Free Republic

Barack Obama's tax advisers recently posted a piece in the Wall Street Journal about their candidate's tax plans. Their article was designed to triangulate, painting their candidate as a tax cutter and the Republican opposition as a secret tax raiser. It was well written and well argued — not that you can really trust anything you read about what candidates will or will not do once in office. In any case, I was discussing the piece with a person whose politics are certainly left of center. She said to me something along the following lines: I'm really not sure I...

Johnny Carson might have quipped about the economy, "Inflation is so bad these days… that pennies are now selling on the street for two cents." This joke may not be all that funny, even with the great Carnac delivering it, but it does have the underpinnings of good comedy: an absurd story based on a kernel of truth. Old pennies are routinely traded at premium prices, sometimes twice or more their face value. This is not because they are rare or precious — they were minted by the tens of billions — but simply because they are worth more as...

Money is a crucial command post of any economy, and therefore of any society. Society rests upon a network of voluntary exchanges, also known as the "free-market economy"; these exchanges imply a division of labor in society, in which producers of eggs, nails, horses, lumber, and immaterial services such as teaching, medical care, and concerts, exchange their goods for the goods of others. At each step of the way, every participant in exchange benefits immeasurably, for if everyone were forced to be self-sufficient, those few who managed to survive would be reduced to a pitiful standard of living. Direct exchange...

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” -Thomas Jefferson Well we are now living in a time when we are being told that there is a shortage of oil and food. The demand for food and gasoline is up but the supply has not gone up and that means higher prices. It now costs 5$...

Constitution Party stunner: Chuck Baldwin KOs firebrand Alan Keyes Convening its national convention in Kansas City today, the Constitution Party picked radio talk-show host Chuck Baldwin over former Ambassador Alan Keyes as its 2008 presidential candidate. The pick was seen as something of an upset, given Keyes' higher national profile. Known for his fiery stem-winders, Keyes is a two-time GOP presidential candidate who abandoned the Republican Party this month to join the Constitution Party, which believes in limited government and is committed to ending abortion and bringing American troops home from Iraq. But Baldwin's roots in the Constitution Party run...

Seventy-five years ago this month Franklin Delano Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 32nd President of the United States. Within days after swearing to uphold the U.S. Constitution, through a Presidential Proclamation he closed the U.S. Mint to gold. Recall that the Mint had been established by the Constitution to protect the people’s right to sound money. Roosevelt had been elected on a platform of sound money. Barely in office, he reversed himself. He grabbed the gold of the people, marked up its value, leaving Federal Reserve notes in the hands of the people that were to lose 95 percent of...

[...] Among so many of our friends and our colleagues and folks who are involved in politics outside the four corners of this room, being a conservative or describing oneself as a conservative has gotten right-confusing. Now we have compassionate conservatives-- we've been down that road. We have convenient conservatives--those who are conservative when it's convenient to be conservative. And we even have big-government conservatives. I know that's an oxymoron, but a lot of these folks have never been known for consistency. It used to be if you were a conservative, people knew exactly where you were...you were a supporter...

David Frum is on the warpath. In a National Review Online blog post, then an NPR commentary, and most recently in a National Post article, Frum has mercilessly ridiculed the gold standard. But as with most modern critiques of the "bad old days" of the laissez-faire 19th century, Frum's analysis is fraught with theoretical and historical problems. Frum's main objection is that the gold standard is allegedly rigid, preventing the economy from smoothly adjusting to various shocks: Since permanently abandoning gold convertibility in 1933, the US economy has experienced far less economic volatility. Recessions are fewer and shallower (if sometimes...

One issue voters. Confused, emotional one issue voters. And they come from all stripes of politics. Let's have a look. The Neo nazi groups/conspiracy theorists - Ron says he will end aid to Israel. They've latched on to that one. Most of them don't want the government to function, good or bad because it keeps them in check. Not quite anarchists, but close. The Leftie Anti war crowd, not really pacifists, but bohemian cowards promoting anarchy. Paul says he'll end the war and be nice to everyone no matter how they've tried to kill us. The Conservative who really would...

Rep. Ron Paul, the maverick Texas Republican who is running as an anti-war libertarian in the Republican primary, has come charging out of nowhere to become the leading fundraiser in the brief history of the Internet. Yesterday, his campaign reported a one-day take around $3.8 million, with an average donation of $98. In one respect, Paul deserves his success. He is a far more articulate and coherent critic of administration policy in Iraq than any candidate on the Democratic side, speaking as he does the frank and plain language of the isolationist. “The fundamental question remains,” he said in 2004,...

Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul has made politics a lot more interesting this year. He believes a lot of things the GOP establishment doesn’t, and his entry into the race has made people discuss ideas that wouldn’t otherwise get put into the public forum. I salute him for contributing, but would rather take a pass on one his least useful contributions. Ron Paul has suggested taking the United States Dollar back on the Gold Standard and doing away with The Federal Reserve. For some reason, this whole debate over Ron Paul's platform and on full-bodied and specie-backed currencies, reminded me...

As if Michael Vick didn't have enough troubles, he may have to fork over $63 billion — that's billion, with a B — if one Jonathan Lee Riches prevails in court. The aptly named Riches' lawsuit against Vick, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Richmond, was handwritten. That's because Riches is currently a guest of the Graybar Hotel in South Carolina (it's not clear which town; his handwriting's a little hard to read). The lawsuit does not explain what landed Riches in the clink, but does spell out a number of dastardly allegations: that Vick supposedly stole Riches'...

Gold is selling for more than US$700 an ounce, up from $258 in 2001.......

How the gold standard contributed to the Great Depression. There always seem to be voices raising the possibility that a return to a monetary gold standard could solve all our problems. Among those championing this meme this week were Chris Mayer at Daily Reckoning, Robert Blumen at Mises Economics Blog, and some of my fellow blogjammers. Under a pure gold standard, the government would stand ready to trade dollars for gold at a fixed rate. Under such a monetary rule, it seems the dollar is "as good as gold."Except that it really isn't-- the dollar is only as good as...

Globalization Dissected Lou Dobbs and Protectionists, please take note! by Hugo Salinas Price President Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (This article is translated into English from the original Spanish, by its author. The original article at this website, www.plata.com.mx, is "Disección de la 'Globalización'". Some slight modifications have been made to the English version.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The globalization of the world economy which we have been experiencing these past decades has not been a sound and inevitable process, nor is it a result of the forces of supply and demand in a liberalized world that impose painful but beneficial changes...

The growing disillusionment with politically controlled monetary policies has produced an increasing number of advocates for a return to the GOLD STANDARD - including at times president Reagan. In years past a desire to return to a monetary system based on gold was perceived as nostalgia for an era when times were simpler, problems less complex and the world not threatened with nuclear annihilation. But after a decade of destabilizing inflation and economic stagnation, the restoration of a GOLD STANDARD has become an issue that is clearly rising on the economic policy agenda. A commission to study the issue, with...

Graham Halksworth's neighbours knew him as a pillar of his community: a family man and a trustee of the local golf club. They didn't realise that he was quietly plotting one of the most audacious scams in history. Every Monday morning, 69-year-old Graham Halksworth would bid farewell to his wife Margaret, and leave his home at the top end of the little town of Mossley, high on the shoulder of the Pennines. Smartly dressed and carrying a briefcase, he would negotiate the steps down from their unprepossessing brick-built semi, whose only sign of pretension was its windows, leaded with an...

Bill to eliminate the Fed introduced Rep. Paul: Legislation seeks to 'restore financial stability' to U.S. By Jon Dougherty © 2002 WorldNetDaily.com A Republican lawmaker has introduced legislation to abolish the Federal Reserve as a way to "restore financial stability" to the country and re-establish the once-used gold standard. "Since the creation of the Federal Reserve, middle and working-class Americans have been victimized by a boom-and-bust monetary policy," said Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, in a speech to colleagues on the House floor. "In addition, most Americans have suffered a steadily eroding purchasing power because of the Federal Reserve's inflationary policies....

By monopolizing this commodity the moneyed classes have got Nature by the throat and the community under their heels... Compared with this process, usury is mere child's play. -Alexander Del Mar in The Science of Money. Advocacy of gold or gold "backed" money rests on dubious foundations. The discussion that follows will reveal some of the semantic deception, half-truths, doublespeak, self-interest pleading, and historical errors employed in gold advocacy polemics. The Pope admitted in 1992 that Galileo had been right. This has nothing to do with gold money, but it is offered to show that neither antiquity nor authority makes...