The Twilight of Irredeemable Debt

Wagner’s opera Gotterdämmerung is about the twilight of pagan gods. The most powerful of the latter-day pagan gods that has been guiding the destinies of humanity for the past two-score of years is Irredeemable Debt. Before August 14, 1971, debts were obligations, and the word “bond” was to mean literally what it said: the opposite of freedom. The privilege of issuing debt had a countervailing responsibility: that of repayment.  

How much gold?

Many readers of my column have asked me how much gold I think there is in Fort Knox, and how much gold I think is being hoarded by Americans that may be available for coinage in case the U.S. Mint is re-opened to gold.

I don't have the figures or estimates. From my perspective these figures do not matter any more. What matters is whether confidence can be restored to the extent that gold will start flowing to the Mint. Here the situation is definitely sad, as shown by the treatment of presidential candidate Ron Paul by the establishment, his own party, the media, the investing public, and the electorate. He has been given the cold shoulder by all in these extraordinary times, just when the financial world started crumbling all around us. He might be God’s messenger, but he has been treated no better than any other before him who was sent out to be prophet in his own land. Even a debate on gold as money, let alone the realization of it, is strenuously opposed by everybody, including the people themselves who are going to suffer for their denseness and put-on deafness as the dollar is ignominiously removed from the stage.