The purchasing power of the US dollar has been debased by over ninety-nine percent since the foundation of the Federal Reserve. [(An ounce of gold cost $20.67 in 1913. According to the Wall Street Journal as of Friday, January 16 its price was $4,588.40. That means that the dollar is worth less than one half of one percent of its 1913 purchasing power ($20.67/$4,588.40=.0045)]. Its remaining purchasing power will become zero. This is inevitable, because there is no discipline in US spending and the Fed has become a willing accomplice to this crime.
The current administration is out of control. I need only point out that President Trump wants to increase military spending by a half trillion dollars from its already bloated one trillion dollar budget, which will add another half trillion dollars to the government’s already forecast $1.9 trillion deficit, funded almost entirely by printing money. He will get it unless it simply becomes impossible. The only way it can become impossible is to end fiat money, which can be created out of thin air in whatever gigantic quantities are desired, and make the dollar “good as gold”.
The general outline of how to do it was explained by Ludwig von Mises in his 1952 update to his classic 1912 treatise The Theory of Money and Credit (Specifically, chapter 23).The monetary authorities announce that the dollar will be redeemable in gold at a specific date in the not too distant future at whatever the market price is on that date. That’s it. This is the only mechanism that will save the dollar and prevent chaos in the US…and there will be chaos when the dollar collapses.
It is important that there is no way that redeemability can be suspended, not even for war. In fact, strict redeemability is most necessary WHEN the US is considering going to war. The people and their representatives need to know the true cost of war; whereas, currently the cost of war and military spending is hidden behind monetary inflation that erodes the dollar and our prosperity in a stealthy manner. Like any cancer, monetary inflation eventually will kill its host.
It should be clear to all that this is the only sure and lasting path to monetary stability. Yes, we may occasionally get an administration that shows some semblance of budget discipline, but this always is short-lived. Remember the Barron maxim: Any entity that can print money will print money. There is no alternative to lasting monetary discipline other than funding the federal budget with honest money, which for millennia has been gold.
© Patrick Barron 2026 Website
