What a crock! You can borrow money on a gold standard, just like you can borrow money on a fiat standard. And you can run up trade balances using either if you have stupid trade policies.
It's worth noting though that our import tariffs are at historic lows. Perhaps if we raised our import tariffs and became a little more self reliant and put our people back to work. We wouldn't have such huge trade deficits.
Nixon had to stop exchanging dollars for gold as President Johnson had inflated the economy by printing money to pay for his Vietnam War and The Great Society. Charles Degaulle had realized this and was draining the American gold reserve by converting France’s paper dollars into gold at the pre-inflated price. Had Nixon not taken us off the gold standard then Degaulle would have bankrupted the United States.
Once the US was off the gold standard every Congress and Administration just printed money to solve their problems and kick the can down the road. The road appears to have ended and the can has lodged in the woods where it can’t be easily kicked further.
A fiat currency and a Central Bank (the Federal Reserve) allow a Government to “paper-over” their sins. Also, if we had a gold standard and no FED, the US Government could absolutely NOT run long-term budget deficits of $1 Trillion or more.
The FED is the cornerstone of progressive government. Get rid of it, and you solve 1000 other problems at the same time.
When you have a nation where 536 of our politically elite and esteemed leaders of our government (give or take some), who were bought off by the globalists to ensure that the USA lost the great economic war of affluence and self sufficiency, this is the outcome.
Would a gold standard have helped? Maybe. But when traitors are calling all the shots that inevitably caused our economy to be sent to the Asia, Communists and Mexico this is the outcome.
The USA was once funded by tariffs not income taxes. That drove industry to our shores because they wanted access to our markets. Then around 1913 the central bankster globalists clandestinely met at Jekyll Island, took control and illegally created an income tax and the rest is history.
Did I misread this? Isn’t the article about the impact of a gold backed currency on the trade deficit, not about the budget deficit or national debt. While the trade deficit can impact national debt they are not one and the same.