Posted on 01/19/2012 12:56:22 PM PST by SeekAndFind
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 nation was battling double-digit inflation. But even then, the commission overwhelmingly rejected the idea of a return to the gold standard.
One of only two members of the 17-member commission to endorse a return to the gold standard was Ron Paul, one of Gingrich's rivals for the GOP nomination.
The United States first moved away from the gold standard, under which the dollar was backed by the nation's gold reserves, in 1933, and dropped it altogether in 1971. Despite support for its return by some on the political right, few mainstream economists support its reinstatement.
Chief among the problems is that with a dollar pegged to gold, U.S. goods could become uncompetitive on the global markets compared to goods priced in euros or yen.
The return to a gold standard is a central point in the campaign of Paul, a Congressman from Texas who also advocates abolishing the Federal Reserve.
In his comments Tuesday, Gingrich also spoke sharply against the Fed, saying it should focus on keeping prices in check, dropping the dual mandate of job growth and fighting inflation.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Lots of good thinking in the replies to this post.
Kinda hard to ignore what the Constitution says on the matter but Congress did/does.
Even a precious metals standard where you couldn’t exchange your paper money for them would be a step in the right direction as it sets up a control to not spend more than you have but Congress always gets around that so you need the rule of law to throw these losers in prison when they try to get around the Constitution, including presidents.
So far Congress has everyone walking scot-free when they steal money and a fine doesn’t mean much when you steal more than you are fined...some punishment that is.
****Platinum, gold and silver would seem to be the most stable and reasonable backing. The problem with a gold standard is, of course, that nations holding our currency would immediately seek to exchange their dollars for our gold and our gold supply would quickly disappear. Is that a problem? probably. The bigger question, how would this affect our national debt and our pending budget deficits which are the real anchors holding this economy back. It’s worth investigating but not something I would enter into casually and without serious weighing and measuring.****
Then the only way out is to crash the whole worlds economy and start over with commodities backing a US currency. The biggest problem with that is the call One Worlders for a single currency for all nations. That and there would have to be either a huge war to settle differences, or mutual agreement that all debts are forgiven.
*from One Worlders*
Under a gold standard, the Russians would have cut their own throats by hiding it in the first place. Money buys stuff -- they'd have starved themselves.
A gold standard's by no means a perfect system. It just prevents politicians from printing money at will -- people actually have to go out and dig it out of the ground before it enters circulation.
If gold were money, there would be no price of gold.
The prices of goods and services would adjust. And there would be no need for tweezers -- a paper bill representing a weight of gold could as easily represent a pound or a tweezer-full. Either way -- Nancy Pelosi and Ben Bernanke would have nothing to do with it.
But we would.
Newt is quite clever.
Do your own DD..it will help u understand “money”
also....here's a good read by Greenspan in 1966
http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm
The Federal reserve should be abolished and we should go back to the way it was done before the Federal reserve. The Federal reserve has been a colossal disaster.
If its function has been to prevent inflation then it has caused 100 times more inflation then existed prior to the Federal reserve.
Basically the Federal reserve’s way of protecting you from thief is to steal 100 times as much money as any other thief ever has.
It might be hard to make that argument, as under the Federal Reserve the United States:
Became the world's only superpower,
Increased per capital income by 400 percent,
Increased the average lifespan of a citizen by one third.
More than tripled the U.S. population.
I am not a fan of the Federal Reserve, but it is hard to say that it has been a disaster.
“It might be hard to make that argument, as under the Federal Reserve the United States:
Became the world’s only superpower,”
Something we were well on our way to doing by product of sheer size and growth rate.
“
Increased per capital income by 400 percent,
“
In 1816 the U.S. GDP was approximately $9,018.23 million(inflation adjusted for 2010 dollars).
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/fed_revenue_1813USbn
97 Years later in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created the U.S. GDP was $851,488.11 million.
(851 488.11 / 9 018.23) * 100 = 9 441.854% growth
Still 97 years after that in 2010 the U.S. GDP was 14,551,800 billion dollars.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/fed_revenue_2010USdn
(14 551 800 / 851 488.11) * 100 = 1708.98452% growth
Inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
A product of medical technology well on its way and in development BEFORE the Federal reserve.
in 1810 (103 years before the Federal reserve) these United States had a population of about 7,239,881. In 1910 just 3 years before the federal reserve these united States had a combined population of 92,228,496.
Forgive my hasty math but 92,228,496 / 7,239,881 = 12.7389519 meaning that before the Federal reserve we had a 1273.8% growth rate.
Insolently with the 2010 population being only
308,745,538 your talking about only a 334.76% growth rate in the century following the “intervention” of the Federal reserve. Not surprising given the way the boom bust cycle creates economic instabilities perceptions that discourage raising large family.(For lack of prosseved economic ability to sustain them)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States
On the contrary as my rebuttal points out its very easy to see it as an institution with disastrous consequences for these united States.
I’m glad you agree with my painstaking research about the real Economic, cultural, and demographic performance of theses united States prior & post Federal Reserve.
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