Thursday, March 28, 2024

Ted Cruz in New Hampshire and an America Where the Streets Are Paved with Gold

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) (photo credit: Gage Skidmore)

The Washington Post reports that Ted Cruz is making the case for high quality money and the gold standard in New Hampshire. Cruz:

“One of the problems is the volatility of the dollar,” he said. “You know, if you look at the policies of the Fed – I’m an original co-sponsor of Ron Paul’s audit the Fed bill, and I am very concerned about the policies of the Fed, because what we’ve seen is a rapidly careening dollar, where you have a strong dollar, then a weak dollar, then a strong dollar, then a weak dollar. What you see is commodity prices shoot up and shoot down, shoot up and shoot down, and it causes enormous dislocation. When commodity prices go up, what happens is everyone runs into a sector, they get jobs, and when the prices fall they’re out of work. And my view is that we don’t want a strong dollar or a weak dollar. We want a stable dollar.”

Sen. Cruz, sounding very much as if he is drawing on works by gold standard proponent Steve Forbes, went on to explain money’s property as a unit of measurement:

“So the reason why we see these rapid oscillations in commodities markets, it’s because of unstable currencies. And it’s why I think we should look at going toward rules-based monetary supply, ideally tied to gold, so you have stability. And I think that would improve the lives of a great many working people.”

Sen. Cruz is on to something powerful here. The gold standard is fundamental to the creation and maintenance of a climate of equitable prosperity.

Our ancestors came to America from the “Old Country” — because, they then said, in America “the streets were paved with gold” — and workers flourished, for almost two centuries, under the gold standard whereas we mostly have struggled for 40 years under a “Federal Reserve Note standard.”

By highlighting the benefit (prosperity) rather than the mechanism (the stability of the unit of account), Sen. Cruz could move even more voters with his very sound promise to restore the American dream.

Ralph Benko, internationally published weekly columnist, co-author of The 21st Century Gold Standard, lead co-editor of the Gerald Malsbary translation from Latin to English of Copernicus’s Essay on Money, is American Principles Project’s Senior Advisor, Economics.

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