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US$ Print til’ You Die

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Henry Hazlitt and Paul Krugman

You would never believe it today, but there was a time when The New York Times‘ editorial board supported sound money. And the person writing sound money editorials against a proposed Bretton Woods agreement was Henry Hazlitt. Today the first name that comes to my mind when thinking about The New York Times and monetary policy is the “print til’ you die” economist Paul Krugman.

Contrary to the Keynesian crowd, Hazlitt believed it was irresponsible to make the dollar a reserve currency, as good as “gold”, knowing full well there would never be enough gold to satiate government spending demand. President Nixon proved that to be true by closing the gold window in 1971. Eventually Hazlitt was run out of town by the progressives at The New York Times, but as it turns out he was right on the money from the beginning.

In 1982, in his book From Bretton Woods to World Inflation: A Study of Causes & Consequences, Hazlitt wrote:

The Bretton Woods agreements, drafted in 1944, and the International Monetary Fund set up by them, were not the sole causes of the present world inflation. But they constituted a major contribution. They were built on the assumption that inflation-the continuous expansion of international paper credit, and the continuous making of loans by an international governmental institution-were the proper and necessary ways to “promote world economic growth.” This assumption was disastrously false, We will not stop the growth of world inflation and world socialism until the institutions and policies adopted to promote them have been abolished.

theoretical price of gold

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.