Monetary History 1

                                           

The sponsor of the successful gold commission amendment was congressman Ron Paul of Texas. He is one of the leaders of the effort to establish a redeemable gold dollar and will serve on the commission along with public and private sector representatives. In the effort to clarify the issues involved and add some historical insights the current debate, Congressman Paul has written a booklet that is clear, elemental, enlightening. As he demonstrates, “The consequences of monetary destruction are complex, but the solution is not.”

Congressman Paul outlines the steps that must be taken to move from a government fiat money system which is handed toward disaster, to a system of honest, free market money. He also refutes some of the commonly raised objections to a gold standard. One such assertion is that there is not enough gold to return to a 100% redeemable – in – gold dollar. Dr. Paul quotes Professor Hans Sennholz: “In a free -market economy it is utterly irrelevant what the total stock of money should be. Any given quantity renders the full services and yields the maximum utility of a medium of exchange. It so obvious and yet so obscured by specious reasoning of special interest Spokesmen that the painting of another ton of paper money does not create new wealth.” Inflation is an increase in the quantity of money. It is legalized theft by means similar to counterfeiting.