As evidence mounts that the major Western economies are heading into a banking and monetary crisis due to contracting credit, we face the consequences of unsound money. The era of fiat is drawing to a close and its death will be painful for the highly indebted advanced economies in North America, Europe, and Japan. History and legal precedent tell us that fiat will die and gold will return to provide an anchor to credit system values.
Any suggestion of returning the monetary system to a gold standard is immediately met with howls of protest. “It’s impossible!” were told.
But Bettina Bien Greaves who was a translator, editor, and bibliographer for economist Ludwig von Mises’ works argues that there is no practical reason we couldn’t return to a gold standard. The objections are almost all ideological. “If this basic obstacle could be overcome, however, a return to gold money would become a realistic possibility,” she wrote.
Peter Schiff recently appeared on the Jay Martin Show. During the interview, he explains how the private sector can ultimately lead the world back to a gold standard.
Fifty-one years ago this week, President Richard Nixon slammed shut the “gold window” and eliminated the last vestige of the gold standard.
Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. During a national television address, on Aug. 15, 1971, Nixon promised the action would be temporary in order to “defend the dollar against the speculators,” but this turned out to be a lie. The president’s move permanently and completely severed the dollar from gold and turned it into a pure fiat currency.
With the impact of sanctions tanking the ruble, the Russian central bank announced it would buy gold from local banks at a fixed rate. The move had the desired effect. The ruble quickly recovered. But the Central Bank of Russia abandoned the de facto gold standard almost as fast as it implemented it.
Why?
The mainstream thinking is the gold standard failed. But as Peter Schiff explained in his podcast, the gold standard didn’t fail. We failed to stay on the gold standard.
The gold standard succeeded so well that the government went off of it.”
Labor market productivity has been dropping for decades. And you can trace the plunge back to the demise of the gold standard.
US labor market productivity plummeted in the third quarter of 2021. Revisions to the data showed a 5.2% drop in productivity, even worse than the dismal initial reading last month. It was the worst productivity decline since 1960.
It’s become increasingly hard to hide the inflation problem. Even without the sizzling hot CPI numbers, the average American experiences rising prices every day at the grocery store and the gas station.
With it becoming harder and harder to blow inflation off as transitory, apologists for the central bank and the federal government have shifted to a new strategy — try to convince you that inflation is good for you.
This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon slamming shut the so-called “gold window” and severing the last ties between the dollar and gold.
On Aug. 15, 1971, Nixon ordered Treasury Secretary John Connally to uncouple gold from its fixed $35 price and suspended the ability of foreign banks to directly exchange dollars for gold. Nixon’s order was the end of a path off the gold standard that started during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, and it set the foundation for the massive government spending and inflation we’re dealing with today.
