Ted Cruz Has the Best Idea in the Presidential Debate: A Return to the Gold Standard

The LA Times’s Michael Hiltzik recently wrote a column slamming the GOP field in general and one of the two front-runners, Ted Cruz, in particular: The worst idea in the presidential debate: a return to the gold standard. Mr. Hiltzik thereby joins with a lot of usual suspects, like Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, in the ridicule-heaping ritual. Such conduct is unbecoming of him and his headline and conclusions are contradicted by a lot of reliable data. There actually is abundant evidence that Ted Cruz’s proposal of the gold standard is the very best idea in the presidential debate so

AEI’s James Pethokoukis Takes a More Temperate Tone Toward the Gold Standard

At AEIdeas, columnist and blogger James Pethokoukis again returns to a favorite topic, the gold standard. In “The deep myth at the heart of the gold standard,” Pethokoukis writes: One political/policy fallout from the Global Financial Crisis — and the accompanying monetary easing and rise in public debt — has been the reemergence of the gold standard as something the center-right talks about. Unlike the fiat money US dollar, a gold-backed dollar — a dollar linked to something tangible — would prevent monetary mischief by government. Pethokoukis is to be highly commended for adopting a more temperate tone toward gold

AEI’s James Pethokoukis Ignorantly Bashes Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush recently showed a dignified open-mindedness toward the gold standard.  He thereby is much more to be commended than Neo-Keynesian columnists like Matt O’Brien — or “Reformocons” like James Pethokoukis — both of whom seem to value elite cachet over empirical data such as adduced by the Bank of England. In his recent AEIdeas blog, AEI blogger James Pethokoukis writes “Jeb Bush was asked about the gold standard. He should have gone all Rick Grimes on that zombie idea”. Pethokoukis: So Jeb Bush was asked on the campaign trail about returning to the gold standard. His answer: “I don’t