COMMENT: It is perhaps a good sign that mainstream sources are putting Ron Paul first on their list to address what it considers a looming issue ‘up for political grabs’– the failure of fiat currency. It is indeed Dr. Paul’s strongest issue, one that he should make the focus of a 2012 bid– reigning in the Federal Reserve, restoring honest money, cutting defense spending by bringing troops home and fixing the economy.
The failure of our fiat currency is up for political grabs
Seth Lipsky
Forbes
April 15, 2011
The most astounding feature of the political fray as the 2012 election comes into view is that not a single Republican other than Congressman Ron Paul is stepping forward to brand as his or her own the issue of honest money. The whole party is into the negotiation with the president over the budget, and the underlying issue – the failure of our fiat currency – is up for grabs.
It is true that there’s plenty of blame to go around on the dollar. It had a value of 265th of an ounce of gold on the day that George W. Bush acceded to the presidency and was worth less than an 853rd of an ounce of gold on the day he left office. The New York Sun, which supported Mr. Bush in 2000 and 2004 elections, issued in December of 2005 an editorial called “The Bush Dollar,” warning of the collapse of the greenback. It had just sunk below a 500th of an ounce of gold.
Today, of course, it is worth barely more than 1,500th of an ounce of gold. The giddiness of the plunge of the dollar really started to be felt in the years after the Democrats acceded to the leadership of the House. At the time the Sun called for renaming the dollar “The Pelosi.” The collapse has been so dramatic that the Europeans, the United Nations and even the Chinese communists are talking about the need to create a new international reserve currency. Yet not a single Republican has stepped onto the national stage and declared a run for the presidency on a platform containing the strong dollar as a major plank.
Now that the Republicans are back in control of the House they are in a perfect position to press this issue. Congressman Paul has been on the issue at least since the early 1980s, when he, with Lewis Lehrman, issued his dissent to the final report of the United States Gold Commission. The commission had been established in 1981, a decade after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. It ultimately endorsed a continuation of fiat money. It’s hard to think of a longer, more faithful adherence to constitutional principle than that which has been maintained by the physician turned legislator in the 30 years since. But Dr. Paul has yet to announce his run for president.
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