From Almost Daily Grant’s,
The Trump administration’s asset price-minded, E-Z money push has already ushered in a major adjustment in a certain yellow metal, with the price of gold logging more than 30 daily record highs so far this year on its way to a 40% gain. That heady move has roused the heretofore-sleepy mining complex to the tune of a 110% year-to-date rip for the NYSE Arca Gold Miners Index.
The issue of central banking has been the source of significant controversy in the United States, from its founding in 1776 to today’s clashes over monetary power.
Last week, former FBI director James Comey was charged with making false statements to Congress. The specific comment in question occurred in September 2020, when Comey testified to a Senate committee that he had not authorized a leak of classified information to the media. The Department of Justice claims that it was untrue. A second count alleges that Comey was “obstructing” and/or “impeding” the Senate panel with his lie.
During the Cold War, pro-assassination forces gained ground, but the illegal killing was hidden because it was inconsistent with the shining-city-on-the-hill propaganda.
In my first column after the events of Jan. 6th, 2021, I criticized those who called the protest a “coup,” pointing out that, “Some of the same politicians and bureaucrats denouncing the ridiculous farce at the Capitol as if it were the equivalent of 9/11 have been involved for decades in planning and executing real coups overseas. In their real coups, many thousands of civilians have died.”
The extraction of resources from the domestic population has always been a crucial and central function of every state, whether it’s the United States, Russia, or Argentina. In the modern world all states at least attempt to impose a mixture of excise taxes, income taxes, import taxes, or a variety of similar taxes. Most states with a reasonable level of state capacity are able to successfully impose and enforce these taxes.
Durable, transportable, and divisible—in other words, salable across time, space, and scales. Austrian economics recognizes these as core properties of sound money. However, beyond the marvelous social phenomena that is sound money, these properties can be relevant in describing another of humanity’s great marvels: cheese.
