Liberty MavenBretton Woods II: A Glimmer of Hope?
October 18th, 2008 9:36 am | by Mike Miller | Published in Bailouts, Banking, Big Government, Debt, Economics, Federal Reserve, Free Market, government spending, Liberty, Money, national debt, Politics, Ron Paul, Taxes | 2 Responses
Regular readers of our columns here at Liberty Maven probably lifted an eyebrow at the title of this article. It seems that some members of the European Union are calling for a global summit to potentially rewrite the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. When asked of President Bush if the U.S. would join the talks, he indicated interest but said that we need to take care of the immediate problem here first. Bloomberg.com writes:
[French President Nicolas] Sarkozy today went beyond calls by fellow European leaders such as U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown for global bank supervision and tighter regulation, saying governments need to consider re-anchoring currencies, the hallmark of the original Bretton Woods agreement.
Well, naturally the French are calling for more regulations. But the fact that they’re actually considering re-anchoring currencies is interesting. As Ron Paul and other Austrian Economists have been preaching, the only sound currency is one backed by gold and silver. It’s obvious that our floating currency isn’t working.
I think the major problem is the inherent hubris in politicians to think that they the can (and should) control the economy. If we re-fix our currency to something steady like gold, then there will have to be a downward correction in a many areas of our economy. There simply must be for things to normalize. But politicians can’t seem to understand this. They have the idea that they must do “everything in their power” to keep things from dropping. It’s this basic misunderstanding of how free markets work that will doom us. Maybe President Bush will send Ron Paul to Bretton Woods II as our representative. I can dream, can’t I?
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October 18th, 2008 at 10:19 am (#)
You can dream, but it is as fraught with peril as permitting a Constitutional convention. The idea that we’d let the current clowns determine monetary policy, and allow foreign control is frightening. I can see them jumping at global ‘cooperation’ as in the World Bank we no longer have the power to pick the head for, and letting the gold standard slide or give it lip service about ‘guidance’.
I am against this. If we want to repeg the dollar, and I do, we can and should do it independently. That way we independently can address unintended consequences of whatever means we elect.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:24 am (#)
I totally concur with Spinn. The very thought of these internationalists/globalists setting up paranational agencies to monitor any part of the American economy gives me the chills. Repegging the dollar is a fantastic idea, but America can do it without any interference from abroad.