Tag Archives: gold
No to Vollgeld, Yes to Ikon!
There was a basic flaw in the Vollgeld “sovereign money” proposal rejected by the Swiss in a referendum last Sunday. An arrangement that gives the state or its agencies exclusive power to create money, oversee bank accounts and direct lending to the economy is hostile to capitalism. It cannot produce the assurance needed to allow the…
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Gold, money, the 1980s and now
When did the culture of ‘money mania’ start? When did people first set out to grab as much money as possible at whatever cost? When did the momentum for credit creation —paper money calling for more money — become unstoppable? Let us contrast the past 30 years with the years 1880-1910. Under the classical gold…
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Brexit shows need for new rules on money
The vote for Brexit is about much more than the UK and Europe. It shows that new rules to guide the process of globalization are needed. The policies followed since the financial crisis have two major errors. First there is a failure to diagnose the true causes of the crisis. Second, governments have failed to…
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Gold price – is the bottom in?
Gold investors are debating whether “the bottom is in” for gold – the dollar price is already 19% percent above its seven year low of $1050 reached in December. Many gold experts remain bearish on the view that the dollar will stay strong against other currencies. And market analysts cling to the view that the…
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Does the ‘reserve’ dollar harm America?
For many years Lewis E. Lehrman and John D. Mueller have been calling attention to what they call the “reserve-currency curse.” Since some politicians and economists have recently insisted that the dollar’s official role as the world’s reserve currency is instead a great blessing, it is welcome that they have recently revisited the issue…
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Which way for gold?
On Friday I was at a gold conference at Bloomberg’s glitzy London office at Finsbury Square when news came through of the fine imposed by Uk regulators on a senior trader at Barclays for manipulating the price of gold and on Barclays for lack of internal controls: “What, Barclays again?”, said one participant, referring to…
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Golden opinions
The attributes of gold usually cited as making it useful as money are summed up by the World Gold Council as follows: “Gold’s scarcity, the fact that it does not corrode or tarnish, its malleability and status across civilisations have made it eminently suitable as a form of money.” There is more…
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Gold, credit and the Ikon: Three kinds of money
What are the differences between a commodity money, credit money and the Ikon – currency of the future ? Using the gold standard as an example of the first, where the price of gold was fixed and money was convertible into it on demand at that price, gold and sure claims on gold were money….
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The turning point for gold – now what?
Following my last post on gold, I got several comments: for and against. One said that the real reason gold has come back over the past 10 years is that central banks have stopped selling and started buying again. Indeed! Net gold purchases by central banks in 2012 were 534 tonnes –…
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Bury inflation targets and get a real monetary framework
To wean central banks from inflation targeting you’ll have to snatch it from them by force; they are clutching it ever more tightly to their breasts. But they must bid it a tearful goodbye. The big question is what will replace it. Mark Carney has said that: “Flexible inflation targeting is the most successful…
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