Bruce Bartlett Flubs His Gold Standard Non-Argument

The recent announcement that the Republican Party would explore commodity-defined money through a repeat of the '81-‘82 Gold Commission was welcome news. Figure the Party's modern credibility largely remains a function of Ronald Reagan, and while Reagan was most known for his tax cutting prowess, quite unlike modern Republicans who can't seem to move beyond taxes, Reagan understood that "No great nation in history has survived fiat money, money that did not have precious metal backing."

Reagan's remark about paper money came after years of dollar debasement in the Nixon/Carter 1970s, and not surprisingly the new/old change in GOP policy comes after 11 years of dollar debasement under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Gold always tells the tale in that its price doesn't so much move; rather the dollar in which it's priced moves. Gold rose in dollar terms in the ‘70s precisely because the dollar weakened, and since 2001 a falling dollar has once again revealed itself through a rising gold price. And then just as it did in the ‘70s when the dollar collapsed, the price of oil has spiked.

Looked at more optimistically, the pain wrought by the monetary disaster that was the ‘70s gave us the aforementioned Gold Commission, along with the relative monetary calm of the Reagan/Clinton ‘80s and ‘90s when the economy boomed. And then a near monetary repeat (the CPI disparity is a function of the feds measuring that which doesn't expose the monetary error) of the ‘70s under Bush and Obama has predictably led to a renewed call for stable money. Somewhat ironically, the once great Bruce Bartlett has sided with monetary chaos. Having milked his role in the ‘70s revival of classical economics for all that he could, Bartlett now runs in more statist circles; cashing in on his reputation as a "former Reaganite who saw the light."

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George Gilder Thankfully Returns, Bearing Knowledge and Power

by Ralph Benko

George Gilder, whose new book publishes today, is one of the original pillars of Supply Side economics. As stated by Discovery Institute, which he co-founded, “Mr. Gilder pioneered the formulation of supply-side economics when he served as Chairman of the Lehrman Institute’s Economic Roundtable, as Program Director for the Manhattan Institute….”

He was the living writer most quoted by President Reagan. And he is back with his most brilliant work yet — one of potentially explosive importance if taken to heart by our political and policy thought leaders. It is a radical guide, with surprising insights on almost every page, to the creation of a new era of vibrant prosperity.


The Lehrman Standard

by Paul Brodsky

As reviewer Paul Brodsky, a professional investor in New York City, perceptively notes,

"Lewis Lehrman is one of a very small group of contemporary gold advocates able to successfully bridge the gap separating practical conservative intellectualism from fleeting, half-baked idealism. His CV lists great success across many fields including education (degrees and teaching fellowships from Yale and Harvard); industry (past president of Rite Aid); politics (narrow loser to Mario Cuomo in the 1982 New York governor’s race); finance, (past Morgan Stanley managing director); private sector entrepreneur (founder, L. E. Lehrman & Company); public sector advocate (founder, Lehrman Institute); historian (author, Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point); and recognized philanthropist (awarded the National Humanities Medal by George W. Bush in an Oval Office ceremony). ... Only someone erudite and elegant in demeanor could hope to pull it off . In an irreconcilably over-leveraged world where irritated bond vigilantes question economic sustainability and angry Tea Partiers protest the immorality of it all, Lehrman’s views are considered and his convictions carry weight. He brings gravitas to his cause, and he does so from within as a member of the club."

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Before the Fed: JP Morgan Summons the Bank Presidents

"Finally, on the night of Sunday, November 2, Morgan summoned the presidents of the major New York banks to his new library, at the corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street, an Italian Renaissance-style palace he had built next door to his house to showcase his collection of rare books, manuscripts, and other artwork. Its marble floors, frescoed ceilings, walls lined with tapestries and triple-tiered bookcases of Circasian walnut, crammed full of rare Bibles and illuminated medieval manuscripts, made it an incongruous setting for a meeting of the banking establishment. Once the moneymen had gathered, Morgan had the great ornamental bronze doors to the library locked and refused to let anyone leave until all had collectively agreed to commit a further $25 million to the rescue fund."

— Liaquat Ahamed, Lords of Finance (Penguin Books, 2009, p. 54)



The Demise of Money and Credit

by Lewis E. Lehrman

Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.

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Remembering the Fed

Kathleen Packard  |  Jun 19, 2013
America recently celebrated — well, maybe we didn’t celebrate – the 80th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s action to end to the gold standard. But America is also celebrating – well, maybe not everyone is celebrating – the 100th anniversary of the legislation creating the Federal Reserve System. As Lewis E. Lehrman...

The Common Sense of the Common Law

Ralph J. Benko  |  Jun 18, 2013
Constitution.org provides an extensive and thoughtful Memorandum of Law by Larry Becraft, Esq., of Huntsville, Alabama, on Article I, Section 10, clause 1 of the US Constitution. Sir William Blackstone courtesy of Wikipedia One of many interesting matters the Memorandum treats is Blackstone's Commentaries, a book that was a fixture in the...
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Jun 19, 2013
World Press
Philip Scranton

How the U.S. Scuttled the 1933 World Economic Conference

In the spring of 1933, global trade was being undermined by nationalistic economic responses to the Great Depression, including currency...
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Oct 05, 2012
Key Monetary Writings
Lawrence H. White

Myth 1: There isn’t Enough Gold to Operate a Gold Standard Today

Personal finance columnist John Waggoner (2012) recently claimed in USA Today that “there's not enough gold in the world to...
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