Tuesday 28 April 2009

Schiff and WSJ talk abolition

In his latest video blog (or ‘vlog’ if you prefer), Peter Schiff attacks the risibly destructive idea floated by the US Federal Reserve of the “benefits” of interest rates at minus five percent.  “That the Fed would even employ economists capable of coming up with such a foolish analysis,” says Schiff, “is reason enough to abolish the entire organisation.”

And while we’re talking abolition of destructive financial institutions (and since the Fed has been at the centre of the two largest financial disasters in the last hundred years, it should at least be considered, right?), what about the International Monetary Fund(IMF)?  Set up to anchor the international Bretton Woods monetary system with gold, it lost its only reason to exist way back in 1971 when Richard Nixon abandoned gold’s fiscal discipline for good, yet it has somehow ensured its own survival by transforming itself into a world class meddler.

And how artfully did it engineer the recent G20 meeting to give itself a new lease of life – but at the expense of financial common sense.  Judy Shelton in the Wall Street Journal looks at how cleverly the IMF manipulated the financial troubles of emerging and low-income nations to procure a fresh infusion of capital for itself; what it’s doing with all its gold (and how it got it in the first place); and what real money really looks like.

Read The IMF's Gold Gambit.

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