printWrites Mark Thornton of the Ludwig von Mises Institute:
“As we enter the era of decline for the dollar all sorts of reforms will be used to address this decline and the economic instability it causes. However, reforms designed on Wall Street or in Washington will not work and will amount to nothing more than rear guard action by the moneyed interests that control the government.
The only true path to reform is monetary freedom. We have gone from a situation where money was entirely free from government intervention to one that is completely dominated by government. Instead of privately minted coins made from precious metals we now have a system of government-printed paper fiat currency. We have gone from a system of private banking that provided bank notes and checks for demand deposits to one where banks are completely regulated by the central bank and a host of other regulatory bodies. The idea that our current financial mess resulted from a lack of regulation is truly laughable. Of course this process has taken centuries to complete. By giving up our monetary freedom—particularly over the last one hundred years—we have given government the ability to grow in size and scope and to achieve unthinkable levels of power. Every step forward towards government control of money has resulted in social chaos and economic destruction. The real economy only grows in the interludes when monetary mischief is at a minimum.”
[Snip]
Pay attention to the section, “What do we need to do as individuals?”
Update I: As always, Pat Buchanan delves well into the history of events–in this case The Bretton Woods Agreements, and the ongoing, current attempt to recreate a second Bretton Woods by unseating the US and its fallen currency. What I don’t get is why is Pat so confident that a “global central bank, the Fed of the world economy,” will not come to pass. He claims “Americans are not going to fund such a bank, nor cede it authority, nor abide by its dictates. We are not yet a Third World nation dependent on the IMF.”
Why Not? Whence comes the confidence? Pat’s courage and convictions are not shared in Washington and on Wall Street. (Or on “Main Street,” for that matter.)
Update II (Nov. 15): The G-20 Summit, where G stands for Golem, has concluded. Some humor has been injected into this solemn affair, as the central planners’ affirmed “their commitment to free market principles.” Another thing to tickle the funny bone: the commitment these counterfeiters made to “promoting integrity in financial markets.” Nothing about integrity in government. I guess that’s a contradiction in terms.
The dollar and US government is fundamentally as (economically) solid as the South Vietnamese government of 1975 or the East German government of 1989. The only real uncertainty is the timing and nature of the house of cards collapsing – HOW: hyperinflation or depression or totalitarian fiat and WHEN (my guess is 2020 to 2030) – those are the uncertainties. The (New Orleans style) levees of the Keynsian printing press “stimulus” will not hold against the hurricane/tsunami of hundreds of trillions of unfunded indebtedness.
I know you’re not overly fond of Andrew Sullivan, but I thought this Peter Schiff video on his blog was interesting.
Whoever thought that giving politicians and single men power to leverage the economy (effectively trying to ‘run’ it) was very foolish.
Only problem is that Pat Buchanan is an admirer of Hamilton, the creator of our current economic Fed system. How can he coherently argue against a world Fed if this is the logical outcome of this?
Bush started pushing this “free market” nonsense last week. It can be surmised from this that free men are fleeing his newspeak “free markets”. These semi-fine men will say anything to stop the hemorrhaging. It won’t work for long, but they need time to make good their own personal escapes. Any investor dollar they can make evaporate by keeping it in the market allows these immoral monkeys to kick the can down the road for one more day.