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Comment by trident5000 | Hacker News Reader

Define volatile. The only currency that has stood the test of time is gold, a private currency. Every fiat currency in history has failed.

Probably because heads of state like to print it to solve their short term problems essentially robbing everyone with an inflation tax. I dont call that stable or just. I work and save and expect my currency to hold up and not be abused which is not happening currently.

Edit: HN must be the worst platform in existence to debate. I have about 700 karma and cant comment more than 3 times on this thread. Your rules are not helping discussion or clearing clutter, they're just really annoying. Retrac: no ive hit a limit and cant respond anymore on the whole thread even with only a few comments.

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> Every fiat currency in history has failed.

That's funny. The extant fiat currencies haven't failed. So, the only ones that have failed... are the failed ones. And those have failed, 100%, indeed.

What's the percentage of failed to non-failed? Are we pushing close to 100% ?

Actually all the euro area currencies that were removed from circulation in exchange for euros; franc, deutchmark, lira etc. did not fail at all.

Thus, not every currency has failed, although it could be argued that they still exist in a 'shadow' form, thus have not yet existed to the end of the infinite timeline.

Either way every failed currency has indeed failed, thus every currency in the future that fails will also be considered to be a failure, maintaining the 100% record for failure.

Hacker News has a short delay before you can reply to a new comment. I think precisely to stop instant replies and give people a chance to think about it?

Anyway. There's a cute video out there I can't find now of a man trying to use gold in New York to buy something. Anything. The results indicate its use as a currency was questionable. (No one would accept it as payment.)

Except gold is not a currency. It's a commodity. Gold coins used to be a currency in certain times and places. Insofar as they're not recognized anymore, at least where I live, they've actually failed.

I believe the Canadian maple series of gold and silver coins have some face value, and you can spend them like that if you wish. 1oz gold = 50CAD FV, and 1oz Silver = 5CAD if I'm not mistaken. However when you try to bring them across borders they are evaluated at their numanistic value.

Sure, there are countries where noble metal coins are still currency. That doesn't mean that this proves that "gold as currency has stood the test of time".

> The only currency that has stood the test of time is gold, a private currency.

I'm curious about what leads you to claim that gold is "a private currency". Can you elaborate on the rationale behind your claim?

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