Down with Legal Tender
Legal tender laws create special privileges for government money. That kills true currency competition and favors the state's monopoly power.
Legal tender laws create special privileges for government money. That kills true currency competition and favors the state's monopoly power.
The new "gold-exchange standard" of the 1920s was a new concoction of the world's regimes after the Great War. It certainly wasn't a true gold standard.
Gold was only included in the plans for the Bretton Woods system because of the veneer of solidity it gave.
The gold standard supposed a limit to the fiscal voracity of governments, and suspending it unleashed the perverse proclivity of the states toward indebtedness and to pass the current imbalances on to future generations.
Nixon’s closing the gold window should be seen as the end of the last remnant of the gold standard, not some kind of market failure. Governments controlled most of the gold and set its price.
The gold standard supposed a limit to the fiscal voracity of governments, and suspending it unleashed the perverse proclivity of the states toward indebtedness and to pass the current imbalances on to future generations.
Gold was only included in the plans for the Bretton Woods system because of the veneer of solidity it gave.
Nixon’s closing the gold window should be seen as the end of the last remnant of the gold standard, not some kind of market failure. Governments controlled most of the gold and set its price.
On the fiftieth anniversary of Nixon's gold shock, The Fiat Standard is an amazing explication of how the West fell to its current state. You don't want to miss this show, especially Saifedean's epic takedown of fiat academia at the end!