Economist George Gilder recently offered three repairs to fix what he sees as a “broken monetary system” and save the nation from financial collapse.
“Our monetary system is broken. It’s given us low growth, a shrinking job force, inequality beyond what a healthy economy would produce, inefficiency, and the unnatural growth of finance as a portion of the economy,” he recently wrote for Daily Reckoning.com.
“Our aging Federal Reserve System starves both small businesses and Silicon Valley of the capital needed to grow jobs and wages,” said Gilder, an investor and writer and a frequent contributor to A.B. Laffer's economic reports and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
“Fed policy translates into zero-interest-rate loans for the government and its cronies, and little or nothing for savers or small businesses. And it has transformed Wall Street from an engine of innovation into a servant of government power,” Gilder wrote.
“But I believe America can be set on the right path towards a robust and broadly shared capitalism again with just three steps.”
- Abolish Capital Gains Tax on Currencies: As an example, he cited gold currency. “The Treasury mints millions of one-ounce silver eagle dollars that are worth more than twenty dollars apiece and one-ounce gold eagle fifty-dollar pieces that are worth $1,150 apiece. Virtually all of these are hoarded. Though it has been legal since 1987 to use them at their metallic value, that route leads to a capital gains tax on their appreciation,” he wrote. “Since the appreciation of a gold or silver piece is by reasonable definition all inflation, the tax is simple confiscation (like all capital gains taxes on spurious inflationary profits).”
- Remove Obstacles to Alternative Forms of Money: “The internet today desperately needs a new trusted and secure payment method that conforms to the shape and reach of global networking and commerce.”
- Fix the Dollar: “Monetary scholar Judy Shelton already devised a play. The chief instrument would be the creation of Treasury Trust Bonds — five-year Treasuries redeemable in either dollars or gold. They could be enacted either through legislation or as a Treasury initiative.”
For his part, renowned doomsayer Nouriel Roubini predicts the U.S.-China trade war and a spike in oil prices from geopolitical tensions have the potential to push the world into recession next year, Bloomberg reported.
“It’s a scary time for the global economy,” the head of Roubini Macro Associates, sometimes known as “Dr. Doom,” said in an interview with Bloomberg TV. He said he expects a recessionary shock to materialize next year.
Equities by contrast are telegraphing confidence that central banks will support the economy as U.S. and Chinese negotiators resume trade talks.
The rub for Roubini is that monetary policy makers’ ability to respond to shocks is impaired, with benchmark interest rates still at historically low -- and in some cases negative -- levels. High levels of debt will also pose a constraint, he said.Optimism will likely collapse “like in every other recession,” he said. Further unconventional monetary policy is likely to be needed, he added.
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