The Existence of the Gold Standard

The Existence of the Gold Standard

  • Submitted By: alanmo
  • Date Submitted: 08/15/2009 9:09 AM
  • Category: Business
  • Words: 1133
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 443

World War One partially mostly contributed to the existence of the gold standard as the value of gold dropped. These events also affected the exchange rates. While efforts were made to bring back the gold standard; many of those same countries still chose to shy away from the gold standard. Basically, around the inaugeration of the Nixon administration when the US changed to what is known as the dollar bill. Other countries soon made changes. For instance, the British converted into the British Pound. Belgium type of currency switched to what is known as the Belgium Franc. Portugal went to the Portuguese Escudo. Japan chose the Japanese Yen. was made. It was clearly to observe that countries like the US had chose a convenient route of carrying dollar bills with change(quarters, nickels, dimes, and pennies) around as opposed to the gold bars. There were problems or concerns which awhich arose due to the value of gold. A large portion of the gold in the world was mined in Africa. In turn, they incread their prices for this raw material because they realized to world’s need for it. In order to increase money supplies, more gold was needed to be secured because it was the standard which backed money. What if the government could have just printed more bills? On the contrary, each bill would be backed by less and less gold. Thus, inflation would arise. Those were some of the positive and negative aspects about the gold standard. Other positive and negative aspects of the gold standard are specified in the following:
“The Gold Standard variously specified how the gold backing would be implemented, including the amount of specie per currency unit. The currency itself is just paper and so has no innate value, but is accepted by traders because it can be redeemed any time for the equivalent specie. A U.S.silver certificate, for example, could be redeemed for an actual piece of silver.
Representative money and the Gold Standard protect citizens from hyperinflation...

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