Why So Many Historians Agree With Ted Cruz On Gold

Forbes ^ | February 9, 2016 | Nathan Lewis

[GodGunsGuts]

Echoing the recent sentiments of Steve Forbes, this week Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz told a group in New Hampshire:

"Money is ... a unit of measurement. So, the reason why we see these rapid oscillations in commodities markets, it's because of unstable currencies. And it's why I think we should look at going toward rules-based money supply, ideally tied to gold, so you have stability."

Perhaps this will trigger another flood of disagreement in the mainstream press, such as the recent New York Times item which reported that 40 out of 40 "leading economists" said that a gold standard system "would not improve the lives of average Americans."

This must explain how the United States, which embraced the principle of gold-based money for nearly two centuries until 1971, became the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the planet.

Here's a little different view of historical consensus. What follows is..

[itsahoot]

That limit should be set by Congress and enforced by the Treasury.

Are you crazy? It is much better to have a group of unknown bankers with loyalties unknown printing up interest bearing dollars that can never be paid because the printed dollar has to be redeemed plus interest. Even better is the scam of electronically created 1's and 0's that can be created,moved or destroyed with a click of a mouse.

[taxcontrol]

Yes, doing it in the open and having to face the voters instead of hiding behind the Fed.

[Enlightened1]

TPA Cruz the Canadian who is not qualified to run.

Yeah Forbes like him because he was for the TPP and for H1-Bs before he was against it.

Yeah after Cruz saw Trump dominating on these topics. He “swtiched” his position. Oh but he’s not on the take with the Establishment like Goldman Sachs and Citibank right?

Here is where TPA Cruz was for the H1-B until he faced Trump and had to reverse position. Just like the TPP.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/politics/ted-cruz-immigration-h1-b-visas/

[itsahoot]

In that time we also had depressions, recessions, inflation and soaring national debt.

We had three major wars and Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt too.

Go into any Casino and replace all the currency with counterfeit and see how long it stays open.

I remember when "Sound as a Dollar" had real meaning.

[itsahoot]

Try this.

[Arthur McGowan]

Correct.

[itsahoot]

Too bad these guys didn’t set up our government, they sound pretty smart.

[A Conservative Thinker]

[crusher2013]

He’s flat out wrong on 2 of the 4.

We had very little inflation prior to the Federal Reserve and the only time the debt went way up was during large wars. (which is to be expected).

Why not modify the legal tender laws so that I can use gold or anything else to full fill a contract?

It won’t happen because the taxman wants his cut and Greshem’s law would make fiat obsolete.

[itsahoot]

Once they get it, they can't wait to turn it into dollars.

Because there is no way to use Gold in every day purchases. Besides the value of the gold fluctuates daily because the government has not set the value of the dollar.

[Thibodeaux]

re: gold standard

not if but when

[Axenolith]

Very brief and often localized ones, inflation related to temporary paper issues and in one instance locally with the CA gold rush. The debt then was also never unpayable.

If fractional or fiat is so sound, why do we let bankers do it rather than just have Treasury manage it?

Oh, wait, there is actually 2 money systems, but they don’t teach that part...

[itsahoot]

"Monetary Wealth" is a fiction.

I am hoping these recover.

[PGR88]

You’re a trillionaire!!

[DiogenesLamp]

Your post presumes that a better system has been found. Gold has been tried, and the result was abject misery.

I might say the exact same thing of your Keynesian perspective on economics. It too has been tried, and the consequences will be far worse.

The difference between the two is that a nation might recover from a depression, but I do not think it will be possible to recover from a debased fiat currency where our debts are equivalent to 20 times our GDP.

Fiat currency has proven to be a suicide.

[Amity]

Gold doesn’t make money sound, however what it does do is limit the Government’s ability to “invisibly tax” by kicking up the money supply.

And we didn’t have deflationary depressions every 20 years because we were on the gold standard. Things like artificially connecting the price of gold to the price of silver, investing massive government money into projects that collapsed (like the over-investment in Southern and Union Pacific Railroads, which both promptly tanked), and other government money games are pertinent.

[DiogenesLamp]

I didn’t say they were consequences of the gold standard, I said that the gold standard accomplished NOTHING in preventing them.

How would you expect a monetary standard to stop foolish lending practices? Solid money won't stop people from loaning out more than they have, so why are you blaming these effects on the monetary standard?

You are positing gold as a solution, when the HISTORICAL record shows it accomplished nothing positive.

No, I am positing the idea that a non changeable standard of value is superior to a fiat declaration of value that is subject to the whim of an irresponsible government.

At least with a fixed value standard, you have made it harder for them to fudge the economic numbers and cover it up. With the government in charge of the printing presses, they can always print their shortfalls.

They can't print more specie. Usage of specie encourages accountability, but does not force it. Only the wrath of the people can force it.

[William Tell]

itsahoot said: "Because there is no way to use Gold in every day purchases."

Why not use "gold certificates" issued by trusted companies which store gold?

Fiat currencies allow the government to tap into the wealth of those who hold the currency by printing money. That is why so few people hold currency today.

If you don't hold currency, then the government's impact is indirect.

I bought a house in 1985 for 94k. The price of gold was 290 dollars, so the house cost me 324 ounces of gold.

I sold the house last year for 320k when the gold price was 1200 dollars. That means I was paid 266 ounces of gold. On a gold standard I lost money.

But using the fiat currency of the U.S., I made a bundle and the tax man has his hand out.

As others have pointed out, an ounce of gold buys a fine men's suit and has for centuries. I would take the gold standard in the blink of an eye.

Inflation is running at about 720% per year, if not more, in Venezuala. Tell me how we know that will not happen here?

[DiogenesLamp]

We could probably debate all day about the exact causes of that, but the fact is, we didn't have a great depression before the Federal Reserve showed up and starting "managing" our economy.

I suspect that had something to do with it. Where did all that sudden credit come from?

I don't even think the depression, in and of itself, was a very notable event, because depressions are unavoidable. It was really the misguided attempts to “cure” the depression that made it worse and delayed the recovery. That we can blame squarely on the liberal economic theorists in the Fed and the Roosevelt administration.

I concur.

[itsahoot]

If the government, through its banker masters at the Federal Reserve, can create "money"from thin air, they certainly don't need ours every April 15th.

Rush Limbaugh asked last week why we pay taxes at all since what they spend bears no relationship to what they collect.