Ranting Andy's a Happy Gold Standard Extremist

www.KerryLutz.com ^ | 02/13/2012 | Kerry Lutz

[appeal2]

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 FBI and the US Government what peaceful extremism is all about. We also took your questions about precious metals investing and hope that you won’t wait until it’s too late to start buying. If there’s something you would like us to discuss, please email me or leave a message.

Listen to Andy Now

[appeal2]

Who'd have thunk it possible that if you believed in the Constitution's definition of money that you'd one day be labeled as an extremist?

[GregoryFul]

Uh, anybody who is aware of what FDR did to “hoarders” of gold. This country is long gone from freedom, no doubt. Try to take 10 gold coins out of the country - you’ll regret it.

[PieterCasparzen]

The government spends more than it takes in.

If it were on a gold standard it would simply lower the valuation of dollars ANYWAY and keep creating more dollars to spend.

[Sam Gamgee]

Just more evidence that Nixon was a statist.

In the least we need to return to some form of honest monetary policy, whereby the government is prevented from causing inflation in order to pay its debts. It is little different from when kings use to shave pieces of gold off their gold coins.

I believe Nixon replaced gold with special deposit receipts which are laughably nothing more than IOUs.

[BfloGuy]

If it were on a gold standard it would simply lower the valuation of dollars ANYWAY and keep creating more dollars to spend.

No doubt it would want to. But if we were on a true gold standard, we would all have the right to march into our local banks and exchange those dollars for gold. That would lower the central bank's reserves and limit its ability to expand credit.

That's the brake on government money-printing under a gold standard.

[GregoryFul]

The problem is that apparently the Federal government can change things on a whim, no anchor left at all. We’ve devolved to the rule of men, not of laws, a thugocracy. So some president/congress could declare the US on the gold standard, and a few months to years later, declare the US off the gold standard - and oh, by the way you suckers who have accumulated gold: Hand it over!

[BfloGuy]

The problem is that apparently the Federal government can change things on a whim

You are, of course, correct. Any eventual implementation of a gold standard will probably only be possible after an economic collapse on the order of the Weimar hyper-inflation. Something so horrible, that its memory remains for generations.

[PieterCasparzen]

If it were on a gold standard it would simply lower the valuation of dollars ANYWAY and keep creating more dollars to spend.

No doubt it would want to. But if we were on a true gold standard, we would all have the right to march into our local banks and exchange those dollars for gold. That would lower the central bank's reserves and limit its ability to expand credit.

That's the brake on government money-printing under a gold standard.

I guess I need to clarify (so many people are SO confused on gold and currency).

The government would set the valuation, that is, how much gold one dollar is worth.

In the case of a gold-as-money standard, since government mints the coins, it can change the alloy of the coins. That is to say, put less gold in each coin and more of other cheaper metals.

If the private sector is allowed to mint coins, they will mint as many as they possible can - everyone would have a license to create money.

All these situations result in catastrophic inflation.

This has already happened in history - it is not conjecture.

The Spanish Empire was plagued with very high inflation in the 1500's and 1600's.

The monarchs were producing coins like crazy and they even resorted to cheapening the alloy.

Much the same as today, the Spanish government did not have a money problem, it had a government spending problem.

They spent far more than they could expect to collect in taxes from a practical point of few, that is, without places too high of a tax burden on the citizenry.

The fact that creating money - gold money - did not help them is very welll documented in the writings of a scholar of that time - Juan De Mariana. I strongly encourage you to research this fellow.

Gold will not save an economy. Storing food is not the answer.

The only path to prosperity is simple. Restraining government spending and restraining the government from making a straightjacket of laws and regulations that favors a few big businesses but burdens small businesses and usurps the rights of individual citizens.

The only way to successfully manage the money supply is to only create new dollars inasmuch as the economy has grown each year.

As the population increases, and as per capita wealth increases, there is a need for more dollars in order to avoid a "tight money" situation where interest rates go up artificially (and painfully).

During the "booming 1990's", the money supply was between 40% and 50% of the total of annual business sales in the U.S. Now is in the 2/3 neighborhood - and the economy is in the tank.

Bottom line, increases in the money supply that go beyond the percentage increases in economic activity do not automatically result in a better economy.

[BfloGuy]

Gold will not save an economy.

Of course, it won't. Gold is not a cure-all, it's just a better form of money than paper printed by the government. And, sure, government can cheapen the value of gold coins, but that is easily testable.

It's obvious that a dishonest government can subvert a gold standard, but, given a dishonest government, no system can work.