06-02-2016, 10:01 AM
[Kinser]When the Dollar was defined as 3/4ths of a troy ounce of silver the dollar was worth exactly that.
No. It was a GOLD standard, not a silver standard. Didn't you even look at the link I gave? The value of the silver in a silver dollar was LESS than a dollar. It had to be so, or people would have melted down to coins to get the silver. Since the ratio of silver to gold tended to rise over time, under a gold standard this would likely remain the case. As I wrote this was the crux of the issue the free silver folks had. The gold standard was flawed because the supply of gold rose too slowly, since silver grew more rapidly it was preferred to gold for a growing economy. The too-restrictive gold standard penalized productive folks to the benefit of rentiers. On the other side the bankers were opposed to a silver standard because they (rightly) saw it as inflationary, and so bad for holders of money, stocks* and bonds.
*Until 1916 stocks were priced like bonds, and thought to be no different than the perpetual bonds (e.g. British Consols) developed in the 18th century that had been called government "stock".
No. It was a GOLD standard, not a silver standard. Didn't you even look at the link I gave? The value of the silver in a silver dollar was LESS than a dollar. It had to be so, or people would have melted down to coins to get the silver. Since the ratio of silver to gold tended to rise over time, under a gold standard this would likely remain the case. As I wrote this was the crux of the issue the free silver folks had. The gold standard was flawed because the supply of gold rose too slowly, since silver grew more rapidly it was preferred to gold for a growing economy. The too-restrictive gold standard penalized productive folks to the benefit of rentiers. On the other side the bankers were opposed to a silver standard because they (rightly) saw it as inflationary, and so bad for holders of money, stocks* and bonds.
*Until 1916 stocks were priced like bonds, and thought to be no different than the perpetual bonds (e.g. British Consols) developed in the 18th century that had been called government "stock".