FDR: Sowing the Seeds of Chaos

 Mises Daily: Thursday, May 16, 2013 by David Stockman

(Excerpt from THE GREAT DEFORMATION: The Corruption of Capitalism in America by David A. Stockman. Published by PublicAffairs.)

When FDR Got the Gold

The long-lasting imprint from FDR’s famous “Hundred Days” did not stem from the bank holiday, national industrial recovery act, the farm adjustment act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, or the public works administration.

Instead, it is lodged in the footnotes of standard histories; namely, FDR’s April 1933 order confiscating every ounce of gold held by private citizens and businesses throughout the United States. Shortly thereafter he also embraced the Thomas Amendment, giving him open-ended authority to drastically reduce the gold content of the dollar; that is, to trash the nation’s currency.

These actions did not constitute merely a belated burial of the “barbarous relic.” In the larger scheme of monetary history, they marked a crucial tipping point. They initiated a process of monetary deformation that led straight to Nixon’s abomination at Camp David, Greenspan’s panic at the time of the 1998 Long-Term Capital Management crisis, and the final destruction of monetary integrity and financial discipline during the BlackBerry Panic of 2008…..To Read More…..