“How can businessmen coordinate the private sector of the economy effectively when the most important measuring-rod of all; the monetary unit has been left with no reliable defined value? Units of length, volume, and weight have been universally defined with meticulous care; but dollars, lire, francs and pounds have been allowed to change in every significant attribute over time.” - Professor W.H. Hutt: New Individualist Review, 1966 Winter Issue ##################################### “Before long, if the U.S. fails to mend its financial ways, the deficit in the balance of payments is likely to reach the critical point where the outflow of gold, currently an intermittent trickle, again swells into a flood. For several years the money managers, vis-à-vis national solvency, have been taking what they have described as a calculated risk. To this observer, however, it has come to seem more and more like a reckless gamble with the nation’s future.” - BARRON’S Editorial: 06 November 1961 ####################################### “Solvency in international affairs is, of course, measured largely in gold and by this hard standard, the U.S. for many months has been losing ground. --- “The long years of inflation, it would thus appear, are coming home to roost. In such circumstances other governments have chosen some of the classic remedies available, including tighter credit and fiscal policies. But this country, even under the G.O.P (Republican Party), has not yet nerved itself to swallow so bitter a pill. --- “Yet in the end all nations, no matter how rich or powerful must play the game by the rules or suffer the consequences. It’s time Washington took heed of its dwindling stack of chips.” (U.S. gold bullion reserves) - BARRON’S Editorial: 20 September 1954 ############################################# “For the longer inflationary policies have been pursued, and the worse they have been, the greater the vested interest becomes in keeping them going at nearly any cost. It is less that politicians do not understand what needs to be done, than that they do not want to. So they embrace or invent theories that call for still more inflation.” - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 02 February 1976 ####################################################### “When governments plan the programs which force up the cost of living, they are usually reluctant. If they(or their advisers) could conceive of some means other than inflation for keeping their supporters happy, they would make use of them; but provided the public generally does not predict the speed with which it is to occur, or its duration, inflation accords governments an easy access to income – unauthorized by democratic process – with which to purchase popularity. - Professor W.H. Hutt: New Individualist Review, 1966 Winter Issue ##################################################### “On the issue of inflation, I think I could solve it no matter how much money it took.” - Pat Paulson: 1968 Presidential Candidate & Comedian ################################### “Inflation of course, is a debasement of the standard of value. In the process, inevitably all other standards are debased. For example, consider what happened to Wall Street during the Sixties. Sober enough at the outset, those years degenerated toward the end into an era of disreputable nonsense, in which time-honored yard sticks threatened to topple, while the deadly serious business of managing money turned incredibly into a “game.” Full disclosure notwithstanding, manipulation, deception and worse ran riot.” - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 12 April 1976 ############################################# “Paris – The Paris gold market is worrying the U.S. Treasury. In recent months, the free gold price has been 20% to 30% higher that the $35 an ounce: dollars are therefore, cheap in terms of gold. To depress the gold price, the French treasury has been selling gold for dollars. Having acquired the gold from the U.S. or through the European Payment Union, at $35 an ounce, it (France) reaps tidy arbitrage profits. Although the French support the dollar, our Treasury resents the way they have turned the gold market into a source of dollar gains.” - Barron’s World at Work Column: 29 January 1951 ############################################ “The technique of inflation demands that governments and their agencies shall continuously deceive the public about the fact, the speed and the duration of inflation intended. Ministers of finance have no option but to employ what has been called ‘the necessary untruth” - Professor W.H. Hutt: New Individualist Review, 1966 Winter Issue ########################################## “By and large we’re as affable as the next man (who around here happens to be a duly licensed curmudgeon), but over several decades of spiraling inflation, we have taken an increasingly dim view of those who manage the nation’s finances.” - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 11 June 1979 ######################################################## “The greatest thing we have to fear in the economy is a spreading fear as to the future of the dollar.” - De. Edwin G Nourse: Former Head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. As reported in Barron’s Editorial for 29 January 1951 ################################################# “London – At the regular monthly auction held by the International Monetary fund last Wednesday, gold fetched the highest price recorded since such sales began in 1976. Despite the sharp reaction which promptly set in when the U.S. Treasury took aggressive steps to defend the dollar, bullion dealers view that as a signal that the precious metal has resumed it upswing and could even match, or exceed the all time high it set three years ago: $197.5 an ounce. --- --- Not only was the dollar no longer as good as gold; in some circles, at any rate, the opinion was abroad that soon it might not be worth a continental. “ - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 01 January 1979 ######################################################## “Extravagances and absurdities like floating exchange rates and Special Drawing Rights come and go. Gold endures. And what a lot it has had to put up with. After insisting for decades - over optimistically, in the event – that the dollar was as good as gold, the U.S. monetary authorities, by fiat, so to speak, desperately sought to prove that in global financial affairs it was better. First they closed the gold window thereby reneging on a generation of solemn pledges to the contrary. They threw their weight behind the Special Drawing Right, a bastard form of what John Exter has aptly termed the “I-Owe- You-Nothing.” Several years ago as hundreds cheered, gold was officially drummed out of the international monetary system and the IMF launched on a series of sales aimed at disposing of the barbarous relic forever. In turn, the Treasury beset by a plunging dollar has stepped up its own liquidation from 300,000 ounces per month to the current rate of 1.5 million.” - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 29 January 1979 ######################################################## “To serve as a central banker, as BARRON’S again reminded its readers early last year when G. William Miller took over at the Fed, one needn’t be a flim-flam man, but it helps.” - Robert M Bleiberg: Barron’s Managing Editor, 11 June 1979 From: Mark J Lundeen