by Steve Timmer

Apr 27, 2012, 7:00 PM

Gold!

Since the MNGOP  is currently infected by Paulbots, aided and abetted by people like Kurt Bills and his U.S. Senate campaign co-chair, Keith the Crackpot, it is useful to examine what is behind the gold buggery of Ron Paul and his anointed candidate to serve in the United States Senate, the aforesaid Kurt Bills. You probably didn’t know that Ron Paul had a walk-on role in the 1948 film, the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, from which this photo was taken.*

Co-chair Downey says that Bills will bring “Econ 101” to the United State Senate. Yes, indeed, if Downey means Econ 101 as taught in the Islamic caliphate in, say, 696 AD.

The gold fevered (and former coin dealer) Ron Paul has written four books on the return to the gold standard and the disbanding of the Federal Reserve Bank.

I will be as direct as I can: Ron Paul is a quack. So it Kurt Bills. And by championing the candidacy of Kurt Bills — just like Ron Paul — you can guess what that makes Keith Downey.

If the United States tried to go back to some kind of gold-backed currency, the result would be a severe diminution in the money supply (some economists believe by about half) and tremendous restriction in the supply of credit to business and individuals, and it would cause massive deflation and depression.

If you think your house is underwater now, just wait until nobody can buy it at any price because they can’t get credit and you still owe the debt on the mortgage. We’ve witnessed just a taste of that in the past couple of years.

Tying the growth of the money supply, and therefore the economy, to the amount of new gold that is mined — mostly not in the United States — is absurd and bizzare:

The gold standard was in effect from about the middle of the 19th century to the last quarter of the 20th century (1971). In the late 19th century the growth of the money supply had nothing to do with population or the size of the economy [in other words, it was fixed by how much gold we had lying around]. The resulting deflation was disastrous and led to the free silver movement (“Don’t crucify me on a cross of gold.”) The present system can tailor the money supply to the demands of the economy, which the gold standard failed to do.

Bills says that his inspiration for running for the Senate came from his students:

(First question: why would a serious candidate for public office write a fake essay on fake lined paper that makes him look like an eighth grader? I’m surprised that the letter “i” doesn’t have a little circle – or maybe a heart – for the dot.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I would have answered: don’t continue to get into wars that you don’t pay for and introduce some progressivity in the tax system.

Now, the avuncular Mr. Bills undoubtedly enjoys scaring the shit out of teenagers by telling them they’re doomed. But merely because students beseech Mr. Bills for the answers to the calamity, a calamity that Bills himself conjures, doesn’t mean that he’s got a clue.

Personally, I suspect that the sackcloth and ashes routine is just the cultivation of a juvenile personality cult.

When I was a teenager, I had a friend whose family, I now suspect, were Birchers. He had the same stories about how the U.S. was on the path to perdition: inflation, debt, famine, privation. This was over forty years ago.

Guess what? We were on the gold standard at the time.

So, kids, don’t get buffaloed by Uncle Kurt.

* Ron Paul was not in the movie; he was about thirteen at the time. Robert Blake was in the movie as a youngster; Robert Blake is dead.