Talk:Gold standard (economics)

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Elements of truth in the goldbugs' claims

I have been considering the points made in this article, and I have realized one situation in which the goldbugs' zany fondness for aurum might actually be useful. They claim that it will be valuable when civilization collapses; ASSUMING humans have always, and always will think of gold as valuable, and ASSUMING that civilization will eventually rise again, then if one converts all of their wealth to 79 and stores it safely, then when civilization rises again, people will still value one's stockpile of Au, and one will carry their wealth from the previous civ. over to the present one. However, that is the only way in which I could find the goldbugs' claims even REMOTELY relevant.01:45, 1 May 2014‎ ^{— Unsigned, by: 173.72.162.61 / talk / contribs}

You know who else thought the Gold Standard was useless?

The Emperor Commodus. He devalued coinage and raised taxes before John Maynard-Keynes made it cool. Such a successful ruler. --Let Them Eat Cake (talk) 11:53, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Is this article conflating two different issues?

Believing that gold-backed currency is a good thing for the economy, and believing that gold is a good investment for an individual investor are two different things, surely. --GCarty (talk) 07:12, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Why was gold chosen as a currency?

Well a currency material should ideally be an element as they are easier to produce than many compounds. It should be impervious to water and air, at least along human timescales. It should be relatively rare. It must have been available to the ancients. Now out of all the elements known to the ancients, silver, gold and lead are the only ones that come close to fulfilling this. Copper is too easily corroded, iron is too common and which other metals were known then? Of course there were brass and bronze coins, but they were almost always considered to symbolize their value rather than being their value. As for lead never becoming a currency, well it is too heavy, too common and too malleable to make good coins. Plus its poisonous, but people did not know that back then. Evil Zionist (talk) 23:39, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

"Gold has little intrinsic value"

I beg to differ. The real issue: why do people fixate on gold so much when there's many other precious metals out there?—€h33s3βurg3rF@€3  (talk • stalk) 17:44, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

It depends. Because it's relatively scarce it's not really useful for any mundane task - as there is not enough of it. Your link points out that it is a good conductor - which is certainly true. But you are not going to use it to cable your house (though some of the contacts in your expensive devices may use it.)Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 20:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I think they mean that you can use it for a lot. You can't eat it, build with it, or use it as fuel.Doublethink (talk) 03:10, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Wizard of Oz

Some mention of the original novel should be made - there is a claim/urban legend that it is an allegory about the 'gold standard etc' - eg [1] and many others. Anna Livia (talk) 12:01, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

On protecting wealth

Isn't gold still good to use as a hedge against inflation, though? 2601:8C:4581:1150:5810:3372:1F5D:81A5 (talk) 09:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)