Hey, everyone,
Just had a good ol’ Christmas family argument (perfectly congenial, though). Basically, my sister was arguing that we should go back to the gold standard, and while I’m pretty economically illiterate, this struck me as ridiculous, and I did my best to articulate why, but she was generally more informed on the topic than me.
I was wondering if anyone could direct me to some resources to better understand why her position does or does not make sense.
She was arguing that we should go back to gold to prevent inflation. She says that we didn’t have inflation before we left the gold standard, so we should go back. There were some other ancillary points, but that was the thrust of it.
Would a return to the gold standard help curb inflation and benefit the economy?
byu/blues_bullets inAskEconomics
Posted by blues_bullets
2 Comments
This gets asked about often here:
* [Was going off the gold standard in the US during the 1970’s a huge mistake?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1ox0xss/was_going_off_the_gold_standard_in_the_us_during/)
* [What would happen if the U.S. went back to the Gold Standard?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1fvbdfy/what_would_happen_if_the_us_went_back_to_the_gold/?share_id=1mFKU4eLm8Jhm2CyPzm9O)
* [Did Nixon take the U.S. “off the gold standard” in 1972, and did this cause stagflation, inflation, and wealth inequality?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1kyr7vz/did_nixon_take_the_us_off_the_gold_standard_in/)
* [How would you explain the concept of fiat currency to someone who has only known the gold standard?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1om65hq/how_would_you_explain_the_concept_of_fiat/)
An important fact to keep in mind is that incomes have grown faster than inflation. See this inflation adjusted chart: **[Real Median Personal Income in the US](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)**
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