Key Takeaways The history of fiat currency failures reveals a very predictable pattern. The government starts with a small issue of paper money, thinking that they will just use it the once. Then they use it a second time. Then another and another, and another. Soon they are addicted. The government eventually prints too much, […]
A Short History of Fiat Currency Failures: 9 Currencies That Have Collapsed Read More »
Is Russia currently on the gold standard? Despite a lot of speculation to the contrary, the answer is no. In early 2022, in an attempt to defend the value of the rouble, the Russian Central Bank said that it would buy gold at 5000 roubles per gram. However all this meant was that the bank
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The classical gold standard was the monetary system of the 1870s to 1914. It is one of several different types of gold standard but is what is most commonly associated with the phrase. The world’s industrial powers defined their national currencies as a fixed weight of gold and paper money was freely convertible into gold
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Key Takeaways The history of gold goes back almost 6000 years to the earliest years of some of humanity’s most ancient civilizations. While not formally part of the money system today, central banks still hold gold, giving it a proximate shadow status in the current system. Of all the elements of the periodic table, gold
The History of Gold As Money: From Ancient Civilizations To Modern Markets Read More »
Gold is important to the economy and the monetary system because its existence on central bank balance sheets gives fiat currency the credibility that it has. Governments and central banks like to pretend that gold is unimportant and is a relic of the past. This is wrong. While we no longer operate on any type
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Key Takeaways The story of the Weimar hyperinflation is a familiar one. But do you know what the rentenmark was and how it worked? It should be one of the most famous stories in the history of fiat currency. But sadly, barely anyone properly understands it. Read this article and you will have a better
There are times in history where the government reluctantly accepts that state money has failed and the market’s money has proven superior. One such example was in the Ming Dynasty and silver. The government had initially banned silver and decreed that the citizens should use devaluing paper currency. Unfortunately for the authorities, the citizens continued
How The Ming Dynasty Was Forced To Return To The Silver Standard Read More »
There is a lot to learn from the inflation in Rome that ravaged the empire towards the end. It is a cautionary tale and one that we can draw many insights from. It’s quite natural that we might look at the story of Roman currency and draw comparisons to our American dominated world and wonder
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Key Takeaways A financial crisis caused the French Revolution when the debt laden state, in political gridlock, abandoned sound money for one of the world’s most destructive paper money experiments. This act triggered a chain of events that unleashed revolutionary forces that led to the downfall of the monarchy and a complete restructuring of French
How A Financial Crisis Caused The French Revolution [And 3 Lessons You Can Learn] Read More »
In 1992, hyperinflation in Russia peaked at 2,318%. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the successor state of Russia was in an economic shambles. In 1985 the Soviet Union had been a global superpower, second only to the United States. Since 1917 she had embarked on a unique path, with a command economy based
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