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They didn't try to stick with the Gold standard. They secretly left it altogether, while robbing its value to anyome buying bonds. Post WWI, they tried to stop

They didn't try to stick with the Gold standard. They secretly left it altogether, while robbing its value to anyome buying bonds. Post WWI, they tried to stop gold from leaving Britain, which had the effect of hastening it leaving :-) You could say that they would have lost WWI without leaving the gold standard (other world governments followed suit by leaving the gold standard after Britain did) but imho the war would have ended sooner. Lyn Alden talks and writes about this quite a bit in her books and blog.

qwytw 3y ago
> they would have lost WWI without leaving the gold standard (other I mainly meant their attempts to get back on the gold standard in the 1920s. Unlike e.g. France and the other European countries which didn't really have a choice and had to devalute. It put Britain industry and economy at a disadvantage during the 20s (on the brightside Britain didn't suffer from the Great Depression as much..). e.g. between 1910 and 1930 inflation in Britain only averaged 3.0%. And between 1920 and 1930 it was negative (with 3.7% deflation, which is huge..) while the Franc lost ~50% of its value during those years. As a consequence in Britain unemployment stayed high and there was hardly any growth in the 1920s. While France recovered much faster despite suffering much more during WW1: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/business/112712krugman2-blog480.jpeg https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/business/112712krugman2...
- JustinGoldberg9 3y ago
  Getting off the gold standard with the banking holiday was the original sin. Bitcoin has and will continue to undo this, with or without the permission of luddites.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > permission of luddites Right. Like sticking to the nonsense that was the gold standard. Inherently deflationary virtual token make an objective horrible currency. Believing otherwise puts you on part with the flat earth people.
    - npoc 3y ago
      > Inherently deflationary virtual token make an objective horrible currency Why's that then?
      - qwytw 3y ago
        Well.. it's perfectly obvious but I can spell it out: Deflation significantly inhibits economic growth, making borrowing much more risky and would result in significantly more wealth inequality than we even have now. Why invest into anything when you can just hoard money and get richer by not risking anything?
- audleman 3y ago
  Which shows that it was the impact of pretending their currency hadn't been devalued that dragged them through a prolonged depression. Had they simply priced gold at its true value in pounds, they would have gotten through it as quickly as France.
  - qwytw 3y ago
    Well yes that's why the gold standard doesn't make a lot of sense. > priced gold at its true value Which is determined how and by whom? If you let the market do it's that basically (while not technically) Fiat...

qwytw 3y ago

> they would have lost WWI without leaving the gold standard (other I mainly meant their attempts to get back on the gold standard in the 1920s. Unlike e.g. France and the other European countries which didn't really have a choice and had to devalute. It put Britain industry and economy at a disadvantage during the 20s (on the brightside Britain didn't suffer from the Great Depression as much..). e.g. between 1910 and 1930 inflation in Britain only averaged 3.0%. And between 1920 and 1930 it was negative (with 3.7% deflation, which is huge..) while the Franc lost ~50% of its value during those years. As a consequence in Britain unemployment stayed high and there was hardly any growth in the 1920s. While France recovered much faster despite suffering much more during WW1: https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/business/112712krugman2-blog480.jpeg https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/mt/business/112712krugman2...

JustinGoldberg9 3y ago
Getting off the gold standard with the banking holiday was the original sin. Bitcoin has and will continue to undo this, with or without the permission of luddites.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > permission of luddites Right. Like sticking to the nonsense that was the gold standard. Inherently deflationary virtual token make an objective horrible currency. Believing otherwise puts you on part with the flat earth people.
  - npoc 3y ago
    > Inherently deflationary virtual token make an objective horrible currency Why's that then?
    - qwytw 3y ago
      Well.. it's perfectly obvious but I can spell it out: Deflation significantly inhibits economic growth, making borrowing much more risky and would result in significantly more wealth inequality than we even have now. Why invest into anything when you can just hoard money and get richer by not risking anything?
audleman 3y ago
Which shows that it was the impact of pretending their currency hadn't been devalued that dragged them through a prolonged depression. Had they simply priced gold at its true value in pounds, they would have gotten through it as quickly as France.
- qwytw 3y ago
  Well yes that's why the gold standard doesn't make a lot of sense. > priced gold at its true value Which is determined how and by whom? If you let the market do it's that basically (while not technically) Fiat...