Saturday
Seven years ago at the launch of the Gold Standard Institute I said that our job was not to promote the Gold standard per se, as it would return with or without our efforts.
When pseudo monies collapse, as they have reliably and regularly done throughout history, and as ours are about to, only Gold, in conjunction with silver, can pick up the slack. The pain is so horrendous that for a few generations no one will trust anything issued by governments.
The job of the Institute was, and remains, to influence when the Gold standard returns, and in what form.
‘When’, meaning would it be before or after the collapse of paper currencies? If before, then the worst manifestations of the collapse can be mitigated. If after, then we will have substantially failed in our mission and the manifestations will be horrendous.
If that sounds alarming, then that is a good start. Logical prediction based upon known facts can lead to only one conclusion, and the word ‘alarming’ does not do it justice.
The ‘in what form’ is the Institute’s more contentious area. We are unequivocal that the control of money needs to be removed from governments. Since Croesus introduced the first Gold coin circa 560BC, governments have monopolised money whenever and wherever they could. Apart from excessive seigniorage, always they then rob the people by adulterating the money to the point of worthlessness. This collapses the economy and, in extreme cases, such as the Romans and British, collapses whole civilisations.
From Aristotle to Nicole d’Oresme, it was valiantly argued that money belonged to the people from whom it had been expropriated.
The argument was settled in favour of government monopoly by the tried and true old standby of chopping off the heads of those who thought otherwise.
And so, after 2,500 years of head-choppings-off and collapsing economies, we at the Institute thought that just maybe it would be a good idea to try something not so doomed to failure.
We believe in freedom and also believe that there can be no freedom that does not include free markets. Further, we believe that an essential ingredient of free markets is the money that underpins every marketplace transaction. We believe that people should be entirely free to use the money of their choice.
We are confident that, given that option, people will choose Gold and silver to the exclusion of all else.
So, to cut a long story short: we must move forward to an honest money before currencies collapse, and it must be free of the taint of governments.
No regulations and no taxes – the complete separation of Money and State.
Seems a bit propeller-headed at this juncture doesn’t it? Just as once did the idea of separation of Church and State.