>The gold standard was fine as far as I know, as long as the gold flow >was steady.
Um, no. This isn't the place for a historic treatise, but the 18th and 19th centuries were one boom and bust after another, with lots of inflation and deflation, and not just because of new gold mines. The reason the US created the Federal Reserve in 1913 is that unlike its European trading partners, we had a metal based currency and no central bank, which meant that the dollar was so unstable that trading partners refused to use it, and all foreign had to be denomated in pounds, francs, and occasionally marks. The Fed was created in response to demand from the business and banking community to make the dollar more stable. > If you have any reason people should not use an unchanging coin > without central authority or requirement for trust, I'd REALLY like > to hear it. I can't force you to learn economic history if you don't want to. R's, John PS: Be sure not to confuse the stuff from the Ron Paul crowd with actual history. _______________________________________________ cryptography mailing list [email protected] http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography
