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.

In a world dependent on international trade and commerce, and staggering under a heavy load of international debt, no policy is more destructive than protectionism. It cuts off markets, eliminates trade, causes unemployment in the export industries all over the world, depresses the prices of export commodities, especially farm products of the United States. It is the crowning folly of government intervention.

Monetary freedom (gold: sound money), like all other economic freedoms, clears the way for energy, intellect and virtue... Political control weakens individual self-reliance and energy, causes want and poverty and, in the end, breeds tyranny and oppression.

Government is rather ill-suited and poorly equipped to alleviate the plight of the poor. It lacks moral rules or standards, and is devoid of basic principles in economic and social matters.

The government transfers income and wealth according to the rules of politics, which make politicians the primary beneficiaries of the system, and the poor and needy the primary victims.

The transfer society is forever testing the bounds of patience of taxpayers. Having reached the limit and still facing loud demands for more benefits, it resorts to deficit financing.

Freedom is the quality of being free from the control of regulators and tax collectors. If I want to be free their control, I must not impose controls on others.