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.

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.

Modern government has become a universal transfer agency that utilizes the political process for distributing vast measures of income and wealth. It preys on millions of victims in order to allocate valuable goods and services to its beneficiaries.

The gold standard, in one form or another, will prevail long after the present rash of national fiats is forgotten or remembered only in currency museums.

Since there is no orderly way to liquidate the federal debt, we must brace for a payment crisis.

In expectation of his demise, a successful businessman may sell out to his competitors to prepare his estate with readily marketable securities, such as U.S. Treasury bonds. The confiscatory death tax eliminates many family enterprises and promotes the growth of giant corporations.

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.