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“The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollar
by JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
“The government held the $35 per ounce price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard.”
These graphs are why I invest in Bitcoin.
I see so many similarities to assignats and the lead up to the French Revolution, from the wiki-
“The economy did poorly in 1790–96 as industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and prices soared. The government decided not to repudiate old debts. Instead it issued more and more paper money (assignats) supposedly backed by seized lands. The result was escalating inflation. The government imposed price controls and persecuted speculators and traders in the black market. People increasingly refused to pay taxes and the annual government deficit increased from 10% of gross national product in 1789 to 64% in 1793. By 1795, after the bad harvest of 1794 and the removal of price controls, inflation reached a level of 3500%. The assignats were withdrawn in 1796 but their replacements also fuelled inflation. Inflation was finally ended by Napoleon in 1803 with the franc as the new currency.”
Https://www.usdebtclock.org
I don’t mean to be alarmist, but the US Dollar is a devalued currency and you need to leave it any way you can. More than 23% of all USD ever created were created in 2020 to prop up the sham we call the stock market, which is at all time highs amidst a pandemic.
- shortandsweet 6y agoHow does bitcoin solve this? Last time I checked there's no fixed bitcoin price either. The currency is so volatile on news, it's sagging and spiking all over the place.
- beachwood23 6y agoYou are correct that there is no fixed price. However, you might be assuming that the US Dollar has a fixed price too. The US Dollar is fixed at the price of the US Dollar, which is of course only a relative value. Likewise, a Bitcoin is worth what a Bitcoin is worth. The difference between the two, what the OP is pointing out above you, is that Bitcoin currency has a limited supply and so can't be devalued. Relative to each other, a Bitcoin will increase its value to the USD because the supply of the latter is always increasing.
- benaadams 6y agoUSD is required to pay US taxes; that gives it a baseline reference point.
- bpt3 6y agoBitcoin advocates focus on the limited supply when comparing to the USD, and forget that bitcoin also has very limited utility as a currency. I don't want to transact in something so volatile, nor something with such high transaction cost or latency.
- jraedisch 6y agoBitcoin is being actively developed. Maybe you would have good ideas on how to improve the things you critizise if you allowed yourself to think about them.
- bpt3 6y agoThanks for the ad hominem attack, it's validation for the fundamental issues I raised. Bitcoin is a massive waste of the natural resources used to create and maintain the blockchain entries, nothing more, and probably won't ever be anything else. A properly designed cryptocurrency could be useful, but it won't look anything like bitcoin.
- jraedisch 6y agoAd hominem was not my intent, rather stating, that people try improving Bitcoin every day. It is just the state of the art which does not mean, that things cannot be improved, e.g. by you.
- msla 6y ago> Relative to each other, a Bitcoin will increase its value to the USD because the supply of the latter is always increasing. Until Bitcoin crashes entirely, of course. OK, new topic: Draw a graph of each currency's Big Mac Index, or how much of each you need to buy a Big Mac in some major American city over the same timeframe. (We could do the same thing with Wonder Bread or a dozen jumbo eggs, but the Big Mac Index is actually A Thing.)
- cynoclast 6y agoIt's a deliberately deflationary currency not controllable by a handful of bankers.