The Year the Government Told You Not to Hoard Your Coins
In 1965 a president promised there would be no profit in keeping silver coins. Two years later the Treasury gave up — and the public had already sorted them.
Read the article →PlainMoney is a calm, plain-language newsletter about inflation, monetary history, hard assets, and preserving wealth in uncertain times.
Start with Edmund Mercer’s free book, Why I Walked Out of My Financial Advisor’s Office.
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In 1965 a president promised there would be no profit in keeping silver coins. Two years later the Treasury gave up — and the public had already sorted them.
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A convicted murderer took control of France’s money, debt, taxes and mint — and inside two years the kingdom invented the millionaire and outlawed gold.
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The night a Federal Reserve governor confessed to the worst economic disaster in American history — and the test that came six years later.
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How the Dow stood still for sixteen years and still quietly lost two-thirds of its value.
Read the article →What PlainMoney Covers
Why prices rise, why currencies weaken, and what history says about both.
Lessons from Rome, reserve currencies, paper money, banking panics, and financial crises.
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Clear frameworks for thinking about savings, risk, and long-term purchasing power.
Plain-English explanations of ideas investors are often told but rarely shown.
The Free Book
Why I Walked Out of My Financial Advisor’s Office is a short, plain-language introduction to the ideas behind PlainMoney: monetary history, inflation, conventional investing advice, and the forgotten role of hard assets.
PlainMoney is written in the voice of Edmund Mercer, a financial historian created for readers who want calm, plain-English explanations of money, markets, and monetary history.