Are you heading abroad this summer? Good timing. As Your Survival Guy discovered before his recent trip across the pond, the US dollar carries some weight. Not exactly par with the pound or euro but solid compared to the last decade or so of taking trips to Europe, mostly to Paris. But like the upcoming Paris Olympics, this is a competition between currencies. What will be the catalyst to keep buyers coming back for more US dollars? What’s a better solution to keeping the crown on “king” dollar? A return to the gold standard.
In the early 70s, my father-in-law, Richard C. Young, had a front-row seat as a currency expert when Nixon closed the gold window. And what a terrible mistake Nixon made.
Steve Forbes explains in his Forbes magazine’s June/July Fact & Comment that “The U.S. was on a gold-based system for 180 years until the early 1970s. We never had inflation when the dollar’s value was tied to the yellow metal, and the U.S. experienced the greatest long-term economic growth in human history.”
Fast forward to today.
The Federal Reserve would do all of us a whole lot of good if it pegged the dollar to gold rather than play games with interest rates. Stability is what we crave, yet the Fed turns a blind eye to the malfeasance big government does by “helping” with the destructive forces of creating more dollars out of thin air. Returning to a gold-type standard would bring back monetary discipline—a politician’s worst nightmare.
Action Line: Don’t hold your breath for an overnight return to monetary discipline. But it could happen in our lifetime. Don’t fail to act. Get your own money in order. Talk with Your Survival Guy. But only if you’re serious.
