President Trump moved recently to nominate an avowed sound money advocate, Judy Shelton, to the Federal Reserve Board. That triggered a flurry of superficial and derisive references in the controlled media to Shelton’s past support of a gold standard.
For example, CBS News described her as “a believer in the return to the gold standard, a money policy abandoned by the U.S. in 1971.” According to the story, “mainstream economists believe it’s a fringe view.”
As the “mainstream” media portrays sound money advocates, we apparently are nostalgic for the monetary system that existed all the way up until 1971.
Being backward looking by nature, our driving purpose in life is apparently to salvage that “abandoned” system.
Never mind the fact that the post-World War II Bretton Woods gold window that existed until 1971 was meant to ensure U.S. dollar hegemony in international trade – not sound money for the people.
The War on Cash isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s an
open agenda. It’s being driven by an alignment of interests among bankers,
central bankers, politicians, and Silicon Valley moguls who stand to benefit
from an all-digital economy.
Last week, Facebook – in partnership
with major banks, payment processors, and e-commerce companies – launched a
digital currency called Libra. Unlike decentralized, free-floating cryptocurrencies,
Libra will be tied to national fiat currencies, integrated into the financial
system, and centrally managed.
Critics
warn Libra is akin to a “spy coin.” It’s certainly not for anyone who wants to
go off the financial grid.
Many of the
companies involved in Libra (including Facebook itself) routinely ban users on
the basis of their political views. Big Tech has booted scores of individuals
and groups off social platforms for engaging in “far right” speech. If Libra
one day becomes the predominant online payment method, then political
dissidents could effectively be banned from all e-commerce.
You can
still obtain some degree of anonymity in the offline world by using paper cash.
But that will become impossible in the cashless future envisioned by bankers.
Last week
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan touted new developments in digital payment
systems while speaking at a Fortune conference. He said, “We want a cashless
society…we have more to gain than anybody from a pure operating costs.”
They gain –
at the expense of our financial privacy. A cashless society is the end of a
long road to monetary ruin that began many decades ago with the abandonment of sound money backed by gold and silver.
Stefan Gleason is
President of Money Metals Exchange, the national precious metals company named 2015 “Dealer of the
Year” in the United States by an independent global ratings group. A
graduate of the University of Florida, Gleason is a seasoned business leader,
investor, political strategist, and grassroots activist. Gleason has frequently
appeared on national television networks such as CNN, FoxNews, and CNBC, and
his writings have appeared in hundreds of publications such as the Wall Street
Journal, Detroit News, Washington Times, and National Review.
That’s what President Donald Trump supposedly instructed his former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn to do in response to the budget deficit. The quote appears in Bob Woodward’s controversial book Fear: Trump in the White House.
Trump disputes many of the anecdotes Woodward assembled. But regardless of whether the President used those exact words, they do reflect an “easy money” philosophy that he has expressed many times before.
Trump Likes Low Rates, Loose Money
President Trump has described himself as a “low interest rate person.”
This past summer, Trump launched a very public attack on the Federal Reserve’s rate hiking campaign. He wants it to stop because it’s making the dollar “too strong” and threatening to undercut his tax cut fiscal stimulus.
There’s only so much dollar strength the U.S. economy and U.S. debt and equity markets can take. President Trump is keenly aware of the risks.
A Fed rate hike next week is a given at this point.
