Anons, as all of this talk around the Fed (Let's fucking END it) is going on around us, the topic of Gold and Silver (really a 'basket' of hard currencies is needed here I think a lot of us can agree on that) is going to be constant moving forward. For those of you new to the topic or even those whom who have never heard of him, I would like to suggest folks look into the editorials on the metals markets by Howard Katz. He provides a really deep understanding of the fundamentals and also the history/info on sound monetary policy in the vain of Adam Smith and the Von Mises Institute. His articles are very informative about practical matters as it pertains. So, a brief quote and a link, but i would invite you to DDG him by name and include Kitco in the search terms, which is where the articles were featured (at least where i saw them)….

This snippet is about the 'depression'…

"In early 1933, the average American worker was receiving 54 ounces of gold per year. If he saved 15% of this, he was saving a bit over 8 ounces of gold per year. Assume that the average worker had accumulated 25 years of savings (half of an average working lifetime) or 200 oz. of gold, and this would have approximately doubled due to accumulated interest at 5% over 25 years. Thus the average American working man had savings of 400 ounces of gold (in 1933). "…

"Another important piece of information concerns butter and margarine. Again at the time no one was aware of a health issue. Margarine was cheap; butter tasted better. Poor people ate margarine; middle income and rich people ate butter. So what happened in the “depression?

From 1929 to 1934, annual consumption of butter by Americans rose by 1 pound per person. During the same period annual consumption of margarine fell by 0.8 pounds. (Same source; series G-888 and G-889, p. 330.) Butter is very interesting as Historical Statistics has data going back to 1869. Shortly after the Civil War there was a massive “depression almost as severe as that of the 1930s. (These are called secondary post-war “depressions because they characteristically occur after major wars.) And yet, during this “depression, like that of the 1930s, per capita butter consumption rose. What is the all-time peak in butter consumption in American history? It is 1896, right in the middle of the silver campaign “depression. Indeed, Americans ate more butter per person in 1896 than they eat butter plus margarine today. Conversely, both World War I and World War II saw a sharp drop in butter consumption in what modern economists will tell you was a boom. Strange, is it not? When the economists tell us that we are poor, we act as though we are rich. And when they tell us we are rich, we act poor.

A final statistic should wrap up the case. Poor people are not likely to give to charity. What happened to American charitable giving during the great “depression? It rose from 0.15% in 1929 to 0.20% in 1932. (Ibid., G-458, p. 319.) By way of comparison, giving in 1970 was 0.14%."

https://www. kitco.com/ind/Katz/jan182008.html