Trends in Gold Production and Monetary Stocks

DURING recent years there has been little more than a spasmodic relationship between gold and most of the world's currencies. Yet despite the depression and the vagaries of monetary policies, the position of gold has remained unchanged in one respect -- there has been an unlimited willingness to accept it everywhere. No tariffs or quotas restrict its flow in the settlement of international balances. Labor spent on producing gold in Russia buys more machinery than the same labor devoted to wheat production. Colombia can buy airplanes with gold better than with coffee. This universal usefulness of gold implies that its