Talk:Free silver/Archive 1

Where's the beef?
This article seems to me empty of the answer to the question that is the main issue. Silver, apparently, was considered inflationary. Gold, not. Why? The article has a very nice section explaining just how the government minted gold coins from the nuggets brought in by miners, and that they deducted a certain value to cover the cost of the manufacture of coins. That was interesting. But: As an economic novice I don't understand why silver, with a known relationship to gold established by some market couldn't be used as handily as gold. For that matter, why couldn't one use copper, or any other durable material that had an established relational value? It may be that the answer is apparent to everyone but me, but I doubt it. And this is an encyclopedia that ought to be of use to people much younger than me. I think the answer has something to do with the fact that there was a limited amount of gold available. And that if silver was also "coined" that would increase the money supply, and thus introduce inflation. But I don't know enough about the matter to be sure. In any case, the article ought to say something about the economic fundamentals, in addition to the political aspects of the issue, which seem to be covered well. wgoetsch (talk) 03:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. It's all pretty much in this article: Silver standard. wgoetsch (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Other missing beef
This article should explain why free coinage of silver would be inflationary, and/or why it would benefit debtors. Even after the change I made, the first paragraph could do a better job of clearly identifying what falls on the free silver side of the issue. The second paragraph is still very ambiguous in this regard. Clarification of the specific impact (and why) of the Coinage Act of 1873 would be helpful. Remember that those reading this article may not be familiar with the subject matter, and may not share certain fundamental assumptions about economics that someone well-versed in the field may have. -Exucmember (talk) 08:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

???????
This article doesn't give any reference proving that the Republicans overpowered the Free Silver movement because of their large campaign war chest. I'd really like to see an actual proof of that statement. Also, wealthy bankers had every incentive to encourage free silver, so that the banks could expand credit upon this new money. According to Murray Rothbard, there were plenty of wealthy interests in favor of free silver, so it wasn't exactly a rich vs poor issue. According to one source (Weinstein, Prelude to Populism, p. 356.),

"Silver began as an urban movement, furthermore, not an agrarian crusade. Its original strongholds were the large towns and cities of the Midwest and middle Atlantic states, not the country’s farming communities. The first batch of bimetallist leaders were a loosely knit collection of hard money newspaper editors, businessmen, academic reformers, bankers, and commercial groups."

The greatest trick played upon the people was the illusion that free silver and loose monetary policy were a boon to the poor and an enemy of the rich. The rich basically used the poor's anti-rich sentiment against them to pursue their own interest. Wealthy bankers CRAVE inflation and the ability to further pyramid fake money upon their reserves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.160.104.46 (talk) 22:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Silver never becomes a bank-based money. I mean you get the coins from a bank but the banks don't do anything with those coins except distribute them to people. Gold becomes a bank-based money. Silver is valuable enough to be able to carry around in coin form and buy stuff. It is not really valuable enough to be a target for thieves. Gold coins, however, are extremely valuable. You aren't going to pay for something in a store or a bar with a gold coin without attracting very unwanted attention. Which is why gold tends to get deposited into banks - with vaults - so paper banknotes (bank-based money) representing a claim to that gold are what you would carry around. And once in the bank, bankers can use that gold for their own purposes as long as the banknote is circulating. The division between "silver bankers" and "gold bankers" back then had nothing to do with your conspiracy theory. It was a simple division between nationally-chartered bankers - most in NY, all of them with a strong wholesale banking business based on gold trade flow to/from Europe - and local/retail bankers who merely wanted a prosperous local economy that didn't depend on NY-based wholesale loans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.229.156.230 (talk) 04:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The missing beef
I was also confused by historical sources who refer to proponents of silver money as supporting the political policies of cheap money and inflation. I think I understand now. The constitution specified gold and silver as money. We went from gold&silver as money, to just gold as money, to paper/digits as money, which is where we are today. The 'crime of 73' made just gold money. This meant there was far less legal money, only gold was dollars. This made everything (priced in dollars) worth less and gold dollars worth far more. This would be entirely unfair to businesses or farmers who took debt in dollars of gold/silver. Now to pay back in just gold dollars, it was far more expensive. This must have broke many who took debt, and at the same time allowed wealthy people with gold to buy up many assets. Restoring silver to money would bring back the silver 'dollar of their fathers', which was cheaper. The historical/establishment view on monetary policy is biased from the perspective that we have 'progressed' to fiat money. Historians like to include people like silverites or Jennings Bryant as being part of this progression to loose monetary policies. They sneak in confusing references which equate advocating silver money to advocating inflation. I suspect/know this is purposefully misleading. In reality silver money advocates wanted to undo the radical monetary actions that removed silver as money, because it caused a depression and ruined many prosperous Americans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Goldminersilverbuyer (talk • contribs) 05:57, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

"Free silver, sixteen to one!"
Mentioned in Robert Heinlein's book "Waldo", a character had a button reading 'Free silver, sixteen to one!'. Any idea what that meant? --StarChaser Tyger (talk) 03:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

"Inflationary" adjective/epithet
Article uses inflationary as a meaningless adjective and epithet. The result is that the article explains nothing and seems to be merely a prop for the authors own views of either bad history or bad economics or both. Silver bullion turned into silver coin cannot be inflationary. It is the exact same metal in a different format. The only "inflation" in the coining would be the seignorage decision - the difference between the face value of the coin and the value of the metal it contains. That creates an ability to satisfy a debt - out of thin air. Turning 10c of silver into a silver dollar. Inflation. With the benefit going to whoever gets the seignorage.

Most free silver advocates were in favor of "free minting". That is - a policy where anyone can bring bullion into a mint and walk out with the same bullion in coin form - minus minting/alloying costs - with no/nominal seignorage. That is not inflationary. It is merely a recognition that silver is money. Obviously they objected to the governments deliberate decision to restrict the coinage of silver - while allowing unbacked greenbacks to be turned into gold. That government decision was, like all government decisions made for mostly political/power reasons.

The only "inflationists" back then were the "greenbackers" - a different group than the Silverites. And perhaps those who argued for a fixed ratio between silver:gold (the 16:1) if they also argued that the resulting seignorage should go to them rather than the government as a revenue stream.

It's a really interesting argument and period in our history. Unfortunately, get nothing of that from this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.229.156.230 (talk) 04:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Statement of fact??
The statement "The city voters - especially German Americans- opposed free silver beacause it would lead to economic disaster should more correctly be " because they believed it would". The article is generally biased against the free silver movement and that supposed statement of fact is the smoking gun. It was finally the discovey of gold in Alaska (which had a monetary supply increase effect) that brought the US out of its ecominic doldrums of the 1890's.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.127.247.157 (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Inflation vs. Lower Prices?
The article states "who were creditors and would be hurt by inflation, against the more rural areas of the country, who were less affluent and often debtors and would benefit from the lower prices and other perceived benefits of a silver based monetary supply". Since when does inflation cause lower prices? Is there some phenomenon I don't know about here? Davidlark (talk) 09:35, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
 * it got garbled and I fixed it. Rjensen (talk) 10:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Free Silver → Free silver – There is no apparent reason for the capitalization of this title. Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support Caroline Augusta Lloyd -Henry Demarest Lloyd, 1847-1903, a biography 1912 does have the quote "The Free Silver movement is a fake. Free Silver is the cow-bird of the Reform movement. It waited until the nest had been built by the sacrifices and labour of others, and then it laid its eggs in it, pushing out the others which lie ..." but it doesn't seem capitalized in modern academic sources. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:16, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. A 21st-century Google Books search for "free silver" jennings bryan shows that, while the uppercase version is not unusual, lowercase predominates. Dohn joe (talk) 17:32, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Support; seems reasonable to me, no strong reason to capitalise "silver". bobrayner (talk) 09:32, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.