The Fed

Krugman explained that the horrible trade wars of the early 1930s were the fault of — you guessed it — the gold standard.

"The gold-exchange standard establishes a system, in the name of gold, which in reality manages to install coordinated, international, inflationary, paper money."

Eventually, every aspect of productive life will be so controlled that capitalist drive and ingenuity will become relics of the past.

Bailouts cause malinvestments that lower real output, beginning the cycle again. This cannot continue forever: it will eventually result in a runaway-inflationary depression.

In light of the recent multitude of chances for the population at large to be gently introduced to the shenanigans of our Federal Reserve System, I have hope that the lights may come on for enough people before it is too late.

"Instead of buying up toxic assets, the TARP money was used to partially nationalize the banking industry."

"The reason why inflation is bad news is not because of increases in prices as such, but because of the damage inflation inflicts to the wealth-formation process."

"The consumer and his valuations lies at the root of all economic considerations."

Buying gold and silver coins and holding them is not only a way of protecting oneself against inflation, but it is also, in a sense, a way of boycotting the federal reserve. That in itself would be reason enough to own them.

The root of the current financial crisis was an artificially induced boom in the real economy, and asset-price markets that subsequently turned to bust. The bust led to a reduction in the values of many assets owned by banks.