Research

A Salvo in the Battle for the Gold Standard

I wrote what I thought was a fairly simple article for Forbes on Tuesday. I noticed that some people really got it, and they were very excited. However, others were skeptical or asking questions that went into the weeds. The former tells me that I said something important, but the latter says that I said […]

Going All-In On a Weak Argument

Gold Standard All In

In Poker, to go all in means to bet everything you have. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that, at least so far as the mainstream audience is concerned, we gold advocates have gone all in. We have made one argument: we should adopt the gold standard, because inflation. By inflation, […]

Legal Tender Renders Planning Impossible

There is much confusion over what the legal tender law does. I have read articles, written by people who are otherwise knowledgeable about economics, claiming that legal tender forces merchants to accept dollars under threat of imprisonment. Recently, I wrote a short article for Forbes clarifying how legal tender law works in the US. Legal […]

The Dollar is Going Up

Let’s take a look at a few graphs of the dollar, from Feb 1, 2013 through Friday May 17, 2013. Yes, I said graphs of the dollar. I’ve priced the dollar in gold first (of course), then silver, the euro, and even the yen. The pattern is obvious. The dollar is going up. I did […]

The Precise Definition of Inflation

Inflation

Communicating about money and finance in today’s culture is a real challenge; you want to inform and enlighten your audience on their level of knowledge—but this makes the use of terms extremely difficult. Ayn Rand Institute President Yaron Brook’s video about deflation demonstrates why. In the video clip, Dr. Brook makes two key points. First, […]