Good morning
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The headlines (and it’s a Republican-themed day):
- Mitt Romney gets nominated.
Link: and Ron Paul gets cheered.
Well this isn’t really a surprise – but I suppose it’s all official. His wife gave a rousing speech about Mr Romney’s lifetime of uplifting others and working really really hard and so on. Heart-warming stuff.
To be honest, I have been jaded by watching many West Wing episodes featuring Martin Sheen as the President. Those speeches all sound like they were written by a harried and underpaid speechwriter who looks like a female lead whose name you can’t quite remember, but who secretly crushes on the Commando-in-Chief.
My favourite part of this story is the cheering for Ron Paul as he entered the convention. I am a general fan of the libertarian, if only because he has a controversial point of view* and sticks to it. But like seriously sticks to it. Even when there was absolutely no chance of winning the nomination. Even now.
Kudos.
*”Abolish the Fed”
- The GOP promoting a return to the Gold Standard?
Link: not quite yet.
So on the topic of Ron Paul… The return to the Gold Standard and the abolishment of the Fed and the complete deregulation of the market: all healthy topics on the Austrian School of economics agenda.
In Ron Paul’s words: “the proper role for government in America is to provide national defence, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else”.
Can we all just pause for a moment to consider how radical that viewpoint is? Basically, the privatisation of everything.
That said – Mr Paul isn’t such a big fan of the Gold Standard. He’s more of a “let’s just remove the Fed’s monopoly on the printing of money, and see what happens”. Which is less scary than it sounds. If everyone can print money, then everyone can choose which money to use and, more importantly, to accept. Because, in return for your products/services, you’re not going to accept money printed by someone who’s unreliable or out for gain. Very rapidly, the forces of free market competition will create demand for the “currencies” of a handful of suppliers that have all the qualities of “good money”. And voilà, free market money.
Anyway, on the Republican front, the platform committee has asked for the establishment of a gold commission to “examine restoring the country to a gold standard”. It’s not quite what Ron Paul is looking for (despite the assertion in the article), but it is a step toward removing monetary policy from the hands of the Fed*.
Paul Krugman’s reaction: “Under the gold standard America had no major financial panics other than in 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1907, 1930, 1931, 1932, and 1933. Oh wait”. Love it!
*If money supply is limited to the amount of gold in circulation, then the Fed cannot exercise quantitative spending to stimulate the economy.
- The GOP goes anti-pornography.
Link: Is this really that important?
Probably not. But there we are.
That’s all for now.
Have a good day.
