- “Fixed Rates Ballast Interest Rates and Commodity Prices,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2016
In his letter of April 28 Prof. Robert Blohm concedes the main point of our April 20 op-ed “Monetary Reform or Trade War,” noting that when it was suspended, the Bretton Woods gold-exchange system “was already unsustainable because of the ‘duplicating credit’ the authors mention.” - “Monetary Reform or Trade War,” Wall Street Journal, April 20, 2016
Almost every candidate for president in 2016 has made the case, none more intensely than Donald Trump, that Americans have lost jobs and industry because of predatory currency depreciation. This neo-mercantilism is practiced by almost every nation that competes with the U.S. What is the solution to this grave problem? - “Still Paying the Price of Keynesian Currency,” Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2015
Donald Trump has denounced giving President Obama trade-promotion authority on the grounds that trade deals do not address “currency manipulation,” which he claims is the reason “we get beaten in trade.” - “The Federal Reserve and the Dollar,” CATO Journal, June 2, 2014
To evaluate the history of the Federal Reserve System, we cannot help but wonder, whither the Fed? and to consider wherefore its reform—even what and how to do it. But first let us remember whence we came one century ago. - “The Demise of Money and Credit,” The American Spectator, June 3, 2013
Lately we have been engulfed by headlines reporting financial turmoil on every continent, in almost every nation, large and small. The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. - “Fiscal Fitness,” The Weekly Standard, February 19, 2013
A winning agenda for a political party must simultaneously satisfy the requirements of economic effectiveness and political success. Ronald Reagan had such an agenda in the 1980s. Subsequent Republican presidential candidates have not. The opportunity now is great. - “A Lincolnian Economic Primer for Obama,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2013
President Obama chose to deliver his State of the Union address this year on the 204th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. It was a good selection of a significant date. As Steven Spielberg makes clear in his epic film “Lincoln,” Americans of all backgrounds and political persuasions can learn much from the character and presidency of the 16th president. - “Money For Nothing,” The Weekly Standard, January 8, 2013
Who caused the financial collapse? Just about everyone. - “Money and Oil,” The American Spectator, December 04, 2012
Every day we wake up hoping for good economic news: lower unemployment numbers, more jobs created, stronger growth. But we miss the forest for the trees. Our markets, for the past 100 years, have been engulfed in perennial financial crises. - “Hearing of the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy & Technology,” September 20, 2012
Statement and Testimony of Lewis E. Lehrman Chairman, The Lehrman Institute, Prepared for September 21, 2012 Hearing - “A Road to Prosperity,” The American Spectator, September 14, 2012
Gold, a fundamental, metallic element of the earth’s constitution, exhibits unique properties that enabled it, during two millennia of market testing, to emerge as a universally accepted store of value and medium of exchange, not least because it could sustain purchasing power over the long run against a standard assortment of goods and services. - “Romneyconomics,” The Weekly Standard, republished by NPR, July 16, 2012
Mitt Romney has articulated the choice we will make in November. We can choose President Obama and a European future—i.e., high unemployment, demographic winter, big government commanding over 50 percent of future output, a welfare state engineered and manipulated by the Washington bureaucracy, the end of American leadership, and, ultimately, national insolvency. Or we can embark once again on the road to rapid economic expansion, through pro-growth tax reform, smaller government, a balanced budget, and sound money. What we need, Romney argues, is an entrepreneurial economy based on the free price mechanism, free markets, free and fair international trade. - “Fiat Money, Fiat Inflation,” The Weekly Standard, June 26, 2012
Since the beginning of 2009, oil prices have almost tripled, gasoline prices are up about 50 percent, and basic food prices, such as corn, soybeans, and wheat, have almost doubled around the world. - “Fight the Fiat,” June 26, 2012
Papering over U.S. debts and trade imbalances will take bills than we can print. The Consequences of Disorder.
Republished by the Cobden Centre
Republished in Pravada - “Budget Collapse: Too Much Free Money,” The American Spectator, December 29, 2011, reprinted by The Cobden Centre 1/2/2012
The super-committee of Congress is the latest group to confess abject defeat by the Treasury budget deficit. Who can be surprised by this total failure? During the past generation Congress has made as many as fifteen legislative attempts to control government spending — aimed ultimately at a balanced budget. The most notable efforts were those sponsored by the all-time budget hawk, Senator Phil Gramm of Texas. But every administrative and legislative effort by the authorities, no matter how well-intentioned, has collapsed. Why is this so? - “How to Get to a True Gold Standard,” Washington Examiner, reprinted by the San Francisco Examiner, October 2011
Today the economic crisis we endure is only the latest chapter in the century-long struggle to restore financial order, the success (or failure) of which is inextricably bound up with American prosperity and the promise of the American way of life. - “Conference on a Stable Dollar: Why We Need It and How to Achieve It,” Address by Lewis E. Lehrman, The Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City, Arlington, VA, October 5, 2011
We are gathered in this quiet hall, still focused on the world outside, engulfed as it is by gradual financial disintegration. Today, the economic crisis we endure is only the latest chapter in the century-long struggle to restore financial order — the success (or failure) of which is inextricably bound up with American prosperity and the promise of the American way of life. - “The Dollar Problem and Its Solution,” Intercollegiate Review, September 28, 2011
There is little new in this latest cycle of economic boom, panic, and bust. All of these cycles are linked to the life and death of the unstable post-World War II Bretton Woods monetary system. First came the crisis-ridden gold-dollar system from 1944 to 1971. - “Restoring Economic Growth with a Stable Dollar,” The Daily Signal, September 27, 2011
The world is in economic crisis. Quite understandably, much attention has been given to cutting runaway government spending, a fundamental cause of the crisis. Much less attention has been given to the fundamental defects of the monetary system. These defects are at the heart of the economic collapse. Both budgetary and monetary issues must be examined and resolved. - “World Must Abandon Paper Reserve Currencies,” MarketWatch, September 26, 2011
Federal budget deficits and balance-of-payment deficits have radically increased since World War II. Today’s dollar has lost 85% of its value since 1971. Relative to gold the dollar has lost 96% of its purchasing power. - “Gold, not Dollar, Should Be the Reserve Currency,” The Free Press Journal, September 7, 2011
While the Chinese financial system has been corrupted primarily by tyranny, deceit, and reckless expansionism, it is also destabilized by the workings of the world dollar standard. - “The Nixon Shock Heard ‘Round the World,” The Wall Street Journal August 15, 2011
On the afternoon of Friday, Aug. 13, 1971, high-ranking White House and Treasury Department officials gathered secretly in President Richard Nixon’s lodge at Camp David. Treasury Secretary John Connally, on the job for just seven months, was seated to Nixon’s right. During that momentous afternoon, however, newcomer Connally was front and center, put there by a solicitous president. Nixon, gossiped his staff, was smitten by the big, self-confident Texan whom the president had charged with bringing order into his administration’s bumbling economic policies. - “Bretton Woods and Bad Days for Dollars,” August 15, 2011
First July 1944 and then August 1971: the dog days of summer have been momentous for the American dollar. It was 67 years ago that 44 nations from around the world gathered at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to plan the post-war framework for international money and trade. - “What America Can Learn from the Greece Financial Crisis,” June 30, 2011
Observations on the Greece financial crisis and what America can learn. - “It’s Not the Debt Ceiling — It’s the Dollar,” June 9, 2011
The missing issue of this Presidential election is monetary policy — America’s need for a stable dollar. But massive Federal Reserve credit expansion, QE1 and QE2, has forced the volatile dollar down to such a depreciated level on the foreign exchanges that, absent QE3, a reversal of trend should appear with rising interest rates by the upcoming Presidential election. - “Monetary Reform: The Key to Spending Restraint,” The Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2011
Paul Ryan’s plan won’t succeed without legislation to prevent the Federal Reserve from monetizing the national debt. No man in America is a match for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan on the federal budget. - “To end the Age of Financial Disorder, Forward to a Modernized Gold Standard,” Grant’s Spring Conference, Plaza Hotel, New York, March 29, 2011
Between 2009 and 2010 we have experienced a major, emerging market equity and economic boom — but at the very same time, sluggish growth in the United States. - “Reflections on the Monetary History of the West — 1700-1974,” January 3, 2011
By 1700, the banking system of Europe had elaborated the institutions of money and credit we know today. And England had taken the lead. For almost 200 years, from 1717 until the onset of World War I in 1914, the British pound sterling, a weight unit of metallic money, set the example for modern monetary systems. - “Jacques Rueff, the Age of Inflation, and the True Gold Standard,” Address at the Parliament of France, November 7, 1996
Distinguished Leaders of France: In what I now say to you, I draw from the speeches, the writings, and the letters of the greatest economist of the twentieth century. - “Whither Gold,” Morgan Stanley, September 15, 1989
This short research note discusses the forecast of gold in an investment portfolio including the relative under- or overvaluation of gold and U.S. equities. - “Gold in a Global Multi-Asset Portfolio,” Morgan Stanley, March 4, 1988
Since gold is uncorrelated, rather than negatively correlated, with financial assets, it is not surprising that the addition of gold to a financial portfolio can have very different effects. - “To Move Forward, Go Back to Gold,” The New York Times, February 9, 1986
The damage inflicted on our workers and industries by the overvalued dollar has demonstrated that free trade without stable exchange rates is a fantasy. The argument for gold as a stable currency has rarely been stronger than it is today. - “Protectionism, Inflation, or Monetary Reform,” Morgan Stanley, November 1, 1985
This is the seventh in a series of strategic-issue essays by “good thinkers” that have been published on subjects ranging from gold, supply-side economics, to world debt problem. - “Golden Antidote to High Interest,” The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 1984
Only the gold monetary standard can renew faith in the fixed value of all future money payments on borrowings (bonds, mortgages, stocks and other long-term financial contracts). - “Let’s Talk Money at Williamsburg,” The Wall Street Journal, May 11, 1983
Only a world currency will work. That is why having national currencies convertible to gold an international money has worked in the past and will work again. Only the U.S. can take the lead. - “If We Had ‘Real’ Money We Could Still Salvage the Reagan Revolution,” February 20, 1983
Those of us who believe in the goals of the Reagan revolution had better face up to the consequences of the last two years. We called for boom and got something very close to bust. We called for a balanced budget and got record-shattering deficits. - “Lehrman Urges Return to Gold Standard,” The Washington Times, 1983
Lewis Lehrman talks with Washington Times columnist John Lofton about the Reagan administration’s handling of monetary policy-and he tells what he would do to solve economic problems. - “Time to Return to the Gold Standard?,” U.S. News & World Report, September 7, 1981
In these ‘Pro and Con’ interviews Lewis E. Lehrman discusses the wisdom of returning to a gold standard and defining the dollar’s value in terms of gold. - “Should We (and Could We) Return to the Gold Standard?,” The New York Times, September 6, 1981
President Reagan appointed a commission of 17 experts to review the issue of gold. Its specific task was to determine whether the metal should once again play a dominant role in the domestic and international monetary system. - “The Case for the Gold Standard,” The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 1981
Under the gold standard, the immense national debt could be refinanced very long term… - “A Glittering Economy,” The Washington Post July 22, 1981
President Reagan was elected to end inflation and restore the economy. He is moving in that direction… - “The Origin of Money — 4000 B.C. – 1700 A.D.,” July 1, 1981
Forerunners of man lived upon the planet several million years ago. But the unique social order of man — civilization — emerged only four to five thousand years ago. - “The Struggle for Financial Order in the Western World,” May 1, 1981
A free people can have a nominal paper dollar; or they can have a real dollar, defined by its weight in gold, which is the historic American monetary standard. When we had a sound dollar, we had no serious inflation. - “The Case for the Gold Standard,” Morgan Stanley, May 1, 1981
This interview includes reflections on the struggle for financial order including returning to a gold standard. Lewis Lehrman discusses the Republican platform and why the Reagan administration should accept the gold standard. - “The Case for the Gold Standard,” Silver & Gold Report, March 1, 1981
This exclusive interview with Lewis Lehrman includes a thorough-going discussion of why he favors the gold standard, how to return to it, and what effect it would have on the economy. - “The Means to Establishing Financial Order,” The Wall Street Journal, February 18, 1981
The true means by which to achieve the goal of a stable value for the dollar is a remobilized discount rate at the Federal Reserve Bank, joined to a true international gold standard. - “How to End Inflation,” The Washington Post, January 18, 1981
Inflation is the transcendent issue of our times. Inflation is to our generation what depression was to our grandparents. Inflation, if not stopped, will revolutionize our nation and its social institutions. - “A New Public Philosophy,” November 12, 1980
The Presidential election was a political avalanche. There are many ways to interpret it, but the significance of the vote is unequivocal. President Reagan clearly has a mandate to change the direction of public policy in America. - “Real Money,” Harper’s Magazine, August 1, 1980
The world economy of the nineteenth century was, above all, characterized by the gold standard. Each great power defined its currency by a weight unit of gold and guaranteed convertibility, at that rate, of cash into gold. - “Total Economic and Monetary Reform. Stop the Battle for Reagan’s Soul,” The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 1980
There is intellectual combat going on in Governor Reagan’s camp. Some call it a struggle for Reagan’s soul. - “Gold is Not a ‘Side Show’,” The Wall Street Journal, February 20, 1980
The lagged correlation between the rise and fall of Federal Reserve Bank credit and the rise and fall of gold is not perfect, but there is compelling association between the two. - “Monetary Policy, the Federal Reserve System, and Gold,” Morgan Stanley, January 29, 1980
This essay presents the economic and political issues of the 1970’s and 1980’s, similar to the present, including the complex interrelationship between Federal Reserve Bank policy, inflationary expectations, the financial markets, and the price of gold. - “The Great American Food Disaster,” December 9, 1977
The intellectually fashionable Rome “experts” and many other specialists predicted permanent food shortages. Anticipations of worldwide famine swept them and the media men off their feet. - “Inflation and Civilization: Man’s Fate and His Money,” October 5, 1977
We identify civilization by its etymology: — From the Latin “civis”, or “civitas”, meaning citizen or city. That is to say, civilization is characterized by the economy of city life. - “Barbaric Relic or Rational Money – Ray Vicker, The Realms of Gold,” Volume 50, 1977
John Maynard Keynes and his disciples buried the gold standard, we might say, in the tomb of the “barbaric relics”. There, its tribal bones have remained to this day, for most policy makers, economists and intellectuals. - “Up, Up and Away! The U.S. Debt,” The Reader’s Digest, September 1, 1977
The runaway momentum of federal expenditures is threatening this country’s very independence. - “Federal Debt, Taxes, and National Independence,” April 14, 1977
Not until several weeks ago did I realize that the arcane subject of Federal government debt had become a subject of cocktail party debate. - “Money and the Coming World Order: The Creation of International Monetary Order,” A Lehrman Institute Book, published by New York University Press, 1976
Today, national economic policy making is largely concerned with the problems of unemployment and inflation. More precisely, it is their simultaneous combination in nearly all Western economies which preoccupies policy makers.