Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Gold Standard, Swiss Francs, and The Sad, Sad Dollar

I own 2 Swiss Franc 10 Franc notes; they traveled home with me a few years ago from a trip to Switzerland. I took them with me to Switzerland late last year, when I flew to Frankfurt via Zurich, but there was nothing I wanted to buy and I was stuffed from my airplane meal, so they remained in my wallet. But why am I boring you with this trivia, you ask?

The first time I went to Switzerland, the gold-backed Swiss Franc was worth 25 cents. On my trip to Switzerland where I got the 2 ten franc notes they were worth no more than 75 cents each, making my bills worth about $15.00. Today, they are worth $22.67, making them a strong investment, for sure. If trends continue, they may end up as the strongest investment I own. That is why I am recommending this article.

We all learned in school that returning to the gold standard was folly. Would it be? It might just lift us out of this slide to second world status in which we seem to be involved. Time to rethink the whole situation.

3 Comments:

Blogger Balaji said...

Interesting. Though I am not sure what such a move will have on other countries. Will China accept it and will it be avantageous for this since they have given so much of loan to US in the form of US dollars...

May 19, 2011, 3:53:00 PM  
Blogger Publia said...

I'm not sure where we are headed, but it is a little terrifying to see my country decline. I don't like the weak dollar.

May 19, 2011, 6:15:00 PM  
Anonymous Dr Kilovolt said...

This is all relative. The weaker dollar makes our exports cheaper and boosts our economy. I'll take that over a cheaper European vacation any day.

A large part of our problem for some time now has been Chinese currency manipulation keeping the dollar unnaturally strong and their renminbi weak. Their imports are cheaper here, unfairly making it harder for domestic companies to compete, and vacuuming large amounts of our currency up. We get crap from Walmart, and they get 8000 miles of high speed rail. Again, I'd prefer a more level playing field to insanely cheap Big Mouth Billy Bass while factories here are going out of business.

May 24, 2011, 11:25:00 AM  

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