Aggregated Awareness

A succinct and "to the point" commentary from Antal Fekete on this most crucial area of understanding in hard money circles: the Real Bills Doctrine, as originated by Adam Smith.

If you've ever read any of Fekete's writings, and you would have, if you're a regular visitor to this site, then you may know that he admires the work of Austrian-School economist Carl Menger, and as such, also the international trade system as it stood prior to WWI. When much of world trade was financed by circulating Real Bills that redeemed into gold. Thus it was self-extinguishing credit, with a limited life-span, usually of 91 days or one season of the year before it matured into gold.

From the prodigious Antal E Fekete via his blog comes this latest essay for inquiring minds. In it, he explores the concepts behind the floating exchange rate regime that the world has lived with, since the US, under President Nixon reneged (ie. defaulted) on it's international gold obligations on the 15th August, 1971.

The exploration of the floating exchange rate regime by Professor Fekete comes to the conclusion, that it is a scheme to embezzle the US Dollar balance of surplus nations. This is achieved by luring the surplus nation to revalue their currency upwards against the US Dollar, as China is being asked to do now, and Japan had been asked to do previously.