Did you hear the other government rumor about gold?

Posted by Doug Eberhardt on Sep 18, 2008 in Economy, Federal Reserve, Gold | Comments Off

Did you hear the other government rumor?

Alchemist finds a way to produce unlimited amounts of new gold at essentially no cost.

I’m just waiting for that one….

(Bernanke even made reference to it with a parable in his 2002 speech.)

Here’s what he also said in that 2002 speech; “Like gold, U.S. dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply.”

Huh?  Did he just equate the supply of gold to the supply of dollars as if they were the same thing?

Oh…and he also thinks confiscation of gold (Roosevelt circa 1933) was a good thing…. Well of course it was…. FOR THEM!

“Although a policy of intervening to affect the exchange value of the dollar is nowhere on the horizon today, it’s worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation. A striking example from U.S. history is Franklin Roosevelt’s 40 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold in 1933-34, enforced by a program of gold purchases and domestic money creation. The devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply it permitted ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly. Indeed, consumer price inflation in the United States, year on year, went from -10.3 percent in 1932 to -5.1 percent in 1933 to 3.4 percent in 1934.17 The economy grew strongly, and by the way, 1934 was one of the best years of the century for the stock market. If nothing else, the episode illustrates that monetary actions can have powerful effects on the economy, even when the nominal interest rate is at or near zero, as was the case at the time of Roosevelt’s devaluation.”

Sometimes you want to take these people by the collar and shake them shouting; “HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK WE ARE???”

You can read Bernanke’s 2002 speech here.

Doug Eberhardt