The demise of American coinage is the story of US money in a nutshell. Coins were made of gold and silver. Today, even coins of base metals have face values less than the value of the metal itself.
Mainstream economics does a disservice when students are taught that money is a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account without explaining why and how money came to function in those categories.
Mainstream economics does a disservice when students are taught that money is a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account without explaining why and how money came to function in those categories.
While the government tells us that inflation is down because the CPI says so, there is another metric that tells a different story: measurement by gold prices.
Three pro-gold and silver groups have teamed up to present the second edition of the Sound Money Review, a scholarly journal dedicated to advancing principles of sound money.
Patrick Newman traces the National Banking System from Salmon P. Chase’s wartime bond sales and initially hostile relations with New York financiers through the pyramid of bankers’ balances that concentrated reserves on Wall Street.
Years before the English currency school made it famous, Americans were arguing for one hundred percent reserves, and some wanted banking abolished outright.
Mark Thornton, Ryan McMaken, Kevin Duffy, and JP Cortez close out the 2026 New Mexico Mises Circle by taking audience questions on gold, silver, Bitcoin, investing in China, the fate of the dollar, and the ballooning national debt.
Mark Thornton uses Austrian theory to explain where money came from — Menger's bottom-up origin of money — and why gold makes for sound money and smaller government.
