[A-List] Truth about Gold and Braudel

["ewc" <ewc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Henry

You say

> "Fernaud Braudel noted that the value of silver increased from
> 13th to 16th century until 1550, which he called the age of gold
> inflation, which lasted 6 centuries.

The truth however is that Fernand Braudel lied if he wrote this - the
value of silver collapsed during this period. Dropping at one point to
near a third of its original value.  (as high as 7.5 : 1 against gold
at the end of the 12th century, as low as 21 : 1 by the mid 14th
century.  It collapsed even though huge quantities of silver were
being shipped out of Europe to Islam, and huge quantities of gold
shipped into Europe.  This clearly cannot be explained by Gresham or
any other 'law' of supply and demand)

> The gold
> inflation was replaced by ilver inflation as the value of silver
fell, a
> phenonoenon which supported Gresham's Law.

"Greshams Law" is one of Braudel's axioms.  He invents a past that
fits it - a past that has nothing to do with reality, nothing to do
with the facts.  That way academia and its hangers on can hold worthy
sounding debates, fool their students and do no harm to anybody's
interests, because what they are debating is a fiction - a glass bead
game.  Debate on those terms just sinks everybody further into an
intellectual quick sand.

So long for now

Robert