Money

Sometime I feel like a stick in the mud, but every time I see someone reference The Money Masters, The American Dream or Money as Debt, I feel obligated to point out that while all three do a excellent job of pointing out the problem, i.e., fractional reserve, fiat central banking, the solution they offer is no solution at all. All three are suggesting that the Treasury take over the issuance of currency. They talk about "spending money into existence" via the Treasury issuing "interest free" money that would essentially be backed by whatever it was spent on. I haven't grasped the exact detail of their plan and I might not be describing it exactly right because frankly I had already taken the economic red pill before I was exposed to them. I didn't waste a lot of time figuring out how something I knew would never work would work.

I'm always of two minds in referencing Gary North because his theology is terrifying. He is a follower of the late Rousas John Rushdoony. In fact he married Rushdoony's daughter. If you are not familiar with Rushdoony I would suggest you do a google search for "Dominionism" and "Christian Reconstructionism." If they don't scare the bejeezus out of you, you either don't grasp what they are getting at or else you think they are good ideas, in which case you are dangerous. Forgive the digression, but I had to get that out.

North, however, is an outstanding economist and he has addressed the ideas in those documentaries far better than anyone. What they are talking about has a name: Greenbacking. Greenbacking is being pushed hard by a woman named Ellen Brown. Gary North has written a masterful series of rebuttals of Brown and the whole idea of greenbacking. I highly recommend anyone who is tempted by Bill Sill or Ellen Brown to read them.

More generally I recommend everyone who views this blog read What Has Government Done To Our Money? by Murray Rothbard. In my opinion, after Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard was the greatest economic and political thinker of the 20th Century. I actually think he is better in some way because his presentation is far more accessible to people without an extensive economics background. If anyone here has found my ramblings on economic and political issues to be of any value understand I am just presenting Rothbard's thinking as best I understand it. Other than a semester of basic economics I took in college many, many years ago, I have no specialized economics training. I have to credit Rothbard for enlightening me. If you have any respect for Ron Paul and his ideas know this: if it were not for Rothbard there would have been no Ron Paul. Rothbard was Ron Paul's mentor.

The bottom line is this: money is a purely a free market phenomenon. It has always emerged from market interactions and every time government has attempted to take it over it has always been a disaster. As I said above, The Money Masters and the other two films I mentioned are absolutely right on the problem and absolutely wrong on the answer.