Contents of my 12 October monetary presentation

Dick Clark

October 12, 2005

Money in the United States: History and Theory

I. Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI)

· A research and educational center for Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School of Economics, which is dedicated to defending:

· free markets

· private property

· sound money

· peaceful international relations

· Approval of an institute named in honor of her late husband was granted by Margit Mises in December 1981, with the institute being founded in Auburn, Alabama in October 1982.

· Ludwig von Mises was an Austrian economist who demonstrated that the various forms of government intervention are always destructive, including:

· welfare

· inflation

· taxation

· regulation

· war

· Periodicals: The Mises Institute publishes periodicals such as:

· The Free Market (monthly newsletter about political developments)

· The Mises Memo (newsletter about LvMI conferences and publications)

· The Mises Review (reviews of new books germane to Austrian economics and libertarian political philosophy)

· Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics (peer-reviewed, scholarly journal focusing on Austrian Economics)

· Journal of Libertarian Studies (peer-reviewed, scholarly journal focusing on political theory)

· Books: LvMI publishes reprints and new translations of important economic and philosophical works, and also publishes many new works.

· Fellowships: Support is provided to students in the form of books, periodicals, internships, academic counseling, and financial assistance.

· Research Grants: LvMI provides material support to scholars engaged in in-depth research in the Austrian tradition, including translators of important works, and biographers of major figures in Austrian Economics.

· In-house Library: The library includes more than 30,000 volumes, including the personal collections and papers of several eminent scholars.

· Mises.org: The institute website features a multitude of resources, such as online books, daily articles, study guides, bibliographies, and working papers.

II. Current Conditions

· According to a story published 10 October 2005 on Bloomberg.com, the price of gold in US dollars has risen 8.1% in the past 6 weeks, and more than 9% so far this year.

· As of October 10, 2005, the price of an ounce of gold was $477.70.

· Gold has been appreciating against almost all major currencies this week, signaling world-wide inflation.

People are seeking gold as an inflation hedge and neutral currency.

III.Inflation

· Inflation is the devaluation of a unit of currency.

· It would take $1215 of today's currency to equal the purchasing power of $100 in 1932.

· Price index data can be useful in observing inflation, but is often not reliable as an absolute measure.

· Changes in the price of gold in dollars is a good indicator of inflation, but, as with all scarce commodities, gold's price fluctuates not only due to inflation but because of changes in supply and demand.

IV.Origin of Money

· Exchange occurs because of the benefits of the division of labor.

· To demonstate this, assume that a baker can make four loaves of bread per hour, but only one candle. Assume also that a candlemaker can, inversely, make only one loaf of bread per hour, but four candles per hour. Compare the results of being a “jack-of-all-trades” to those of specialization.

Without the division of labor:	Baker	Candlemaker	Total # of Items Produced
# of candles produced	1	4	5
# of bread loaves produced	4	1	5

With the division of labor:	Baker	Candlemaker	Total # of Items Produced
# of candles produced	0	8	8
# of bread loaves produced	8	0	8

· As specialization of the workforce progresses, barter becomes more complex and more difficult.

· Money is a commodity that becomes a medium of exchange. Such media facilitate exchange and aid in economic calculation.

· To be a good money, a commodity needs to be:

1. commonly regarded as valuable

2. durable

3. easily divisible

4. homogeneous

V. History of Money

· Gold and silver, like other commodities, are traded by weight.

· “Dollar,” “Franc,” “Mark,” and “Pound” were all originally the names of units of weight of gold or silver.

· Privately minted coins circulated in the United States as late as 1848.

· Government, under the pretense of preventing fraud and maintaining standards, began passing “legal tender” laws as early as 1819. The actual motive was to force people to accept money other than gold.

· Before 1933, a “dollar” was 1/20 oz. of gold by definition.

· 1933: FDR ends strict gold standard.

· 1934 – 1945: The dollar is redefined as 1/35 oz. of gold, but now redeemable only by foreign governments and central banks.

· 1945 – 1968: The “Bretton Woods” agreement results in the US government's further inflating the money supply. The US is more inflationary than either Japan or Western Europe during this period.

· Early 1950s – Summer 1971: Foreign governments begin heavily redeeming dollars for gold.

· US gold stock dwindles from $20 billion to $9 billion

· $35/oz. gold became difficult to honor towards the end of this period

· August 1971: President Nixon takes the US off of the gold standard and to a fiat currency for the first time in national history.

VI. Business Cycle

· The “Boom-Bust” cycle has been pondered by economists for more than a century.

· The business cycle proceeds as follows:

1. The Federal Reserve expands credit/money supply by lowering interest rates to its borrowers.

2. Businesses take advantage of the cheap credit to purchase capital goods (and the associated labor). The “easy money” causes miscalculation in the market, and misallocation of resources.

3. Prices for capital goods, labor, and (to a lesser extent) consumer goods, increase. This is the “Boom” part of the cycle.

4. As the money supply increases, more goods are imported.

5. Domestic prices increase and domestic producers become less competitive globally.

6. A trade deficit means that gold and other commodities flow out of the country. Eventually, the central bank must contract outstanding bank loans to stave-off monetary collapse. This is the “Bust” part of the cycle.

7. During the Bust, debts are repaid, domestic prices fall, and savings increase.

VII. Why Inflate?

· To “stimulate the economy” in the short term, thus giving the appearance that the government is “doing something,” usually about unemployment or decreased consumer spending.

· To increase federal spending without raising taxes (effectively a back-door tax increase).

VIII. Advice on Policy

· Economist Ludwig von Mises said, “The President, Congress, and the Supreme Court have clearly proved their inability of unwillingness to protect the common man, the voter, from being victimized by inflationary machinations. The function of securing a sound currency must pass into new hands, into those of the whole nation.”

· Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) says, “An official coinage that reflects honest bullion weights is a powerful symbol of the gold standard that we support.”

Fiat Money and the Elderly

Yesterday I went to Montgomery, AL to speak to a group of about twenty-five retired gentlemen on the invitation of a certain Mr. Cluck. My Jeep CJ-7 committed suicide while I was en route, something for which I was not really prepared given that this occurred at around 7am. I do not usually rise until 8am or so. I was fortunate enough to be within close enough range of the speaking venue for Mr. Cluck to get in his car and pick me up from the side of Interstate 85.

I arrived at the appointed place at around 8:20am (twenty minutes late), and no one seemed angry. So far, so good. I had been asked to speak on monetary policy, gold, and inflation. Thankfully, I built the index for the new edition of Rothbard's What Has the government Done to Our Money?, which now incorporates his Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (buy it here), over the summer. To shore up my monetary theory and history knowledge prior to my lecture, I read excerpts from The Gold Standard, (ed. Lew Rockwell; buy it here), Austrian Theory of the Trade Cycle (buy it here), and other assorted essays on money, including one by Walter Block. Despite this preparation, I was still quite nervous about delivering this speech--my first libertarian talk of substantial length to a non-libertarian audience.

Having never delivered a lecture of any length on money before, I wasn't quite sure where to begin. After talking about the Mises Institute's programs and activities for a few minutes, I dove right in. First, I started out with the basics: exchange arising as a result of the division of labor's benefits to participants, the increasing complexity of barter transactions relative to the specialization of the labor force, and the medium of exchange that reconciles all of these. I talked about the criteria for choosing a good money commodity (commonly valued, durable, divisible, homogeneous).

After the introduction to basic capitalist theory, I started in on the history of money in the United States, and the gradual move from sound money to fiat money. When presenting such a horror story of corruption and hubris, it is difficult to sound even nominally pro-government. I usually don't worry about such things, but, hey, I don't like for older folks to dislike me. They usually know what they are talking about, and I didn't need another blow to the old ego (some people close to me would disagree). Despite having at least some Social Security recipients in the room, not one person piped up to defend Franklin D. Roosevelt from my assault on his "good name."

Again, so far, so good. Then I went on to the even more controversial stuff. I started talking about inflation, and how it causes the business (boom-bust) cycle. Not having been terribly familiar with the fine points of Austrian business cycle theory, this was the portion of my talk that had me sweating the most before hand. I am not certain, but I feel fairly sure that everyone who heard me got some idea as to why inflation causes the boom-bust cycle. I concluded my talk by advising everyone to include gold in their investment portfolios as an inflation hedge, and by reading quotes from both Ludwig von Mises and Ron Paul about sound money and government.

As it turns out, I shouldn't have been nervous to begin with. The only questions that were asked of me with which I felt uncomfortable were more or less financial planning questions. Since my host, Mr. Cluck, is a certified financial planner, I gave a quick disclaimer about my not being an expert in the area of investment, offered some questionable advice, and then referred the question-asker to the professional. Everyone applauded in the end, and a few gentlemen even purchased books. To ice the cake, one kind fellow gave me a ride to a auto shop, where I waited to be picked up by the tow truck driver who would be my chauffeur back to Auburn.

So, to tally the final score for the outing, I lost a car in the deal, but I netted tons of confidence in my ability to lecture for the length of a normal class period. The coolest aspect of the whole ordeal was that I reaffirmed the truth of the old adage by Lucius Annaeus Seneca that "Men learn while they teach." Now I just hope that someone comes along and asks me to lecture on tons of topics with which I am not acquainted. Then, I really might end up knowing something.