Unfortunately, it is not in the power of government to make everyone more prosperous. Government can only raise the income of one person by taking from another.

Sound money and free banking are not impossible; they are merely illegal.

When all the mysticism is stripped away, the people who comprise the government (the legislators, administrators, judges, and policemen), are guided by human interests, desires, beliefs, notions, and prejudices, just like other people. They have neither superhuman wisdom nor extraordinary virtue.

There is no escape from the vast imbalances in international trade and finance. They will be corrected, sooner or later, by the inexorable principles that govern human action.

To reverse the trend and reduce the role of government in our lives, and thus alleviate the government deficit and inflation pressures, is a giant educational task. The social and economic ideas that gave birth to the transfer system must be discredited and replaced with old values of individual independence and self-reliance. The social philosophy of individual freedom and unhampered private property must again be our guiding light.

...there seems to be a correlation between the intensity of the official attacks on gold and the severity of monetary crises.

The international monetary order is more precarious by far today than it was in 1929. Then, gold was international money, incorruptible, unmanageable, and unchangeable. Today, the U.S. dollar serves as the international medium of exchange, managed by Washington politicians and Federal Reserve officials, manipulated from day to day, and serving political goals and ambitions. This difference alone sounds the alarm to all perceptive observers.