Thursday, March 13, 2008

$1,000 Gold Has Officially Arrived: A Warning From Ron Paul

It long appeared inevitable, but it has now officially happened: today the price of gold hit the $1,000 mark. Wondering what’s so important about the $1,000 gold price? Well, let's see what Congressman Ron Paul has to say.

The following excerpts were pulled from an article posted on Lewrockwell.com by Paul (all emphasis mine):

“Buying gold and holding it is somewhat analogous to converting one’s savings into one hundred dollar bills and hiding them under the mattress–yet not exactly the same. Both gold and dollars are considered money, and holding money does not qualify as an investment. There’s a big difference between the two however, since by holding paper money one loses purchasing power. The purchasing power of commodity money, e.g., gold, however, goes up if the government devalues the circulating fiat currency.”

“Holding gold is protection or insurance against government’s proclivity to debase its currency. The purchasing power of gold goes up not because it’s a so-called good investment; it goes up in value only because the paper currency goes down in value. In our current situation, that means the dollar.”

A soaring gold price is a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the central bank and the dollar. This certainly was the case in 1979 and 1980. Today, gold prices reflect a growing restlessness with the increasing money supply, our budgetary and trade deficits, our unfunded liabilities, and the inability of Congress and the administration to reign in runaway spending.” (This was written back in 2006, so you can probably add the uneasiness being felt from the credit crisis.)

Likewise, a fiat monetary system encourages speculation and unsound borrowing. As problems develop, scapegoats are sought and frequently found in foreign nations (hello China). This prompts many to demand altering exchange rates and protectionist measures. The sentiment for this type of solution is growing each day.”

Congressman Paul then gets in-depth about how the fiat system will inevitably fail, as it has throughout history (which is an interesting truth). If you are interested in knowing the details, read the complete article. It is fairly lengthy, but well worth the time to read, whether or not you agree with his ideas—it will get your mind spinning a bit if nothing else.

I don’t envision the U.S. moving to a gold standard as Paul suggests, and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about that idea one way or the other. Paul makes an interesting—and extreme—point at the end of the article that I do want to bring up:

“Economic law dictates reform at some point. But should we wait until the dollar is 1/1,000 (which arrived today) of an ounce of gold or 1/2,000 of an ounce of gold? The longer we wait, the more people suffer and the more difficult reforms become. Runaway inflation inevitably leads to political chaos, something numerous countries have suffered throughout the 20th century. The worst example of course was the German inflation of the 1920s that led to the rise of Hitler. Even the communist takeover of China was associated with runaway inflation brought on by Chinese Nationalists. The time for action is now, and it is up to the American people and the U.S. Congress to demand it.”

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I wasn't taxed to the point where I can't save money. If I could I would buy gold now. Thomas Jefferson said "Paper is nothing, it is only the ghost of money" How true that statement has become when you need so many dollars for so little gold.

Anonymous said...

BELIEVE IT!!!!!

Anonymous said...

What you are seeing here is the result over very poor management practices. Who is to blame?

The Senate, Congress, Executive and the FED. We can change the practices of the first three but we have no power over the forth.

Why is the FED the regulating body with ZERO oversite. They report to both houses of government, but neither exercised any controls over the FED. Therefore it's behavior is Totally unRegulated.

Dump the Fed Fire all of them NOW.

I will be doing my part to change the other three houses of our Government What are you doing?

Audaces fortuna iuvat - Fortune favours the brave

Anonymous said...

Washington D.C. - April 15th - Strike Against the Fed - I just got word Dr Paul will be there.

GRANNYWARRIORSdotCOM

Anonymous said...

My father-in-law, as part of his family and financial preparedness plan, steadily bought gold coins throughout his life, believing that someday money wouldn't be worth anything....

He gave the strangest birthday presents to our kids: 1oz. gold coins.

As he got older he began distributing his pile of gold throughtout his family for them to hold on to when the time came....

Anonymous said...

Back in the Bible times,people would've called Dr Paul a prophet.I'm starting to believe that those prophets weren't so spiritual after all,may they just used common sense as Dr Paul is doing today. Or maybe after all he is a prophet.
Good luck guys,i've already piled-up a food supply for at least a year,i know it sounds "coucou" but believe me pretty soon,the worthless mighty dollar won't be able to buy you a loaf of bread.

Anonymous said...

It's not about the gold standard. One of the issues often overlooked in this debate is the idea of allowing alternate metal currencies. As Paul pointed out, it's not so much gold becoming more valuable, but the fiat currency becoming less valuable. However, if you seek to protect yourself by converting dollars into gold, the government will tax you on your "gain" when gold goes up relative to the dollar. The purpose of allowing alternate metal currencies is to remove the government's ability to tax you for a "gain" that doesn't really exist.

Anonymous said...

Hey America, you had your chance with Paul.

You have the Internet, all the information is available to you, and you still chose to ignore it.

The fiat system will eventually fail, it's just not known when. There will be chaos as a result of it, and you can see how every nation reacts to economic chaos. The groundwork has already been put in place to deal with it. KBR has been contracted to construct "detention centers", Directive 51 has been signed, YOU have allowed the Federal government to spy on everybody.

You lazy worthless so-called Americans are going to be getting a very tough lesson at some point, and it's starting to look like it's going to be soon.

It is little wonder that the people in power have such litte respect for the average American, I have a tough time having any respect for them myself. They are lazy, they chose to be uneducated and ignorant, and they although they say they don't trust the government, they have placed all of heads in a collective noose.

You're going to get what you deserve, and unfortunately, people like me probably will too. You've abrogated your responsibility as citizens. You have to oversee your government. You're too lazy to deserve either wealth or freedom.