Is America About to Return to the Gold Standard?

Andy Snyder|April 10, 2023

It’s lambing season on the farm.

Oy.

We’ve got about a dozen and a half newborns in the pasture – well on our way to a healthy spring flock.

Last night, we were jolted awake by the familiar sounds of agony. The healthy old ewe we’ve dubbed “Hippo” (because she’s as wide as she is tall) was unloading her cargo.

It was two beautiful lambs – half of the four that were born under last night’s beaming moon.

It’s a bittersweet season.

The ewes tend to pick the worst of times – with the lousiest of weather – to go into labor. For some reason, noon on a sunny day is out of the question. Midnight in a snowstorm is their preferred way to end gestation.

But we shouldn’t complain.

After all, each new lamb is a paycheck. We’re printing money in our pastures – limited only by the amount of grass we can grow to feed them all.

It’s an interesting trade-off… no different, really, from how things work in the economy.

Many farmers don’t let their own grass constrain their growth. They import the stuff from other farms. Around here, good hay is as good as gold… especially this time of year.

But it’s a dangerous game.

Many farms go broke buying more than they sell. Bringing in hay helps you raise a bigger flock. But it quickly thins the margins too. Often they get so thin that they wash away.

It’s a cycle that forces farms to keep growing. If they don’t, the surging wake behind them overtakes the stern and sinks the ship.

We won’t stand for it. We can’t.

We stick to our constraints and take what the land gives us.

That’s why, turning to our day job, we like some underreported news from Washington last week. A trio of daredevil representatives introduced a bill that would force Uncle Sam to stick to his constraints.

Alex Mooney, Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar penned HR 2435 – the “Gold Standard Restoration Act.”

It would undo the “Nixon Shock” and repeg the dollar to a fixed weight of gold.

Glorious.

In short, it’d right a generation’s worth of wrongs.

“A gold standard would protect against Washington’s irresponsible spending habits and the creation of money out of thin air,” Mooney said.

“Prices would be shaped by economics rather than the instincts of bureaucrats. No longer would American families, businesses and the economy as a whole be at the mercy of the Federal Reserve and reckless Washington spenders.”

Oh boy… can you imagine?!

Our national pastures would turn green again. No more waiting at the trough to see what our keepers are handing out.

We won’t continue with the nitty-gritty of HR 2435. It’ll never see the light of day.

Washington can’t stop now. A return to the gold standard would swamp the boat and let our enemies come aboard.

There’s not enough gold in the world to make it work.

But it’s a worthy mental exercise. It’s worth dreaming about and pondering the America that could be.

Perhaps these three representatives will cause enough of a ruckus to get a few folks to think twice about their next vote. But ultimately, this trio seems doomed in Washington.

It doesn’t like their kind – the fiscally wise.

But they’d make good farmers… and damned good shepherds.

We could use more of those.