So why did we took the dollar off the gold standard and was it the greatest mistake we've ever done?

So why did we took the dollar off the gold standard and was it the greatest mistake we've ever done?

>was it the greatest mistake we've ever done?
The greatest mistake you ever done was not buying up personal gold reserves, friend. Since whenever a global conflict happens there is always one commodity that goes up in price while everything else falls and that sure as hell isn't hamburgers.

Seriously, for a place filled with so called "historians" you'd think they would know.

Gold neither pays an interest nor does it give dividends.

You had to, you where near bankrupt and couldn't refinance. No, there is not much benefit to base a currency on Gold, besides being rare it has not much use. Think of money as a token for work, you get money for your work and can transfer it into other peoples work if you like to.

>Gold neither pays an interest nor does it give dividends.
Neither will the banks/businesses when shit hits the fan, friend.

>when shit hits the fan,
we are not on /pol/ here. critical events do happen on stock markets and you can prepare against them. It's not like markets crashes are something new.

Then, in a high inflation economy with a government such as unpredictable as the current Turkish one, it might be wiser to be long in gold.

>It's not like markets crashes are something new.
And neither is global conflict, friend.

And what's wrong with having a personal gold reserve just for those events? It's not like I am talking about spending all your time buying gold rings/necklaces from old widows to melt down and hoard but something on the side just incase.

Frankly, these days I am into real estate cause of the easy returns.

Nothing wrong with a well balanced portfolio, and having gold as an anti inflation device is nice, it just depends on the market and world conditions how much you actually need.

>muh gold only
i'm sick of this meme

>thinking gold will be valuable when SHTF
Only in short-duration collapses, where everyone involved believes that things will get better. If we get a TEOTWAWKI you'd be better off investing that money into useful material goods.

Taking money off the gold standard gives the ability to add currency to the market freely, which is a valuable tool to counter deflationary crises. Additionally, it allows the market to grow larger than the supply of gold would allow.

If you're so smart then why do people flee to buy gold when times of uncertainty come?

avatar ban when

>Additionally, it allows the market to grow larger than the supply of gold would allow.
Additionally, it allows governments to allow themselves to be fucked in the ass by inflation since the temptation to print cash (aka "quantitative easing") remains unchecked.

read the thread again, thanks for your cooperation.

Inflation was a thing before Bretton Woods, so the gold standard doesn't help there either.

>If we get a TEOTWAWKI you'd be better off investing that money into useful material goods.
If it's not food, water, fuel, medicine, batteries, hygiene related, transportation, ammunition, skills, or useful tools, it's probably useless.

Useful tools meaning shit you can produce one of those things with, or used to provide power/build.

Gold is fucking useless on it's own and REQUIRES a certain measure of stability to have any worth in trades.

Constant inflation wasn't a thing however. Moreover the inflation actually indicated market trends since most banks were private and reacting to market forces.

The simple fact of the matter is that if we were to implement the gold standard again, where would we price gold at? The value of gold under Bretton Woods is equivalent to around $490 per ounce today, which represents something like a 58% devaluation from current pricing. Such a devaluation is theorized to have been a major contributor to the Great Depression.

>sure as hell isn't hamburgers

Depends on what kind of disaster friend

t. Peter Schitt

We took the dollar off the gold standard because the government had vastly outprinted our dollars relative to gold holdings to pay for LBJ's Great Society and the Vietnam war. If we kept the gold standard in place past the time Nixon suspended it, our entire gold reserves would have depleted by redemptions since people have figured out that we didn't have enough gold to back all the dollars.

We could easily return to the gold standard if we simply restructured the price of gold in dollars which is exactly what FDR did in the 1930's. However, our current monetary system is incredibly bloated due to QE so the new gold price would likely be $10,000+ per oz. The current government and financial institutions also have no interest in a gold standard because it would restrain fiscal and monetary stimulus. If we ever see a return to a gold standard, I would expect it to come from China since they've been dumping dollar reserves for gold bullion for years now (and are likely hoarding more than current official numbers suggest). It would allow them to supplant the Dollar in Asia and other regions as the dominant currency in the case of another financial disaster.