India's culture is domiated by the eternal hope that one day we will have a roof under our head and the house will be our own. United Kingdom wanted to travel the wide world , explore and conquer, even far away islands such as Malvinas islands.
Let us consider the gold prices in two countries, United Kingdom, where the Sun used to never set and India, the country of eternal hope, where hope is the only future.
HISTORICAL GOLD PRICES
Isaac Newton as the master of the mint in U.K. set the price of gold in 1717 to £3.17s.10d per troy ounce. As the center of capitalism remained in London, U.K., with Westminster acting as the center of the world, till the two world wars, the price of the gold was a reflection of the state of the economy of U.K. Gold prices go up when U.K. economy was doing badly, e.g., during Napeleonic wars and the first world war.
After the second world war the United States began to play a dominant role in world economy as indicated by the Bretton Woods agreement which decalred that the universal world currency will be the dollar. The U.S. dollar replaced the British Pound as the dominant currency, as indicated in 1949 by the devaluation of British Pound from $4.03 to $2.80. Gold was fixed at a rate of $35/ounce. The Bretton Woods agreement also allowed American enterprises to penetrate into other countries by breaking down tariffs and trade barriers. This further undermined the British economy.
Due to its constant military adventures in Europe, Korea and Vietnam, by the end of the 1960s, the United States realized that due to bad performance of its economy it no more has enough reserves to control the actual value of gold. Richard Nixon on August 15th (ironically the independence day of India) 1971 announced that the U.S. dollar would no more be pegged to an archaic material like gold. Since then the U.S. dollar and world market has taken a profoundly non-materialistic, surrealistic appearance.
| Year | India (Rupees/10 gram) | United Kingdom (U.S.$/ounce) |
|---|---|---|
| 1930 | 18.05 | 20.05 |
| 1940 | 36.04 | 33.85 |
| 1950 | 99.18 | 34.72 |
| 1960 | 111.87 | 35.27 |
| 1970 | 184.5 | 36.02 |
| 1980 | 1330 | 615.00 |
| 1990 | 3200 | 383.51 |
| 2000 | 4400 | 279.11 |
| 2010 | 18500 | 1410.11 |
| 2012 | 30420 | 1908.02 |
With gold being no more the determining material currency, one might ask, what is that material that determines world economy. The answer is the liquid gold, Petroleum. The U.S. dollar was pegged to roughly at $40/barrel till the year 2000. The year 2000 is indicative of a new phase in the world politics and economics. The U.S. governmemt has decided to take direct military actions to restore the price of oil. Military adventures in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are indicative of this belligerence. The American superman that fixes the evil increase in price of crude of oil by invading other alien creatures in other countries has arrived. Other evil communist countries like North Korea or Cuba might challenge American hegemony but capitalists will only show interest in countries where there is oil.
The actual malaise in the U.S. economy cannot be solved by invading other countries as Hitler tried to do in Europe. Fascistic American nationalism can only be solved by international resistance. Europe is now trying to ally with the American fascism, just as many neighboring countries in Europe tried befriending Hitler. Europe will soon realize that eventually they will be engulfed in this great misadventure, as reistance against U.S. fascism grows internationally.
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