Once upon a time, the US Currency was linked to gold. But on August 15th, 1971, President Richard (I am not a crook) Nixon had the bright idea to close the gold window and take the US Currency off the Gold Standard, to which it had been linked since 1782. The rule was that we could only print up to four times the value of what was in our gold reserves.
By unlinking US Currency from Gold, Nixon effectively defaulted on our promise to foreign lenders to redeem dollars for gold. Now, we could simply print money whenever we felt like it. Need to pay for a new war? No problem, let's go down to the basement and print up some new trillion dollar bills and bomb the bejezus out of Iraq.
Some of our creditors aren't happy. "The Dollar cannot remain solely the problem of others," said Nicholas Sarkozy before a joint session of Congress in November, 2007. Nicky was referring to Nixon's Secretary of the Treasury, John Connally's remark that the Dollar was America 's currency "but your problem." Sarkozy said "monetary disarray could morph into economic war. We would all be its victims."
Did he have a Crystal Ball? Could Sarkozy, that Frenchman, have predicted this current economic meltdown that threatens our very large way of life? I mean, really, what happens when Governor Schwartzenegger cannot afford his Hummer, and has to actually take a fuel efficient car to work?
Whatever. I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm stretched pretty thin at the moment. I have bills and sporadic income. Still, I have hope. Didn't Obama tell me to get hope? I did, I went to the store and got me some hope and took a tremendous leap of faith to work independently.
But if McCain pulls this election out of his ass and winds up in the White House, I'm going to sell my hope for gold.
thanks, Dcap
