Ron Paul's speech was great last night, mid way through he had that soldier come up on stage and finish his remarks. Did you see that?
Anyway, Paul's message resonates, and indeed no one but him is apparently willing to discuss the real issues (so good thing), but his idea of returning to the Gold standard is strange. I am all for a national fiat currency (that does not carry a compound interest contract payable to the City of London and friends). But I'm pretty sure the same global gang owns most of the gold, and, frankly find the notion of 'intrinsic value' of gold to be mere superstition. So I am not sure what to make of his insistence on the return to the gold standard. It bugs (npi;) me.
The other argument they make is that there is a finite amount of gold in the world, whereas currency could be essentially infinite. This is equally stupid, because it make economics a zero sum game. Trade works best when it makes both sides richer, an impossible task in a mercantile economy; that is why anyone who believes in free trade hates the gold mongers, and probably why news organizations dislike him, too. A gold-mongering president would cost everyone money.
> The other argument they make is that there is a finite amount of gold in the world, whereas currency could be essentially infinite. This is equally stupid, because it make economics a zero sum game. I agree, it is completely stupid to cap a nation's economy. Fiat within (sovereign) domain coupled with commodity based (e.g. Oil reserves) for trans-national trade, would be the sensible way to go, imo. The transnational commodity 'trade currency' would keep internal national funny money at bay. Thinking in the economic space has been stuck in usuary and flat (not fiat) currency since Sumer. The consequences have been known since then. (It is in the bible too.) I still haven't figured out how one would disentangle 'storable value' from 'unit of exchange'. That is what is required and regrettably no one apparently is working on finding a solution to that problem.
Trade, for as many problems as it creates vis-a-vis destruction of local culture and exploitation of populations, has inherent value in that it raises the standard of living for most of the people of a given nation. Gold hinders trade because of its limited quantity; that's why Nixon (a real socialist, right?) got us off the gold standard. Why Ron Paul and his ilk don't seem to understand this is far beyond me.