Page 1 of
2 Dollar can be saved from
self-mutilation By Antal E
Fekete
As the world sees the damage
wrought in the modern world by dependance on fiat
currencies, the question is raised of much gold is
being held in Fort Knox or is hoarded by Americans
that may be available for coinage in case the US
Mint is re-opened to gold.
From my
perspective these figures do not matter any more.
What matters is whether confidence can be restored
to the extent that gold will start flowing to the
Mint. Here the situation is definitely sad, as
shown by the treatment of presidential candidate
Ron Paul by the establishment, his own party, the
media, the investing public, and the electorate.
He has been given the cold shoulder by all in
these extraordinary times, just when the financial
world started crumbling all around us.
He
might be God’s messenger, but he has been treated
no better
than any other before him
who was sent out to be prophet in his own land.
Even a debate on gold as money, let alone the
realization of it, is strenuously opposed by
everybody, including the people themselves who are
going to suffer for their denseness and put-on
deafness as the dollar is ignominiously removed
from the stage.
Gold on the
go Gold sitting in vaults is one thing, and
gold on the go is another. Gold on the go is as
different from gold in hoards as day is from
night. The former suggests confidence in the
present and radiant optimism about the future. You
dare spend your gold coin as you fully expect it
to come back to you on the same terms. The latter
suggests fading confidence in the present and deep
pessimism about the future. The gold coin is not
to be spent. It may never come back to you.
Whenever gold is being hoarded, there is a
danger that the economy will plunge to its worst
levels, possibly all the way back to barbarism. If
all the gold is hoarded, prosperity will collapse
regardless of the state of knowledge and
technology. But if the Mint is re-opened, gold
will flow to the Mint and the economy may rise
from the dead. People will be talking about an
"economic miracle". Our leaders fail to see this.
To them gold is still the "barbarous relic",
rather than the elixir of life, turning the
moribund economy around from the brink.
Key to confidence Trade and
commerce, and the prosperity that depends on them,
hinge upon two primal ingredients: integrity and
confidence. It is the function of money to
implement their existence and interaction. For 63
centuries they have worked together since the
first gold slug was used in exchange by men.
Gold is the key to confidence. The
universal acceptability of gold throughout history
has enabled the agencies of production,
consumption, exchange, and distribution to bring
about the highest level of prosperity commensurate
with the prevailing level of knowledge and
technology. Take gold out and, lo and behold:
knowledge and technology will no longer uphold
prosperity. Sinking back to the Dark Ages becomes
inevitable.
The United States has missed
its chance, in this election year, to have a grand
national debate on the merit of a metallic
currency, and how gold could be pressed into
service at the eleventh hour, to stave off world
disaster. The US Mint will not be reopened to
gold, and the "terror of the error" will run its
course to the bitter end. A depression will engulf
the world. Suave qui peut - that's the
message from the 2008 presidential election
campaign that has aborted six months too early.
End of the Roman Empire Maybe a
foreign country will open its Mint to gold and
silver. Be that as it may, history appears to be
repeating itself. It conjures up the split of the
Roman Empire into an Eastern and a Western half in
395 AD. By 476 the Western half ceased to exist,
entering the Dark Ages. Civilization, as people
had known it, was gone. However, the Eastern half,
partly due to the fact that it could keep its Mint
open to gold, continued in existence for another
thousand years. Circulating gold represented
confidence. Confidence in production, confidence
in trade, confidence in the future.
At the
time of the collapse of the Roman Empire all the
gold was still available that had kept a
munificient world trade going. The trouble was not
a shortage of gold. The trouble was that gold was
going into hiding. Had it been put back into
circulation, then the Dark Ages could have been
fended off. It did not happen, because of the
ignorance and selfishness of the leaders and their
self-conceit that a fast-depreciating monetary
system served the purposes of their Empire. As
gold was going into hiding, and there was no
statesmanship to press it back into service, there
was no way to save civilization in the Western
part of the Roman Empire.
It is important
to understand that the Dark Ages that followed,
and gold going into hiding, are just two sides of
the same coin. We have the same double threat
facing us today. This time, too, the Dark Ages
could last several hundred years.
The
Eastern half of the Roman Empire, Constantinople,
fared better. There, they kept the Mint open to
gold for another thousand years. Not only did
people survive: they prospered. The gold coin of
the Empire, the bezant (named for Byzantium, as
Constantinople was called before Great Constantine
renamed it after himself) saved civilization from
ruin to which the Western part of the Empire
succumbed so easily.
If history is
repeating itself, then the Oriental half of our
civilization, backed by the born-again economic
strength of China, will have the wisdom to save
the world by opening the Mint to silver.
Unfortunately, it will not benefit the Occident.
Our government leaders conducting our
irredeemable currency and credit programs do not
understand that people can be faced with tragedy
and disaster in the wake of the collapse of the
monetary system. Until such a devastating
catastrophe occurs, they proceed as though some
special Providence will protect their nation from
the monetary and social chaos in which the
helpless and hopeless mass of people cry out in
despair.
People can do little or nothing
but suffer because inept men, in the area of
monetary economics, threw the US Constitution to
the winds, usurped unlimited power, and took
possession of the monetary program of the nation.
When monetary statesmanship is replaced by
foolishness, recklessness, irresponsibility, and
related examples of human misbehavior, catastrophe
and chaos await the unfortunate nation caught in
that frequent tragedy of mankind.
The
common procedure is to avoid upright monetary
scientists whose efforts on behalf of the helpless
mass of people are generally resented, ridiculed,
taxed out of existence and, sometimes, subjected
to other forms of punishment such as ostracism or
worse.
At the same time, currency
manipulators attempt to persuade the public that
they are intelligent and honorable men acting in
the
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
