ROFL
Again, you have zero education in economics and are arguing concepts you have no understanding of.
The moment that gold, silver, nickel, or copper is minted into coins it becomes fiat currency and is every bit as manipulated as paper or digital currency.
Reversal fallacy. The minted coin has value because it's a precious metal, not because it's in the shape of a coin.
Governments cannot create metal out of thin air, like federal reserve notes.
Gold is not paper or bits.
Silver is not paper or bits.
Nickel is not paper or bits.
Copper is not paper or bits.
Too often those who have a vague and foggy notion of economic concepts assign intrinsic value to metal.
I have already stated some of them to you. Argument of the Stone fallacy.
What is the intrinsic value of gold? It has none.
Gold is used in electronics, jewelry, radiation shielding, decoration, and of course, currency.
You can, by exchanging it for food.
It will, by exchanging it for fuel.
It is too soft to make useful tools.
You can get harder materials by exchanging gold for them. BTW, you can't eat steel or warm your home with it any better than you can with gold.
The value of gold is what someone else will pay you for it.
True of ALL currencies.
"But Dr. Unc," you may say, "gold is worth $2.425 an ounce."
A better way to put it is that a dollar is 1/2425 oz of fine gold. Far worse than the 1/20 oz it started as.
BUT that value is nothing more than the arbitrary value placed by the market - what others are willing to pay.
Correct. The free market rules here.
The metal itself has very little tangible value.
Argument of the Stone fallacy.
Gold has no more intrinsic worth than does wood or stone.
All three have intrinsic value.
It is worth what a buyer will pay.
Same with wood or stone.
Gold is valuable ONLY because of the societal agreement that it is valuable
True of ALL currencies.
- no different than the agreement that paper money is valuable, or a bearer bond is valuable.
They are valuable, but becoming less so rather alarmingly.
All are valuable because of societal decree, as
@zymurgy termed it.
I oppose the Federal Reserve - for all the reasons Friedman, Rothbard, et al. long ago explained. Congress was empowered by the constitution to coin money. Congress who theoretically answers to the voters.
Congress was also directed that the only currency of legal tender was to be gold and silver. Funny how that part seems to get left out...
However, that is a separate and distinct issue from the use of markers - fiat currency - which are critical to the functioning of a large, complex market.
No, they aren't. Gold and silver can accomplish all the things the dollar can and more, including lines of credit, loans, banking, etc.
Equilibrium is critical a functioning society. Inflation is theft - theft by government (and the fed) to devalue incurred debt. The fed targets a 2% annual rate of inflation - which translates to taking 2% of every American's wealth each year. What is the correct rate of inflation? ZERO. The only way to achieve a zero or near-zero rate of inflation is through sound monetary policy.
The Fed is losing control. They cannot dictate the inflation rate. That is set by Congress, and Congress is losing control of the federal reserve note version of the dollar.