Newt's latest zany idea: go back to gold standard

[Puppycow]

Newt Gingrich has a reputation as an "ideas man" but some of his ideas are pretty foolish. Take his latest one:

Gingrich Goes for Gold

Newt Gingrich called this morning for a Gold Commission, like the one Ronald Reagan set up in 1981, to consider how to get back to hard money (and perhaps to gold).

. . .

“We need to get our house in order. And we need to vaccinate ourselves against foreign contagion. The correct answer to the Euro is not to spend more American money propping up the Germans who prop up Southern Europe. The correct answer is to figure how we seal our banks off; how we make sure we protect ourselves and then say to the Europeans: you have a problem and you need to solve it.

“Part of our approach ought to be to reestablish something Ronald Reagan did in 1981 and that is to have a Commission on Gold to look at the whole concept of how do we get back to hard money.

“We need to repeal the Humphrey-Hawkins Act. We need to say to the Federal Reserve: your only job is to maintain the stability of the dollar because we want a dollar to be worth thirty years from now what it is worth now because that optimizes saving and investment because people know what they are going to back.

What is Humphrey-Hawkins?

Humphrey-Hawkins also reinforced the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate: Promote full employment and keep prices stable.

Newt wants to scrap the former mandate and make the latter one the Fed's sole mission. I guess that's great for people who already have a lot of money and lenders, but bad for people who need a job and debtors.

 

[Corsair 115]

Seems Mr. Gingrich is attempting to steal away some Ron Paul supporters...

 

[Puppycow]

Seems Mr. Gingrich is attempting to steal away some Ron Paul supporters...

Ron Paul's core supporters tend to be pretty loyal I think. Maybe there's a few at the edges, but for the most part I think they hate most of Newt's other ideas. There may be some voters however who favor hard money but not Ron Paul's foreign policy.

 

[Robert Prey]

Newt Gingrich has a reputation as an "ideas man" but some of his ideas are pretty foolish. Take his latest one:

Gingrich Goes for Gold



What is Humphrey-Hawkins?



Newt wants to scrap the former mandate and make the latter one the Fed's sole mission. I guess that's great for people who already have a lot of money and lenders, but bad for people who need a job and debtors.

A return to Constitutional money -- what an idea.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Sounds like somebody's getting desperate and will say just about anything to try to grab some potential support.

He'd do better to declare himself champion of Team Jacob and win all the voters that would appeal to.

 

[Spindrift]

A return to Constitutional money -- what an idea.

Constitutional money? I'll take any unConstitutional money off your hands if you don't want it.

 

[Bikewer]

Yeah....Gold. Most of which is in foreign countries, much like oil.

Most economists think the Great Depression was exacerbated because of the gold standard.

 

[patchbunny]

The Constitution isn't that big. How are we gonna use it to print bills?

 

[elbe]

The Constitution isn't that big. How are we gonna use it to print bills?

We'll just pulp it and mix it into the greater paper stock, ala the old Marvel Kiss comic.

 

[Kestrel]

Newt probably knows that the entire world's supply of gold is too small to support the US economy. He is simply pandering to people who haven't figured out that real banks don't work like Gringotts.

 

[elbe]

He is simply pandering to people who haven't figured out that real banks don't work like Gringotts.

So when I was kicked out of my bank for calling the teller a vicious little goblin and demanding my money in little piles of gold it wasn't because I'm not a wizard?

 

[timhau]

Most economists think the Great Depression was exacerbated because of the gold standard.

They're all edumificated elitists, in on the fiat money scam!

 

[Sceptic-PK]

A return to Constitutional money -- what an idea.

A gold-backed currency is no more Constitutional than fiat.

Aussies 1
Conspiratard Yanks 0

 

[WildCat]

A return to Constitutional money -- what an idea.

Where is gold mentioned in the Constitution?

 

[elbe]

Where is gold mentioned in the Constitution?

...Article I, Section 10. It's pretty popular with the goldbugs.

 

[Robert Prey]

Yeah....Gold. Most of which is in foreign countries, much like oil.

Most economists think the Great Depression was exacerbated because of the gold standard.

Nonsense. The Great Depression was made "Great" in part because of ending the gold standard.

 

[Robert Prey]

Where is gold mentioned in the Constitution?

"No State shall... make any thing but Gold and Silver Coin a tender in payment of debt.'
Art. I, Sec. 10.

 

[Robert Prey]

A gold-backed currency is no more Constitutional than fiat.

Aussies 1
Conspiratard Yanks 0

Baloney.

 

[Stomatopoda]

The Constitution isn't that big. How are we gonna use it to print bills?

Easy-- we just mince it into really tiny pieces and homeopathically dilute it in a batch of recycled toilet paper. The bills with less Constitution will be of higher value than the bills with more Constitution.

 

[SezMe]

RP, Article I, Section 10 deals with the power of the states, not with federal money policy.