of the 1860's and have been doing it since 1971.

[throw0101d]

> The separation of wealth during the Gilded age was caused by the same thing it is caused by today: rapid industrialization.

What "rapid industrialization" is happening today?

[rawgabbit]

[delayed]

[greenavocado]

The Great Depression was caused by France panic hoarding gold https://www.nber.org/papers/w16350

Semi-ironically France was the reason the US fell off the dollar standard after it panic hoarded gold AGAIN when the French government made one last, massive purchase of gold from the US using US dollars, paying $35/oz. A French warship arrived in New York in early August 1971 to load the gold and bring it back to France.

Reckless spending post WW2 was the main reason the US shot itself in the foot and got into this position where they couldn't reasonably pay most clients back and France saw this developing.

All in all France managed to deal massive blows to the US economy covertly TWICE within the same century.

https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...

[mschuster91]

> All in all France managed to deal massive blows to the US economy covertly TWICE within the same century.

And now it seems to be the US' turn in returning the favor. First 2007ff (caused by irresponsible actors in the financial world), then the lackluster response to Covid and Russia's invasion against Ukraine, and now we're set to look at the AI bubble collapsing, a bubble much much larger than Lehman Brothers ever was.

[chadgpt3]

This still happens today but with instruments other than gold, right? Like foreign owned shares. Today's equivalent would be China owning all the treasury bonds.

[dh2022]

China owns about 7% of us treasury securities and they stopped buying them I think around 2015L: https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-cent...

[pfdietz]

And then later in the 1930s as world gold flowed into the US (in response to the rise of the Axis) the economy began to recover here. By the end of the war most gold was in the US.

[lesuorac]

Eh, aren't most of those points non-sequiturs?

> The Gilded Age, which had quite high levels of inequality, occurred when the gold standard was active:

And the Gilded Age [1] ended long before the gold standard. Which makes sense since the Gilded Age is a political issue not a monetary one; how will the productivity from railroads be redistributed?

> It should also be noted that the gold standard did not bring any kind of price stability:

A comparison of 35 years against 4?

That's like bragging about how smart private credit is by showing the low volatility in it's price over the past year.

The large concern from gold bugs is that by printing money we just make the next crash even larger. But of course we just print more in the next crash so it doesn't happen. Take a look at the fed balance sheet [2]; under Kaynsian ideology you were supposed to sell that off during the boom years so you can take on debt during the busts but politicians are not disciplined enough to do that so the Gold Standard would've never let them.

---

IMO, the real argument against the Gold Standard is that the US left it is because we spent more money than we made to finance the Vietnam War. If we returned to it, then we'd just leave it again when it became inconvenient. It's not the Gold Standard that needs fixing in the country.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

[2]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...

[throw0101d]

The Gilded Age was the 1870-1900, the gold standard was from 1870-1920s. Gold did not help stop inequality, and many progressive elements rallied against it when it was in effect:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Gold_speech

> A comparison of 35 years against 4?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Moderation

Panics and economic downturns during the Gold Standard period were much more frequency. The term "Great Depression" used to refer to something else besides what happened in the 1930s, and the gold standard was a contributing factor to that as well:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression

> Take a look at the fed balance sheet [2]; under Kaynsian ideology you were supposed to sell that off during the boom years so you can take on debt during the busts but politicians are not disciplined enough to do that so the Gold Standard would've never let them.

On the Gold Standard the flexibility of emergency spending during bad years would not be possible: see 1930-1932, and then again in 1937–1938 when FDR tried to go back to balanced budgets through austerity.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937–1938

The politicians that tend to talk about "hard money" and responsible spending are the GOP—but who only seem to talk about it when a Democrat is in the White House. When their guy is in then it's all tax cuts, which do not pay for themselves:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_experiment

and spending (see >$1T Pentagon budget(s)). They're mostly trying to roll back the New Deal (and later Great Society) and cut social programs:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

[Noaidi]

> the gold standard was from 1870-1920s.

The U.S. officially left the gold standard on August 15, 1971.

https://blog.swissamerica.com/glossary/gold-standard/

> many progressive elements rallied against it when it was in effect:

Bryan wanted a gold and silver standard, not fiat currency. There was also the Greenback-Labor Party who wanted to get off both gold and silver standard. They favored inflation because the gold and silver backed currencies were causing deflation.

You seem to be cherry picking in hopes that people do not know the history of the time.

[Spooky23]

[delayed]

[throw0101d]

> Bryan wanted a gold and silver standard, not fiat currency.

Yes, but what does "bimetallism" mean?

> Free silver was a major economic policy issue in the United States in the late 19th century. Its advocates were in favor of an expansionary monetary policy featuring the unlimited coinage of silver into money on demand, as opposed to strict adherence to the more carefully fixed money supply implicit in the gold standard.

[…]

> While all agreed that an expanded money supply would inevitably inflate prices, the issue was whether this inflation would be beneficial or not. The issue peaked from 1893 to 1896, when the economy was suffering from a severe depression characterized by falling prices (deflation), high unemployment in industrial areas, and severe distress for farmers.[1] It ranks as the 11th largest decline in U.S. stock market history.[2]

[…]

> As a result, the monetary value of silver coins was based on government fiat rather than on the commodity value of their contents, and this became especially true following silver strikes in the West, which further depressed the silver price. From that time until the early 1960s the silver content in United States dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and silver dollars was worth only a fraction of their face values.[10] Free coinage of silver would have amounted to an increase in the money supply, resulting in inflation.[3]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_silver