Interesting data and questions, CoolAsACucumber.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=ford+raised+pay+for+production+line+workers+to+%245+per+day
Early in the 20th century, line workers at Ford were paid less than $2.50 per day. Turnover was high -- the work was monotonous -- and then Henry Ford had the genius idea to start paying workers $5 per day -- a quarter-ounce $5 gold coin, or 5 one-ounce silver dollars. (The actual pay scheme was more complicated than that; see some of the articles at link above for details).
Forbes suggests 240 work days per year for these workers, meaning yearly wages were being upgraded to $1200 or 60 ounces of gold, = $117,426 at the current gold price as I type this.
As for silver: 240 working days at $5 each = $1200 silver coinage face value = $27,684 at current silver pricing, again per current silver market value.
Back then (January 1914), each dollar was worth one-twentieth of an ounce of gold or one full ounce of silver (minus the seignorage, or the Treasury's cut for coining the metal). Roughly speaking, gold (by weight) was pegged at 20 times the value of silver. That is fairly close (a bit high, really) to the historic average over the centuries.
Today, gold's market value is ($1957.10/oz divided by $23.07/oz) = 84.833 times the value of silver.
Yes, it seems reasonable to believe that silver is dramatically undervalued today. That doesn't prove it will rise in value relative to gold, but if one had to bet . . .
Interesting data and questions, CoolAsACucumber.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=ford+raised+pay+for+production+line+workers+to+%245+per+day
Early in the 20th century, line workers at Ford were paid less than $2.50 per day. Turnover was high -- the work was monotonous -- and then Henry Ford had the genius idea to start paying workers $5 per day -- a quarter-ounce $5 gold coin, or 5 one-ounce silver dollars. (The actual pay scheme was more complicated than that; see some of the articles at link above for details).
Forbes suggests 240 work days per year for these workers, meaning yearly wages were being upgraded to $1200 or 60 ounces of gold, = $117,426 at the current gold price as I type this.
As for silver: 240 working days at $5 each = $1200 silver coinage face value = $27,684 at current silver pricing, again per current silver market value.
Back then (January 1914), each dollar was worth one-quarter ounce of gold or one full ounce of silver (minus the seignorage, or the Treasury's cut for coining the metal). Roughly speaking, gold (by weight) was pegged at 20 times the value of silver. That is fairly close (a bit high, really) to the historic average over the centuries.
Today, gold's market value is ($1957.10/oz divided by $23.07/oz) = 84.833 times the value of silver.
Yes, it seems reasonable to believe that silver is dramatically undervalued today. That doesn't prove it will rise in value relative to gold, but if one had to bet . . .
Interesting data and questions, CoolAsACucumber.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=ford+raised+pay+for+production+line+workers+to+%245+per+day
Early in the 20th century, line workers at Ford were paid less than $2.50 per day. Turnover was high -- the work was monotonous -- and then Henry Ford had the genius idea to start paying workers $5 per day -- a quarter-ounce $5 gold coin, or 5 one-ounce silver dollars. (The actual pay scheme was more complicated than that; see some of the articles at link above for details).
Forbes suggests 240 work days per year for these workers, meaning yearly wages were being upgraded to $1200 or 60 ounces of gold, = $117,426 at the current gold price as I type this.
As for silver: 240 working days at $5 each = $1200 silver coinage face value = $27,684 at current silver pricing, again per current silver market value.
Back then (January 2014), each dollar was worth one-quarter ounce of gold or one full ounce of silver (minus the seignorage, or the Treasury's cut for coining the metal). Roughly speaking, gold (by weight) was pegged at 20 times the value of silver. That is fairly close (a bit high, really) to the historic average over the centuries.
Today, gold's market value is ($1957.10/oz divided by $23.07/oz) = 84.833 times the value of silver.
Yes, it seems reasonable to believe that silver is dramatically undervalued today. That doesn't prove it will rise in value relative to gold, but if one had to bet . . .