I was talking with a friend about the Gold standard and he asked me this hypothetical and i wasn't sure how to respond so i'm interested in what the answer is.
He said:
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Well lets say given country A and country B, both with equal per capita GDP, both with free banking systems built around the gold standard. Country A suddenly decides to legislate a fractional reserve central banking structure. They can suddenly sell future debt to country B (or any buyer) for gold. They can monetize their debt to the point of gathering every ounce of gold on the planet. How then, can country B battle this? Their currency is pegged to the value of their gold holdings and they have no gold. Their currency value declines merely engaging in trade with Country A.
Like any arms race, whoever creates the "technology" (idea) first wins. Much like the USA in its pursuit of the bomb, as soon as we acquired it our goal became to marginalize the rest of the world's access to it. Central fractional-reserve banking structures are the biggest weapon in the world at this point."
My reply was who would sell gold for fiat paper money but i know that's not an aqequate response. I guess we both want to know what would most likely happen if America went back to a gold standard but the rest of the world didn't.
Like any arms race, whoever creates the "technology" (idea) first wins.
The aim isn't to have the most gold. Unless it is, then the first one wins if they can get it all. I guess the other country would have to resort to a free market currency of some kind if they found that there just wasn't enough gold to back up money with. People prefer stable money in the sense that the supply of it is stable and it remains stable with respect to prices. Banks like it because it makes it easier to get out loans and calculate what they will recoup. People like it because they know what they'll have to do to pay back loans. Savers like it because they have a good idea of what their money will be worth.
As soon as gold started quickly leaving the country, people would find difficulty in repaying loans as there would effectively be a deflation. They would have to refinance. Banks would be willing to change the terms of loans because the purchasing power of money has increased. Other currencies would emerge.
There is a story about the Spanish. Centuries ago, they obtained plenty of gold. They noticed that it made them richer. Then they got a lot more gold and focussed way too many efforts on getting more. Even though they had more gold, they become more impoverished as a result. (I forget where I read this and I'm missing plenty of details, but it's close to the point)
Money doesn't equal wealth. Wages don't ultimately come from money, but from creating something that is valued.
>>Their currency is pegged to the value of their gold holdings and they have no gold.
its completely implausible that they would sell all their gold. The more gold they sell for future debt that they expect to be paid and worth the gold (may not be all that much!), the less gold they have, the marginal utility of their gold increases. Their currency does not 'decline', it would strengthen. They are not debasing their gold....
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
I think introducing "countries" into the equation unnecessarily complicates it. Easier is to reason about two banks. Bank A exchanges its notes 1:1 for gold and always maintains 100% reserves to back up its notes. Bank B begins to print its notes beyond the reserves actually backing them. If people are induced to use B-notes, then it is true that A-notes will disappear from circulation as they are either exchanged in at Bank A for gold or just hoarded. No one will trade away the more valuable A-note for a B-note. But the root problem is not that Bank B is so clever and using their currency as a "weapon", it's that people are being forced to use B-notes.
In the case of two countries, you can change the scenario slightly and think of Bank A and Bank B as territorial monopolies, that is, central banks. Everyone in Country A is forced to use A-notes and everyone in Country B is forced to use B-notes. If Central Bank A continues to exchange its notes 1:1 for gold and maintains 100% reserves for its notes, then it does not matter what Central Bank B does. If B-notes are being continually devalued, it will subsidize A-importers and B-exporters on the backs of B-citizens but A-notes will be unaffected. Gold will not flow out of Central Bank A unless it begins inflating its own notes. Whenever gold begins to flow out of a country, it is always that country's government's fault. Germany can't steal Britain's gold reserves by simply printing marks.
America could go back to the gold standard today. We would experience an immediate, severe but short-term depression while all the investments built on the expectation of future Fed inflation were liquidated. Once we got past that, we would experience unprecedented economic growth.
Clayton -
thx everyone for the responses. They all helped a lot.