Jo Weisenthal writing for the Business Insider claims Ben Bernanke Just Murdered The Gold Standard.



In an equally feeble post, Simone Foxman also writing for the Business Insider writes Ben Bernanke Explains Why The World Will Never See Another Gold Standard.



What is the Proper Supply of Money?



Let's start with Simone Foxman who says



Bernanke pointed out various reasons that there's simply "not enough gold" to sustain today's global economy. First, extracting gold from the ground is a costly and uncertain endeavor. There is a limited amount of gold in the world, and it just doesn't make sense in the modern world for central or commercial banks store large amounts of gold in vaults. The size of the gold supply and inconvenience of the metal renders it too impractical to keep up with the pace of global commerce.

An increase in the money supply, then, only dilutes the effectiveness of each gold ounce; on the other hand, a fall in the supply of money raises the power of each gold ounce to do its work. We come to the startling truth that it doesn’t matter what the supply of money is. Any supply will do as well as any other supply. The free market will simply adjust by changing the purchasing power, or effectiveness of the gold-unit. There is no need to tamper with the market in order to alter the money supply that it determines.

Second, while advocates of the gold standard are right that prices remain stable in the long-term, "on a year to year basis, that's not true." Limited supplies of gold—or changes to the supply of gold—cause prices of goods to be volatile in the short-term, regardless of long-term price stability.

[Bernanke] pointed to a substantial tome of economic research finding that the gold standard aggravated the Great Depression, saying "the gold standard was one of the main reasons the Great Depression was so bad and so long." The inability of the Federal Reserve to control monetary policy—open up credit, address unemployment, and drive business demand—left it with much less power to avert or mitigate the decade-long crisis. Bernanke added that countries not tied to the gold standard also had a much easier time getting out of the Depression. In the modern world, he said, "we've seen that problem with various kinds of fixed exchange rates."

Lending out more money than there is gold backing it up Duration mismatch - Banks secure money for 5 years via CDs then lend the money for 30 year mortgages. The problem comes when people want their money back after 5 years and it isn't there.

Central banks and their inept Soviet-style central planning Fractional reserve lending Fed manipulation of interest rates Government sponsored monetary printing, frequently but not always to fight absurd wars that have no justified explanation. The War in Vietnam and the War in Iraq are recent examples.

HPI-CPI







click on chart for sharper image

The Fed kept interest rates at historic lows between 2002 and mid-2004. The last two rate cuts by Alan Greenspan were not justified at all, by any measure, and downright absurd considering the bubble brewing in housing prices vs. rent.

Bernanke: Why are we still listening to this guy?

Banks, because they can conjure up loans out of thin air and the Fed will bail them out if they go bust The already wealthy Government (via tax confiscation, especially property taxes)