When Harvard students were asked whether they wanted to buy a one ounce silver coin for $5 recently, they declined. This according to a video interview of Harvard students conducted by Megan Duffield recently.
Click to watch video:
Harvard University – How has the Recession Impacted Your Life?
While this video may be only a sampling of Harvard students, it does reveal a flaw in our education system as to understanding gold and silver. This is true not just from a valuing perspective, but I’m sure the one’s who recommend the basic education curriculum for students in America today would prefer students never knew anything about gold and silver and how it once was money in the United States.
How Does One Learn About Silver?
From grade school on to the university level of teaching, there are no basic requirements that explain to students what gold or silver represent in society, either from a monetary or historic basis. In fact, there isn’t even much mention of the Federal Reserve in grade school or high school textbooks, except for usually a small paragraph. Nothing is ever mentioned about gold except for the California and Klondike gold rushes.
Even the college courses one takes, all the way to post graduate studies for the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation, there is no talk of silver as money or an investment.
Part of this reasoning could stem from what was written about silver in the late 1800’s whereby silver was purposefully removed from the minds of individuals by the bankers.
Martin Wetzel Walbert, author of the 1899 book The Coming Battle: A Complete History of the National Banking Money Power in the United States, wrote the following regarding silver which might give you a different perspective on silver as money and why certain people don’t want you to know about it.
Simply put, why would the money powers at the time want to demonetize silver? Walbert provides some answers;
“The owner of silver could take his bullion to the mint, have it coined into standard silver dollars of full legal tender debt, paying power, receive them after their mintage, and transact business by their means; he was not under the necessity, when in need of money, to make application to a national bank for a loan of its circulating notes, whose sole credit rested on the solvency of the United States. He was not compelled to pay toll to the national banks for the use of their debts as money.
The national banking money power could not control the silver dollar, as long as the law authorized its free coinage, and consequently, a gigantic conspiracy was formed in London and New York City to demonetize silver.
This great money power whose almost absolute control of the currency was surely driving all business to a credit basis, deliberately planned the destruction of that precious metal whose value has been far more stable than that of gold.”
Is it any wonder that some Harvard students, arguably of intelligence to just be accepted to the university, have no clue about the value of silver? Perhaps it’s also because their economic professors at Harvard act just like the bankers of old.
Harvard Professor Calls Gold High Risk Investment
A year ago, Harvard professor Martin Feldstein wrote an article calling gold a “high risk, highly volatile” investment. I made a point on calling him out on his analysis a year ago today when I wrote, “Why Does Harvard Economics Professor Call Gold a High Risk, Highly Volatile Investment?”
Excerpt;
So while the professor laments; “Over the next few years, it (gold) may fall to $500 an ounce or rise to $2,000 an ounce. There is no way to know which it will be,” an astute investor can assume that congress and the Federal Reserve will always do what they do best. This alone is reason enough to own gold.”
And true to form, congress and the Federal Reserve have done what they always do…spend and continue to add to deficits and the nations debt, raising the ceiling on said debt multiple times in the last 12 years.
Where are the Harvard, Wharton and Yale economic professors decrying this debt? With bias like this, it’s no wonder that Harvard students are kept in the dark. For these students, and many others across the nation, professors impress upon them that government and the Fed are the answer to everything. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So if you are a student out there, or someone who has finished schooling, but just don’t understand gold or silver, start reading a bit and educate yourself. Then when someone comes along and asks to sell you a one ounce silver coin for $5, you’ll gladly do the exchange.
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About Doug EberhardtDoug Eberhardt is a 28 year financial services veteran and precious metals broker selling gold and silver at 1% over wholesale cost. Doug has written a book to help investors understand how gold and silver fit into a diversified portfolio, how to buy gold and silver, and what metals to buy. The book; “Buy Gold and Silver Safely” is available by clicking here Contact phone number for Buy Gold and Silver Safely is 888-604-6534
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