Business Posts

Fiat Currencies And The Gold Standard

Finance

Most people don’t realize it, but the current form of printed money we all know and love is actually worthless. While the dollar value on the paper may say $5 or $10, it only holds that relative intrinsic value because each government says it does. There are unfortunately no assets or underlying resources protecting that value, something that has the potential to rapidly destabilize any given currency in the event of an economic or wide-scale crisis. This type of currency is known as a fiat currency, and it has become the standard in the last 40 years or so. Prior to the conversion to fiat currencies though, most world currencies were backed with an actual equivalent amount of gold. This was known as the Gold Standard. In principle, I personally think the idea of a Gold Standard makes a lot more sense than currencies backed by government promises. The one […]

The Joy of Investing

Finance

I was talking to someone the other day, and we were both sort of lamenting the long gone days of adolescence. I remember being 17 years old, working a part-time summer job at Bonanza. While summer was only two months off, a good chunk of that was spend up at Cultus Lake, working as a dishwasher 20 hours or so a week, and spending as much time with my friends as possible. As a kid, you really don’t have to worry about where your money is going to go since you really don’t have much to spend it on, other than the world’s crappiest car and the occasional trip to the waterslides. Unfortunately, us adults have to take things a bit more seriously. If nothing else, we’re all told that we have to start saving money as soon as possible for retirement. Our generation is going to be one of […]