[Posted November 14, 2009]

Gold, straight up!

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Save a tree today: gold is green (down with paper money!)

Campaign for Liberty Oct 7, 2009 - JAKE TOWNE

Bernanke's Great Fib - The "Gold Standard" and the Great Depression

The purpose of the following is to argue that the "gold standard," as understood by most of the public, did not cause or worsen the Great Depression as current FED Chairman Ben Bernanke has based many of his papers, speeches, and, to a large extent, his entire career on. In our contemporary times, I do believe this blame must be firmly rejected and monetary policy should, at the very least, be debated in a national forum. Indeed many other economists, such as the Friedman family, Anna Schwartz, Alan Greenspan, and Jeffrey "Shock Doctor" Sachs, have all propagated this lie.

My premise is simple. I charge that these renowned Keynesian and Friedmanite-Monetarist-Chicago-Shock-School economists have consistently used the term "gold standard" to mislead their audiences and readers. For the sake of brevity, I will focus on Mr. Bernanke as he is the current standard-bearer of the FED's fiat monetary system.

...The "international" or "classical" gold standard is actually a form of fractional money. In simple terms, one can redeem paper or electronic currency for fixed amount of gold coinage; America was officially under this standard from the Gold Standard Act of 1900(3) until FDR outlawed and confiscated the gold of the people in 1933. The critical concept to understand here is that the monetary supply can be inflated or pyramided upon the total base amount of metal, which of course is conveniently possessed by the government. So, under the "classical" gold standard, if everyone decided to exchange their paper receipts at the same time, the country would be bankrupted; not enough gold would exist for everyone to redeem their receipts. When the United States executed the Gold Standard Act of 1900, the first step was for the government to procure a massive reserve amount of gold, so that everyone can be fooled or lulled into thinking that their gold can always be redeemed in full.

"What the expansionists call the defects of the gold standard are indeed its very eminence and usefulness... The gold standard did not fail. The governments were eager to destroy it, because they were committed to the fallacies that credit expansion is an appropriate means of lowering the rate of interest and of "improving" the balance of trade... The struggle against gold, which is one of the main concerns of all contemporary governments, must not be looked upon as an isolated phenomenon. It is but one item in the gigantic process of destruction, which is the mark of our time. People fight the gold standard because they want to substitute national autarky for free trade, war for peace, totalitarian government omnipotence for liberty... The international gold standard works without any action on the part of governments."- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949.

go to story

Related:

Aren't we sitting on a gold mine?

Washington Post - MARTHA C. WHITE Nov 8, 2009 Buried in the Treasury's International Reserve Position report is an intriguing bit of math. The document details the total amount, by weight, of the Treasury's gold reserves, plus a dollar value for said metal. But some fast division reveals something interesting: The Treasury marks the value of its gold at $42 an ounce, the price settled on in 1973, two years after the United States scrapped the Bretton Woods System, which had held gold at $35 an ounce for decades.

Wait -- what? Spot gold is heading toward $1,100 per ounce, and the Treasury is embracing a Cold War relic of a price? If the Treasury's bling were valued at the spot price, we'd be sitting on a literal gold mine of nearly $288 billion. Why doesn't the Treasury account for the huge run-up in gold prices? go to story

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Fake money scams - illegitimate and legitimatized

Counterfeit and Inflated Money Hansadutta das

The most ruinous practice to the government and the economy is COUNTERFEIT and INFLATED MONEY. Both are a way of CHEATING. BOTH ARE WITHOUT AUTHORITY, because both have no gold backing. more

Reintroduce actual gold currency

excerpt from purport, Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.17.39

According to Srimad-Bhagavatam, gold encourages falsity, intoxication, prostitution, envy and enmity. Even a gold-standard exchange and currency is bad. Gold-standard currency is based on falsehood because the currency is not on a par with the reserved gold. The basic principle is falsity because currency notes are issued in value beyond that of the actual reserved gold. This artificial inflation of currency by the authorities encourages prostitution of the state economy. The price of commodities becomes artificially inflated because of bad money, or artificial currency notes. Bad money drives away good money. Instead of paper currency, actual gold coins should be used for exchange, and this will stop prostitution of gold. Gold ornaments for women may be allowed by control, not by quality, but by quantity. This will discourage lust, envy and enmity. When there is actual gold currency in the form of coins, the influence of gold in producing falsity, prostitution, etc., will automatically cease. There will be no need of an anticorruption ministry for another term of prostitution and falsity of purpose.

No paper

excerpt from conversation, Toronto, Jun 17, 1976

PRABHUPADA: Inflation problem, I suggested, make gold coins as medium of exchange.

HARI-SAURI: That means that there'll be the same..., it'll have the same value all over the world.

PRABHUPADA: No question of value. Money has to be paid by real money—gold, silver. No paper.

HARI-SAURI: But whether it's gold or paper, isn't it all just representative of...

PRABHUPADA: No, medium of exchange.

HARI-SAURI: Yes.

PRABHUPADA: If I have to pay you, if you don't accept paper, then I'll have to give you gold or silver, and international exchange is going on. Then there is no inflation, because you'll not accept paper, so what is the use of printing notes? They are printing notes without any gold reserve.

HARI-SAURI: Nothing. It's just imaginary wealth.

PRABHUPADA: That's it. Bank will give you loan, they are eager to give you loan, and you haven't got to pay anything in gold and silver. One check, that's all. And with that check you can purchase lots of commodities and hoard it, and price will be increased. If I have to pay gold for (indistinct), then I have limited source. The price will not increase. This is the only way. Introduce gold only, gold and silver. In the British period in our childhood there was practically no notes. Silver. If I have to take payment from you, one thousand rupees, you will give me so much silver. For counting, counting, I have to see whether it is.... There were some imitation, counterfeit. So each coin you have to see, they were saying like that, that, "For thousand rupees I have to occupy so much space."

HARI-SAURI: And weighed so much.

PRABHUPADA: Yes, and weight was so much.

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