The TGB Report July 14, 2009

Fed Independent or Fed Secrecy


Texas Straight Talk | Congressman Ron Paul

Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the general question of whether or not the Federal Reserve should continue to operate independently. The public is demanding transparency in government like never before. A majority of the House has cosponsored HR 1207. Yet, Senator Jim DeMint’s heroic efforts to attach it to another piece of legislation elicited intense opposition by the Senate leadership. The hearings on Capitol Hill provided us with

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Kill the Monster


Lew Rockwell.com | Thomas E. Woods, Jr

A lot of people seem to believe that although the market economy is a swell system, it requires the equivalent of a Soviet commissar to be in charge of money and interest rates. This belief is altogether misplaced. The Federal Reserve System, or simply "the Fed," is both harmful and unnecessary.

Since the Fed was created in 1913 the dollar has lost at least 95 percent of its value. If the much-maligned gold standard had produced such a result we’d never hear the end of it, but in our system the Fed is, for whatever reason, curiously exempt from criticism. Under the Fed, therefore, people have lost an option they once had: accumulating savings in cash. Under a commodity standard, people could save for the future simply by accumulating precious-metal coins – which, back when they functioned as money, held or even increased their value. No one has that option any longer. In other words, only a fool would try to save by piling up dollar bills. Instead, everyone is forced to become a speculator, and to invest in securities markets they know little about and that can wipe them out entirely if times turn bad.

As early as the eighteenth century, Richard Cantillon identified distribution effects as another way inflation harmed the general public. The newly created money is injected at particular points. Whoever receives it first – that is, people who happen to be politically well connected – get to spend it before prices have commensurately risen, and these fortunate few thereby receive a windfall. By the time it trickles through to ordinary people, on the other hand, the general public has in the meantime been forced to pay the higher prices to which the new money gives rise.

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US Mint AGAIN Suspends Gold Coin Sales - Is USA Really Out of Gold?

Toni Straka | The Prudent Investor

I may have missed one or the other suspension of gold coin sales by the US Mint. But here we go again: Checking the online store of the US Mint I came across notices of delays and suspensions with golden Eagles and Buffaloes with waiting times between weeks and further notice.
The US Mint press room has entirely omitted this confirmation about the tightness of the bullion market which enjoys upward momentum thanks to the thousands of big problems the world faces.
Checking on 24kt Buffalo gold coins the Mint saddened me with this statement:

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