Gold Standard

In contrast, throughout its previous 150 or so years, the American economy had managed to do just fine without the Federal Reserve "fine tuning" the money supply.

By flooding the credit markets with money created out of thin air, the central banks of the world are interfering with humans' attempts to communicate with each other after the housing bubble popped.

Murray Rothbard was more aware than anyone of the ongoing evils perpetrated by government and he was never given the proper recognition in academia. But he was constantly happy and loved to laugh. Now I know Murray wasn't a joyous libertarian by himself; he had help from his smart, wickedly funny best friend Burt.

"By far the biggest fallacy is the belief that a growing economy requires a growing money supply."

"Let's go back to using real money."

"Gold's market premium to the official price was no small matter as it questioned the very fundamentals of the planned monetary system."

Although the dollar is no longer tied to gold, that will not stop the dollar price of gold from exploding when more investors realize that no one, not even a sharp guy like Ben Bernanke, ought to hold the fate of the world's economy in his hands.

Only two things can save the Fed at this point. One is a bailout by the federal government. This recapitalization could be financed by taxes or by monetizing government debt in another blow to the value of the currency.

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Houston, Sponsored by Jeremy S. Davis; Saturday, 24 January 2009.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1934 Gold Reserve Act was the greatest theft of wealth I'm aware of in American history: