Now wait a second. Let’s be accurate about the “leadership”:
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JWK
Today’s Democrat Party Leadership is infested with Authoritarian Revolutionaries, the same kind that took over Cuba and now rule over the people with an iron fist!
"This [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President [Wilson} signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized…the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill"— Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. , 1913
Take note my fellow countrymen to the wisdom spoken by General Pinckney during the South Carolina ratification debates of our constitution with regard to paper money.
“With regard to Mr. Lowndes’s question, “What harm had paper money done?” General Pinckney answered, that he wondered that gentleman should ask such a question, as he had told the house that he had lost fifteen thousand guineas by depreciation; but he would tell the gentleman what further injuries it had done–it had corrupted the morals of the people; it had diverted them from the paths of honest industry to the ways of ruinous speculation; it had destroyed both public and private credit, and had brought total ruin on numberless widows and orphans.”
Check HERE to see how man Federal Reserve Notes you get for a U.S. Dollar today!
Well, in that regard ___ stocks and other assets ___ we agree. But Federal Reserve Notes? Not a chance, at least not with me. I’ll take 100 pre 1982 pennies over a Federal Reserve Note any day!
“The rents which have been reserved in corn have preserved their value much better than those which have been reserved in money, even where the denomination of the coin has not been altered. By the 18th of Elizabeth it was enacted that a third of the rent of all college leases should be reserved in corn, to be paid, either in kind, or according to the current prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this corn rent, though originally but a third of the whole, is in the present times, according to Dr. Blackstone, commonly near double of what arises from the other two-thirds.”
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, March 9, 1776
Much of Adam Smith’s work was written in opposition to “Seigniorage” (currency devaluation aka inflation) but, and he was quite clear about this in parts, he felt that while precious metals are the best currency,
commodities
and the means of producing commodities retain and increase their value vs precious metal.
IOW Smith said countries should not inflate their currencies, but he did not recommend precious metals as a wise place for individual or institutional investments.
He was quite clear that commodities, land stocks and bonds, over time, increase their value vs. gold silver etc…
That was long before gold and silver actually became an absolute necessity in our manufacturing industries, and particularly so with reference to electronics.
If iron tends to increase in value more in value that stock in a steel company then no one would start steel companies, not here and not in China.
If steel increased in value more than owning an auto manufacturer, then no one would manufacture autos.
If copper increased in value more than owning a wire manufacturing plant, then no one would manufacture electrical wire.
Changing “iron, steel, and copper” in the above to some other input does not alter that basic economic fact, neither does changing the outputs I have mentioned above into some new technological product.
I’m not sure what all that has to do with gold and silver in reference to Adam Smith’s advice regarding “. . . precious metals as a wise place for individual investments.”.
Fast forwarding . . .
I (also) do not hold cash long term. In the current stock market I often have it in commodities etfs. Right now gold, wheat a gasoline are two of my biggest but I have been known to hold everything from timber to carbon credits.
So yeah, I echo the anti-dollar sentiment, but I draw a sharp distinction between
countries should use gold as currency, and
individuals should store their weatlh in the form of gold.
As Mises, and Hayek, and Hazlett and others pointed out, inflation is not neutral. As the dollar is devalued, (or re-valued), it falls vs some assets and enterprises and rises against others. On some the effect happen sooner and on others the effect occurs later.
It would seem silly to sit on all this beautiful information and not act on it.