gold standard

Examples of gold standard in the following topics:

• Silverties Versus Goldbugs

  • This put the U.S. on a mono-metallic gold standard.
  • The gold advocates said silver would permanently depress the economy, but that sound money produced by a gold standard would restore prosperity.
  • Bryan, the eloquent champion of the cause, gave the famous "Cross of Gold" speech at the National Democratic Convention on July 9, 1896 asserting that "The gold standard has slain tens of thousands. " However, his presidential campaign was ultimately unsuccessful; this can be partially attributed to the discovery of the cyanide process by which gold could be extracted from low grade ore.
  • The Silverites were members of a political movement in the United States in the late 1800s that advocated that silver should continue to be a monetary standard along with gold, as authorized under the Coinage Act of 1792.
  • They wanted to lower the gold standard of the United States to silver, which would have simultaneously allowed more money to be printed and made available to the public which would cause inflation.

• The Exchange Rate Regimes

  • A gold standard is a central bank sets an exchange rate of their currency to gold.
  • A gold standard helps countries maintain a zero balance of payments.
  • Benefit 3: Gold standard greatly constrains a government's power.
  • Benefit 4: Gold standard restricts commercial banks and government.
  • Then the public counteracts the inflation by converting money into gold (Gold Standard, p. xi).

• Banking and Finance Reform

  • One of Roosevelt's main goals was to address problems with the banking and financial sectors and the gold standard.
  • Another series of reforms removed the United States' monetary system from the Gold Standard.
  • Under the Gold Standard, dollars were convertible to gold at a fixed exchange rate.
  • In a series of laws and executive orders, the government suspended the gold standard.
  • This order was part of Roosevelt's suspension of the Gold Standard, part of his reform of the monetary system.

• Strengthening the Monetary System

  • Prior to the Great Depression, the gold standard was the foundation of the U.S. monetary system.
  • However, during World War I, many countries went off the gold standard to fund their war effort by printing paper money.
  • While some European countries aimed to return to the gold standard, others were not able to do it and backed their currencies with the currencies that were backed with gold (like the U.S. dollar).
  • Whether a country was on or off the gold standard, the connection of the most powerful national economies and currencies (most notably, U.S., Great Britain, and France) to the gold standard had impact on all. 
  • First, the government suspended the gold standard.

• The People's Party and the Election of 1896

  • Many Republicans in the western states, dismayed by the strong allegiance of eastern Republicans to the gold standard, considered forming their own party.
  • When the Republicans nominated former Ohio Governor William McKinley for president in June 1896 and passed at his request a platform strongly supporting the gold standard, a number of "Silver Republicans" walked out of the convention.
  • Gold Democrats looked to the President for leadership, but Cleveland, trusting few in his party, did not involve himself further in the gold efforts; he spent the week of the convention fishing off the New Jersey coast.
  • He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. " Bryan's address helped catapult him to the Democratic Party's presidential nomination; it is considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
  • 1896 Democratic Convention where Bryan delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech.

• The Nixon Shock

  • The "Nixon Shock" ended the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold, otherwise known as the gold standard.
  • France, in particular, repeatedly made aggressive demands, and acquired $191 million in gold, further depleting the U.S. gold reserves.
  • Most importantly, Nixon "closed the gold window," ending convertibility between US dollars and gold on August 15, 1971.
  • The return to a gold standard is supported by some economists (most notably, adherents to the Austrian School) largely because they object to the role of the government in issuing fiat currency through central banks.
  • A number of gold standard advocates also call for a mandated end to fractional reserve banking.

• The American Dollar and the World Economy

  • Before World War I, the world economy operated on a gold standard, meaning that each nation's currency was convertible into gold at a specified rate.
  • First, under the gold standard, countries could not control their own money supplies; rather, each country's money supply was determined by the flow of gold used to settle its accounts with other countries.
  • Second, monetary policy in all countries was strongly influenced by the pace of gold production.
  • Nations attempted to revive the gold standard following World War I, but it collapsed entirely during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
  • Some economists said adherence to the gold standard had prevented monetary authorities from expanding the money supply rapidly enough to revive economic activity.

• Inadequate Currency

  • Proponents of bimetalism argued that the gold standard left an inadequate supply of currency in circulation.
  • He decried the gold standard, concluding the speech, "you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold".
  • For twenty years, Americans had been bitterly divided over the nation's monetary standard.
  • The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply but eased trade with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold.
  • The Coinage Act of 1873 eliminated the standard silver dollar.

• The Economy and the Silver Solution

  • Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the "free coinage of silver" as opposed to the less inflationary Gold Standard.
  • The Silverites promoted Bimetallism, the use of both silver and gold as currency at the ratio of 16 to 1, 16 ounces of silver would be worth 1 ounce of gold.
  • In major elections, Free Silver was consistently defeated, and after 1896 the nation moved to the gold standard.
  • To understand exactly what is meant by "free coinage of silver", it is necessary to understand the way mints operated in the days of the gold standard.
  • That plan backfired, as people, mostly investors, turned in the new coin notes for gold dollars, thus depleting the government's gold reserves.

• Anatomical Position

  • Standard anatomical position is the body orientation used when describing an organism's anatomy. 
  • Thus, the standard anatomical position provides a "gold standard" when comparing the anatomy of different members of the same species.
  • The standard anatomical position is agreed upon by the international medical community.
  • In humans, the standard anatomical position of the skull is called the Frankfurt plane.
  • The regions of the body in standard anatomical position, in which the body is erect.