Monetary Theory

Pages 836-850. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach.

Pages 829-836. Narrated by Jeff Riggenbach. 

"The reason why inflation is bad news is not because of increases in prices as such, but because of the damage inflation inflicts to the wealth-formation process."

Buying gold and silver coins and holding them is not only a way of protecting oneself against inflation, but it is also, in a sense, a way of boycotting the federal reserve. That in itself would be reason enough to own them.

Modern monetary theory takes up the thread of the traditional quantity theory as far as it starts from the cognition that changes in the purchasing power of money must be dealt with according to the principles applied to all other market phenomena and that there exists a connection between the changes in the demand for and supply of money on the one hand and those of purchasing power on the other.

Recorded at the Mises Circle in Greenville, South Carolina, 3 October 2009. Sponsored by Ron Wilson, and Professional Planning of Easley, LLC.

The excellence of the gold standard is to be seen in the fact that it makes the monetary unit's purchasing power independent of the arbitrary and vacillating policies of governments, political parties, and pressure groups.

"The Paul Krugman of 2009 completely disagrees with the Paul Krugman of 2003."

The Fed's present monetary policy appears to be ineffective. Despite massive pumping by the US central bank, commercial bank lending displays sharp declines.

Printing green pieces of paper doesn't make an economy richer. If done without restraint, it leads to runaway price inflation. As an added downside, it also allows governments to slaughter millions of people. (The world wars could not have been waged if the belligerents had stuck to the gold standard.)