Free Republic

It’s now official, Ranting Andy Hoffman and I are extremists. Why, because we favor a return to the Gold Standard and believe that the United States went bankrupt as a result of Nixon’s decision to abandon the remnants of the Gold Standard that were still in place in August 1971. The FBI is warning local law enforcement that people who consider themselves to be sovereign citizens, who object to EPA regulations, who resent the IRS, could be prone to extreme violence with no warning. If we’re extremists, then we hope you will join us and together we can show the...

The FBI, our federal police, have just released a report claiming that sovereign individuals, who oppose environmental regulations and believe that the United State's departure from the Gold Standard caused it to go bankrupt present a threat to law enforcement. Never mind that rampant criminality taking place on Wall Street, people who believe in limited government are now the threat. So next time you get stopped by a cop, let him now that you support ever expanding government, that he is entitled to life time free medical coverage and that his pension is way too small. And that you believe...

Just when we thought the US could not sink any further in its usurpation of civil rights, here comes the FBI to advise all those who tend to think that the broken economic model of the past century is the cause for the global insolvency, that wanton fiat diluation and reckless debt issuance does not 'fix' the problem of uber-leverage, and that the gold standard is the proper way to return to monetary stability, will henceforth be considered extremists. From Reuters: "Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United...

Berkshire Hathaway chairman and famous investor Warren Buffett has dismissed gold as a "valueless asset". Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has dismissed gold as a valueless asset saying that it has no inherent value. In an article for Fortune magazine, Buffett said that gold investors were pinning their hopes on future demand. He warned that gold was a self-inflating bubble, created by investors desperate for a viable alternative to property and shares. The infamous investor warned that investors in gold would be left with egg on their face when the price eventually crashed. "Bubbles blown large enough inevitably pop," he said....

Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.But not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it's possible to sustain today's level of federal spending and even achieve a balanced budget. All...

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level. An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of...

So far, during the presidency of Barack Obama, the price of a gallon of gasoline has jumped 83 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (AP Photo) During the same period, the price of ground beef has gone up 24 percent and price of bacon has gone up 22 percent. When Obama entered the White House in January 2009, the city average price for one gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $1.79, according to the BLS. (The figures are in nominal dollars: not adjusted for inflation.) Five months later in June, unleaded gasoline was $2.26 per gallon,...

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Newt Gingrich has moved to capture some Republican voters who lean toward Ron Paul and other Republicans who were Jack Kemp followers by naming two gold bugs to the Gingrich future team of advisers. The former House speaker says he intends to appoint investment banker Lewis E. Lehrman, famous in the Reagan era for his red suspenders and gold-standard advocacy, and Jim Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, as President Gingrich’s Gold Commission - if and when of course Mr. Gingrich wins both the Republican nomination and the general election in November. Mr. Paul, a Texas...

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is calling for the United States to think about returning to the gold standard. Speaking at a foreign policy forum in South Carolina on Tuesday, Gingrich advocated a "commission on gold to look at the whole concept of how do we get back to hard money." Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, has spoken in favor of a "hard money" policy in the past, but these were his strongest comments to support reinstating the gold standard. Gingrich would model his "gold commission" after one put in place after Ronald Reagan was elected, when the...

The United States has run up a cumulative $7.5 trillion Trade Deficit. The last time the country ran a trade surplus was in 1976. Nixon closed the Gold Window in 1971. Do you believe it's just a coincidence that the rise of an un-backed Fiat Dollar and the rise of the Trade Deficit haapened so close in time? The Country has been in a pronounced economic decline since the 1970's and when the Gold Window was closed. Since then the money supply has increased many times and so has inflation. While living standards have declined, so has domestic energy production....

Superpollster Scott Rasmussen has pulled the pin and rolled one of his patented hand grenades under the chair of the Political Class. Rasmussen’s “October Surprise” is contained in a recent poll showing 44% of likely voters favor returning to the gold standard, 28% opposed.  That intensifies.  If the public knew that it would “dramatically reduce the powers of bankers and the political class to steer the economy” support goes up to 57%.   Opposition drops to 19%. Reducing the power of bankers and the political class —  along with gold’s empirical record of turbo-charging job-creation and economic growth — is core...

NEW YORK — The next big step in the gold standard debate is going to be taken next month at Washington, when one of the original members of the Reagan-era United States Gold Commission offers a five-step plan to return America to sound money. The architect of the plan, Lewis Lehrman, a businessman and scholar, will present his program in an address October 5 at a conference in Washington on the how to return to a stable dollar. He will outline a five-step program to return America to a gold-backed currency within five years. What is significant about the event...

China sets national standards for 'high pure gold' Xinhua | September 16, 2011 16:57 Authorities have released the first national standards on "high pure gold," a move that is likely to boost the country's gold consumption. "High pure gold," as it is called in the standards, refers to the gold with purity of 99.999 percent, or "five nines," and is also the highest purity so far, a spokesman with the National Gold Standardization Technical Committee said Friday. Generally speaking, a gold ornament with an amount of metal reaching 99 percent is called "pure gold," and more than 99 percent is...

Another month and another lackluster employment figure. Both parties profess to be fixated on job creation. Where are they? In normal recoveries GDP booms and firms invest in exciting concepts that spur new hiring. Why not now? Despite corporate profits exceeding $1.5 trillion in the recent period, which elevated corporate cash balances over $2 trillion – both records – few firms dare expand. Uncertainty paralyzes both those with capital to invest and those with investments seeking capital. Several probable causes catalyze this economic confusion: looming tax increases, time-wasting regulatory demands and anti-business rhetoric emanating from Washington. All have merit, but...

China is an important trading partner of America. But it may also be a mortal threat. And not for the conventional reasons usually cited in the press. Ironically, it is a threat because China is in fact a financial colony of the United States, a colony subsidized and sustained by the pegged, undervalued, yuan-dollar exchange rate. Neither the United States nor its economic colony seems to understand the long-term destructive consequences of the dollarization not only of the Chinese economy but also of the world monetary system. While the Chinese financial system has been corrupted primarily by tyranny, deceit, and...

What would happen with the private ownership of gold coins/bullion if the $ returns to the Gold Standard? Would the price be artificially fixed? Would it be confiscated? What about the ability to buy, sell or trade it? (I guess if confiscation happens, the last question is moot) I hear a lot about the need to return to the Gold Standard, but have not seen anything about the affect on private ownership. Thanks in advance wise ones...........

James Grant is to be paid attention to. The interviewer has a couple of interesting points, too.

Roll out the bunting. Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the modern global economy. That's right: come Monday morning we will have managed to survive four decades of fiat money – though, given the chaos in markets in recent weeks, it is anyone's guess how much longer it will last. On 15 August 1971, with the US public finances straitened by the cost of the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon finally cut the link between the US dollar and gold. Until then, the US Treasury was duty bound to exchange an ounce of gold with central banks willing to pay...

Roll out the bunting. Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of the modern global economy. That's right: come Monday morning we will have managed to survive four decades of fiat money – though, given the chaos in markets in recent weeks, it is anyone's guess how much longer it will last. On 15 August 1971, with the US public finances straitened by the cost of the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon finally cut the link between the US dollar and gold. Until then, the US Treasury was duty bound to exchange an ounce of gold with central banks willing to pay...

As the truth-or-dare battle over raising the debt ceiling moves toward a resolution of some sort, we are witnessing a unique political moment, with attention finally riveted on our nationÂ’s fiscal future. We are about to learn whether there is such a thing as fiscal responsibility in a democracy where 45 percent of households donÂ’t pay income taxes. Or whether any sense of moral obligation still attaches to paying your own way as a citizen. Chronic budget deficits are evidence of endemic political cowardice when it comes to reconciling government revenues with government expenditures. And our elected officials keep choosing...