Gold bug

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For other uses, see Gold bug (disambiguation).
Car on Avenue B, New York, advertising cash for gold, in 2011, during a peak in gold prices

In economics, the term gold bug has three common meanings:

  • an investor who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold (XAU - ISO 4217).[citation needed]
  • a person who opposes or criticizes the use of fiat currency and supports a return to the use of the Gold Standard[1] or some other currency system based on the value of gold and other hard assets.
  • someone who considers one commodity, usually gold, "the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy".[2][3]

The concept, in the second sense, was popularized in the 1896 US Presidential Election, when William McKinley supporters took to wearing gold lapel pins, gold neckties, and gold headbands in a demonstration of support for gold against the "silver menace."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Gevinson, Alan. Silverites, Populists, and the Movement for Free Silver. Teachinghistory.org, accessed 18 December 2011.
  2. ↑ Konczal, Mike (21 January 2011). "Kristol, Kalecki, and a 19th Century Economist Defending Patriarchy all on Political Macroeconomics.". Rortybomb. 
  3. ↑ Krugman, Paul (22 November 1996). "The Gold Bug Variations". Slate. Archived from the original on 2 December 1998. 
  4. ↑ Mieczkowski, Yanek and Carnes, The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections (2001), p.176. ISBN 0-415-92133-3

See also

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