The American dollar!

[Backwoods101]

I work with a guy that grew up in Bosnia during the war. He said that money was worthless. The best thing to have stockpiled during those times are liquor, cigarrettes, food and ammo. If you have those things, you could barter for anything else you need to survive. Some of his stories from that time are scary as hell, bit hilarious too.

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[Tbar]

The first failed US Currency......an interesting history lesson.


Hyperinflation History: The Continental

The Framers of the Constitution had clear ideas about what was and was not money. As they put it in Article 1, Section 10, “No state shall…coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts…”. This belief that a sound country required a sound currency — one based on something rare and enduring like gold rather than common and infinitely replicable paper — wasn’t just theoretical. They had first-hand experience with paper money and an uncontrolled printing press thanks to the Continental, the first and shortest-lived U.S. currency

On the 10th of May, 1775, the first issue of Continental Currency was circulated. The bills were printed by Hall & Sellers in Philadelphia. They were designed with intricate patterns to make counterfeiting difficult and bore a variety of patriotic mottos in Latin on their obverse.

A special paper was used and the image of a real leaf from one of the local trees was imprinted on the reverse; it was felt that no counterfeiter could duplicate the pattern of God’s handiwork. The bill claimed that the bearer was entitled to the designated amount of Spanish milled dollars (the most common coin then in circulation in the colonies) or the value thereof in gold or silver. It didn’t explain how one was to collect the hard money thus promised — there being no hard money in the treasury. There were a variety of denominations and one could come up with an eight dollar bill, a seven dollar bill or even the proverbial three dollar bill.

Hard Money Disappears
At first, the bills were accepted at face value. After all, they were issued by Patriots for Patriots. One ominous result, however, was that almost immediately all hard money disappeared. It was a case of Gresham’s law, which states that bad money will drive out good money. Who wants to spend their guineas when paper is just as acceptable? The trouble was, of course, that paper wasn’t as acceptable and many merchants preferred real money to paper. In fact, this became so frequently the case that Congress had to pass a resolution in January. 1776 that “whoever should refuse to receive in payment Continental bills, should be declared and treated as an enemy of his country and be excluded from inter-course with its inhabitants”.

The sad tale of the Continental Currency thereafter was one of more and more rapid depreciation. As the value of the Continentals dropped, Congress had to print more of them — and as more money flooded the countryside, its value dropped even more rapidly. In November of 1776, $19 million had been issued and one could still buy$1.00 worth of goods for $1.00 in paper. By November of 1778, $31 million had been issued, and it took $6.00 in paper to buy the same amount. By November, 1779 $226 million was in circulation and it took $40.00 in paper to buy $1.00 in goods. After that, it was all down hill. In April 1779, George Washington complained, “A wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions”..........

Naturally, the depreciating continental also led to calls for economic controls in order to contain the upward pressure that the inflation was having on wages and prices. The New England states approved price-control statutes in 1776 and early 1777. The price controls had all the predictable effects, including massive shortages, disruption of the division of labor, and more government moralizing — it was bad people, you see, rather than stupid policy, that was responsible for the economic chaos.............

After 1780 the value of the remaining continentals plummeted still further. By early the following year it had reached a ratio of 100 to 1, and in some places it tumbled to 1,000 to 1 — at which point, recalled the New York Herald in 1863, “it expired … without a groan.”

https://dollarcollapse.com/inflation/hyperinflation-history-the-continental/

[Shane]

If your reasoning for wanting to buy gold is to have something useful in a SHTF scenario, you'd be far better off to spend your money on emergency food supplies, guns and ammo, a cabin in the woods, etc....

If your reason for wanting to buy gold is to own something that will grow in value over time, there are lots of far better alternatives.

[chopsknives]

For long term investment bullion for short term numismatics. The value of gold and silver and... goes up when the American dollar goes down as its price is set globally. Numismatics go up with it but tends to retain more of it when bullion drops in value. For the SHTF scenario both will make great knife and sword guards!