Price Historyhttp://goldprice.org/images/monthly_dollar.gif
20 year gold price history in US Dollars per ounce.^Top
http://goldprice.org/charts/history/...data_o_usd.png
CurrencyMan: As more and more money is printed and brought into circulation the monetary value of the US Dollar goes down. Gold then just adjusts to the price in compensation.
It is not that complicated. Monetary Inflation is caused by too much money chasing the same goods.
Gold is No Man's Debt and it retains its value and is exchangeable in any currency. China and Russia are increasing their inventory of Gold.
Other people here with a knowledge of Gold please feel free to add your comments.
Everything you need to know about Gold...
http://measuringworth.com/docs/GoldInterpretation.pdf
5. Availability over Time: The gold price is a price that can be defined,
catalogued, and measured precisely, going back centuries in time. Further, there exist
several gold-price series with these properties. The appropriate gold-price series can be
compared with prices, or price indices, of ordinary commodities. An example is the work
of Jastram (1977).
6. Present Relevance: The price of gold is still relevant today, with gold traded in
various markets around the world, including London and New York. The motivation is
speculation on the price of gold, or investment in gold as an asset the long-term price of
which might be forecasted as upward. Further, in some developing countries, gold is a
basic store of value, hoarded by people who distrust government paper money (currency),
bank money (deposits), and paper assets (bonds). Of course, the price of gold is also
http://www.measuringworth.com/slavery.php
Snippet:
The Economic Status.
The $500 average slave price in 1850 can also be thought of as a signaling device of status in a period where the annual per capita income was about $130. Economic status can be viewed as the ability to purchase expensive goods. Today, the middle and upper-middle classes aspire to goods and services such as a second home, servants, and an expensive car as a way of showing others that they have "arrived," that they have achieved some status in the economy. The average slave price in 1850 was roughly equal to the average price of a house, so the purchase of even one slave would have given the purchaser some status. Comparisons based on economic status are measured by the relative ratio of GDP per capita. Consequently $500 in those days corresponds to nearly $200,000 in economic status today.14
Figure 5
The Real Price of Owning a Slave
in 2009 Dollars
http://www.measuringworth.com/images...ry/figure5.jpg
Real Price
Economists commonly use the real price measure when they are trying to account for the impact of inflation. The real price today is computed by multiplying the value in the past by the increase in the consumer price index (CPI). The result compares that past value to a ratio of the cost of a fixed bundle of goods and services the average consumer buys in each of the two years. In the construction of the CPI bundle, an effort is made to compensate for quality changes in the mix of the bundle over time.15 Still, the longer the time span, the less consistent the comparison. In the 19th century, there were no national surveys to figure out what the average consumer bought. The earliest budget study used by economic historians was of 397 workmen's families in Massachusetts and was constructed in 1875. These families spent over half their income on food and rented their housing.16
The MeasuringWorth calculator shows that the "real price" of $500 in 1850 would be approximately $12,000 in 2009 prices. We all can identify with what that amount of money would buy today, but hardly anything we would spend $12,000 on today was available 160 years ago. $500 in 1850 would have purchased 6,000 pounds of bacon, 3,800 pounds of coffee, 2,000 pounds of butter, or 1,200 gallons of gin. It is unlikely, however, that this was the budget of the typical slave owner. Most of the food would be produced on the plantation, and housing would have been buildings constructed by the owner (and his slaves). The "opportunity cost" of the $500 for the slave owner would have been supplies for the plantation or perhaps luxuries and travel.
Using the real price is not the correct index to use for measuring the value of a slave's labor services in today's prices. It does, however, give an idea of what the cost of purchasing a slave was in 2009 dollars. Thus, just before the start of the Civil War, the average price of a slave in the United States was $20,000 in current dollars. There is ample evidence that there are several million of people enslaved today even though slavery is not legal anywhere in the world. There are several organizations such as Anti-Slavery International that will point out that in many places today, slaves sell for as little as (or even less than) $100!
