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Anonymous ID: 78f8e2 Nov. 11, 2022, 10:16 a.m. No.17754125   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4144 >>4168 >>4317 >>4323

September 22, 1931: President Hoover's Message on the Gold Standard GREAT BRITAIN'S DEPARTURE FROM THE GOLD STANDARD

 

I have been asked by two of your members to discuss something of the British demonetization or departure from the gold standard. I can only do that by way of background. I cannot make a public statement in the matter. I think you will understand that this situation has been pending for a good many months. There has been a large amount of British investment in the United States, and that amount, estimated by the Department of Commerce, aggregates something over $1,500 million. That is not flight of capital but steadily increasing expenditures here which naturally affects the exchanges. It has taken place not only in the past few months but for some years back. That, of course, has affected the problem of exchange. There has been some piling up of immediate cash in our banks from that quarter.

The course resolved upon by the British Government creates some temporary dislocations in the international world, but they are due more to the confusion arising out of readjustment of quotations and values than in their effect on the values of either securities or commodities.

The first effect of the decrease in the gold value of the pound is a rise in prices of commodities in Great Britain, at least in all international commodities where the price is made by international action, such as in wheat and other raw materials. There is involved a large amount of transaction based on the readjustment of those prices. A certain amount of confusion comes out of that, and the effect on our commodity markets has been a decrease in prices. There has been a rise in price in England in consequence and our prices are practically unchanged yesterday and today.

The fact that the pound is taken off its fixed value of $4.86 is not the abandonment of the gold standard even for the pound; as international commerce revolves in these days all transactions will be measured in some gold value, whether in dollars, francs, gulden, or any other of the fixed gold currencies. No transaction can take place unless it has some basis of measurement of that character. It really means that the fixed gold standard has been abandoned and a variable standard adopted which may change momentarily. But in any event all values in international commerce are bound to revolve on gold values or some measuring stick in gold. It is more or less a case of abandoning a fixed standard and adopting a variable one so far as international commerce is concerned.

The effect in England will undoubtedly be to increase exports, which amounts to price reduction compared with the standard of measurement in gold, and it should act as a stimulant and thus should increase employment and increase the demand again for raw materials. Obviously, it amounts to a reduction in standards of living temporarily in those commodities which are imported, of course raw materials, but wages and rank will lag behind. Production costs will be lower, and consequently, exports will be stimulated.

moar

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/september-22-1931-message-gold-standard

Anonymous ID: 78f8e2 Nov. 11, 2022, 10:19 a.m. No.17754144   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4155 >>4168 >>4317 >>4323

>>17754125

from Oct. 27, 1931

$18,062,600 IN GOLD SHIPPED TO FRANCE; Exports for Day Make Total of $20,650,800, but Earmark Releases Are $3,400,200. DOLLAR EXCHANGE GAINS Advances Against All Leading European Currencies Except Marks, Belgas and Swiss Francs.

 

French withdrawals of gold from this market were resumed in volume yesterday with the shipment of $18,062,600 of the metal, raising French requisitions on the monetary gold stocks of the United States in the last five weeks to $311,093,400

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1931/10/27/archives/18062600-in-gold-shipped-to-france-exports-for-day-make-total-of.html