/biz/ - Business & Finance

>"It is perhaps nice to get into the role of gold and its meaning in the time before the monetary cosmos collapsed into more chaotic conditions. Throughout centuries gold was a protection against [natural] disasters, arbitrariness, and persecution. The high density of gold and its high intrinsic value mean that it is easy to hide or easily taken with you fleeing. Because natural production levels hardly allow overproduction with substantial depreciating values as result; because it does not rust and, once produced, never perishes, excessive scarcity can never occur. That’s why gold developed its image of solidity, stability, and reliability. Beside, there is of course this romantic semblance that has always accompanied gold because it is beautiful and thereby is identified with precious jewelry, important monarchs and pretty ladies. Gold coins then have been used over the centuries as means of exchange in primitive currency frameworks and were later, with the development of paper money, seen as a reliable basis. In the heydey of the gold standard one could take a banknote to the central bank and — if you would like that — get gold in return. The famous Englishman Bernard Shaw once said one has the choice between the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of honesty and intelligence of government. And he was of the opinion this choice was not hard."

>>25738233
>>25738262
>"The idea behind this was that it was expected that in due time there would be too little gold (I am inclined to say: what do you expect with such an artificially maintained, much too low gold price) to serve as 'international means of settlement.'"
>"what do you expect with such an artificially maintained, much too low gold price"
His Excellency
Jelle Zijlstra, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, President of the Central Bank of the Netherlands and President of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel