When you read a review, then it seems, what a book about gold prospecting, dramatic stories of fanatical desire for gold, golden manias and gold bugs.
In my mind, this is a book about monetary history. Yes, in the book and myths, and how where who and why was looking for gold, how did you get it. About Newton as the Head of the Mint, finally. But all this is more likely through the prism, structured trends and economic details. Yet again, For me, this is a tutorial, not artistic, business or some other literature.
All in all, if you are afraid that you will be in the American style 30 pages on examples from the life of animals to explain, what is the gold standard, then it's not here. Serious, Solid, structured book prompting many interesting and useful thoughts.
Complete credit.
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Summary:
1. Gold at the start of the journey – accumulation of wealth, although at first, rather, even just a beautiful toy. Gold becomes money when the need for money begins at all, ie. then when it is no longer a children's business starts. History takes us to Lydia (there is also Midas who, with a touch, turned everything into gold) in 643 – 630 BC, to the king , who created the first real gold coin and mint. It was then that gold became a retail commodity., ie. appeared in ordinary people. This is where the skyrocketing demand for gold begins.. Then Persians and Romans appear on the horizon. The Romans have their first coin devaluation.
2. No fun comes to the Roman Empire and we go to Byzantium, where does it appear “medieval dollar” . A little later, Arabs and gold mining in Africa appear on the map of globalization. All in all, while life is quiet in the west, trade developed in the east and, what's important, international trade. The demand for gold is on the rise, loot too Many interesting details but no more. well, certainly, Italians are making progress, progress in banking and international payments.
3. IN 14 the century, the fun is suspended due to a series of crop failures and the plague. Say, that the population has decreased by a third, but after adapting to the spike in food prices, survivors feel richer by sharing the wealth of the dead. Subsequently, prices remained stable so, how the decline in food demand offset the decline in production due to the decline in population (and the rural population in particular). But the subsequent recovery leads to “The great bullion famen 15 century” – an acute shortage of gold pushing for adventurous projects to find it (well and on finding a road to India).
4. Discovered America and beyond. Gold flows to Europe, the famous “price revolution”. There are three interesting things here..
* first from me. it was not such a rise in prices. you actually need to ask nickolay_myagky, but I will venture to rummage through the data in a hurry. despite the revolution, the rise in prices itself was not terrible, it was terrible, that people have not seen this before. modern Ukrainians “the revolution” as a routine.
* Monetarism 16 century. Think, that people used to be stupid very naive. People tried to explain the rise in prices. And rising demand and supply shocks, and the monetary phenomenon. Meet us – , the person who talked about, that the problem is the flow of gold. But! The idea was perceived as follows: prices are rising, that's why we are looking for gold so actively and so actively we are bringing it to Europe. Basically, modern primitive monetarists have a lot to learn from this mistake. Prices are rising – because the money supply is growing! OK, why is the money supply growing? well, because they print! Why do they print? well, because, that state is evil! Down with! Burn! Disperse! Give anarchism! well,Do you understand me..
Spain in 16 century.
* Spain, as an example of failure. To the question, what happened to spain, why did she bent, there is a simple answer. Nothing happened, it was she who accidentally rose due to the influx of gold without any special reason. While the dynasty rode a roof from the influx of gold, progress (commercial and economic) passed by.
5. The fight between gold and silver. Many funny stories about trying to establish a stable exchange relationship between two currencies. The story about, how Newton got interested in economics and finance, gave recommendations for changing the ratio, but he was let down by the eternal: the future is not equal to the past.
6. The Gold Standard. He established himself only in 19 century, and how talented people of the end of the same century celebrated: was not the cause of stability, and its consequence. What follows is the most remarkable thought. Books (about the gold standard): during booming economic growth, economic success masks all the mistakes of regulators, and the very imperfection of the standard. Next is the story about, how different countries at different times struggled with the outflow of gold by increasing rates and how this did not always lead to something useful.
