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Why not try this with other commodities? Silver was used as currency for longer than gold, and was still legal tender in the time of Henry Ford. Let's see what
by murderfs 6y ago
Why not try this with other commodities? Silver was used as currency for longer than gold, and was still legal tender in the time of Henry Ford. Let's see what happens if you do the same analysis with silver instead.
Silver was 1/20 the price of gold back then and 1/80 of the price of gold today, so your $120,000 turns into $30,000. Whoops.
Aluminum? $433.
It turns out that comparing wages over time with an arbitrary natural resource is a terrible idea.
- tboyd47 6y agoGold is obviously not just an "arbitrary natural resource." There's a reason why we say "gold standard" and not "silver standard," "aluminum standard," or even "dollar standard." Nevertheless, it was only a fun thought experiment (which is what most economic arguments boil down to).
- murderfs 6y agoThe "gold standard" just happened to be the last one to be abolished: it was only really predominant around the 1800s. Silver was by far the most prevalent metal used in currency for millenia, to the point where almost every single modern currency is named after a silver coin.