Gillian Tett

speaker

1,226 appearances 12 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 2 Sep

Gillian Tett’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 12 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 4.

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The Story of Money · 1873: The year America ditched silver as money and all hell broke loose · 2 Sep 2026 podcast

Fascinating.

Was there any aspect of the shifting power of the farmers within the political structure of the US as well that mattered?

Because I'd imagine that urban voters probably had a different perspective on it.

So we have a situation where Brian's had a meteoric rise, um, it's looked for a while like he might become president on the back of the free silver m movement.

And then he loses the election.

And perhaps we shouldn't be unsurprised that actually the moneyed class, Wall Street, then goes out and celebrates.

So what that meant was, you know, you'd have this dramatic political fire around the Coinage Acts of eighteen seventy three that had fled up

and then finally burned itself t out.

And I guess one of the questions or one of the lessons is that

William Jennings Bryan was maybe right that it's not a good idea to nail your currency and your economy to Golden Cross.

Um the gold standard presumably did actually prolong the recessions of the nineteen seventies and eighteen nineties and cause deflation.

which was very unfair for borrowers like the farmers.

So I guess the question is, why did the US government then continue to insist on sticking to gold?

Why didn't they just go back to silver or print greenbacks, um, a bit like Ben Bernanke did after the two thousand eight crisis?

Well well,

So I guess one of the big lessons from all of this, which is incredibly relevant for where we are today.

Is that it's not a great idea to tie your currency's value to a random precious metal, whether it's gold or silver or anything else.

And the reason I say that's so relevant for today is there's a lot of concern expressed amongst some investors about the future of fiat currency, given that we have exploding debt burdens in the US, given that it's unclear whether the government wants to maintain the independence of the Fed, and given the risk of inflation.

So some people are saying, well, we need something other than fiat currency.

to guarantee south money in the future and inevitably there are a few calls for a return to the gold standard.

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