Topic: Gold Standard

Dedollarization, the BRICS Expansion, and Sound Money

“Russia and China are leading an effort to not only strengthen cooperation between the five nation BRICS core but to expand the membership of BRICS into a ‘BRICS+.’” ~ Peter C. Earle

Only a Retail Gold Standard Could Dethrone the Dollar

“If a large subset of countries, like the BRICS, adopted the retail gold standard, the United States and the European Union would have to join, or watch demand for their fiat currencies decline.” ~ Robert E. Wright and Byron B. Carson III

The Gold Standard: Retrospect and Prospect

Congress Can Restore the Integrity of the Dollar

“The historical record is clear: Gold-backed money is fully capable of delivering short-run stability and long-run prosperity. The Fed can’t.” ~ David Brat & Alexander William Salter

The End of Bretton Woods, Jacques Rueff, and the “Monetary Sin of the West”

“As its contemporary critics understood, Bretton Woods was doomed to fail if it could not be fundamentally reformed. One of its chief contemporary critics was the French economist, Jacques Rueff.” ~ Lawrence H. White

Adopting a Gold Standard Would Promote Fiscal Discipline

“We could allow for a de facto gold standard at little cost. And this standard would ensure that investors could discipline government for borrowing excessively. If citizens were allowed to save their income in gold-denominated accounts without extra costs of taxation and financial regulation, disciplining their government would be as easy as changing the form of one’s savings account.” ~ James L. Caton

Do Not Trust Governments with the Control of Money

“If Judy Shelton is appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and if she actually espouses and defends the ideas for which she is being condemned by so many of those ‘mainstream’ economists today, it may be a useful step to the societal transformation to a freer society, a key long run element of which must be the freeing of money from political control.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Judy Shelton is Right About the Gold Standard

“When it comes to the gold standard, the experts have spent too much time reading their textbooks and not enough time studying actual history. Empirical questions require empirical answers, and no amount of armchair theorizing can settle how gold stacks up to fiat money. On this, Dr. Shelton is right and the commentariat wrong.” ~ Alexander W. Salter

Paul Krugman’s Ad Hominem Defense of Central Banking

“Paul Krugman may hide behind rude and crude ad hominem attacks on those who do not share his views, but that does not prove his case. It only serves to harm his own reputation and legitimacy in the arena of public policy debate.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

Long-Discredited Positions on the Monetary System

“Considering the evidence, it appears to be Mr. Rattner, rather than Ms. Shelton, who holds “long-discredited positions on the monetary system.” Historical bank failures and crises, particularly during the Great Depression, are generally attributable to interference by regulators and central bankers, not to the gold standard.” ~ Thomas L. Hogan

Gold and Free Banking versus Central Banking

“In the absence of government regulation and monopoly control, a free monetary and banking system would exist; it would not have to be created, designed, or supported. A market-based system would naturally emerge, take form, and develop out of the prior system of monetary central planning.” ~ Richard M. Ebeling

That Civilized Relic: A Monetary System as Good as Gold

“The gold standard isn’t perfect. No system is. But it has many virtues. A strong case can be made that it’s the best of all feasible institutional alternatives. As my dissertation adviser, Lawrence White, puts it: The gold standard is still the gold standard among monetary systems.” ~