The Gold Wars

Published on July 28, 2009, Gary North's short online book, The Gold Wars, examines the hatred central banks have for gold and also anticipates the dawning of private money systems based on digital gold. North writes:

"Gold bugs believe that there will be a voluntary return to the use of gold by the general public. The computerized technology now exists to create private money systems based on gold -- digital gold. There can be 100% reserve banking. The digits allow us to make exchanges in the range of one dollar’s purchasing power."

"Hostility to the traditional gold coin standard has been the mark of Establishment economists and editorialists ever since the U.S. government confiscated Americans’ gold in 1933. The Establishment hates gold. Its spokesmen ridicule gold. They want responsible fiscal and monetary policies, of course -- all of them publicly assure of this fact, decade after decade -- but the national debt just keeps getting bigger, and price inflation never ceases, also decade after decade. Somehow, fiscal and monetary responsibility just never seem to arrive."

"Why do they hate gold? Because gold represents the public. More than this: gold is a powerful tool of control by the public. A gold coin standard places in the hands of consumers a means of controlling the national money supply. A gold coin standard transfers monetary policy-making from central bankers and government officials to the common man, who can walk into a bank and demand payment for paper or digital currency in gold coins. This is the ultimate form of democracy, and the Establishment hates it. The Establishment can and does control political affairs. They make democracy work for them. They are masters of political manipulation. But they cannot control long-run monetary policy in a society that has a gold coin standard. They hate gold because they hate the sovereignty of consumers."