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Rand Paul’s “Cross of Gold” lunacy

From National Review:

“Rand Paul Has The Most Dangerous Economic Views Of Any 2016 Candidate”

“… With President Barack Obama in office, Paul’s legislation stands no chance of becoming law. It’s hard to imagine it overcoming a filibuster in the Senate, and even if it did, the president would veto it. If Paul were to win the presidency, ‘Audit the Fed’ would still face long odds in the Senate since, even in the best case scenario, Republicans likely won’t have a filibuster-proof majority in the next Congress. So while ‘Audit the Fed’ is theoretically dangerous, it’s not much of an actual threat to Fed independence. But a Paul presidency would still have disastrous effects on the U.S. economy, for other reasons that were on wide display in Iowa on Friday night.” Read more …

Among other things, Paul and his supporters want to put the U.S. back on the gold standard. In today’s world of multi-trillion-dollar economies the GS is an ideology, not a functional economic policy, and no nation uses it. In his book, “Gold,” Mathew Hart writes at page 42,

“The store of gold determined exactly how much money a country could have in circulation. It could not print more notes unless it had more gold. The strict operation of the gold standard sent regular waves of misery through the world, as the vagaries of trade would drain a gold supply and lacerate an economy. The great historian of the gold standard, Barry Eichengreen, believes that the system caused the Great Depression, by preventing the government from stimulating the economy with cash. Nevertheless, a pro-gold sentiment has remained in some quarters. … On the American right, advocates hark back to an imagined simpler and more upright time. But if the gold standard was simple, it was the simplicity of a war club. Some of the most ruthless passages in history have been set off by a good swing of the gold standard.”

And then there’s William Jennings Bryan’s famous speech to the 1896 Democratic convention:

“We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them! … Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: ‘You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.'”

Photo-1-William-J-Bryan-600x422_c1fdc56b3070dfe288553f20ebb49e92a_400x400Photos: William Jennings Bryan campaigned to rescue Americans from the “cross of gold”; Rand Paul wants to crucify us on it.


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