This is always a contentious topic. I am Always met with resistance to my main arguments. So without further adieu let us delve into why this is aweful and will only get worse. I see gold hitting $3500-4000 by the end of this cunt’s second term. His first term saw the largest growth of gold price / decrease in usd value of any sitting POTUS from $1200 to just over $2000 which is a 66% fluctuation whereas with biden it went from $2000 to $2700 which is 35% increase.
Anyway lets get into this. For the first 172 years of the history of the USD as a standardized currency the price of gold held strong only increasing ≈85% from $19 to $35. But since 1971 when nixon ended the gold standard the price has ballooned ≈8000% from $35 to $2800 today.
Gold has always been considered an inflation proof asset. It retains its value better than any other commodity subject to the rules of supply and demand markets. Gold was the first currency used outside of traditional barter and trade economics and its value is still intrinsically tied to the value of every circulating currency in existence. If you calculate the exchange rate between any two currencies you’ll quickly see that they all add up to good perfectly. But that’s basic and should go without saying.
Ever wonder why at the time of American history portrayed as the era of American working class prosperity (the mid forties till the mid seventies) one working adult making minimum wage could afford to raise a family of four with enough surplus to send their two children to college, save for retirement (if they weren’t part of the 50% of workers that had a pension around this time) and go on a modest yearly family vacation? Meanwhile today even a family with only one kid is struggling to make it by on two salaries totaling $100,000 after taxes?
Now this may just be conjecture on my part but I believe the reason for this massive flip in working class power dynamics over the lasy 54 years was intentional. Sometime after Kennedy was assassinated wall street corporate interest had for all intents and purposes captured our political process and instructed their employees (our alleged representatives) to enact legislation that would effectively eradicate all the progress made by the labor and civil rights movements of the 40’s 50’s and 60’s as well as FDR’s new deal policies which stood as a foundation for the progress that came after. They were successful meanwhile the corporate executive class adequately adjusted their compensation to counteract the intended results of these policies.
In 1938 after conservative policies had been doubled down on which led to the gilded age and left us with the great depression. FDR finally began to repair the damage with common sense fixes that the robber barrons had fought at every opportunity available. 1938 is when the fair labor standards act was passed. This legislated many common sense socialist protections for workers protecting them from ruthless exploitation by profits at all cost models of capitalism. Such as; child labor laws, federal holidays, weekends, the 40 hour 5 day work week and most importantly, minimum wage.
Minimum wage on a federal level in the 87 years since its introduction has been adjusted 22 times with most adjustments occurring within a year of the previous one. Today the last adjustment of federal minimum wage was 16 years ago. And for the 30 year period of 1938 to 1968 7 adjustments were passed after first being set at 25¢ per hour or 14.9 ounces of gold per year at a full time schedule($41,000 today or about $19.50/hour) The 3 most impactful adjustments were in 1950, 1956 and 1968 where minimum wage was respectively raised to 75¢, $1 and finally $1.60 per hour. St the time that ranged from 45 ,60 and 95 ounces of gold annually.
Today the highest minimum wage in the country of $20/hour for some California fast food workers barely produces more than 15 ounces of gold for a full time year of work. And federal minimum wage is approximately 5.5 ounces. So thats a loss in value of 94-85%
And here many people will try to convince you that “the price of gold isn’t an accurate measurement for inflation statistics” but this is incorrect. But go ahead and believe the world bank, international monetary fund and Wall Street’s cooked books. These institutions have no issue committing fraud and them footing the bill to the rest of the world but sure lets pretend they are telling us the truth about something so important as how badly the socio political and socioeconomic policies they’ve supported the last 5-6 decades have brought the rest of the world as well as america into a state of austerity for the working class while they put around in their new yachts supercars and private jets that burn anywhere from $7,000 to $40,000 worth of fuel per trip. They definitely seem credible 🥴
But anyway lets look at the basis of their inflation models. The inflation models peddled by these fine and proper institutions snd definitely not rotting fraud filled pus buckets of society. They are based almost entirely upon a metric known as “consumer price index” or CPI. And cpi is flawed for several reasons but the biggest of those is that CPI does not account for the devaluation of a currency due to the increase in circulating currency supply. Such as what happens when a governing body prints money out of thin air and increases the national debt over 50 times in the last 6 decades. Now if we contrast cpi to the price of gold we will see where cpi fails is where gold excells. The main driving point in gold’s price increase is economic worry caused by poor policy the most common of which being irresponsible and unrestrained Fiat currency printing. Now lets look at currency printing in the last 54 years. There are plotted graphs that solidify my point and you’re free to look them up. Now by the end of 1979 the price of gold had alrrady increased by 2000% to just over $700 and in less than 2 years by 1981 the US had finished printing the first one trillion dollars into circulation adding to the national debt substantially. Fast forward today and the last i checked the us debt was somewhere around 36 trillion dollars and we currently print one trillion dollars every 3 to 4 months which is driving the price of gold through the roof due to decreasing USD value and market worry about the stability of the US dollar in modern times.
So why could someone working a minimum wage job from 1945 up until the mid 70’s support a family of four? Because money was worth far more and leftist organizing held the feet of the wealthy legacy families in wall street to the flames (these fsmilies all had supported Hitler so blatantly in the 1930’s they held a rally for him at madison square garden and made him person of the year on Times magazine’s cover in 1938) lets do some math here. To earn equal value to 1950’s minimum wage you would need to make the equivalent of 45 ounces of gold which today is worth $126,000 or $60.57 per hour. In 1956 it was 60 ounces or $168,000/ $80.76 then for 3 years before nixon shock was put in motion by withdrawing from the bretton woods agreement, arguably the worst financial policy the us has ever made, us minimum wage peaked at $1.60 which produced 95 ounces of gold or $266,000 or $127.88/hour.
To come anywhere near this both adults need to work 80 hours a week with overtime at a base pay of $20 just to reach $208,000 before taxes. And yes you can live better than a majority of people on thst wage and even $120,000/yr is decent but with 4 kids good luck saving anything meaningful and living anywhere but highly undesirable urban areas in super red states.
So these are facts that i know at least several will comment to debunk on this post. But the facts I’ve mentioned remain. None more so telling than the reality that the rich who are well versed in the markets of investment banking, have always considered gold to be an inflation proof asset that is not just a status symbol or a usefull material for technological applications but also a store of wealth in chaotic economic times.
anyone saying or asking why would they lie to us about this? I mean, are you not paying attention? If they told us the truth, that someone making quadruple federal minimum wage today is making 20% of minimum wage just 54 years ago then people would see the root of their economic frustrations in life and be much closer to starting the class warfare our society so desperately needs.i and others before me who have done the math have also figured out that the minimum wage workers of today are payed less than it cost to purchase and maintain enslaved people under chattel slavery. But since we have this illusory sense of choice, that we could just quit at anytime we are delusional to believe in our freedom under democracy (which is in reality class dictatorship) so from 1950 till today the share of wealth has gone from the top 20% having 10% of the wealth to the top ten percent having 66% and the top 20 having 74% while the bottom 60% have less than the 3 wealthiest men who collectively control $1,000,000,000,000 in assets.
The American working class have been robbed before their very eyes to the point where we are just glorified slaves. Many millennials snd gen z will have to work till we are to sick to do so or have to clock in on the day we expire. Many will never own a home snd have to hope that social security isn’t completely gutted in the next 25-50 years but i am not hopeful.
Have a good weekend regardless. Plan a boycott and some strikes and lets at least try and make things better than they are as dauntingly impossible as it may seem
Typically more people will buy into your point, or at least give you the time to consider, if you don’t have a typo in the title…
I’m going to leave this up for now, but please keep discussion to Antiwork relevant impact on wage value and potential impacts to the working class.
It was late and i was pretty much passing out when I wrapped this up. Thanks for the proof reading comrade.
Also this is relevant. Knowing how severely our currency has been intentionally devalued is an important thing to understand. If people knew that minimum wage has decreased in value from 84-94% i have a hunch that more people would be far less willing to participate in wage slavery than the current number of those who continue to participate despite the decreasing returns.
That’s bravely hopeful of a gen pop that resembles Wall-E’s bait-fed leftovers more and more every year.
I think thats also a result of nixon shock policies. Namely the cutting of education funding and standards that was doubled down by Reagan under the influence of advisor Roger A Freeman who is quoted as saying that an educated proletariat was a real threat to the society they were working to create. Leftism was far more popular in the 60’s and 70’s as a result of the higher education standards we had after the end of the second world war. Then leftism was smothered in the 80’s and 90’s and now what many people consider “left” is just right leaning centrist neo liberalism. True leftism has pretty much been wiped from the chat since then.
Today education centers are just there to condition workers to be smart enough to run the machines that generate profit for those with capital but not smart enough to understand how ruthlessly exploited they are. After Reagan the working class in the US were turned into low paid service industry wage slaves almost overnight after Reagan’s cafta turned to nafta under clinton and all the high paying manufacturing jobs that gave many Americans an unprecedented amount of prosperity/ quality of life were sent to the third world so corporations could reduce labor costs by 90-95%+ all while our currency was being intentionally devalued to reduce labor costs to all the jobs that couldn’t be outsourced to the third world
Interesting. I always know that CPI is a bad model and is worse yet at viewing the purchase power change of our currency. Especially since it leaves out some very important items like you know: Real estate, energy costs, insurance, etc and the fact that there are new standards of living which includes additional utilities and commodity items.
I’m not entirely sure gold is the best way to measure it but it’s not exactly an unhelpful tool in observing the loss of purchase power of the dollar. As we have absolutely lost our ability to do more than purchase the decorations for our cages.
As an aside, my father works with a guy who does weekly trips down to his favorite fishing hole in Texas from the northeast Atlantic area, he flies via private chartered plane each time. This means he spends about $2 million dollars a year just to travel to go fishing not including other expenses or trips. He complains he isn’t making as much as he wants.
The wealth gap is horrendous.Especially since it leaves out some very important items like you know: Real estate, energy costs, insurance, et
CPI includes all those things.
. . . there are new standards of living which includes additional utilities and commodity items.
Which is why CPI is tweaked regularly to match what people actually buy.
There have been various other ways to measure inflation that have popped up over the years, such as the MIT Billion Prices Project. Nothing ever matches perfectly, but they show the same overall trends that CPI does.
Why the fuck would gold be “the true measure of inflation”? What year is it?
Because it’s price increases in tandem with the increase in circulating currency. The rich look at us like we are disposable and not intelligent enough to understand things like this. But the rich all consider gold to be a safe haven investment that is virtually inflation proof. It retains its value. Gold is the one commodity who’s price increases in direct relation to the amount of currency printed into circulation
Gold is no more important than any other commodity.
Not true. It is a metal with extremely specific properties. It is resistant to tarnishing and oxidation and it is incredibly malleable. Gold can be rolled and thinned out to a layer that is translucent which is what they do to cover the glass on astronauts helmets and provide more protection to UV radiation. Gold has now and for the last 70 years had numerous applications within technology. There is a reason gold is expensive and it isn’t just because its shiny and yellow and a status symbol. It is because it is a very unique and useful element.
Those are all useful properties. It’s still no more important than any other commodity. There is no reason whatsoever to say it’s the “true measure of inflation”. That’s goldbug nonsense.
Gold is considered “inflation proof” because its limited supply, unlike paper currency, tends to maintain its value even when the value of a currency decreases due to inflation, making it a popular hedge against economic instability and a declining currency; when the purchasing power of a currency drops, the price of gold rises in response to increased demand from investors seeking a stable store of value.
Key points about gold as an inflation hedge:
Scarcity Gold is a finite resource, meaning its supply cannot be easily increased, which helps maintain its value during inflationary periods when the money supply expands.
Safe Haven Asset Investors often turn to gold during times of economic uncertainty, driving up its price when other assets are losing value.
Negative Correlation with Currency Historically, gold prices tend to move inversely to the value of a currency, meaning when the dollar weakens due to inflation, gold prices typically rise.
generally, the price of gold tends to increase when the circulating currency supply increases, as a larger money supply can lead to inflation, making gold, with its limited supply, a more attractive store of value and thus driving its price higher; essentially acting as a hedge against inflation.
Key points about this relationship
Inflationary pressure When more money is circulating, it can devalue the existing currency, causing prices of goods and services to rise (inflation), which incentivizes investors to seek assets like gold that can maintain value during such periods. Fixed supply of gold
Unlike fiat currencies which can be printed by central banks, the supply of gold is limited, making it a valuable asset in times of economic uncertainty.
Market psychology Investor perception plays a role, as many view gold as a safe haven asset, leading to increased demand when the broader market experiences instability.
Here are some more tidbits that paint a more full picture
https://www.reuters.com/plus/beyond-cpi-gold-as-a-strategic-inflation-hedge
Scarcity Gold is a finite resource, meaning its supply cannot be easily increased,
Wrong. You get more of it by mining it, just like any other metal. During the 19th century, there were several monetary panics set off because the price of gold fluctuated. Not because a pandemic brought supply chains to a halt. Not because bird flu killed a lot of chickens and sent the price of eggs skyrocketing. Not because a boat got stuck in the Suez Canal and stopped up global shipping. Not because of any more fundamental reason than someone found a new mine full of gold.
gold prices tend to move inversely to the value of a currency
You can just as easily buy treasury bonds.
You can only mine so much gold, money can be printed infinitely. And there will be a point, albiet far in the future, where we will have depleted natural gold reserves to the point where mining costs will far exceed the profitability. Even right now to start an industrialized gold extraction project costs over a million dollar once you figure in equipment costs and claim agreements (usually anywhere from 10-20% of total gold mined is the price to mine a claim) The fluctuation of gold price in the 1800’s was nowhere near the 8000% fluctuation we have seen in the last 54 years, from 1799 till 1971 gold price only fluctuated from $18/19 to $35 when in the 19th century did the price of gold ever increase beyond $20-22? And this was enough to cause panic back then but the ignorant masses today just keep working while rent prices mirroring the price of gold hit all time highs every subsequent month.
And treasury bonds are merely Fiat currency on steroids. Just more printed rubber money.
You can only mine so much gold, money can be printed infinitely
Good. When there’s more economic activity, there should be more money in circulation.
And there will be a point, albiet far in the future, where we will have depleted natural gold reserves to the point where mining costs will far exceed the profitability
Asteroid mining. Making that viable will cause the price of gold to plummet. If our economy is based on that, it’ll cause a depression.
And treasury bonds are merely Fiat currency on steroids
Good.
Astroid mining will eventually become viable though
I saw this coming in 2019 with the advent of Corona.
I promptly cleaned out my meagre savings and bought gold.
“But muh bitcoins”. Well, we’ll talk again in a year or 5, see how that went ;)
Bitcoin definitely was the better buy. Gold really is not a good investment. Its value doesn’t exponentially increase. Its not a speculative asset. Gold only maintains its value. So you ensured you didnt loose value, you just protected your wealth. But if you bought bitcoin you would have multiplied your wealth by 3500% i told my family to buy bitcoin at the outset of the pandemic when it was around $3000 or so. I told my mother to empty her 401k/IRA take the tax hit and buy bitcoin. i was pretty much laughed at. But now i bring it up all the time and I laugh about it. I didn’t have the money to do it myself since i live in abject poverty but i still saw what was coming a mile away. Bitcoin is ultimately the future of money. Banks already digitized currency decades ago and the numbers on the screen that represent your bank account have no concrete backing. It’s just as funny as funny money can get. Whereas bitcoin and legitimate cryptocurrencies have blackchain/ distributed ledger technology(it was designed to be a peer to peer distributed decentralized currency/ banking system. And people like Jamie Dimon (one of the biggest fraudsters in modern times and someone who’s hands were covered in some of the most blood after the 08 collapse of MBS bonds/ the housing market) tell us that bitcoin is a ponzi scheme and is valueless meanwhile behind the scenes all these big banks are investing billions in developing their own blockchain technology which shows they are full of shit and just saying whatever they can in order to perpetuate ideas that serve to protect the financial interests of western capitalist hegemony.
Yup. I made 3k off bitcoin in 2018 and sold off then, thinking it would crash soon. I didn’t buy the gold with the intent to “get rich quick”, just as a store of value. Added reasons are that I don’t trust banks. I graduated in 2008. I haven’t forgotten how, for example, the people of Cyprus were literally robbed from part of their savings by their government to pay for the crisis. For the record, at this point the only way to get rich off bitcoin is to create shitcoins and rugpull or be a whale, both are forms of degenerate gambling the likes of which should stay limited to wallstreetbets.
Will ask you to elaborate what you mean by the “advent of Corona”?
Advent means: the act of coming upon a scene
So pretty sure it’s just “the coming upon of the scene of COVID-19”
just with slang as the name for the virus as basically every group hated calling it the same thing to some of our annoyance.Not asking for definition, asking for OP to explain their intent
End of 2019, start of 2020 when it was starting to look likely we would get lockdowns. There is no greater indicator for instability.
And now with Trump, the instability just keeps coming, which will drive more and more people away from fiat currency to both crypto and physical wealth. Both are educated guesses at best but the pattern is quite obvious by now.