During the gilded age, owners of large businesses and creditors (people who loaned money) favored a money policy (one that was backed only by gold), while farmers and debtors (people who owed money) favored a money policy (using paper money that was not backed by gold).

Hard money policy.

Soft money policy.

Explanation:

The main reason for the creditors and the business owners favored a hard money policy was because the money will gain value and its price would increase with time passing, hard money is backed by gold, if you buy a bar of gold, it will hold its value and increase it with time, this happens as well with money backed up by silver and gold, so creditors and loaners will receive even more money for the money they had leant in the past, that´s why they favored that policy, and the farmers and debtors favored a soft money policy because this granted them that their debt was not going to be harder to pay.

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