Vigilance

The WSJ Is Right - U.S. Should Return to a Gold Standard

I get a kick out of the argument that gold can't work as money because it is so scarce. That's one of the primary reasons it does work ( and has during most of recorded history). Conversely, it's precisely why paper money never works. Power hungry politicians quickly realize that they can fund as many vote-buying entitlement programs as they want by the simple expedient of printing more money. But they CAN'T inflate gold. How frustrating that would be for the poor dears.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Continental Congress was granted the power to "emit bills of credit". At the Constitutional Convention, the Founders, deliberately did not include that power because of the disastrous experience with the continental; an early form of currency that became so badly inflated that for years, "not worth a continental" was a popular description of anything worthless. Of course, it is out of fashion these days for our leaders to abide by the Constitution. Mentally, ninety-nine percent of them mentally cross their fingers when they take the oath of office. (Thank Gd for Ron Paul, a noteworthy exception).
It's also ludicrous to claim that arguing for a gold standard is just a republican ploy. When did a Republican Party platform last call for a return to gold?

A Simple Post on Gold

If there's too little gold to function as a medium of exchange, seems to me that's a nice problem than when there is too much paper money. Maybe you've all heard of the man in Germany with a wheel barrow full of the old marks...Someone dumped the marks on the street and stole the wheel barrow.
Gold has been a medium of exchange for thousands of years, which is to say it has outlasted every paper currency. Like a lock pick to a burglar, paper money is a convenient theft mechanism for politicians. It's pretty difficult for politicians to dilute the value of gold but easy to do so with paper money when they have a partner in crime like the so-called Federl Reserve. By inflating the amount of paper money, they water down the soup but gold is not soluble.

Gold and the Demise of the American Dream

Great article but the author forgets we are (or are supposed to be) a republic, not a democracy.