In a recent op-ed at FoxNews.com, I called the classical gold standard — the ability of you, or a foreign government, or anyone in between to present your dollars at a bank and receive gold dollars in return — the "unfinished symphony” of the prosperity legacy of President Reagan, who was a gold standard supporter, of Rep. Jack Kemp, a great proponent of the gold standard, and of others — very much including, behind the scenes, Lewis E. Lehrman, founder of the Lehrman Institute.
These men, and a very few others such as Jeffrey Bell with whom I was privileged to be associated, were at the core of the economic revolution epitomized by cutting the top marginal tax rate from 70% to 28%, in propounding free trade and light regulation, propelling the world to an unprecedented era of prosperity. The Dow Jones Industrial Average steadily rose from under 1,000 when they began their revolution to over 10,000 today. And yet ... the gold standard portion of the agenda remained incomplete. More potential for economic growth... .
Now, as America struggles to emerge from the Great Recession, a much higher degree of attention is being paid to the gold standard than at any time over the past quarter century. The gold standard had been marginalized as a fringe policy prescription. Lenin (reportedly but probably apocryphally) proclaimed gold fit only for lining the floors of public latrines. Lord John Maynard Keynes called it a "barbarous relic."
And yet, the promises made by those who claimed to be able to create a monetary policy by the use of their discernment have been discredited in practice. Publishing titan, and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes notes: Between 1947 and the late 1960s (when we started to let the gold-based system unravel) U.S. average annual growth rates were 4% and unemployment 4.7%. Since abandoning gold in the early 1970s average annual growth has dropped to less than 3%; unemployment has risen to 6.2%.
Gold suddenly has been propelled into active debate. Ambassador Robert Zoellick, president of The World Bank Group, wrote a widely noticed column for the Financial Times, "The G-20 Must Look Beyond Bretton Woods", in which he observed, among other things, that "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today."
The gold standard is commanding respect from people who themselves command respect. This website will introduce you to some of them and help guide you through the debate about the gold standard that began anew in 2010 and is certain to escalate in 2011.
Welcome.