But speaking of gold, I have a question to birann- Do you think that FDR Administration committed one the greatest robberies in history when they forced the citizens to sell them their gold at artificially reduced price ?
This definitely seemed like an overstep of his authority, and I believe that Hoover also did the same think the year before. However, many Americans refused to do this, it was really only the larger gold investors that were targeted. There were all sorts of schemes aimed at trying to get more gold during that time.
This really illustrates why a strict gold standard is very dangerous. There needs to be some sort of flexibility in the currency, otherwise, nearly every large recession will turn into a depression, since the contraction of the money supply will lead to a domino of bank failures, as people rush to withdraw their deposits.
Hooever and FDR simply couldnt stop the bank failures, 1000's of them, because the newly formed Fed refused to un-back the dollar when it needed to be unbacked. This doesnt excuse the current action of the fed, which is now overcompensating, printing TOO much money.. as this will have horrible effects for our economy around 2011 when the economy starts to stabilize. It needs to be a balance, and it needs to be done COMPLETELY independent of political pressures.