Gold Has Always Been The Best Money

Gold last traded at $1,943 an ounce. Silver at $26.91 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices stepped back Wednesday on profit-taking and firmer dollar. U.S. stocks rose slightly, with the S&P 500 notching a fresh all-time high, as strong quarterly results from Target lifted the broader retail sector.

Lewis/Forbes---"I have found that, among the mass of simple, hardworking people who don't know much about monetary history, there has always been a basic understanding that money based on gold and silver is a good idea....The history of money since that time is basically one long tale of gold and silver, leading up to the Classical Gold Standard of the pre-1914 era, and then the Bretton Woods gold standard beginning in 1944, and ending in 1971. This is true in the West, but it is also true in the East. Gold and silver coinage was the norm in India from the sixth century BC. Gold was the primary high-value money of the Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) in China....The first government paper currency was issued by the Colony of Massachusetts in 1690; the Continental Dollar died in hyperinflation in 1781. This experience drove the Founders to include a mandate to use gold and silver coinage, in Article I Section 10 of the Constitution of 1789. The U.S dollar maintained a nearly-unchanged value of 23.22 grains of gold ($20.67/oz.) from 1792 to 1933, with a major lapse during the Civil War. After a devaluation in 1933, the dollar was linked to gold at $35/oz. until 1971.Through all this time, a simple pattern emerged: those countries that stuck to gold and silver, and unchanging coinage, tended to be successful. Stable Money works....We say of things that are stable, solid and reliable, that they are 'like a rock.' This is a good thing. This is what we want money to be, and gold is the best approximation of this ideal that we have - and approximation that, while never perfect, has always been Good Enough."