Category Archives: Debt

UPDATED: Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy

America, Colonialism, Conspiracy, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government, Inflation, Middle East

Was Moammar Gadhafi promoting a gold-driven monetary revolution? Did he, somehow, contravene the American creed of cruising on credit? Is it entirely within the realm of conspiracy to posit that the war against Libya had at least something to do with taking down “a pesky, persistent Arab gold bug?”

The following is from my new column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” now on WND.COM:

“In 2009—in his capacity as head of the African Union—Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi had proposed that the economically crippled continent adopt the Gold Dinar. I do not know for sure if Colonel Gadhafi persevered in the plan he had hatched to ditch the dollar and adopt a ‘Gold Dinar.’ … Had a gold revolution engulfed oil-rich African and Persian-Gulf states this would have spelt trouble for the debt-strapped West.

If only symbolically, a gold revolution across Arabia and Africa would have outweighed by far the significance of a democratic revolution. …

A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers and their political and media power-brokers. The former surreptitiously print away the fruits of the people’s labor; the latter scramble their brains so that they don’t know they are being robbed blind.” …

The complete column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” is now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason“ is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

UPDATE (Aug. 28): The late Elizabeth Wright had an interesting tidbit about the twisted relationship between Muammar Gaddafi and “the foolish Europeans”:

When Libya’s cynical Muammar Gaddafi laughs at the foolish Europeans, who have encouraged the emigration of millions of Third World aliens, and offers Europe’s leaders a financial deal to keep more of the mob out of that continent, are American conservatives taking notes?
As literally tens of thousands of African refugees in boats try to reach Italy, the Libyan navy has been instrumental in keeping them out, thanks to an agreement with the Italian government. “We don’t know,” the bemused Gaddafi is quoted as saying, “if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions.” And then he comes right out and says it: Your continent is turning into Africa.

Gold Is A Girl’s Best Friend (& bona fide)

Debt, Economy, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Inflation, Liberty, Media, Political Economy, Republicans

Are there any economic Austrians out there who treat gold as a topic for pontification, rather than as a real-life refuge from the irreparable debasement of the dollar?

Surely, if you’re Austrian in economics—namely, you follow the natural laws of economics—your personal financial portfolio, however meager, ought to have included gold well before the spot price settled at $1,869.00? (Which is now unaffordable to us ordinary Americans.)

If devotees of Austrian economics had a support group in every state, here is how I’d introduce myself: “ILANA MERCER, author of ‘Into the Cannibal’s Pot,’ and WND.COM’s longest-standing (possibly most predictive), exclusive, libertarian column. Gold-bug since $800.”

So many patriotic Americans continue to waste time and precious money on books and columns offered up by top-dog Republican writers. Invariably, the boosterism and jingoism of these well-to-do gasbags (girls and boys) leads them to talk up US Treasuries (in addition to other foreign policy fatuities) on FoxNews.

If your Republican heroes have jumped on the gold bandwagon, ask them: “When did you become a gold-bug?” Demand proof, because they tend to fib.

Gold is a girl’s best friend and bona fide (although credential are not worth much in the age of the idiot).

HERE’S Peter Schiff on the meaning of the flight to gold.

Counterfeiter In Chief in the Crosshairs

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Neoconservatism

More and more in mainstreams are finding fault with the US’s counterfeiter-in-chief, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Jeffrey Bell’s point is mild and purely utilitarian:

To maintain interest rates at zero, the Fed prints endless amounts of dollars, driving down the dollar’s value. In the short run, this props up the bond and stock markets, enabling big banks and big business to thrive. But the absence of interest rates is suppressing the lines of credit that enable small business to expand by a factor of two thirds, according to Stanford economist Ronald McKinnon. And in the U.S., small business is responsible for most new jobs.
So unless this printing of dollars is halted, we’re doomed to continued high unemployment. Gov. Perry should be commended for starting a debate that’s long overdue.

But at least he’s not fussing childishly about the Perry Fed statement, which, according to neoconservative Andrew Sullivan, “disqualifies Perry from the race.” The author of the Daily Dish is furious that “the integrity of a civil servant” has been impugned:

If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y’all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treasonous in my opinion.

Euro-Bondage

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

If European Keynesians—the “fattened aristocracy of economic experts”—have their way, northern Europeans will soon be working for Southern Europeans (the more productive Europeans are already subsidizing and bailing out their profligate neighbors). Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy will have to resist “the idea of collective liability, often referred to as ‘eurobonds,’ [which] has been floated various times since last year.” “A full fiscal union, underpinned by eurobonds,” is tantamount to full-throttle debt monetization, in conjunction with a policy of inflating the currency in-unison.

Merkel’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is working against the better instincts of his Boss (Merkel) and supports an integration of Europe’s “national economic policies,” so that they can “act as a single borrower.”

Conservative politicians in Germany and other northern European countries have previously dismissed the proposal as a violation of the European ideal, in which countries cooperate but remain responsible for their own fiscal affairs.

In the prescient “Adieu to the Evil EU,” you an read a better description of what the EU (generally supported by American neoconservatives) aimed to achieve. And has pretty much accomplished.

The EU “endeavors to herd Europeans by stealth into a supranational European State and… block off all the exits. This it intends to achieve by rigid central planning and harmonization of laws across the continent. In the absence of political and economic competition, the bureaucrats of Brussels will be free to rule and regulate; tax and inflate the money supply at will. This is what the rejectionists, including the cheese eating surrender monkeys, have defeated…for now.”

As I wrote in 2005, “An overarching tier of tyrants—the EU—to European governments will benefit Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.”