The Russian central bank recently announced that it will stop buying gold at a fixed rate and will instead buy it at the negotiated rate from banks. Following the numerous sanctions imposed on Russia, the ruble had fallen tremendously against the US dollar, to get out of such a situation it had announced that it would buy gold at a fixed price of
According to the June 1, 2022, Financial Times , Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary conceded she was wrong last year about the path inflation would take. Yellen told CNN: There have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that have affected our economy badly that I
Against the backdrop of high inflation rates and geopolitical uncertainty, states are increasingly enacting measures that encourage saving in precious metals and even using gold and silver as money. With five bills signed into law in 2023, sound money reforms are gaining momentum across the United States. Money Metals Exchange’s Sound Money
The presidential election of 1896 was a great national referendum on the gold standard. The Democratic Party had been captured, at its 1896 convention, by the Populist, ultra-inflationist, anti-gold forces, headed by William Jennings Bryan. The older Democrats, who had been fiercely devoted to hard money and the gold standard, either stayed home
[”Revolution in Minnesota,” The Libertarian Forum , August 1, 1969.] The idea prevails that to favor gold or silver money is to be a mossback reactionary; nothing could be further from the truth. For gold (as well as silver) is the People’s Money; it is a valuable commodity that has developed, on the free market, as the monetary means of
Today, it is taken for granted that the Federal Reserve System’s role is to manage the economy with the crook of monetary policy, as shepherds leading a flock to greener pastures. Therefore, Fed Governor Bernanke could state in a recent speech , “The ultimate objective of monetary policymakers is to promote the health of the U.S. economy, which
Since the end of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971, the dollar has been an irredeemable currency, no longer defined or measured in terms of gold. Nonetheless, in an ironic twist, it has become the world’s dominant currency and the core reserve asset of central banks all over the world. It has replaced gold as an international currency. The
The recent Liberty Dollar raids raise the question: Why can’t people use any currency they want? The question goes deep into the heart of monetary policy. Two articles from the August 2005 issue of Econ Journal Watch point to confusion over even the terms that are used to describe ostensibly free-market policies, the “gold standard” and “free
I remember a German farmer expressing as much in a few words as the whole subject requires; “money is money, and paper is paper.” All the invention of man cannot make them otherwise. The alchemist may cease his labors, and the hunter after the philosopher’s stone go to rest, if paper can be metamorphosed into gold and silver, or made to answer the
What would the world economy and financial markets look like had government controlled central banks not followed a course of relentless increases in credit and fiat money supply? Any attempted answer to this question is sure to trigger a heated debate. In any case, however, answers would clearly depend on the alternative monetary systems that had
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.