>At any rate--Jack Kemp wrote Greenspan pressing him to return to the gold
>standard:
>
>http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/novak01.htm.
>
>Suspect there's many here better at judging the
>significance/weirdness/hilarity
>of this than I am. Can someone put this in context for the rest of us?
Greenspan, of course, wrote that famous essay "Gold & economic freedom" for Any Rand's Objectivist newsletter in the 1960s. Gold, said AG, was an essential bulwark against the revolt of the have-nots.
Kemp is a hoot. On the one hand, he urges AG to loosen and rescue the world. On the other hand he wants the most austere monetary regime imaginable, a gold standard. Since the gold supply rises by some 2% a year, a gold standard would put a stifling cap on nominal GDP growth rates; even if prices were flat, stagnation, punctuated by financial crises, would be the best we could hope for.
Going one better, didn't Hayek believe in a declining money supply & price level?
Doug