QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong, I have been following you for all my adult life and that has exceeded 20 years by now and am shocked to say, I found your article on how things evolve GOLD-Oil-Dollar. I must say this is a eye-opening evolution you are talking about. Has this always been the case with things changing coming into play and then vanishing?
ANSWER: Absolutely. I have written about how gold vanished from use with the Dark Age following the fall of Rome. Gold did not reappear in coinage for nearly 600 years. The first gold coin to reappear in Britain came during the 13th century issued by Henry III.
The Gold Cups of Mycenae
The same thing took place with the Dark Age in Greece. This is when the Mycenae ruled known as the Heroic Period of which Homer wrote. Scholars thought it was just fiction written by Homer until the ancient city of Troy was discovered. Troy VIIaappears to have been destroyed by war around 1184 BC. However, scholars did not believe the writings of Homer because Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC. He remains famous for his work The Iliad and The Odyssey. So once again there is about 600 years separating the Heroic Age and the Hellenistic Age.
If we turn to Japan, here too we find that the emperor abused his power to issue money and once again we find money vanish for about 600 years. Each new emperor devalued all previously issued coinage to 10% of his new coinage. People simply refused to accept coins because they were devalued and were no a store of value.
Therefore, throughout economic history we always have long-term structural reform. Do not expect either gold or oil to always be a valuable component.
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