Ralph Sir Edward
TUG Member
One can look at inflation as prices going up, or equally validly, as the value of money going down. A cross-check is looking at prices of constant goods over time. As one science fiction writer called it - "The hamburger scale".
But to silver and gold.
I use the US, because I am familiar with it. In 1965, the US dropped silver backing to its currency. At that time (or so), silver was valued at .7272 Troy ounces to the dollar. It is now around $22 USD to the Troy ounce. Or an increase of 16X. Constant scale goods rose in the order of 15X to 20X over that time period. Of equal interest the DJIA went from around 1000 to 33000, or around a 32X increase. It is a very rough estimate, as it doesn't include dividends over time, nor the changes and bankruptcies of some of the Dow components (only fair - if you bought x dollars of either one in 1965, you were holding to today.)
Gold is more interesting. The US went fully off of the gold standard on Aug 15 1971. Free market gold around that time was going for around $40 USD. Gold was somewhat legal at US citizens at the time (this is another whole can of worms!), so legal gold coins could be bought for around $50 a Troy ounce. (A good scholarly work on the period of illegality of gold in the US is the book Confiscation - by Ken Ferguson. Short and a good level-headed read.) Gold is now around $1900 USD; which is 38X gain over the period. The Dow was at around 900 at the time, now it is around 33000; a 37X gain (subject to the same caveats as above) . Roughly the same gain.
These are . . . ahem . . .the cold, hard numbers.
Feel free to look them up yourselves.
But to silver and gold.
I use the US, because I am familiar with it. In 1965, the US dropped silver backing to its currency. At that time (or so), silver was valued at .7272 Troy ounces to the dollar. It is now around $22 USD to the Troy ounce. Or an increase of 16X. Constant scale goods rose in the order of 15X to 20X over that time period. Of equal interest the DJIA went from around 1000 to 33000, or around a 32X increase. It is a very rough estimate, as it doesn't include dividends over time, nor the changes and bankruptcies of some of the Dow components (only fair - if you bought x dollars of either one in 1965, you were holding to today.)
Gold is more interesting. The US went fully off of the gold standard on Aug 15 1971. Free market gold around that time was going for around $40 USD. Gold was somewhat legal at US citizens at the time (this is another whole can of worms!), so legal gold coins could be bought for around $50 a Troy ounce. (A good scholarly work on the period of illegality of gold in the US is the book Confiscation - by Ken Ferguson. Short and a good level-headed read.) Gold is now around $1900 USD; which is 38X gain over the period. The Dow was at around 900 at the time, now it is around 33000; a 37X gain (subject to the same caveats as above) . Roughly the same gain.
These are . . . ahem . . .the cold, hard numbers.
Feel free to look them up yourselves.