Is jon_perez up to an actual debate?
I guess if it would make Bradley stop his childish whining, I could replace the word "dastardly" with "pernicious". My theoretical concern as devil's advocate was that a "non-free" gold-as-the-only-money standard would enable dastardly acts of hoarding by those who control the money supply.
"Childish whining" aside, take your statement and reverse the statements switching fiat with gold. What, inherently to you, makes using gold as money instead of fiat "pernicious" then? Couldn't banks, under your scenario, "hoard" the fiat money the same way? Seriously, what makes gold inherently different? What the heck is a "'non-free' gold-as-the-only-money standard" supposed to mean? You throw out terms that seem to make sense to you but aren't really used in monetary circles.
I've explained to you, and backed up my arguments, why I know your devilish statement to be false based on economic theory, history and personal experience.
Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism and in fact we see here that pinning down money to commodities is no panacea against inflation or rampant monetary expansion either.
I've not argued that anything is a panacea. In fact I've often repeated my argument that only socialists argue a fallacy that if something doesn't guarantee Heaven on earth it ought to be opposed. The question here is whether fiat or gold is more likely to be inflationary. Unless you think we're in an environment similar to that of
Imperial Spain in the 17th century, I would be interested to hear that argument. I can't find on your popular site where it says what you seem to think it says. It does expressly make my point about it being problematic, "This monetary system is very unstable. Due to the fluctuation of the commercial value of the metals, the metal with a commercial value higher than the currency value tends to be used as metal and is withdrawn from circulation as money (Gresham's Law). This occurred in the United States throughout the 19th century as the official bimetallic standard became in effect a silver standard." The lesson is to keep the government from undermining market processes.
We can also see here in this wikipedia article on the "Coinage Act of 1873"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_1873 that the conspiracy theory during that time was that it was in bankers' interests to want to switch to a gold-only standard (because gold is rare and they control most of it). This explains why "Money Masters" advises against a gold standard.
Conspiracy theories aside, I'm arguing for the separation of money and the state within the confines of the rule of law (see, for the upteenth time, Hayek's
Denationalization of Money and other works,
Vera Smith,
Larry White's works and excellent website of links,
Judy Shelton,
et al.)
I'm patiently trying, logically, reasonably, historically and theoretically, to show you why the The Money Masters is theoretically flawed, historically inaccurate and logically self-contradictory. If you believe unquestioningly in TMM as your bible, then no, you certainly don't belong in a sound money forum, by definition, and your views and goals are incompatible with those of Dr. Paul and the expressed agenda of this forum. (unless of course you're referring to the
good The Money Masters book, not the movie.)
If you are genuinely intellectually curious and interested in respectful debate and willing to both back up your arguments and keep an open mind, let's have it. If you're just trolling against Dr. Paul's agenda, take it somewhere else. The link you illustrate again makes my point that we need to get away from the system where the government rewards protected special interests. It is your site that explains that the advocates of your arguments were "conspiracy theorists."
It does puzzle me why Bradley has dismissed bimetallism as inflationist in one of his posts in another thread and yet at the same time claims to champion the idea of a multi-commodity 'privately regulated' money system (when he is not alternatively defending the idea of a pure gold standard, that is...
).
Rolling eyes aside, all changes are on the margin. To go from a one commodity money standard that had been adopted through a market process to a government forced bimetalist standard is
relatively inflationary. On that point, there is no disagreement. Bimetalism was in fact the goal of the contemporary inflationists. (Just for fun, see
here.)
On the other hand, to go from an unrestrained fiat money system to a bimetalist system is
relatively more sound.
