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 The commissars of central planning who so marred the history of the 20th century have been replaced by central banks in the 21st. In Cyprus, the new leadership now dares to confiscate citizens’ wealth with a one-time tax of up to 60 percent on bank deposits above 100,000 euros. Self-interested prime ministers blame continental monetary policies for instigating the currency wars that they themselves surreptitiously carry on.
Central banks worldwide, led by the U.S. Federal Reserve, mint new money ceaselessly to bail out insolvent governments, insolvent banks, and insolvent but politically powerful corporations and labor unions. This new money goes first to insiders in the financial sector, who exchange the cheap credit for commodities, stocks, and real estate at ever-rising prices. This is the so-called carry-trade, monopolized by a financial class that uses free money from the Fed to front-run the authorities for insider profits.
From the beginning of the American republic until not long ago, dollars could be exchanged for gold at a parity established by congressional statute (1792–1971, but from 1934–1973 convertible by foreigners alone). Currency convertibility to gold, enforced by law, established a finite limit to the money supply. Inflation—caused by the issue of excess money and credit—would lead citizens to promptly cash out for gold, thus reducing the money supply and ending the rise in prices. In a sense, the system was self-regulating.
With an unlimited money supply, the insolvency of national banking institutions has become an endemic global problem. Depositors are at risk of loss or arbitrary confiscation by panicked political authorities, as in Cyprus. Taxpayers are involuntarily dragooned in to bail out the banking system, as at the start of America’s recession. And if the central bank credit bubble collapses, systemic deflation will be the profound and destructive consequence.