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Congress Must Stabilize the Dollar

PatriotG

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
1,301
There is a couple of things wrong with this:
The Gold standard did not cause the depression, the FED caused the depression.

Secondly, "Have the FED manipulate the gold market to $500 per Ounce?"

I guess, yeah why the hell not, the manipulate everything else. Hell, their doing it now aren't they in gold and silver, equities, bonds?

I though this type of activity was illegal?



A interesting statement from Ted Poe. H.R.6690 "To stimulate the economy and provide for a sound United States dollar by defining a value for the dollar, and for other purposes. as introduced."


Rep. Ted Poe (Texas)

On July 31, I introduced H.R. 6690, the “Sound Dollar and Economic Stimulus Act of 2008”. It is vital that this bill become law.

The U.S. dollar affects every American citizen and every American business. Our economy is totally dependent upon the dollar. To have a stable economy, we must have a stable dollar. Unfortunately, for many years we have not had a stable dollar. Today, people are angry and afraid. The crumbling, gyrating dollar has created an economic crisis.

I was a judge for 25 years. I believe in law and order. The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that: “The Congress shall have Power…To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures…”

So, what has Congress been doing about the dollar? Nothing. Since 2001, Congress has stood idly by while the dollar has lost almost 70% of its value, whether measured against gold or retail gasoline. When a currency begins to lose value, the effects show up first in the price of gold, followed quickly by other commodities, such as oil. However, eventually the inflation works its way through the entire economy, raising prices across the board. In the process, the hard-earned savings of Americans are devalued—or, the way I look at it, stolen.

Inflation creates turbulence in financial markets and provokes conflict between economic groups. People become angry because they feel that they are being robbed. They become afraid because they know that unchecked inflation can lead to economic collapse. In 1913, Congress delegated its power over money to the Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, the Fed has been preoccupied with manipulating interest rates. Since 2001, the Fed has lowered its Fed Funds rate from 5.00% to 1.00%, raised it to 5.25% and then lowered it to 2.00%. Meanwhile, the value of the dollar has declined by nearly 70%.

Trying to regulate the value of the dollar by manipulating the Fed Funds rate makes no sense. The Fed Funds rate is the price of one type of capital. Because the Fed cannot supply capital (real resources) to the economy, it is not clear why it should be in the business of setting interest rates. Logically, interest rates should be set by the market—by the supply and demand for capital.

Unlike capital, the amount of money in the economy should not be limited by anything physical. It should be determined by the demand for money, which depends upon the transactions people want to do and how much money they want to hold. What matters about money is not its quantity but its value. In this, dollars are no different than foot rulers. No one cares how many foot rulers there are in the world. What matters is that each one is the length prescribed by the U.S. Bureau of Standards.

My bill directs the Federal Reserve to bring the price of gold down to $500/oz and then to keep it there. The Fed would do this by announcing that its Open Market Desk was prepared to sell government bonds and contract the monetary base until the price of gold falls to $500/oz.

At last measure, the monetary base was about $872 billion. In December, 2005, which is the last time the price of gold was at $500, it was $827 billion. So, it is possible that the Fed might have to sell as much as $45 billion worth of bonds to implement the new policy. Because this is only about 0.8% of the total amount of bonds currently outstanding, this should not be a problem. However, I believe that the demand for the newly-stable dollar will be so great that the Fed will actually have to expand the monetary base to keep the gold price from falling below $500/oz.

Once the Fed implements its new directive from Congress, every dollar in the world will have the same market value as one five-hundredth of an ounce of gold. From then on, the monetary base will expand and contract automatically in response to market demand. Why gold? My bill defines the value of the dollar in terms of gold because the financial markets want, and the American people deserve, a dollar that is “as good as gold”.

Why $500/oz? At $804/oz, the current market price of gold reflects the expectation (and fear) of future inflation. I believe that fixing the value of the dollar now in terms of gold at $500/oz will stop the current inflation without causing deflation. However, my bill also provides a powerful supply-side stimulus, in the form of first-year expensing of all capital investment, to ensure that economic growth accelerates at the same time that inflation is being stopped. Bringing the dollar price of gold down to $500 will bring the price of gasoline down from its current $3.50/gallon to less than $2.50/gallon. It will strengthen the dollar against foreign currencies. Most important, it will prevent Americans’ incomes and savings from being stolen by inflation.

My bill will not put America on the gold standard, like we had in the early part of the 20th Century. Under the old gold standard, gold was money. Limiting the supply of money to the supply of gold was a huge mistake. It was the basic error that caused the Great Depression. Under my bill, our money will be the same “legal tender” currency that we have now. There will be no limit on the number of dollars except market demand. The big difference will be that every dollar will always be worth the same as one five-hundredth of an ounce of gold.

When I became a Congressman, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution. The Constitution commands Congress to regulate the value of our money. My bill will do this. This is why it is essential that it become law."
 
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Another Article Related

Related Article

The Dollar: Why Judge Poe is Right and Ron Paul is Wrong

Most interesting paragraph

"Of course, we wouldn't have to use today's market price of gold. At a higher gold price, the same amount of gold would allow us to make more "dollars" of gold coins. However, to replace all of our dollars of paper currency with our available gold would require a gold price of $4050/oz. The gold price would have to be pegged at $6500/oz to replace all of the "dollars" of M1, which is what we would have to do in order to implement 100% reserve banking."

$6050 per ounce gold? Damn! Its amazing how the politicians and the fed never consider cutting spending!
 
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One of the big problems of the Great Depression was the severe contraction of the money supply and deflation. This proposal of a target $500 an ounce of gold would force them to reduce the money supply by at least 40% and cause deflation (assuming a percent change in the supply of money had an equal percentage change in the price of gold- you may have to contract the money supply further since the market for gold is international, not just in the US). In the Great Depression the money supply contraction was about one third between 1929 and 1933. This would be greater and would have a serious negative impact on the economy. A depression is not a cure for a weaker currency.

Prices would fall more slowly than the money supply (in the 1930s prices fell in real terms about ten percent a year) which would mean less money circulating for buying goods meaning less demand for the goods. If people are not buying from companies, they are not going to be interested in borrowing more money to invest in more production.
 
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