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Old 04-16-2008, 07:22 PM   #9 (permalink)
Zankou
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RemoWilliams View Post
Forgive me for being Naive. But I thought in all my economics courses both in High School and College was that paper currency is only as good as the governments gold reserves to back it?

Or is that too 1989/1996?
There's nothing magical about gold. You were misinformed. Paper currency nowadays is primarily fiat currency, and even if it was backed by gold, gold is also essentially an arbitrary store of value, established by a social consensus and expectation.

Also "paper currency" doesn't mean much. Coins are also fiat currency, as is the primary type of currency in existence -- debt obligations, sitting on computers.
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