A Study on Perception of Investors Towards Gold as an Investment Avenue in India

The Gold Standard was the framework by which the value of cash was characterized in terms of gold, for which the money could be traded. The Gold Standard ended up being deserted in the Depression of the 1930s. Friedman felt that,“The gold standard is not feasible because the mythology and beliefs required to make it effective do not exist. This conclusion is supported not only by the general historical evidence referred to but also by the specific experience of the United States” ( “The Gold Standard:Please Stop”).Economists who contradict the Gold Standard may perceive what must be accomplished with a specific end goal to make a centrally controlled paper standard better than a decentralized Gold Standard. Milton Friedman poses the key question: "How can we establish a monetary system that is stable, free from irresponsible tinkering, and

To discuss its historic background I will concentrate on the Bretton Woods System. Bretton Woods System is an international currency system started form 1944 July at the end of the Second World War. This system require each country to obey the rule that they tied its currency to gold in order to keep the exchange rate stable and prevent the currencies from devaluation. The establishment of this system ensure the resume and development of capitalist world economy especially America. Although this system ultimately disintegrated in 1973, it still make significant contributions to America’s irreplaceable role today.

From 1500 to 1750 silver production in South America and Japan were at an all time high. Due to this new flow of silver economies began to change in response: economies began to become dependent on silver, and inflation and deflation have been more prevalent in regional economies. Socially the effect of the increase flow of silver has harbored a growing pessimism of silver, specifically, the excess use of silver and production of silver itself. Document 4,5,7 and 8 demonstrates that the increase flow in silver has caused economies to become more dependent of silver. Ralph Fitch in document 4 writes that “The Portuguese use this Japanese silver to their great advantage in China.”

In the beginning of the use of fiat currency, many governments backed the value of the currency with gold. For a while, thirty five United States Dollars could be traded for 1 Troy ounce of gold at a bank. Today however, the USD is no longer backed by gold. Most money today is “just worthless paper”, and if the government endorsing that money fails, it turns that currency into useless paper. (This is causes hyperinflation and recently happened to the Zimbabwean dollar.)

With the onset of the war, the stability of the relationship between Britain, France, and Germany – which the Gold Standard was dependent on – crippled (lecture, 10/13). During the interwar period, 1914-1945, the lack of coordination between economies led to a liquidity shortage while the nations held a floating exchange rate. The interwar period saw a breakdown in international monetary coordination – proving that a floating economy was doomed for failure (FLB 264). Outside of the lack of international coordination, the Gold Standard had other downfalls leading to its demise. For example, national governments had no authority to stimulate their country’s economies in times of need. Moreover, the fixed economy limits foreign trade, hurting the country’s industries (lecture,

After World War II, the Bretton Woods Agreement established the gold standard and two support institutions called the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This would lead to a shift, away from the gold standard, to more relaxed systems. The idea of currency purely backed by gold was slowly being shifted to a trust based currency. These institutions purpose was to regulate the economies by injecting or taking money in a process called sterilization. Sterilization is to protect certain countries from a going bankrupt. If a country goes bankrupt, it chain a chain reaction of bankruptcies. So, in order to maintain balance, currencies need to be stable enough, so that it can be in debt without having to declare bankruptcy. The idea is

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944, the U.S dollar became the world’s currency. Bretton Woods agreement was basically an agreement on which every country currency would be back up by the dollar, due to the fact that after WWII United States was the only one with the biggest gold reserve in the world. Although it was proposed as a good idea it had its flaws for one even though it help the U.S and other countries there was simply not enough gold to continue backing up the dollar value. Which lead to President Richard Nixon to abolish the gold standard economy. His abolish of a gold standard economy lead to a new proposal on which the dollar would be back by.

As we go into our research on the financial crisis of 2007, we will try to answer some questions about what actually cause of the failure of our financial system, which almost collapse the dollar. While there are plenty of faults to go around on what cause this crisis, there was never a clear path on how to reverse the demand that was cause by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933. Although there has been other regulations and acts pass since the repeal of the Act of 1933, the ability to restore and strength our dollar has been an uphill battle to take control of it. What was known within our economic system to readjust and rebuilt

The gold sovereign consequently turned into the most astounding unit of quality, over the previous sterling cash. This change was joined by two further advancements. Initially, the supply of silver significantly expanded with the disclosure of huge stores of silver-bearing minerals in North America and Australia and the recharging of movement and fare of silver from since a long time ago settled mine operations in Mexico, South America, Germany, Spain, and Austria. Second, there was a huge extension of the white collar class in Europe, America, and Britain

At the end of World War Two, the Bretton Woods system was established for world currencies. This system involved countries fixing their currencies to the US Dollar, which in turn was tied to the value of gold at a fixed exchange rate of $35 per ounce. As this was a fixed exchange rate system it effectively forced countries to pursue a certain monetary policy, in order to keep their currency pegged to the Dollar and in turn the value of gold.

The government then had to allow the dollar to be backed by silver as well so that they could print more and keep up with the economic growth. Not doing so would cause some people to hoard money, and it would slow down the velocity of money. When this happens there is deflation, and danger of things being worth less, and money being hard to find as people hoard it.

With exchange rates now set in stone (fixed), the gold standard made sure that price levels around the globe move together. This dual movement occurred automatically with a balance-of-payments/ adjustment process also known or called the price-specie-flow mechanism. This is how the flow mechanism worked. Suppose that a grand technological innovation produced faster economic growth in the United States. Now because the supply of money (gold) was fixed/set in the short run, U.S. prices dropped. This lead to the Prices of U.S. exports falling in relation to the prices of our imports. This caused other countries to demand more U.S. exports and Americas demand for imports fell. This resulted in the United States creating a balance of-payments surplus,

One of the characteristics of gold standard defined by Temin is that the adjustment mechanism for a trade deficit country was deflation rather than devaluation, that is, a change in domestic prices instead of a change in the exchange rate. In the event of a balance-of-payment deficit, countries on the gold standard could not devalue their currencies or expand the money supply to stimulate domestic demand, because by doing so would push up good prices, encourage more gold exports, and weaken the currency. Instead, they could only tighten monetary conditions with the goal of reducing domestic prices and costs until international balance was restored. “Critical to this process was the effort to reduce wages, the largest element in costs.” That is to say, the gold standard system must be maintained at the expense of the welfare of ordinary people, which they must either experienced wages fall or unemployment. This mechanism worked well to facilitate trade and exchange before the First World War, the reason,

Watching television, we all see the commercials persuading people to buy and sell gold. They argue that gold is a valuable resource that will always be so. Whether this is true has been a controversial issue over many years. People debate over whether it is more beneficial to buy gold or invest money in something else. Popular financial magazines have weighed in on the debate. Whether people should invest gold or save their money is an issue people are willing to research. There are many reasons why people may want gold maybe to give to a loved one or too safe for later use and others decided whether or not gold is a good investment. People who invest in gold, not those who just invest in a small portion of their wealth, but those who truly

1. The gold standard and the money supply. Under the gold standard all national governments promised to follow the “rules of the game”. This meant defending a fixed exchange rate. What did this promise imply about a country’s money supply? A country’s money supply was limited to the amount of gold held by its central bank or treasury. For example, if a country had 1,000,000 ounces of gold and its fixed rate of exchange was 100 local currency units per ounce of gold, that country could have 100,000,000 local currency units outstanding. Any change in its holdings of