The Case for Gold - A Minority Report of the US Gold Commission

The Case for Gold - A Minority Report of the US Gold Commission

By Rep. Ron Paul and Lewis Lehrman
published in 2007

More and more people are asking if a gold standard will end the
financial crisis in which we find ourselves. The question is not so much
if it will help or if we will resort to gold, but when. All great inflations
end with the acceptance of real money—gold—and the rejection of
political money—paper. The stage is now set; monetary order is of the
utmost importance. Conditions are deteriorating, and the solutions
proposed to date have only made things worse. Although the solution
is readily available to us, powerful forces whose interests are served
by continuation of the present system cling tenaciously to a monetary
system that no longer has any foundation. The time at which there will
be no other choice but to reject the current system entirely is fast
approaching. Although that moment is unknown to us, the course that
we continue to pursue will undoubtedly hurtle us into a monetary
abyss that will mandate a major reform.

That moment may come very soon—it nearly arrived in the 1979
dollar crisis—but I hope it will not arrive for several years. That way a
greater understanding among more people will prompt a wiser choice
in establishing the new order. The minority views of the Gold Commission
deal precisely with this task. In planning for a constructive
monetary reform the errors of the past and the myths that have evolved
around money must be fully understood and explained. In this report
we have made an effort to analyze the American experience with gold
and to refute the cliches used to condemn the use of gold as money.
No one program is indispensable in outlining the transition from paper
to gold. Every day conditions are different. Today we need a program
different from the one necessary three years ago, and in three years
the conditions again will change. We certainly do not have the same
problem faced by the Germans in 1923, but in 1986 we may. Nevertheless,
outlines of different methods of achieving a convertible currency
can be made; we have done so in these views.

Briefly, we offer two methods, one through the legalization of competing
currencies, the other a government-directed gold standard of
the classical variety. Only future events and attitudes will determine
the best method. We do know that current monetary policy cannot
continue indefinitely, and we are obligated to prepare for better times......read in full (all 243 pages)