Multi-Billionaire Hugo Salinas Price and the Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver, A.C., have pushed the Mexican government for over a decade to provide silver as real money. Señor Salinas Price believes that they may be close to helping Mexico return to the silver standard, and discusses this in an interesting interview with Eric King (at about 0:40 on the clock).
What is particularly interesting in the interview is the idea that if Mexico does return to a silver peso, then it could become the unintended lever to compel the United States towards a silver dollar again, as the population of the United States clamours to get its hands on real money from south of the border, and perhaps particularly those large Spanish-speaking populations in areas such as Texas, Southern California, and Florida.
Shades of The Alamo in reverse?
This is, perhaps, why the U.S. government will do all in its power to prevent Mexico returning to a silver standard, but stranger things have happened at sea. After all, the United States did borrow the actual ‘dollar’ symbol, $, directly from the original Spanish peso, with its symbol of a long pennant flying from the Spanish Pillars of Hercules, when the early American colonists were faced with a British-imposed shortage of coin in pre-republic days (though you can pick your own origin myth for the dollar symbol, from amongst many).
If the silver Mexican peso does back into a silver American dollar for the second time in its history, monetary fate could be rhyming with itself again in a rather interesting manner.
I would like to wish Hugo Salinas Price the very best of luck in his endeavour to drive Mexico towards honest money.
‘…the U.S. government will do all in its power to prevent Mexico returning to a silver standard…’
I doubt they would waste diplomatic capital on the issue, frankly. However, it would be good to see the reserve currency go south of the Rio Grand again, harking back to pieces-of-eight times. My preference would be a base coin with a gram’s worth of Ag in a plastic encasement.
A big If, but if that happened, it would be a marvellous example to the World and it should kill inflation stone dead in Mexico.
It would be fascinating to see the reaction of the Feds if this happened. With QE and the deficit sinking the dollar, and Mexico on sound money, there would be a massive sulk at the very least. It would be hard to see how the US could properly complain.
Zimbabwe (yes, that Zimbabwe) is mulling over a similar move after their personal experience with the scourge of inflation. The mere fact these ideas are being discussed is great news and a potential first step towards returning sanity to the world’s finances. There was a time when the US led on these important issues, but the land of the free is barely a shadow of its former self.
One must thank the many organisations the world over, such as the Cobden Centre, for their tireless support for the idea of sound money. Perhaps Richard Cobden would be dismayed at many aspects of the world we live in, but I have to assume he would be blogging and speaking everyday, taking advantage the great tool that is the Internet!