Judy Shelton
In October 2008, when the U.S. Government authorized a $700 Billion bailout of the primary investment banking firms (e.g. Citigroup, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, et al), I saw Judy Shelton interviewed on CNBC. In 1994, she published an extremely well written and thoroughly researched and documented plea for a return to monetary sanity: i.e., government spending within the limits of its income and for the legalization of paper money that is backed with something of value (like gold or silver), which is the only historical way to keep governments “honest” as to their issuance of paper money. Meltdown is a scholarly approach to the subject, and it makes a case that defies logical refutation.
Of course, governments will not willingly relinquish their control over the “monetary supply”, their license to spend unlimited amounts. Since 2008, the Obama Administration has compounded the problem and will soon have doubled the U.S. debt since he took office, thus watering the value of the U.S. Dollar (and all US$ in savings accounts) egregiously. The purchasing power parity of the Dollar is being eroded at mock speed, forcing a runaway-inflation towards paper currencies: get your savings out of Dollars and into anything that may have lasting value, which is Shelton’s core point.
Meltdown is reminiscent of Harry Browne’s seminal book, Devaluation, written in 1969, and of later books with similar messages, like Paper Money by George Goodwin (aka “Adam Smith”), and the more recent Case for Gold by Ron Paul. Meltdown and Devaluation are the best combination of scholarship and layman-friendly language on point that I have encountered.
Anyone who wants to understand the monetary system, as it is “worked” and abused by our governments today, should read Meltdown, and aggressively seek to put their Dollars in something that has lasting value.