- The dollar’s worst start in 52 years…
- We need a real gold standard…
- TRUMP’S CURSE: A $35 Trillion Meltdown Ahead? Robert Kiyosaki just issued his boldest warning yet — and he says the clock’s almost out of time.
Dear Reader,
Phoenix Capital Research:
- The greenback declined 12% in the first six months of 2025. This is the worst six month start for the dollar since 1973.
Since 1973!
Meantime, we are informed the United States dollar straddles, perilously, a 15-year upward trendline.
Should it lose its footing, should it slip beneath the trendline… the dollar could be in for a mighty plummet:
- This is a huge deal. The $USD has been weak for months… but a break of this trendline would herald the start of a prolonged bear market. And that would have massive implications for numerous asset classes.
I hazard assets such as gold and Bitcoin would be up and away. Long-dated bonds, meantime, would endure a good hard whaling.
A Blemish Upon the National Honor
Yet as a proud citizen of the United States, a sense of shame washes over me.
I am saddened that the currency of my beloved nation suffers a diminished reputation.
A diminished currency represents, as I see it, a blemish upon the national honor.
Yet I recognize — simultaneously — that a diminished currency benefits a nation sunk so hopelessly in debt.
That is because inflation eases debt’s shackles… and lightens its chains.
Assume Uncle Samuel borrows one dollar. Under inflation, he repays that dollar in cents.
That is why a government sunk impossibly in debt is out for inflation.
Debtors Hate Deflation
Explains Freedom Financial News contributor Jim Rickards:
- The national debt is [$37] trillion. A $37 trillion debt would not be a serious issue if we had a $50 trillion economy.
- But we don’t have a $50 trillion economy. We have about a [$27] trillion economy, which means our debt is 50% bigger than our economy…
- The debt is unmanageable without inflation. Inflation favors debtors because they get to pay back the debt with depreciating dollars. It’s easier to pay down debt because you’re paying back debt with dollars that are less valuable than when you originally borrowed them. So inflation eases the real value of debt.
- On the other hand, deflation increases the real value of debt. With deflation, the value of money increases, making it more burdensome to pay off debt. This is why debtors hate deflation.
And Uncle Samuel is the greatest debtor upon Earth.
Time to Restore the Gold Standard?
Could our deadbeat uncle have lapsed into such a reduced condition under the gold standard?
The answer is no. And so do I propose a restoration of the gold standard?
The answer is yes. Yet the answer — simultaneously — is no.
That is because I do not propose the restoration of the classical, government-operated gold standard.
Why?
Explains the late “Austrian” economist Gary North:
- A government-guaranteed gold standard is a rotten idea. It is just a little better than a fiat-money standard. Advocates of “the gold standard” almost always mean “a government-guaranteed gold standard.” Therein lies the problem. Governments lie. They cheat. They steal…
- A government-guaranteed gold standard is a fool’s gold standard…
A Real Gold Standard
Thus I propose a private gold standard.
The private gold standard places the monetary authority in the hands of the citizen.
He claps golden handcuffs upon his government. It is he who guards the Treasury… and the nation’s currency.
Such a blessed condition obtained until 1914 and the advent of war. Mr. North:
- When the public had access to gold coins prior to 1914, individuals controlled banking policy. They also controlled government fiscal policy. They could take their coins out of commercial banks if they did not approve of government policy. This is why national governments annul or restrict gold-coin redeemability whenever a major war breaks out. They do not want to face the citizens’ veto.
- With the repudiation of any gold-coin standard since 1914, citizens no longer understand the case for a gold-coin currency. They do not understand that widespread gold ownership was the number one restraining factor on the expansion of state power in the economy. The uncoordinated individual decisions of millions of people could overturn any government policy that required central bank inflation to fund it. The politicians resented this. So did the central bankers.
Citizens Never Got Their Vote Back
Thus governments denied citizens their gold coins and veto power over government policy. They never restored that veto power:
- They refused to return to the prewar gold-coin standard in 1918. Politicians and bankers did not want to transfer this power back to the masses. Once the central banks in every nation stole the gold from commercial banks, who had stolen the gold coins of the depositors by breaking the contracts of full gold-coin redemption on demand, the political elite never again let the masses have their coins.
It is high time the American people reclaim our gold coins — and our command of the nation’s currency.
That is, it is high time to remind the government who precisely bosses whom.
It is a lesson long overdue.
Yet alas, it is a lesson that an amnesiac people — as are we the American people — is unlikely to teach.
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
