U.S. Government Will Adopt Gold Standard in the Next Five Years, Forbes Predicts
by Paul Dykewicz
05/10/2011
www.humanevents.com
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A return to the gold standard by the United States within the next five years now seems likely, since that move would help the nation to solve a variety of economic, fiscal and monetary ills, Steve Forbes predicted during an exclusive interview Monday with Human Events.
Such a move would help to stabilize the value of the dollar, restore confidence among foreign investors in U.S. government bonds and discourage reckless federal spending, the media mogul and former presidential candidate said. The United States used gold as the basis for valuing the U.S. dollar successfully for roughly 180 years before President Richard Nixon embarked upon an experiment to end the practice in the 1970s that has contributed to a number of woes that the United States is suffering now, Forbes added.
The only probable 2012 U.S. presidential candidate who has championed a return to the gold standard so far is Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas. But the idea “makes too much sense” not to gain popularity as the U.S. economy struggles to create jobs, to recover from a housing bubble induced by the Federal Reserve’s easy-money monetary policies, to stop rising gasoline prices and to restore fiscal responsibility to U.S. government’s budget, Forbes explained.
“What seems astonishing today could become conventional wisdom in a short period of time,” Forbes said.
If the gold standard had been in place in recent years, the value of the U.S. dollar would not have weakened as it has and excessive federal spending would have been curbed, Forbes explained. The constantly changing value of the U.S. dollar leads to marketplace uncertainty and consequently spurs speculation in commodity investing as a hedge against inflation, he added.
“If the dollar was as good as gold, other countries would want to buy it,” Forbes said.
With a stable currency, it is “much harder” for governments to borrow excessively, Forbes said. Without lax Federal Reserve Board monetary policies that led to the printing of too much money, the housing bubble would not have been nearly as severe, he added.
People need to “get over” the notion that the Fed can guide the economy with monetary policy, Forbes said. The Fed is like a “bull in a China shop,” he added.
“It can’t help but knock things down,” Forbes said.
Rep. Paul could help to spur interest in the idea of returning to the gold standard during the next presidential election because he is an unabashed advocate of low taxes, free markets and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He previously was a key member of the Gold Commission, which advocated a return to a gold standard for the U.S. currency, and he also authored a book, “The Case for Gold.”
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