If the u.s. scrapped the FED, ended the empire, brought the level of government down to its constitutional level, how could we go back on the gold standard.(I don't have any problem with free banking, it should be allowed, but for simplicity, I want to stick to a government gold standard).
How would we define a dollar? If an ounce of gold is going for $925, would the government define a dollar as 1/925 of an ounce of gold, or would the government divide the total money supply by the number of gold ounces it has. If they money supply is $14 trillion and in Ft. Knox there is 147 million ounces of gold, each one ounce gold coin would be worth $95,238, or would the dollar be defined as 1/95,238 of an ounce of gold? How could your average person afford a gold coin thats $95,238? The u.s. has a polulation thats 300 million people and only 147 million ounces of gold. Assuming that the government melts down the bullion and makes 147 million one ounce gold coins, there is not physically enough of gold coins to change hands and circulate in a country that has a population of 300 million people.
Almost all of the money supply has been fraudulently created through inflationary monetary policy. Simply dividing dollars by gold stock won't get you a satisfactory answer, because all the same people (and institutions) which claim possession over fiat money would receive the lion's share of the converted gold. Establishing a conversion rate by fiat would not be much better than having a fiat monetary system.
Anyone who has an ounce of gold should be able to exchange it for what? $100,000 paper dollars that nobody values more than toiletpaper? How many sheets of toiletpaper would be the fair equivalent of a single ounce of gold? How many automobiles? Apples?
The point is that wealth is not embodied in banknotes, but in real goods and services which almost everyone possesses or is capable of providing.
If you scrap the dollar, then so too do you scrap all debts that are dollar-denominated. Bye-bye, banking cartel. Bye-bye, warfare state. Bye-bye, corporate welfare. Nobody would have any debt, and at the same time they would have a valid claim to almost all property in their possession, including their houses, their cars, their personal affects, etc.
So, what do you do with the 147 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox (some people say Fort Knox is empty!)? Well, the only equitable solution would be to give it to the people, in what precise proportion, I'm not entirely sure. You could give the same amount to everyone, or you could prorate it based on last year's taxes paid, or some other solution.
What they do with it from there, and whatever rate of exchange prevails on the market between gold and other goods/services, is really rather inconsequential.
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David Z
"The issue is always the same, the government or the market. There is no third solution."
Why force dollar abandonment? It is the american money. Sounds unlibertarian.
scineram:Why force dollar abandonment?
Why force me to use pieces of paper as money?
The fairest way to return to a gold standard is to repeal all the taxes and regulations preventing people from using gold as money. This would be the functional equivalent as a default on the dollar. Subject to true free market competition, why would anyone use paper over tangible goods?
Forcing people to use gold as money is as silly as forbidding people to use gold as money. People may use whatever they please as money, although the free market selected gold and silver as money before the State was strong enough to force people to use unbacked paper.
I'm not forcing you to abandon the paper dollar. You're entitled to your fantasies about the fairness of fiat debt-based money. I'm saying I should be able to boycott the Federal Reserve and use sound money, if I want to.
The bad guys are not going to voluntarily give up their scam. A complete collapse of the State is more likely than meaningful reform.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
It just occurred to me that the Framers of the US Constitution could have really screwed things up if they had specified that the federal government could only pay debts and expenses in Gold or Silver.
liberty student: It just occurred to me that the Framers of the US Constitution could have really screwed things up if they had specified that the federal government could only pay debts and expenses in Gold or Silver.
Thomas Jefferson once said he wished he could amend the Consitution to take away from the Federal government the power of borrowing.
Such a clause would be irrelevant anyway. The Supreme Court would have ignored that part of the Constitution.
How about we try something like this: let's assume that the state will exist. And that there will be taxes, therefore we need some form of collecting them. Moreover we have to think about people that will be hurt by the reform. We wouldn't want a run on the banks. What should we do in order to get rid of fiat money and credit-induced business cycles, without getting ourselves in a bit of a monetary massacre?
Anybody care to play along?
Mr. Karla: How about we try something like this: let's assume that the state will exist. And that there will be taxes, therefore we need some form of collecting them. Moreover we have to think about people that will be hurt by the reform. We wouldn't want a run on the banks. What should we do in order to get rid of fiat money and credit-induced business cycles, without getting ourselves in a bit of a monetary massacre? Anybody care to play along?
All they have to do is remove all the stuff that gives them a de facto monopoly on the issuance of money and everything would take care of itself.
It's not like the whole system would fall apart if private companies were able to mint coins and people could use them in commerce legally, people would still use greenbacks as well and they would still have value to others so they would accept them in trade.
Eventually people would realize what a bad deal they were getting by accepting non-commodity backed currency and would start to not accept it any more and as a result it would start to lose its monetary value. There's really no way to tell how long this would take as it would take time to get specie into circulation as well as getting a critical mass of people willing to accept that coinage.
One thing you can be certain of is that the banks would try to make it as painfull as possible for the people to cut down their magic bean tree so probably wouldn't accept anything but government notes for debt payments as would the State by requiring them to be used to pay taxes. And even if they did give up their monopoly I'm sure they would also try to take action against any business that didn't accept greenbacks under the 'this note is good for all debts, public and private' clause up until the time of the critical mass when there would be nothing they could do short of making them illegal again.
It is kind of ironic that American eagles have face value on them. The 1 ounce has a face value of $50 even though the u.s mint is selling it at over $1,000. I thought I read somewhere that Ron Paul disliked the idea of having face values on them, it is sort of a distraction, we need to drop the term "dollar" and talk about weight. I appreciate the insight of the founders when they wrote "fix the standard of weights and measures". With 1 , 1/2, 1/4 and 1/10 ounce gold coins, people can really define what the content of their currency is, gold coins have value themselves and you can measure the weight of the coins, 1/2 > 1/10 oz. Federal reserve note just have their face values printed on them they have no weight or intrinsic value. We all know two $5 notes equals 1 $10 bill,its the same quality and weight of paper, just the government stamp on it tells you what its worth.
You can't have American eagle gold coins have a legal tender value based on the spot price of gold, instead of the fiat price. If that were true, then people would use American eagles not use fiat money at all. People would use American eagles to protect themselves from inflation.
Currently, you can't legally use gold coins as money because of the capital gains taxes you would owe. If you use gold as money, it counts as a barter transaction, which is taxed much higher.
That sounds like a simple and fair reform to make, but it would totally wreck the Federal Reserve and financial industry's monetary monopoly.
Once you accept government and taxes, you're a slave. If someone can use violence to steal from me, then I'm effectively their slave.
Actually, the value of a US dollar is fixed in silver. Good luck getting the government to honor redemption of FRNs in silver though.
Burt Blumert was on the Lew Rockwell podcast today talking about coins and metal hedging. It is super informative for people not very knowledgeable about the finer points of owning coins.
I have researched this matter a bit and stumbled over a documentary called "Money as Debt".
Here's a synopsis of what's in there: http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/95/
Can anyone explain this?
:
Most of us have been taught that paying our debts responsibly is good for ourselves and for the economy. We imagine that if all debts were paid off, the economy would improve. In terms of individual debt, that's true, but in terms of the overall economy, the exact opposite is true. We are continually dependent on bank credit for money to be in existence-bank credit which supplies loans. Loans and money supply are inextricably connected, and during the Great Depression, the supply of money plummeted as the supply of loans dried up.
Also, is this true?
If China were to decide to suddenly start selling their massive pile of dollar assets the value of the unsold pile would plummet. To put it another way, there simply isn't enough dollar demand out there to buy up all those dollars. If China only wanted to sell, say, 20% of their stockpile, it would overwhelm market demand and the value of their remaining 80% would plummet by more than they would save from selling the 20%. Therefore, China and the rest of our 3rd-world Asian creditors must continue to prop up the wasteful American lifestyle by buying our overvalued debt (i.e. vendor financing) if they want to protect the value their nation's savings. They are prisoners of a currency system that resembles a confidence game. As a first step to extracting themselves from these shackles, Asian creditor nations have created Sovereign Wealth Funds. Using these funds, the governments of the world are buying up companies all around the world, rather than just keep recycling their funds into treasuries that earn less than the rate of inflation. Let's take a step back and consider just how sick and twisted of a relationship that is. Here you have the nations of billions of people that struggle to make about $2 a day lending $2 Billion a day, 365 days a year, to one of the wealthiest nations on earth so that it can continue to spend it on imported electronics, textiles, and speculating on stocks and real estate. To put it more simply: the poorest of the earth are subsidizing the lifestyles of the richest of the earth. And if that isn't sick enough, the enormous amount of money that America borrows each day doesn't go to building factories, or upgrading infrastructure, or mining and oil production, or anything that would enable America to pay back all the money it borrows. Instead we get more strip malls, track housing and smart bombs.
Therefore, China and the rest of our 3rd-world Asian creditors must continue to prop up the wasteful American lifestyle by buying our overvalued debt (i.e. vendor financing) if they want to protect the value their nation's savings. They are prisoners of a currency system that resembles a confidence game.
As a first step to extracting themselves from these shackles, Asian creditor nations have created Sovereign Wealth Funds. Using these funds, the governments of the world are buying up companies all around the world, rather than just keep recycling their funds into treasuries that earn less than the rate of inflation.
Let's take a step back and consider just how sick and twisted of a relationship that is.
Here you have the nations of billions of people that struggle to make about $2 a day lending $2 Billion a day, 365 days a year, to one of the wealthiest nations on earth so that it can continue to spend it on
imported electronics, textiles, and speculating on stocks and real estate.
To put it more simply: the poorest of the earth are subsidizing the lifestyles of the richest of the earth. And if that isn't sick enough, the enormous amount of money that America borrows each day doesn't go to building factories, or upgrading infrastructure, or mining and oil production, or anything that would enable America to pay back all the money it borrows. Instead we get more strip malls, track housing and smart bombs.
Taken from: http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/8652/
The first quote is potentially misleading - is the author referring to the adverse effects of putting a halt on credit expansion, or what? The second bit is more or less correct.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
The author suggests that all fiat money actually represent the debt people owe to the banks and that the gov't creates fiat money out of thin air through banks who lend out a piece of paper (credit) even more than it does by printing money (only a tiny ammount of all the money in an economy is actually printed banknotes).
Here is the source documentary: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
Around the end it analyses some solutions, but the gold standard is among those dismissed.
If you really want to understand the evils of debt-based money, read my articles on the Compound Interest Paradox.
Anonymous Coward: Mr. Karla: How about we try something like this: let's assume that the state will exist. And that there will be taxes, therefore we need some form of collecting them. Moreover we have to think about people that will be hurt by the reform. We wouldn't want a run on the banks. What should we do in order to get rid of fiat money and credit-induced business cycles, without getting ourselves in a bit of a monetary massacre? Anybody care to play along? All they have to do is remove all the stuff that gives them a de facto monopoly on the issuance of money and everything would take care of itself. (...)
(...)
Come on, we're supposed to be the crême de la crême among economists, and thats the best we can do? I'm talking about serious problems, saying, that the market will take care of it is not good enough. Just think about fractional reserves, what would happen if we stop supporting them with the whole legal tender aparatus? Wouldn't there be a massive run on the banks, with a whole lot of winners and losers, depending on how fast can they run? If we won't have an idea what to do with situations like that, people won't be taking as serious.
This is a forum populated mostly by students. Not too many actual economists here. But still, what he said is broadly correct.
Mr. Karla: Come on, we're supposed to be the crême de la crême among economists, and thats the best we can do? I'm talking about serious problems, saying, that the market will take care of it is not good enough. Just think about fractional reserves, what would happen if we stop supporting them with the whole legal tender aparatus? Wouldn't there be a massive run on the banks, with a whole lot of winners and losers, depending on how fast can they run? If we won't have an idea what to do with situations like that, people won't be taking as serious.
The best solution I've read about is agorism, although I haven't personally tried it yet. That is, to a certain extent, the market taking care of itself. A lot of trolls here say that agorism won't work.
Via the income tax, the inflation tax, and other taxes, the State directly confiscates more than half of my labor. For every $1 I earn, the bad guys get more than $1. A freedom activist accomplishes nothing if he follows the corrupt laws.
fsk:A lot of trolls here say that agorism won't work.
Are they trolls because you are scared to debate them? Unlike your blog, in a public forum, people will hold you to account for what you post.
I think they're trolls because they don't increase his blog's google pagerank...
Mr Karla, what do you propose, more central planning to fix the problems caused by the last batch of central planning?
If he was really clever, he would not be dropping anchor text for Agorism, but rather trying to rank for socialism. That would allow the message to spread.
There is an irony to someone who works so hard to rank #1 for Agorism in the search engines, but hasn't tried it himself.
I have a question concerning the gold standard that a friend of mine brought to my attention. First a comment. I feel returning to the gold standard is the only true way to restore a sound economy. Having said that, is it realistic to think it could be done with the growing population? Is it feasible or logical considering the amount of gold we have? I don't think there is enough gold to cover the amount of people that work and save in this country? Looking at it this way, isn't it necessary to have to print up extra money to make up for the amount of gold we don't have so money can be allocated to all of the working families/people in our economy? I realize that the Fed goes beyond this by printing up money whenever they need it, there by benefiting off of the producers, while not producing any goods or services themselves, and as a result undermining the economy. So I feel they have no place in this economy. But someone explain the logistics of going on the gold standard, because unfortunately I don't believe that is possible anymore.
The fallacy here is the idea that an economy needs more money to grow. This is sure wrong. The only effect of adding new money into the economy is debasement of the buying power, which we call inflation, because it inflates the money floating around.
A perfect money would be always constant, so that the buying power could rise with the wealth accumulated. For example: If we can buy 10 eggs for a buck today, and eggs are going to be produced cheaper every year by 10% than the next year you can get 11 eggs for your one buck. So the price adjusts to the wealth not the amount of money. If you had saved $ 10,000 and you could have bought, say a nice car with that money 30 years ago, now you might be able to buy with the very same $ 10.000 five cars or whatever is equivalent. It does not matter how much gold there is, the important thing is not the medium of exchange itself, but what people ar willing to sell and buy for a certain fraction of it. Now agreed gold also has a bit of a fluctuation, mines extract it every year, and a good deal of it is used for other things than as a money, like jewelry or technical applikations etc. But that fluctuation is miniscule compared to the inflating of the fiat money. And it is not unter the control of a single entity like the state.
The way to make the switch could look like that. First, allow gold to become a medium of exchange, i.e. allow contracts on services and products to be paid in gold. Second stop enforcing people to accept fiat money for whatever purpose. So for a while there will be two moneys floating in the economy, gold and FED dollars. Eventually the FED bucks will not be used by anyone anymore, because there is no incentive to do so and, gradualy the gold standard will be reestablished.
Hope that helps
In the begining there was nothing, and it exploded.
Terry Pratchett (on the big bang theory)
Yes, that helps. Thanks for your response. I think I see what you're saying. You're saying an existing money supply, is just that; a medium of exchange that is obtained by us through earning it. You're saying it doesn't need to be added to and if it is, inflation will occur, hence it's unnecessary. So no matter what the amount of the existing money supply is, it will accommodate the variety of earnings within our economy even for a growing population. And I think you mentioned a very important thing about gold being not only a medium of exchange but also a commodity. The commodity element of money has been virtually stripped away due to fiat money. Supposedly the free market determined gold to be the medium of exchange and along with that gold was and still is a commodity like butter. But now gold is not our medium of exchange.
Exactly. I think it is the fact, that the commodity element has been stripped away from fiat money that makes it so hard to understand its function to a great extend.
Have a great time
Anonymous Coward: Mr Karla, what do you propose, more central planning to fix the problems caused by the last batch of central planning?
I didn't propose anything yet, I'm just wondering if there is anybody else here, that considers himfself an austrian, but thinks that "pulling the plug" will have dramatic consequences, that could have been some way avoided. The transition can have many different faces. I'd say the problem is mostly ethical - from an economical point of view we should just abolish everything this minute, and the market will take care of it (or not exactly, but thats a different topic). But is it ok to create all those winners and losers of run-on-banks induced deflation? It's as unethical as inflationary winners and losers, isn't it?
Pardon my english, not my mother tongue obviously.
Since the current money system is debt-based (money are created out of debt), all outstanding debts would have to be cancelled. The debts CAN'T BE PAID. Banks would go bankrupt. My randomly guessed solution is nothing short of a complete overhaul. I might be wrong.
nhaag: The way to make the switch could look like that. First, allow gold to become a medium of exchange, i.e. allow contracts on services and products to be paid in gold. Second stop enforcing people to accept fiat money for whatever purpose. So for a while there will be two moneys floating in the economy, gold and FED dollars. Eventually the FED bucks will not be used by anyone anymore, because there is no incentive to do so and, gradualy the gold standard will be reestablished.
Agreed, legalizing other forms of tender is the best solution. Perhaps I am skeptical, but would Gresham's Law not apply here? If not fiat currency, there is definitely some risk of a fractional/non-reserve currency taking favor. I am referring to the assumption that there would be multiple competing private coiners and possibly government hard asset providers. Just a general inquiry, all responses welcome.
I think Gresham's Law only applies to legally mandated currencies, not ones which one is free to switch away from.
Yes, Gresham's law applies, but it is usually interpreted the wrong way. What Gresham said was, that bad money drives out good money under the assumption, that the good and the bad money both are provided by the same entity (the king's mint for example). When rulers began to clip coins and forced the people to use them at face value, than the "bad" money will force out the "good" coins of the market. The reason is, that the "good" coins will be hoarded for savings, wheeras the bad coins will be used in every day transactions as everyone is coerced to use them at face value. Remember those coins actually where no tokens, but had a certain amount of gold etc., which is why the names for the coins (Taler, Florin, Dollars) where nothing but names for weights.
The risk of fractional/non-reserve money substitutes (hence the piece of paper issued by the bank is not the money but a promise to pay the money you put into it on demand) is as high as the risk of fraud is in any society. So, maybe some individuals with a preference for fraudelent actions would start such a thing, but, in spite of being backed by the state, they would be risking to be sued for fraud. I think that is a much better status than today. Those kind of banking behaviors would vanish because they would be driven out of the market by lack of customers very quick, even quicker than any other fraudulent firm, as trust is a major component in the banking business.
nhaag:What Gresham said was, that bad money drives out good money under the assumption, that the good and the bad money both are provided by the same entity (the king's mint for example). When rulers began to clip coins and forced the people to use them at face value, than the "bad" money will force out the "good" coins of the market.
You said it. Gresham's Law is wrong. Or, at least, the application of Gresham's law as an objection to specie-backed currency.
Yes.
The law is right, the common interpretation to back the mainstream think on currencies is wrong.
Hi Steve,
Since I first read Human Action and Rothbards Mystery of Banking I have been sold on the Austrian belief in sound money ideally based on gold. But lately I have become concerned with the fact that the IMF holds such a large proportion of the worlds gold. I have a concern that returning to gold as money might give the holders of most of the gold the opportunity to control most of the economy. That is the only reason I think that a fiat government currency, like Lincoln's greenbacks might be a way to eliminate our debt money without giving too big an advantage to thoes who control most of the worlds gold.
I am not an economist, and I do want to believe gold is the solution, but since the US gold reserve is now supposedly zero, gowing to gold now seems impractical.
Maybe there is someone out there who can explain this better? I really hope my fears are wrong because entrusting money creation to government is almost as frightening as private bankers creating money.
Allow a free market in money. If gold is not the commodity of choice, another will be (e.g. silver). Austrians are for freedom in banking (barring fraud), not a gold fetish.
Your last sentence is interesting, because I believe government and private bankers to be related. i.e. 6 of one, half dozen of another. In Rothbard's "The Case for the Fed", I seem to remember reading that the Fed although a private banking cartel, is in some ways an arm of the government. Either way your concerns are warranted. I believe the Austrian ideal of going back to the gold standard is also a call for the money commodity to be placed back in the hands of the people via a free market system. So you can't do one without the other. Or you wouldn't want to go back to gold without having the individual in control of his and her money. I don't know what the IMF is? I'm going to look since you mentioned it.
Hello again. Seeing a quick look at the International Monetary Fund, makes me think that Austrian economics would be against it? I say this because as you know, Austrian economics seems to loathe any type of centralized regulation. So just as they advise against the Fed's existence, so to would they probably not support any participation among the world countries in the IMF? But I guess you're saying that our country or any country's participation could not be anything but mandatory due to the IMF holding so much influence due to possessing so much gold? I see your point. Perhaps Austrian economics strives to eliminate the IMF as much as they desire to due without the Fed? I seem to recall Rothbard's "What government has done to our money" book in part saying that throughout the decades the US sold much of it's gold to other countries as we gradually left the gold standard. The process of eliminating the IMF may prove irreversible unless wide spread countries would find a way to control the IMF by acquiring control of their own gold?
Thanks for responding.
You might check out the book : The Creature from Jekyll Island or the website The Money Masters. The solution in the Creature book is in the Austrian tradition. Money Masters takes more the Freedman Chicago school approach but regardless of the solution they both give good insight into the problem of private central banks controlling money creation.
I have the same concerns you do about the mechanics of returning to commodity money.
You might want to check out Rothbard's books What Has Government Done to Our Money and The Mystery of Banking they both have suggestions on how to return to sound money. There is also a suggestion on how to do this in The Creature from Jekyll. I think the key thing is to take money creation out of the hands of governments or bank cartels and somehow return it to a function of the free market. A first step might be for congress to take back money creation fron the Fed then figure out how to return to market based connodity money.
There is also more of a Friedman Chichago School solution presented in the Money Masters Video.
Ron:I am not an economist, and I do want to believe gold is the solution, but since the US gold reserve is now supposedly zero, gowing to gold now seems impractical.
Makes no difference to me how much gold there is (or is not, as the case may be) in the vaults at Fort Knox.
Really, if the government has no more gold, we're that much better off.