Mark Ames writes at The eXiled:
Does anyone here in this house speak goldbug-babble? Anyone who can make sense of Dr. Paul’s logic in the clip below, I’m curious what the fuck this man is trying to hawk to his 1988 C-SPAN viewers. I mean I know it’s snake-oil, but even snake-oil pitches have a logic to them. This one just sounds like bat-shit blather.
As far as I can tell, the reason why the Koch brothers hire tools to promote the gold standard is the same reason that robber barons of the 19th century loved the gold standard so much: Gold locks in the power and wealth of those who have all the power and wealth; and gold locks out everyone else who’s not so lucky, condemning them to serfdom. Which leads to Populist uprisings, labor unrest, and all that century-old misery. That would explain why Koch fronts like Ron Paul hustle the gold standard to us suckers as the equivalent to “freedom”–just like coal companies pitching the public the lie about “clean coal”–you want the suckers to believe that a gold standard will offer them the very opposite of the misery it delivers.
That part of the scam I get. Fair enough. But this 1988 gold standard pitch? Makes no sense.
Over the years, Congressman Ron Paul, hero of the libertarian cult, has hawked his beloved “gold standard” as the cure-all for [NAME OF CURRENT CRISIS], logic be damned. In this video, Dr. Paul promises that the gold standard will solve the trade deficit with Japan, the hot topic in 1988–in fact, Dr. Paul says there won’t even be a trade deficit to worry about if there’s a gold standard, and moreover, people won’t even have to keep accounting records anymore! ...>more