love it. However she was quoting economists, they are not her ideas.
Yes, I have enough to live on for a couple of years even at the present price (long enough for things to sort out), plus real estate that I should not lose (simply because I have gold). I don't question things like the USA currency continuing to devalue. and a probable return to significant inflation as money is printed. But that won't cause the sky to fall - while hyperinflation is never entirely impossible with totally incompetent government, it is extremely unlikely. And I know the other havoc that returning to a gold standard would produce.
"Given that the U.S. gold reserve is an estimated 260 million ounces -- worth around $431 billion -- to convert to the gold standard, Washington would first have to acquire a massive amount of bullion. One method would be to buy some of the estimated $10 trillion worth of gold in the world. Unfortunately, the more gold the U.S. bought, the higher the price of gold would go, and the higher the price tag of moving to the gold standard would rise. The other option would be to raise the price of gold in dollars by legal legerdemain from today's level of about $1,660 per ounce to $10,000 per ounce, which would allow the existing gold reserves to cover the existing monetary base. Unfortunately, doing that would seriously destabilize the economy, overwhelming the alleged benefits of the switch to a gold-based currency".
https://www.aol.com/2012/08/30/gold-standard-return-how-it-affects-you/
With the second option, that people here are always proposing, the Indian public. who are thought to hold one eighth of all the gold ever produced, would become instant millionaires. The Chinese, Americans and Australians (especially the Australians with only a tiny population but a comparable annual gold production to the other two) would follow close behind. Great eh? Nope, salaries would be horrendous (but why work?), our inflation would go through the roof, our goods would be too expensive to export. Noone could afford our iron ore. coal or agricultural produce, and this would cause overnight collapse of many economies, potentially even starvation. " Australia is estimated to have the largest gold mine reserves worldwide. Australia and South Africa hold a large share of the worlds gold mine reserves, accounting for 10,000 metric tons and 5,300 metric tons, respectively". Russia has the next greatest potential. In terms of government funds (gold in central banks), the UK would be instantly broke (and they have no mines). "The trouble is, while salaries might bob up and down with the price of gold, the amount of debt people owe wouldn't. If the value of a dollar rose, and salaries were cut to compensate, that would translate into a heavy fiscal blow as people would be left working more hours to repay their credit card debts, mortgages and other loans. But of course that money would go to gold mine shareholders (foreign?) not immediately to the public, although it would be highly inflationary. "For the government, returning to the gold standard would make the economy harder to manage. For ordinary workers, it would make long-term planning and borrowing almost impossible.The trouble is, while salaries might bob up and down with the price of gold, the amount of debt people owe wouldn't. If the value of a dollar rose, and salaries were cut to compensate, that would translate into a heavy fiscal blow as people would be left working more hours to repay their credit card debts, mortgages and other loans".
For the government, returning to the gold standard would make the economy harder to manage. For ordinary workers, it would make long-term planning and borrowing almost impossible.
https://www.aol.com/2012/08/30/gold-standard-return-how-it-affects-you/
And the advantage? "under the gold standard, deep, brutal recessions were pretty much a way of life. Over the 73 years from 1860 to 1933, when the U.S. went off a direct gold standard, the country suffered through 19 recessions. In the last 73 years, by comparison, the U.S. economy has gone into recession 13 times -- in one respect, only a slight improvement over the gold standard years. But the real change has been in the severity of the recessions. Before the U.S. went off gold, recessions lasted an average of 26 months. After the country dumped the gold standard, the average shrank to 11 months. To put it in context, the Great Recession lasted 18 months, making it 30% shorter than the average gold-standard-era recession".
Which is why I always recommend a balanced portfolio as a general principle - you survive even in a crisis. And I am an experienced gold geologist (who has found one significant mine) so would expect to be in demand (and they can pay me in gold).
