Quotes On Gold
After careful thought is given to some of the following notable quotes on gold, be sure to also read the relevant articles on our Notable Articles page.
On the question of what is money, Alexander DelMar relates the following in his book The Science of Money:
. . .The Mixt Moneys case [of 1604] decided that Money was a Public Measure, a measure of value, and that, like other measures, it was necessary in the public welfare that its dimensions of volume should be limited, defined and regulated by the State. The whole body of learning left us by the ancient and renascent world was invoked in this celebrated dictum: Aristotle, Paulus, Bodin and Budelius were summoned to its support; the Roman law, the common law and the statutes all upheld it; "the State alone had the right to issue money and to decide of what substances its symbols should be made, whether of gold, silver, brass, or paper. Whatever the State declared to be money, was money” . . .
1935 statement by Frank Vanderlip, former President of the National City Bank of New York, and one of the seven original authors of Federal Reserve Act:
What is it we want of our currency? . . . We want a dollar that will, in the language of the President, “not change its purchasing and debt paying power during the succeeding generation” . . . What are the points to be taken into consideration? First and foremost, that Congress should assume the responsibility laid on it by the Constitution of regulating the value of money. We now know that a given weight of gold is not an unchanging standard of value. That fact is dawning slowly on the most conservative and obstinate minds.
In his 1913 book titled {+Banking and Currency and The Money Trust+}, then Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh (Sr.) puts the issue of tying gold to money this way:
Creating money out of commodities like gold and silver and legislating value into them by making them legal tender is the worst possible policy and the greatest limitation placed upon advancing civilization. It would be the same principle, though not in degree, as would be the printing and giving of legal tender paper money by the government to persons who give no consideration in return. Neither gold nor any other metal or commodity should be stamped with a value and made legal tender. Commodities may properly be stamped with their quality and weight so that stamp may be accepted as proof thereof. After that they may be used as exchange in commerce on their own commercial merits. Neither person nor property is entitled to any specially conferred governmental privileges. To coin metal and make it legal tender gives a special value to metal which enables those possessing it to take undue advantage of the rest of us. . . If gold is worth all they claim for it, it needs no extra function. If, on the other hand, it is not able to retain its present relative value without being legal tender, then that is positive proof that it should not be made legal tender. In the one case it is unnecessary, in the other case it is unjust.
Today, the IMF owns more gold than any central bank, and together the central banks and the IMF control 2/3's of the world's gold. Bill Still, "The Money Masters".
By monopolizing this [gold] commodity the moneyed classes have got Nature by the throat and the community under their heels. . . Compared with this process, usury is mere child's play. Alexander Del Mar, The Science of Money
From The Two Faces of Money:
In addition to relatively limited supplies of gold when compared to goods and services within an economy, we have the fluctuating purchasing power of gold. Thoren and Warner provide some historical insight using U.S. government and other official statistics to measure the purchasing power of gold as measured against U.S. wholesale prices. For example, they show that the actual purchasing power of gold went from $100 in 1896 – when its market price per troy ounce was $20.67 - to $30.10 in 1920, just 24 years later – when its market price remained at $20.67 per troy ounce. In 1933 the purchasing power of gold jumped from $70.40 to $100.40 in just one year. By 1970 it had reached a low of $36.70, then jumped - in ten short years - to $386.30 in 1980, at which time gold's market price reached an all time high of $850. One short year later in 1981, gold's purchasing power dropped again to $197.60 and its market price went to $501. Hardly a stable unit for measuring the value of goods and services OR for storing savings, unless you are enlightened enough to know when to buy on the lows.
Selected quotes from Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went by John Kenneth Galbraith:
[After a discussion of the manner in which the Coinage Act of 1873 demonetized silver and made gold the de facto money standard, Galbraith says. . .] In 1900 cosmetic regulation affecting coinage and notes further affirmed the commitment to gold. In consequence, some purists date the adoption of the gold standard to this year. In fact, its victory was already won. p102
Inflation could occur on a gold standard. p131
As noted, between the end of 1914 and the end of 1917, the gold stock in the United States almost doubled. . . The United States faced an inflation caused by gold. p142
The First World War marked the beginning of the end of the international gold standard - of the single world currency that, at whatever pain, gold had been. Not again was there a reasonably workable distribution of gold stocks between the industrial countries - mostly, and for many years, there was a plethora in the United States and paucity everywhere else. Efforts at revival were made in the decade of the twenties in Britain, France and the other industrial countries. Except in the United States and briefly in France no major country again looked at its gold and felt secure. None more than briefly allowed citizens to exchange there paper or bank deposits into gold. p147
The tendency, indeed a principal purpose, of the gold standard was to unite the economic performance and policies of nations. p148
Galbraith also explains that Gresham's Law applied to more than just gold or silver. Thus,
In both Britain and Germany as [World War II] proceeded, the ration coupons became the decisive currency. Everyone or almost everyone could obtain the requisite pounds or marks; it was the availability of a ration ticket that determined whether or not a purchase, almost any purchase, could be made. [NOTABLY and] . . .In contrast with the more traditional means of exchange, the ration ticket is, with privileged exceptions, available to all in equal amounts. p254
Now out of office . . .Churchill said it was wrong to tie policies to the 'rarity or abundance of any commodity [such as gold]' and 'quite beyond human comprehension' that this should be done out of love for France. p210