An Old Dog Rediscovers an Old Trick: Greenspan on the Gold Standard (Video)
An old dog may not be able to learn new tricks, but he can apparently rediscover those that are long forgotten.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of impending inflation.
His prescription?
A return to a gold standard.
Greenspan noted that growth in productivity has ground to a halt in the US. He described the current economic malaise as stagnation. Greenspan pointed out that the money supply measured by M2 is steadily increasing and has tilted up in the last several months. This is a leading indicator of inflation:
The thing that we should be worrying about now, which we have actually given no thought to whatsoever, is that this type of economic environment ends with inflation. Historically fiat money has always ended up that way.”
Of course, all of the mainstream pundits insist there is no inflation. They even argue deflation is the real boogeyman on the horizon. They will almost certainly dismiss Greenspan as old and maybe even getting a touch senile. The interviewer even seemed taken aback by his comments. But the former Fed chair stuck to his guns, saying he didn’t know when inflation would break out, but insisting it is inevitable:
If you look at human history, there are times where we thought that there was no inflation and everything was going fine… The oil prices have had a terrific impact on global inflation and would not be surprised to see the next unexpected move to be on the inflation side. You don’t have it until it happens.”
Greenspan then strayed even further outside the bounds of acceptable opinion, especially for a former head of the world’s most powerful central bank. He suggested a return to sound money:
Now if we went back on the gold standard and we adhered to the actual structure of the gold standard as it exists let’s say, prior to 1913, we’d be fine. Remember that the period 1870 to 1913 was one of the most aggressive periods economically that we’ve had in the United States, and that was a golden period of the gold standard.”
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This isn’t foreign territory for Greenspan. In the years before his elevation to head of the Federal Reserve, he was a strong advocate for sound money. Consider what he said back in the 1960s:
Under a gold standard, the amount of credit that an economy can support is determined by the economy’s tangible assets, since every credit instrument is ultimately a claim, on some tangible asset…The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit.”
Sadly, Greenspan abandoned his principles when he was leading the Fed, and fell right in line with all of the other central planners, enabling government borrowing and inflating bubbles.
Why has Greenspan publicly returned to his sound money roots? Who knows. Maybe at 90 years old he realizes he has nothing to lose. Maybe ego got the best of him when he seized the reins of power and he genuinely thought he could somehow control the economy. Maybe now he’s recognized the error of his ways. Maybe this is his way of doing penance.
But his motives don’t really matter. The important thing is that he’s right. Money needs to rest on a solid, tangible foundation. The current system is nothing but a bunch of IOUs backed up by empty promises. Eventually the house of cards will come tumbling down.
The central bankers and government policymakers will likely never return to a gold standard until their fiat system collapses. But there is nothing stopping you from buying gold and making it a foundational part of your financial planning.
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