The Financial Times today
trumpeted the return of the gold standard to mainstream US politics for the first time in more than 30 years. The Republican Party is looking a lot like a wolf in Ron Paul’s clothing – sneakers with the suit included – as it cloaks itself in gold and austerity for America. Could Ron Paul’s $1 trillion in cuts come for the United States in a repackaged form, as IMF and World Bank-styled”economic medicine” for America? Perhaps. Or this could be just a way of winning over a voting public in the midst of inflationary pressures. Election promises rarely trans-mutate into administration policy.
According to the FT, drafts of the party platform set to be adopted at the RNC convention in Tampa bay, Florida next week, will call for an audit of the Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold. For some reason, not only has an audit of the Federal Reserve and precious metals come to partial-fruition, but the Republican Party, while thwarting aside Ron Paul himself, has adopted the Ron Paul Platform, if even only for pomp.
Or this could be the end of the party for Main Street, as fiscal and monetary discipline could now become the overtones of the Party’s social maintenance. Debt will be King as all debts will be payable in gold, something basically no US citizens have, except in 10k-14k cheap, US jewelry, that would not even be considered gold in some places.
A Republican congresswoman from Tennessee and co-chair of the platform committee, Marsha Blackburn, has shared that the issues were not adopted by the Party in an effort to appease Ron Paul and his delegates.
“These were adopted because they are things that Republicans agree on,” Ms Blackburn discussed with the Financial Times. “The House recently passed a bill on this, and this is something that we think needs to be done.”
The proposal is Reagan-esque. In 1981, president Ronald Reagan created a Gold Commission. That was ten years after Richard Nixon took theUS off its partial-gold standard in 1971. Reagan’s commission approved of Nixon’s decision to defend America from the “speculators.”
The commission would not enjoy the power to recommend anything, but it would provide the opportunity of education about a gold standard, according to Republican Party members. In 1980, Republicans ran under the promise of “restoration of a dependable monetary standard,” and in 1984 said that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism.” That was the last party platform to make mention of the gold standard.
The Republican platform in 1980 referred to “restoration of a dependable monetary standard”, while the 1984 platform said that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism”. More recent platforms did not mention it.
