Gold is Free Market Money | Walter Block

Recorded at the Mises Institute Supporters Summit, 1 November 2008; Auburn, Alabama. Walter Block is a professor and chair of economics, college of business administration, at Loyola University. See WalterBlock.com for more information.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Walter
• Block
• Ludwig
• von
• Mises
• Institute
• Gold
• Standard
• Freedom
• Property
• Peace
• Anarchy
• Austrian
• Economics
• Loyola

[justingaylor]

Wow! This is really interesting.  He explains the problem of centrally managed interest rates in a way I've never heard it explained before.

The Austrian School of economics totally rocks!

[broeman]

I agree with Afriktoday, since you can see it in all the countries, who has direct government control over their central banks (even though they still claim that they are independent institutions). The gold standard is the best way to control the central bank, but even better, just abolish it and let banks choose their own insurances.

[DarthKazi]

@phroto13 I agreed with Dr. Block and the Austrians 100%... unfortunately, there's little chance the US has any gold and silver left to circulate. If there's anything left in Fort Knox, it's likely owned by foreign interests. The Fed has about 1/4th of the world gold reserves... but again, it's not owned by the Treasury. Maybe we can sell Utah?

[phroto13]

@DarthKazi a paper systme is intrinsically flawed because it is based on confidence... whereas with gold or silver if ever they were to fall out of fashion as a money good, they still have a usefulness as a metal to conduct electricity, as a mirror, &c. however if confidence should ever fall from a fiat, the paper is already used as it is printed on and thus has no value as a piece of paper unless it were to be burned as a match which would defeat the "permanence" of the money unit

[Hashishin13]

@gutsrace Well if you believe that the elites are already in control, gold is obviously better as they have less control potential over it. You could put your solid real gold into a private bank or hide it somewhere and they can't devalue it as low as they can paper. Also if they devalue gold it costs THEM real GOLD, instead of ink and paper. They could only devalue so much, which would leave us holding tons of gold!

[doughtymqan]

@centurion180ad Tariffs & labor unions distort the figures GROSSLY.

[centurion180ad]

I was with the professor, right up to his conclusions. He blames tariffs and organized labor for the closing of production facilities. Bollix. I liked his description of prevent value, but I disagree with his conclusion that lowering the rate produces a distortion in long term investment. Distortion occurs no matter the rate, because irredeemable debt currency sieved through a fractional reserves system has eviscerated the Wage, Pension & Clearing funds.

[centurion180ad]

@swahili77 Interest is INTRINSIC to production. A farmer producing wheat, expects INTEREST.

[centurion180ad]

@AFRIKTODAY The Federal Reserve System is a private //criminal// organization, wholly owned & operated by a mass murdering Debt Syndicate of offshore BANKERS. The Congress HAS NO POWER what-so-ever, until the power to repudiate fraudulent debt is seized upon, the MINT begins to coin money, and Congress performs its Constitutional duty of issuing the Nation’s currency & credit.

[centurion180ad]

@tomozope checkbook federal reserve fraud currency is DEBT.

[stealthswimmer]

gold didn't "find" its way there. The government wanted to control the money supply and therefore instituted a central bank. The reasoning behind it was that many banks would inflate more than a single bank....well it turns out to have been untrue. Central banks have often caused more inflation than many competing banks and caused bigger crises.

Secondly, there's nothing wrong with bigness. In the market, you get big by providing people with things they want, government does it by jailing ppl

[tomozope]

Check book money is free market money if it is anything at all, considering there is no law declaring that checkbook money is even money at all.  It's just credit.....