Archive for category Gold Standard

Now Available from Vending Machines… Gold

Posted by Preston Poulter in Gold Standard on June 20th, 2009

In yet another sign of the times, a German company has introduced vending machines in airports and train stations that dispense gold in lieu of the traditional soda and snacks. Even more telling is that the vending machines have received quite a positive response. What do the Germans know that we don’t? Mainly the dangers of inflation and what can happen to a currency run amok.

It seems to be one of those cases where the lack of a history of failure has inured Americans to the dangers of pushing their currency too far. After all, one would think that the logical place to put such a machine would be right here in the good old US of A where the government is running close to a two trillion dollar yearly deficit and the central bank is directly monetizing a portion of this debt. This is the logical place to put a gold vending machine, but there are none to be found in the United States- well, at least, not yet. Chalk it up to cultural differences. The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic happened in Germany, whereas the dollar has never had any similar episode. The closest we ever came was the inflation of the 1970s, and that seems to be but a distant memory. Read the rest of this entry »

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“The Dollar Sucks!” Says China’s Central Bank

Posted by Preston Poulter in Gold Standard, Investing and Financial Doomsday, Politics on March 24th, 2009

Increasingly various Chinese sources have been going on about their dollar woes. A year ago it was just an academic. Freedom of expression is a limited commodity in totalitarian China, so if you see an academic coming out making statements critical of China’s trading partner you can probably surmise that that message is coming from higher up’s in China’s chain of command. Having a lesser known academic figure make the statement was a way to distance the criticism from the official channels.

But that kind of subtle criticism didn’t seem to have made much of an impact. In fact, we spent the next year attempting to solve every round of bad news by borrowing or printing more money. Last month, the Premier himself said that he was concerned about the value of his country’s investment in the US Dollar. No longer relying in mere academic to hurl criticism, the Chinese wanted us to know on no uncertain terms that they were starting to get a little peeved. We responded to that proclamation by having Helicopter Ben print up $200 Billion or so and start buying US Treasuries- the highest form of inflationary money printing there is.

Now, China’s pissed. “How pissed?” you ask. So pissed that their central bank just came out and called for a new reserve currency. Having the central bank of your major trading partner and holder of close to $2 trillion in your country’s debt come out and call for a new currency to replace yours is not usually considered a good sign. It’s a bit like taking a woman out on a date and having her say that she would very much like to have children someday… with someone who is almost completely unlike you. Rocky times are clearly ahead for this relationship.

But you wouldn’t know that by looking at the US Stock market. Both the Dow and the NASDAQ were up 6.8% today. Read the rest of this entry »

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Conspiracy Theories That Surround The Federal Reserve: Part II

Posted by Preston Poulter in Gold Standard on March 15th, 2009

My last entry explored the popular conspiracy elements contained in G. Edward Griffin’s The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve In part two of this series, I’m going to be looking at the particular conspiracies that I have come to accept as part of the formation of the Federal Reserve.

The period of American history that is crucial to understanding the formation of the Federal Reserve is the last 1800s. Unfortunately, this is a period of American history where most Americans are completely ignorant. US history as it is taught in most schools pays scant attention to this period in history. The US History most of us learn in school spends most of its time discussing Colonial History, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and Cold War. No major wars occured during the late 1800s, so its just not considered worth spending much time on. If anything, the only time this period in history gets mentioned is by Democrats trying to remind us how bad this period of time was- back when the goverment’s role was small and bureaucrats and regulators had overrun the nation. This “Gilded Age of the Robber Barons” (as they term it) was surely a vicious time that we can’t afford to go back to.

I derided this attitude in a prior blog, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Robber Barons?” The people who attack this period in history most, tend to be those who understand it the least. The Industrial Revolution was underway during this period and society was in upheaval.The United States was becoming a mammoth industrial power and the real wages of the working man increased dramatically; real wages for labor have only stagnated since, so let’s not be too hasty in our condemnation of this era of the Robber Barons. The foundations of the nation we would become today were all laid during that period. Read the rest of this entry »

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