One question I've heard more lately: Now that the gold price is over $1,500 an ounce, shouldn't the U.S. sell its gold reserves—which were mostly acquired from U.S. citizens in 1933 at $20.67 or bought at $35 an ounce under the post-World War II Bretton Woods monetary system?
If, as Lewis E. Lehrman and I haveshown, restoring the gold standard is necessary to sort out the U.S. economic and fiscal mess—specifically, preventing future episodes like the Great Recession of 2007-09, reversing the decline of U.S. international competitiveness and restoring lost Federal budget discipline—the answer is emphatically no: A growing U.S. economy will need more gold, even if the gold price rose no farther.
Yet even if not, the cautionary example of IMF gold sales is also decidedly negative. Since gold was demonetized by international treaty in 1978 during President Jimmy Carter’s administration, various IMF managing directors (mostly French Socialists) have successfully campaigned to sell chunks of the IMF's gold reserves (which were started along with the IMF in 1944). The biggest IMF gold sales occurred in 1976-80 mostly under Jacques de Larosiere, in 1999-2000 under Michel Camdessus, and in 2009-10 under Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Since each trade essentially sold gold to buy goods to fund the IMF itself and give to poor countries, their wisdom can be gauged by converting U.S. consumer (or producer) prices into gold terms, as in the nearby chart. (Note that the swings were smallest under the gold standard, and greatest since the dollar’s last link with gold was severed in 1971.)
The record might look better decades hence if the gold price plummeted. But at the actual average gold prices of about $228, 232, and $1157, those IMF gold trades have lost about 56%, 77%, and 33% of their respective values so far, adjusted for changes in the U.S CPI.
The clear lesson: It’s far wiser to keep than sell U.S. gold.
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.
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."
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)
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.
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...
The value of the yuan has been slowly rising. The value of the Japanese yen has been sharply falling. Abenomics is attempting to reflate the Japanese economic – slowly, slowly. “Japan is back!” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe tells the Japanese.
Coming back isn’t easy. The Financial Times’ Jonathan Soble has noted...
Sean Fieler, James Grant, Steve Hanke, John D. Mueller, Lawrence Parks, Judy Shelton, Lawrence H. White
Senior European Advisor Paul Fabra
Advisors Jeffrey Bell, Ralph J. Benko, Andresen Blom, Frank Cannon, Rich Danker, Brian Domitrovic, Charles Kadlec, Christopher K. Potter, John Tamny and Frank Trotta
In Memoriam Professor Jacques Rueff (1896-1978)
Now Available on Amazon and from The Lehrman Institute