Gold Standard

Bob concludes his series on areas where he’s changed his mind. This episode covers the economics of climate change, fractional reserve banking, the US gold standard, and more.

That gold was used as money in the past is merely a historical fact. But the fact that gold was a form of private money, and thus not easily manipulated for government schemes, made it a target of countless intellectual and governmental assaults.

That gold was used as money in the past is merely a historical fact. But the fact that gold was a form of private money, and thus not easily manipulated for government schemes, made it a target of countless intellectual and governmental assaults. 

Monetary reform leading to a gold standard, which would solve numerous problems resulting from the present fiat money order, needs to become a populist issue to enjoy success.

The gold standard disappeared because governments destroyed it. Here's how it happened. Private-sector money is always an enemy of the state.

Could new gold discoveries cause a (small) boom-bust cycle if the gold hit the loan market before other sectors? Bill Barnett and Walter Block join Bob Murphy to discuss. 

That Bretton Woods was called a gold standard was an exercise in obfuscation. It happened for the same reason that NAFTA was called free trade. The state has long used the language of the market economy as a plow to push through its opposite.

Reinstating the mark, a peaceful act by a sovereign country, would create a cascade of monetary reform throughout the world. Europe's trading partners would find the cost of necessary imports rising in terms of their local currencies, forcing them to adopt fiscal and monetary responsibility.

Americans have benefited mightily by holding and trading with the world’s reserve currency, though most people haven’t given it a thought. No one remembers when the pound sterling held this distinction a hundred years ago. 

Mises grounds his balance-of-payments analysis on the insight that it is a monetary concept.