Tail Risk Killers: How Math, Indeterminacy, and Hubris Distort Markets

CHAPTER 3Par Value during the Black Plague: Treasuries Are Financial Teflon

Silver has its place. It’s an industrial metal, has a nice correlation with equities, and has been used as money for thousands of years. This combination of industrial demand and investment demand makes its price somewhat erratic. But don’t think that silver currency (or the gold standard) is an effective way to handcuff government theft. As long as there have been silver coins circulating, there was a crooked mint debasing them to its advantage. The Tungsten effect (where tungsten bars are plated with gold and passed off as bullion bars) is the rule, not the exception. Historically, the most common metal in coinage was lead. This is simply the nature of things. Cash ...