Silver is better than gold!

Reader comment on: It Shines For All

Submitted by Lyle (United States), Jun 5, 2011 00:57

It was the standard of value until the 19th century in the world and in the US until after the Civil War. Interestingly the ratio of gold to silver is way out of wack compared to 19th century values where the ratio was 15 to 16 to 1 or in Rome when the ratio was 12 to 1. Today its about 35 to 1. (Note that one big consumptive use of silver has declined drastically photography) So the issue is if you took silver as your basis the currency would be as hard as a gold one, but just require more of the stuff. Of course if you take the 1929 price of $20 for gold and the gold price today you get inflation of 75x since 1933. But if you take silver which was at around $1.30 (based upon the silver dollar of the time) per ounce in 1933 you get 30x.

One could probably play the same games with at least Platinum and its kin. But just the 2 examples show rather great divergences in value.


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