Is there a connection between Human Freedom and a Gold Redeemable
Money? At first glance it would seem that money belongs to the world of
economics and human freedom to the political sphere.
But when you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini
and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense
that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the
rare prize known as human liberty . [emphasis mine]
- Rep. Howard Buffett, 1948
So said the Honourable Howard Buffett (1903–1964), the father of none
other than the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett. Were these just the flowery
words of a politician, geared at nothing more than garnering votes?
No. These were the thoughts of a statesman, whose concern was only for his
own constituents, explained in a well-reasoned
essay . Buffett begins his argument:
In a free country the monetary unit rests upon a fixed
foundation of gold or gold and silver independent of the ruling politicians.
Our dollar was that kind of money before 1933. Under that system paper
currency is redeemable for a certain weight of gold, at the free option and
choice of the holder of the paper money.
That redemption right gives money a large degree of stability. The
owner of such gold redeemable currency has economic independence. He can
move around either within or without his country because his money holdings
have accepted value anywhere.
Economic liberty sounds nice, but is it really useful or necessary? As our
leaders continually tell us, our liberties get in the way of their
“War on Terror,” which is why they have already found it necessary to eliminate
many of those liberties. Buffett continues:
The subject of a Hitler or a Stalin is a serf by the mere fact that his
money can be called in and depreciated at the whim of his rulers.
Here, we require greater elaboration, as many readers may not see the
connection between the ability of rulers to depreciate currencies at their
whim, and the transformation of citizens into serfs. A familiar quote from a
more famous monetary authority sheds some light:
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings
from confiscation through inflation.
- Alan
Greenspan , 1966
When you depreciate a currency, you create inflation. They are two sides
of the same coin. Devalue a currency by 10%, and prices increase by a
commensurate amount. It’s what charlatan
economists call “inflation.” Give a Hitler or a Stalin (or a Greenspan or
a Bernanke) the unlimited capacity to devalue currencies and create inflation
by printing paper currency, and you give these Tyrants the unlimited capacity
to steal wealth – our wealth.
Howard Buffet warns that citizens can be reduced to serfs (via penury),
through the mere whim of our corrupt leaders choosing to devalue our paper
currencies. Sir Alan Greenspan, a central banker knighted for his purported
sagacity, warns us that without a gold standard there is nothing to prevent
corrupt governments and corrupt central bankers (like himself) from
confiscating (stealing) our wealth, by deliberately manufacturing inflation
by devaluing our currencies.
What do we see around us today? “Competitive
devaluation” is the official policy of all the regimes of the Corrupt
West. Traitorous rulers race to see who can devalue their currency the
fastest, and thus steal the wealth of their citizens the fastest.
Proving that this systemic theft of wealth is malicious, rather than the
product of mere incompetence, all of these regimes lie about the actual rate
of inflation . They grossly understate the actual rate of inflation, with
statistics which have been “massaged” (i.e. perverted) beyond any resemblance
to reality. Then the traitor politicians and their central bank masters
continually whine that “inflation
is too low,” meaning they want (and intend) to steal our wealth even
faster.
Skeptical readers will rebel at such assertions, no matter how obvious the
arithmetic, no matter the pedigree of the authorities who stand behind such
math. Surely our “democratic” governments would and could never betray us in
such an overt and malicious manner? Buffett disagrees:
Also, when you find that Lenin declared and demonstrated that a sure
way to overturn the existing social order and bring about communism was by printing
press paper money, then again you are impressed with the possibility of a
relationship between a gold-backed money and human freedom.
The connection between a gold standard, and preventing (corrupt)
governments from stealing the wealth of their citizens may still be unclear
in the minds of many readers. In a White Paper on the gold
standard , this connection was explained via a reference to history’s
ultimate gold-hater (and inflation-creator) John Maynard Keynes.
It was Keynes who infamously referred to a gold standard as “the Golden
Handcuffs.” So corrupt was his vision of economics that Keynes didn’t even
comprehend that his attempt to smear the gold standard with this scornful
nickname inadvertently illustrated its primary virtues.
How and why is a gold standard a set of Golden Handcuffs? Even Keynes can
explain that, because it exposes the two greatest horrors in the mind of this
charlatan. A gold standard dramatically limits the ability of governments to
take on new debt, and equally limits the capacity of central bankers to print
more currency (and thus devalue that currency).
With a gold standard, governments must run a balance of payments. Enslaving
us in debt, as the traitor politicians have done, would never have been
possible. Devaluing our currencies, manufacturing inflation, and systemically
stealing our wealth (as our thieving central banks have done) would never
have been possible. Buffett is vehement here:
There is only one way that these spending pressures can be halted, and
that is to restore the final decision on public spending to the producers of
the nation. The producers of wealth – taxpayers – must regain their right to
obtain gold in exchange for the fruits of their labor. This restoration would
give the people the final say-so on governmental spending, and would enable
wealth producers to control the issuance of paper money and bonds.
How does a gold standard put citizens back in charge of their own
government? How does a gold standard put citizens back in charge of their
own, national currencies? Via the right of redemption, to which Buffett
refers at the beginning of his essay.
Here it is necessary for readers to grasp the mechanics of a hard gold
standard, where every note issued must be backed by a specific amount of
gold. When the citizens redeem their paper currency for gold, this
extinguishes those paper instruments. The paper currency ceases to exist.
Taken to an extreme, if citizens completely lost confidence in their
government and redeemed all of their currency, the government’s treasury
would be emptied. The government could not embark on new, grandiose spending
commitments (like waging another war), because it would have no funds to
finance it.
Similarly, with our currencies backed by gold, and with a treasury emptied
of its gold, the central banks are stripped of their own powers to steal.
With no gold in the kitty, these paper-printers,
inflation-creators, and wealth-stealers could do none of this. With a proper,
gold-backed currency, there is no “inflation,” and thus the corrupt
confiscation of wealth via central bank money-printing vanishes.
As a four-term U.S. congressman, Buffett explains how the Golden Handcuffs
would affect the political mentality in Washington, or any of the capitals of
the Corrupt West.
If Congress seemed receptive to reckless spending schemes [like
funneling trillions of dollars into the vaults of too-big-to-fail banks] ,
depositors’ demands over the country for gold would become serious. That
alarm would quickly be reflected in the halls of Congress. The legislators
would learn from the banks back home and from the Treasury officials that
confidence in the Treasury was endangered.
Congress would be forced to confront spending demands with firmness.
The gold standard acted as a silent watchdog to prevent unlimited spending.
Golden Handcuffs. Silent Watchdog. These are two terms for the same thing.
A hard, gold standard, and thus a gold-backed currency, is the only way to
ensure our economic liberty – from the tyranny of our own governments, and
the tyranny of unelected central bankers who preside above
our governments .
Take away our gold standard, and there is nothing to protect us from these
tyrants. Thus predicted John Keynes. Thus predicted Howard Buffett. Thus
predicted Alan Greenspan. And look around, in 2016!
Our nations have been bankrupted.
Our currencies have been debauched to near worthlessness.
Many of our citizens have been turned into economic
serfs .
When you pay three times as much for a pound of hamburger as you paid a
mere ten years earlier, you’re purchasing the same pound of meat – it’s just
your currency which has lost two-thirds of its value. Two-thirds of the
wealth you used to have stored in that paper has been stolen.
It seems that, after all, “economic liberty” is something without which we
cannot live. The arithmetic is simple. The arguments are irrefutable. The
evidence of the economic carnage which we have suffered since being robbed of
our gold standard is beyond overwhelming.
Certainly the son of Howard Buffett must be an unabashed admirer of gold,
and the liberty it represents like his father was? Surely the Oracle of Omaha
is a fan of human liberty? Apparently not. Like father, not like son.
Why Warren Buffett Hates Gold
Why does Warren Buffett hate liberty, or at least liberty for the Little
People? Because our liberty gets in his way. Buffett is quoted
directly :
[It] gets dug out of the ground in Africa or someplace. Then we melt it
down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding
it. It has no utility.
“No utility”? Howard Buffett would disagree. But the writer of the article
elaborates on the younger Buffett’s thinking:
…that’s not the worst part of gold in Buffett’s view. His biggest issue
is the fact that gold is just so worthless. Not in the value someone is
willing to pay for an ounce of it, but in its ability to create wealth.
It is here that we learn everything we need to know about the mind-set of
wealthy oligarchs like Warren Buffett, and everything we need to know about
how they “create wealth.”
When our wealth is stolen (by the trillions of dollars), via the
money-printing of which we were warned by Keynes, Howard Buffett, and
Greenspan, where does all this stolen wealth go? It disappears into the
vaults of the wealthy oligarchs who control those printing presses, along
with their friends (like the Oracle of Omaha).
Give me control of a nation’s money, and I care not who makes its laws.
- Mayer Amschel Rothschild
How do the ultra-wealthy become ultra-wealthy? They do it the
old-fashioned way: they steal their fortunes from the people. Gold (and a
gold standard) protects the wealth of the people from having that wealth
stolen. It stops those oligarchs from “creating wealth” (i.e. stealing ours).
Warren Buffett hates gold. Warren Buffett loves
banks and central
bankers. You do the math.
The views and opinions expressed in this material are those of the author
as of the publication date, are subject to change and may not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Sprott Money Ltd. Sprott Money does not guarantee the
accuracy, completeness, timeliness and reliability of the information or any
results from its use.
