I did just listen and did not gag. However, this guy does the same thing everyone else does, which is to use statistics to illustrate his point ... except when they don't fit, which to be fair is about half the time. In the latter case, he tries to explain them away with a wave of his hand (e.g., Japan's wildly higher debt than the US; China saving the world from inflation). His points are still valid but they're extreme (IMHO). However, he does one very sleazy, Heritage-Foundation sleight-of-hand trick: pronouncing "gold-standard good, printing money bad" at the beginning as an *accomplished fact*, when, again, this is opinion, moreover opinion that has been shown to be exaggerated again and again. How so? In 2023, you cannot base the world's economy on gold. There isn't enough gold, and people would be laying waste to the environment in gold-mining (anyone for millions of tonnes of cyanide in all the world's oceans?) and digging up graves for their great grandparents' dental fillings. All for a kind of medieval notion of what money is. Printing-money bad. Okay, why? Runaway printing, yes. But what do you do when your economy expands a lot? In nominal terms the US economy is 19 times larger than in 1973 when the gold standard was fully abolished. In that half century, inflation has not roared at 1900%; the country grew enormously in real terms. If additional money were not printed *to reflect this greater wealth*, a dollar would purchase an imported bicycle. The same holds for other major economies, East and West. America's addicted to extremism; and compromise is considered a horror. This guy is more of the same.
There is a difference between a gold currency and a gold-backed currency. Gold is not the currency, it is just an anchor. The idea that an 8x increase of goods necessitates an 8x increase of currency is based on the Unscientific Economic Dogma of "Price Stability" which only came in fashion in the 20th century. The 19th century had a gold backed, deflationary and yet ever expanding global economy. You don't know what you are talking about.
Correct. Gold Standard is passé. HF is politically motivated, funded by billionaires who don't want to pay their fair share of taxes and have hired yes-men who develop dubious arguments that try to support their agenda.
> There isn't enough gold There is always enough gold or silver for a monetary system. It just depends on the price levels, which are properly determined by the free market. A gold standard doesn't need increased production, you are just using already existing specie as a yardstick for transactions. In fact it is the low production rate (flow to stock ratio) that makes gold such a stable money system compared to fiat. Printing money does not "expand the economy" at all or "create wealth". It damages and finally destroys it via inflation. Remember Britain was on a gold standard when it went through the Industrial Revolution which made ordinary people so much richer. Likewise the USA during the Golden Age of American capitalism (1945-1971). You don't need proportionately more (paper or digital) notes to "reflect" increased wealth. The 2024 USD is worth 13% of the 1971 USD which certainly doesn't "reflect" changes in total wealth. It does however reflect the 87% of the wealth the central banks and their cronies have stolen from ordinary people who use fiat money, using the regressive stealth tax of inflation.
I did just listen and did not gag. However, this guy does the same thing everyone else does, which is to use statistics to illustrate his point ... except when they don't fit, which to be fair is about half the time. In the latter case, he tries to explain them away with a wave of his hand (e.g., Japan's wildly higher debt than the US; China saving the world from inflation). His points are still valid but they're extreme (IMHO).
However, he does one very sleazy, Heritage-Foundation sleight-of-hand trick: pronouncing "gold-standard good, printing money bad" at the beginning as an *accomplished fact*, when, again, this is opinion, moreover opinion that has been shown to be exaggerated again and again. How so?
In 2023, you cannot base the world's economy on gold. There isn't enough gold, and people would be laying waste to the environment in gold-mining (anyone for millions of tonnes of cyanide in all the world's oceans?) and digging up graves for their great grandparents' dental fillings. All for a kind of medieval notion of what money is.
Printing-money bad. Okay, why? Runaway printing, yes. But what do you do when your economy expands a lot? In nominal terms the US economy is 19 times larger than in 1973 when the gold standard was fully abolished. In that half century, inflation has not roared at 1900%; the country grew enormously in real terms. If additional money were not printed *to reflect this greater wealth*, a dollar would purchase an imported bicycle. The same holds for other major economies, East and West.
America's addicted to extremism; and compromise is considered a horror. This guy is more of the same.
There is a difference between a gold currency and a gold-backed currency. Gold is not the currency, it is just an anchor. The idea that an 8x increase of goods necessitates an 8x increase of currency is based on the Unscientific Economic Dogma of "Price Stability" which only came in fashion in the 20th century. The 19th century had a gold backed, deflationary and yet ever expanding global economy.
You don't know what you are talking about.
Correct. Gold Standard is passé. HF is politically motivated, funded by billionaires who don't want to pay their fair share of taxes and have hired yes-men who develop dubious arguments that try to support their agenda.
> There isn't enough gold
There is always enough gold or silver for a monetary system. It just depends on the price levels, which are properly determined by the free market. A gold standard doesn't need increased production, you are just using already existing specie as a yardstick for transactions. In fact it is the low production rate (flow to stock ratio) that makes gold such a stable money system compared to fiat.
Printing money does not "expand the economy" at all or "create wealth". It damages and finally destroys it via inflation. Remember Britain was on a gold standard when it went through the Industrial Revolution which made ordinary people so much richer. Likewise the USA during the Golden Age of American capitalism (1945-1971). You don't need proportionately more (paper or digital) notes to "reflect" increased wealth. The 2024 USD is worth 13% of the 1971 USD which certainly doesn't "reflect" changes in total wealth. It does however reflect the 87% of the wealth the central banks and their cronies have stolen from ordinary people who use fiat money, using the regressive stealth tax of inflation.
great video and the only one I've found to do a deep dive and come up again!