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Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Hey Newt, We Need Sound Money Not Hard Money

This is disappointing:
Speaking at a foreign policy forum in South Carolina on Tuesday, Gingrich advocated a "commission on gold to look at the whole concept of how do we get back to hard money."
I guess Newt Gingrich has not been reading fellow conservative Ramesh Ponnuru, the mostly right-of-center Market Monetarists, or even libertarian Tyler Cowen.  If he had he would know what we need is sound money, not hard money.  

P.S. There is no need for a new commission on the gold standard.  It has been extensively studied and there is a huge literature on it.  I would start with Barry Eichengreen

6 comments:

  1. It is downright scary how the GOP's "mainstream" has become obsessed with the gold standard. Did they forget Friedman?

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  2. Oh, P.U. to the gold standard.

    I contend there are only two kind of monetarists today (or even economists). You are either a Market Monetarist, or a Theo-Monetarist.

    Market Monetarists have sensible plan for growth and reasonable inflation.

    Theo-Monetarists worship stagnant values for paper money, and genuflect to gold. They never explain how we get economic growth in zero inflation, or why Japan is an epic failure.

    In a way, Keynsians are really Market Monetarists--Krugman even allowed that deficit spending can be can called out by too-tight money (like now).

    We Market Monetarists contend that putting money to work in the private sector is better than having government spend it.

    Frankly, at this point I would take any stimulus, even if it means dumping cash onto street corners.

    Lars--Yes, the GOP has forgotten Friedman; they have forgotten prudent foreign policy; they have forgotten keeping government out of private lives; they have forgotten separation of church and state; they have forgotten civil rights of even American citizens.

    I want to vote for a pro-business, pro-growth party, but instead we have a bunch of lulu's over at the GOP.

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  3. "disappointing"

    typo

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  4. What about if Newt means a free banking gold standard? Larry White critiques Eichengreen a bit in that piece.

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  5. People keep taking the conservative commentariat at face value - they are all gold bugs not because of any misguided belief, but only because there's much money in it for them. Newt doesn't care about sound money vs. hard money - all he cares about is making money, which happens for him and his friends everytime they convince another conservative yahoo to buy a bunch of gold.

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