WHY GOLD-BACKED CURRENCIES HELP PREVENT WARS (2002)

[link to www.fame.org]

tml



(Lecture by Ferdinand Lips delivered at Humanitarianism at the Crossroads

Congress in Feldkirch (Austria), August 30 - September 1, 2002 and

translated from German).



WHY GOLD-BACKED CURRENCIES HELP PREVENT WARS

[By] Ferdinand Lips, of Lion Capital Group in Zürich, [Switzerland]



The context

I will start my talk with an allegation. You have gathered here for a

specific reason. You have come because the gold standard was given up in

1914 at the beginning of World War I.



Looking at the program, I see that all of the topics with which we are

going to deal are in some way related to that event. World history proves

that there is a close relationship between monetary systems and war and

peace. It is also evident that there is a close relationship between

monetary systems and ethics and morals.



Unfortunately, it is not widely known that the 19th century was a period of

prosperity and economic growth without inflation. It strikes us like a

fairytale when we discover that in those days the most important currencies

were stable over a long period. The French franc, for example, remained

solid for one hundred years. It was the era of the gold standard.



The Life Span of Currencies

French Franc 1814 - 1914 ……..100 years

Dutch Guilder 1816 - 1914 ……..98 years

Pound Sterling 1821 - 1914 …….93 years

Swiss Franc 1850 - 1936 ………...86 years

Belgian Franc 1832 - 1914 ……...82 years

Swedish Krona 1873 - 1931 …….58 years

German Mark 1875 - 1914 ……...39 years

Italian Lira 1883 - 1914 ………...…31 years

(Pick's Currency Yearbook 1977 - 1979).



How the gold standard worked

The basic rule of the gold standard was a fixed amount of gold for each

money, i.e., each money was defined as a specific weight of gold. Paper

currencies were redeemable into gold at any time. A nation's monetary

reserves consisted of only gold. On an international level, importing and

exporting gold was unrestricted. All balance of payments deficits were

settled in gold. (Balance of payments: the sum of all transactions between

the homeland and other countries).



In this way, gold had a disciplining influence on a national economy. It

limited public spending. It provided citizens with money that maintained,

and even slightly increased, its purchasing power over time and was

internationally recognized. If a balance of payments deficit developed,

gold automatically transferred out of the country. As a consequence, prices

began to decrease. Exports became competitive again and the balance of

payments reversed. If a country had a balance of payments surplus, then

gold entered the country and the economy was able to expand. Upward

revaluations or devaluations were unthinkable. The system maintained its

stability automatically. This is one reason why politicians do not like

gold. Gold forces them to balance their budget.



The 19th century gold standard, the highest monetary achievement of the

civilized world

The gold standard was neither conceived at a monetary conference, nor was

it the brainchild of some genius. It was the result of centuries of

experience. Great Britain was the architect. At the height of the gold

standard at the beginning of the 20th century there were about fifty

nations, all of them leading industrial nations, which participated in the

gold standard. It was one big clearance community, and it worked.



In his book Währungen am Scheideweg (Managed Money at the Crossroads -- The

European Experience), Prof. Dr. M. Palyi wrote in 1960:

"For the first time since Rome's prime did the civilized world succeed in

creating a monetary unit. The commercial and financial integration of the

world was achieved without the help of a military empire or a dreamy

utopia. In theory and in reality, this monetary unit was accepted and

recognized as the only rational currency system. Due to the automatic

mechanism and the discipline to which the monetary institutions were tied,

fluctuations in the exchange rates were very limited if not altogether

impossible. This was the incalculable advantage of a gold currency. Trade

and industry were able to plan ahead. Especially the automatic mechanism

and the 'rules of decent behavior' in monetary affairs observed at the

time, liberated the value of money from the impact of the governments'

whims. They substantially stabilized it on a worldwide basis. Despite all

assurances by the monetary reformers, no reasonably equivalent replacement

has been found in the meantime."



Economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in his book Human Action:

"The gold standard was the world standard of the age of capitalism,

increasing welfare, liberty, and democracy …. In the eyes of the free

traders its main eminence was precisely the fact that it was an

international standard as required by international trade and the

transactions of the international money and capital market. It was the

medium of exchange by means of which Western industrialism and Western

capital had borne Western civilization into the remotest parts of the

earth's surface …. and creating riches unheard of before. It accompanied

the triumphal unprecedented progress of Western liberalism ready to unite

all nations into a community of free nations peacefully cooperating with

one another …. The gold standard is certainly not a perfect or ideal

standard. There is no such thing as perfection in human things. But nobody

is in a position to tell us how something more satisfactory could be put in

place of the gold standard."



The era of the gold standard during the 19th century was the golden age of

the white man. During this period, after Napoleon, there were only seven

wars of any importance.

Post-Napoleonic Wars During the 19th Century

1855 Crimean War

1861 - 1865 American Civil War, abolition of slavery, Abraham Lincoln

1866 Prussian-Austrian War, Königsgrätz, North-German Union

1870 - 1871 German-French War

1877 - 1878 Russian-Turkish War, Congress of Berlin

1894 - 1895 War between Japan and China

1895 - 1898 Spanish-American War

1900 2nd Anglo-Boer War in South Africa

And furthermore: There was no terrorism of the scope we know today.



Contention

My claim is that, had the gold standard been maintained, the warring

nations would have had to observe the rules of the gold standard, and,

therefore, World War I would have been over in a few months. Because of the

automated mechanism and the prevalent "rules of decent behavior," financing

the war on credit in a Keynesian style would not have been possible.

Parenthetically, except for Karl Marx, Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt

describes Keynes as one of the great destructive forces in world history.





Soon after the onset of World War I, the moment came when the world turned

to monetary fraud. Political pressure to finance the war with money created

out of nothing made a sane monetary structure futile and led to the ruin of

currencies -- and a war lasting four years. The world lay in ruins and a

young, hopeful generation was lost somewhere on the battlefields.



The collapse of the international monetary system provokes the demise of

the old world order.

The result of World War I signified the fall of the Old World. Reading

Stefan Zweig's book Die Welt von Gestern (The World of Yesterday), you will

be able to see what the world looked like then, and how cruel it is today.

As we are in Austria today, we should remember what the Austro-Hungarian

Empire represented and denoted how orderly the situation in Western,

Central and Eastern Europe was in those days. One of the most senseless

things to happen in world history was the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire and everything that was connected to it.



Of course, there is no such thing as a perfect world, but cross the

Hungarian border from the Burgenland and enter the next bigger city,

Körmend, and then you will know what I am talking about. A few years of

communist rule has laid the land in ruins. Financing the war is what mainly

ruined Germany, then the most thriving country. The Reichsbank financed a

large part of its war effort on a short-term basis, i.e., not with

long-term War Loans like the British. This fact, in addition to the

Versailles Treaty and unreasonable reparation payments, led to

hyperinflation, destruction of the middle class and, finally, Hitler. It

set the stage for World War II.



The monetary tragedy of the 20th century

The return to the gold standard after World War I was a fait accompli. But

it lacked wisdom and power on the part of those in charge. In 1922, at the

Conference of Genoa, the gold exchange standard was introduced. Please note

that it was not the gold standard that was reestablished, it was the gold

exchange standard that was launched. This meant that, apart from gold,

national banks could also use dollars and pounds, i.e., the currencies of

the triumphant nations, as reserves. Suddenly, dollars and pounds were

equivalent to gold. That was inflationary, because dollars and pounds were

now accounted for twice: first, in the country where they were issued; and,

second, in the country that held them in reserve.



Furthermore, it should have been known that paper-ticket currencies were in

no way immune to loss of purchasing power. Therefore, they could not be

permanent and generally valid yardsticks. Gold always keeps its value -

paper currencies do not. Today, it is generally accepted that increased

credit formation was the reason for the uncontrolled speculation in the

real estate and stock markets during the 1920s. Their collapse paved the

way for the crisis of the 1930s. The same thing can be said for the present

stock market crisis. It is also due to immense credit formation over the

past twenty years and lack of monetary discipline provided by the gold

standard.



Central banks, banks and the war

When the gold standard was abandoned, central banks were the last barrier

to rampant money creation as long as they were able to maintain their

independence. However, in the meantime we have learned from bitter

experience just how ineffective these so-called keepers of stability were.

An excellent example for this is the US Federal Reserve in 1913. This

fateful institution was founded even before the war. Since, the dollar has

plummeted to about five percent of its former value. Central bank

independence was not what it was cut out to be. Central banks became

compliant pawns of governments and their constituent banks. In today's

non-system, it is precisely central banks that, in conjunction with banks,

make financing of wars of adventure possible by means of unlimited credit

formation. There are no brakes anymore.



In his book Jenseits von Angebot und Nachfrage (The Social Crisis of Our

Time) economist Wilhelm Röpke said: "One can venture the claim that

governments very rarely had complete control over their currency without

abusing it." In today's age of the welfare state, the probability of such

an abuse is greater than ever before.



The tragic decisions of Bretton Woods in 1944

The world had not learned anything at all. At the close of World War II, it

was decided to introduce the gold/dollar standard. A direct result was

inflation in the 1970s. Again, notice the subtlety. After World War I, we

went from the gold standard to the gold exchange standard with dollars and

pounds. After World War II, we proceeded to the gold/dollar standard. The

pound had lost its previous stature in the interim, and, next to gold, the

dollar remained the only valid reserve currency and, then, only because the

dollar was convertible by foreign central banks into gold on demand. It was

a sign of the increasing economic power of the US.



The structure created in Bretton Woods gave Americans the appalling

monopoly to settle their debt with paper-ticket-token money they had

printed. Nobody could have resisted such temptation. When this structure

collapsed on August 15, 1971, we moved to a system of floating exchange

rates. That fully opened the floodgates for creation of money, credit,

deficit spending and speculation.



Today's international order is a consequence

In a speech on August 7, 2002, President George W. Bush said the following:

"There is no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the

homeland." With this comment Mr. Bush announced that there might not only

be a war against Iraq, but many wars around the globe. He did not define

when a war would be considered won or lost. This means that these wars may

continue indefinitely. The consequences of these wars are very clear. Trade

and investment activities will suffer great damage in such an environment

of insecurity.



I will now take a closer look at the question of how the US will be able to

pay for these wars. In principle, the US is bankrupt. It has been like that

since August 15, 1971. That was the day America escalated its war against

gold. Not unlike a banana republic, the US defaulted on its sovereign

obligation to redeem dollars for gold as agreed upon in the Bretton Woods

system. Theoretically, the US cannot be warring at all, i.e., under the

strict discipline of the gold standard it would not be possible.



Because of the nation's deficit, there would not be any money left to spend

on an unproductive and destructive war. The US's foreign debt is enormous.

Until the early 1980s, the US was a creditor nation. Now it is a debtor

nation, including a catastrophic balance of trade, which is running up an

annual deficit of $450 billion. And still the US is conducting wars, which

it is paying for with paper-ticket-token money, which basically is the

equivalent of counterfeit. The Americans are creating this funny money

themselves - and everybody has accepted it since 1971. Ever since then, and

for the first time in history, the world has been living on a system of

irredeemable paper-ticket-token money. So we may note that if the world

were on a gold standard, the US could not be conducting any wars. Why?

Because then they would have to pay for them in gold. Gold, therefore, acts

as a braking mechanism. Putting on the brakes has a disciplining effect.



Who, then, actually pays for these wars? The answer is simple. We all do,

out of our savings and our promises of future payment, e.g., our pensions!

It was no different for Kennedy's and Johnson's Vietnam War. We were all

footing the bill by eventual world inflation leading to rapid devaluation

of our currencies.



The 20th century

Contrary to the 19th century, the 20th century was a century of inflation,

hyperinflation, trade and currency wars, waves of speculation, military

conflicts, two world wars, hundreds if not thousands of local wars,

hundreds of millions dead, annihilation of entire nations, mass migrations,

economic ruin, and, finally, the decline of civilization.

Why are there wars? Without a doubt, economic reasons weigh in as the most

ponderous in any string of motivations for international conflict that

ultimately lead to war. They range from primeval struggles for hunting

territories, pastures, salt mines and fertile valleys, to predatory attacks

and conquests of the seafaring and trading nations, all the way to modern

battles for living space, sales territories and, the most important

motivation of all, access to natural resources. Internal political problems

also play a major part. Often wars are started to divert attention from

problems on the home front. In the Middle East, both aspects are involved:

the control over oil resources and the distraction from the disastrous

condition of the US financial system. Saddam Hussein is only a pretext.



These wars continue to contribute to the destruction of currencies'

purchasing power. While a gold coin from the times of Alexander the Great

or Julius Caesar still shines as it did then, it is the fate of the

purchasing power of paper-ticket-token currencies to revert to their cost

of production, and that is nil. The Germans can tell the US a thing or two

about that. A total loss after World War I, another total loss after World

War II, and finally admission to the European currency system, the Euro.

All that happened within less than one hundred years.



Gold-as-money is a precondition for freedom

Not only is there a correlation between gold currencies and war, but also

between gold currencies and freedom. US Federal Reserve Board of Governors

Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote a well-known essay "Gold and Economic

Freedom" in 1966 attesting to this. He recently confirmed that he believes

this essay is applicable today.



Once we remember that one of the first official acts transacted by Lenin,

Mussolini and Hitler (and, by the way, also by Franklin D. Roosevelt) was

to forbid possession of gold, we recognize the context. Even today the

price of gold is manipulated and kept artificially low. Wall Street bankers

and their helpers have been at it for quite some time. In the US a lawsuit

was filed. I cannot say more about this at the moment, but it should serve

as an impulse to reflect on the present situation. These manipulations are

described in my recently published book "The Gold Wars: The Battle Against

Sound Money As Seen From A Swiss Perspective"



All we have today is paper-ticket-token money. It is equivalent to

counterfeit money. It does not offer a citizen any security. He cannot save

enough money. If he does save, most of it is lost. The situation is worst

for recipients of wages and pensioners. In the end he is forced into the

arms of the (welfare) government, and he effectively loses his freedom.

Politicians will mostly resist the reinstallation of gold-as-money. Röpke

was right when he wrote in his book Internationale Ordnung - heute

(International Order and Economic Integration):



Conclusion

Today, when "Humanity is at a Crossroad," as the topic of the conference

characterizes the worldwide political situation, we want to address

academic faculties. We want to know what they can contribute to finding a

way out of this and to prevent an unimaginable escalation of suffering. As

a banker, I implore you to put the gold standard back on the agenda. The

people understand it intuitively. The gold standard would be my guild's aid

to bridle the power frenzy of the mighty.



Paper-ticket-token or funny money is like a drug addiction. It takes more

and more of the drug to satisfy the addiction. Collapse is the final

result. There is no indication today that this experiment with the

equivalent of counterfeit money will end any better than earlier, similar

experiments. Due to the US's economic power, paper-ticket-token money has

already lasted longer than one might expect.



Allow me to conclude with a quotation from a speech given in Washington

D.C. in 1948 by Congressman Howard Buffett from Nebraska, father of the

most successful investor of all times, Warren Buffett. The address was

entitled "Human Freedom Rests on Gold Redeemable Money":-

"Our finances will never be brought into order until Congress is compelled

to do so. Making our money redeemable in gold will create this compulsion

…. The paper money disease has been a pleasant habit thus far and will not

be dropped voluntarily any more than a dope user will without a struggle

give up narcotics. But in each case the end of the road is not a desirable

prospect …. I can find no evidence to support a hope that our fiat paper

money venture will fare better ultimately than such experiments in other

lands. Because of our economic strength the paper money disease here may

take many years to run its course …. But we can be approaching the critical

stage. When that day arrives our political leaders will probably find that

foreign war and ruthless regimentation is the cunning alternative to

domestic strife. That was the way out for the paper-money economy of

Hitler and others …. I warn you that politicians of both parties will

oppose the restoration of gold …. Also those elements here and abroad who

are getting rich from the continued American inflation will oppose a return

to sound money …. But, unless you are willing to surrender your children

and your country to galloping inflation, war and slavery, then this cause

demands your support. For if human liberty is to survive in America, we

must win the battle to restore honest money…. There is no more important

challenge facing the US than this issue - the restoration of your freedom

to secure gold in exchange for the fruits of your labors."



"Ladies and Gentlemen, these are the subtle relationships between freedom,

money, intellect, war, peace and gold."