Xref: utzoo sci.engr:1384 sci.econ:3912 sci.space:31757 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!bryans From: bryans@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (B. Charles Siegfried) Newsgroups: sci.engr,sci.econ,sci.space Subject: Re: Excavating (mining) gold in the space by NASA. Message-ID: <1991Jun15.200029.23090@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: 15 Jun 91 20:00:29 GMT References: <1991Jun14.161710.27655@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> <1991Jun14.183424.654@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana Lines: 20 shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes: >The gold and silver that the Spanish brought back from the New World >messed up the European economy quite greviously. Galloping inflation, >with too much money (precious metals, of course) chasing too few goods. >This caused a lot of instability, first economic and then political. When the Spanish brought back their riches, Europe's currency was essentially based on precious metals. Gold and silver do have more influence than most commodities, but an infusion of a larg amount of gold would have little effect on the whole world economy compared to what Europe experienced in the mercatilist age. Besides, the need to open new markets and to grow certainly outweighs any minor dislocations in the process. Europe may have experienced a little shake - up when their metal currency was debased, but the summ effect of colonialization provided a tremendous boost to the European economy. __ Bryan Siegfried Biology and Economics at UIUC zig@uiuc.edu