The dollar’s lost half its value and the price of gold exploded since our author first warned that politicians are ruining our purchasing power.

Substantive change has occurred in the subjects examined in my second book, Gold and Liberty (AIER, 1995), since it was published three decades ago. That change has been mostly negative, unfortunately, especially during the first quarter of this century. As economic liberty has decreased, gold has increased, a historical pattern which is by no means random.

The theme of Gold and Liberty is straightforward: the statuses of gold-based money and political-economic liberty are intimately related. When a government is sound, so also is money. One of the book’s premises is that sound money is gold money (or gold-based money) because it’s economically grounded, non-political, and exhibits a fairly steady purchasing power over long periods. A second premise is that while sound government makes sound money possible, sound money alone can’t ensure fiscal-monetary integrity in public affairs.

A sound government is, in this sense, one that respects private property and the sanctity of contract, a state that’s constitutionally limited in its legal, monetary, and fiscal powers. Sound money is a predictable and reliable medium of exchange, serving as a reliable yardstick due precisely to the relative stability of its real value (that is, “the golden constant”). Unrestrained states “redistribute” wealth rather than protect it, tending to spend, tax, borrow, and print money to excess. That erodes an economy’s financial infrastructure.

[...]







...read more at thedailyeconomy.org