Via the Financial Times and behind their paywall, we learn:
The gold standard has returned to mainstream US politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy.
Drafts of the party platform, which it will adopt at a convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, next week, call for an audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold.
See also the Huffington Post.
I wonder if Alan Greenspan will restate his commitment to the essay he never repudiated, Gold and Economic Freedom. As Greenspan pointed out, gold is inseparable from economic liberty and property rights. The question could quickly become whether the people of the United States and the world are ready for a a society with a just and moral base.
More as the story develops.
I wish I could believe them. Their candidates , Romney and Ryan, both voted for massive state boondoggles such as war in Iraq and Afghanistan, Federal Medical Aid, Tarp, military increases, auto bailouts and others. And not least “doubling” the size of that justice-free gulag, Guantanamo Bay.
Could the Rebubs take ‘gold’ seriously?
As an investment? yes.
As a Boondoggle do-nothing Commission? Probably.
As a hard-backing of the national currency? Never.
Two reasons:
1. Their banker-puppetmasters know it cannot work.
2. See No.1 .
Their banker-puppetmasters know it cannot work.
I will vote for Romney, but he and Ryan are completely conventional [read: wrong] on economics, so I doubt this is anything to get excited about.
Looks like my comment did not turn up – O.K. I will write it again.
The billionaires tended to support John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 – not the Republican candidates.
“But bankers specifically”.
O.K. the top three politicians that bankers backed in the years running up to the 2008 crash were……
Congressman Barney Frank – just sleeping with the head of Fannie Mae was not enough for Congressman Frank (he wanted money also – and lots of it, but only for campaign expenses of course, just like the young boy in his apartment was engaging in prostitution totally without Congressman Frank knowing anything about it).
Senator Chris “Countrywide” Dodd.
No surprise – that (perhaps – they have stiff competi,tion) the most corrupt people in Congress (Dodd and Frank) got to write the bank “reform” Bill.
This Act of Congress does not (of course) do anything about credit bubble finance (the sort of stuff Joe B. loves) – instead it gives the government even MORE power (and thus ensures the flow of bribes, sorry “campaign contribution” protection money continues).
Almost needless to say – both Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd are DEMOCRATS.
“But what about the third politician”.
The third politician to benefit most from banker money was BARACK OBAMA – also not known as a Republican.
See the book “Bought And Paid For” – although I think the bankers (and others) who paid Barack Obama made a serious mistake.
He is indeed (just as they think) a corrupt Chicago Machine Pol who will just about anything for money (such books as “The Case Against Barack Obama” and “The Culture of Corruptioni” make that very clear), but that is not ALL he is.
Barack Obama is also something worse than that – a lot worse. As people will find out – should he win reeection.
For that is the point.
The point is not trying to avoid the economic crash – that is not possible (it is baked into the cake now).
The point is how will government react to it?
Whatever their other sins are neither Ryan or Romney are totalitarians – Barack is (he was brought up that way – by his mother, then by Frank Marshall Davis, then by the Comrades at Occidental, and at Columbia and over decades with the Hyde Park Chicago crowd – although he knew Bill Ayers back in New York City)he was taught to dream of the time when economic collapse would give the chance for “fundemental transformation” (Cloward and Piven) and “collective salvation” (Liberation “Theology” Rev. Wright and so on).
To have Barack Obama anywhere near power at a time of crises (and a crises is comming) is not acceptable.
As for gold as money….
It worked for thousands of years.
And would work again – if it was ALLOWED to work.
Oh gee, you almost forgot the gold-money thing.
Which is all I wrote about.
First, I might agree with most of what you wrote about Obama – I don’t know the material.
Second, I don’t care for him, and didn’t vote for him, and would never vote for either Frank or Dodd.
They are a collective of shills for the bankers, and like Barofsky says, they own that town and both parties.
So, IMHO, it’s the money-corruption that is the problem.
You’ll never see me make a partisan political statement.
But I am all about the political economy, and notably the monetary economy.
My discussion about gold would be very short, whether basing or backing our currency.
Suffice to say that I read Arthur Kitson early on and the works of the Douglas and Patman Credit and Money Committees. Gold has no place whatsoever in a modern monetary economy, except as a private-sector investment.
But, alas, you dragged my name into your comment saying –
“…. about credit bubble finance (the sort of stuff Joe B. loves) …”
Joe loves credit-bubble finance. How stupid is Joe?
Gawd. How small.
And, how ignorant of anything I believe in or have ever said.
If you’d like to take the time to have this discussion, I would be glad to do so at my website
http://www.economicstability.org
and not bother these readers with the rather vacuous rhetoric.