As President Trump kicks into his second presidency, it's growing more and more obvious that the U.S. dodged a bullet with the Biden administration.
Laws meant nothing. Spending was out of control. The bureaucracy was obese and growing. Waste and fraud were the order of the day. Wokesterism reigned rampant. No one knew who was in charge. And rule of law meant nothing.
How can that have happened? Not everyone agrees on the origin, but everyone agrees that it must not ever happen again.
Which brings us to a very impressive idea by longtime monetary economist Judy Shelton, who actually studied with Milton Friedman.
Gold-backed Treasury bonds.
According to Fox News:
Market uncertainty doesn’t phase Judy Shelton, the former Treasury Department lead advisor for the first Trump administration transition.
The monetary economist has taken a bullish stance when it comes to a "dependable" U.S. dollar and the rising price of gold – and offers a unique pitch to ensure their fiscal stability.
"I'm skeptical when people doubt the future of the dollar or the role of U.S. currency as a world's dominant reserve currency. I think the dollar has a great future ahead of it," Shelton, Independent Institute senior fellow and author of "Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money," told Fox News Digital.
"I think that we need to be true to our founding principles and redouble our efforts to restore sound finances and sound money," she continued.
A "very smart thing" for America’s economy would be for the Treasury to issue a 50-year, gold convertible security which, at maturity, could be exchanged for a fixed amount of gold. Shelton hopes to see this done on July 4, 2026, on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
She notes that America is the world’s largest holder of official gold reserves, with the Treasury owning 261 million ounces carried at a book value of $42. On Friday morning, the price of gold hovered around $3,340.
No other country has that kind of gold. It's sitting in a hole, unused, when it could be put to work drawing in capital to strengthen the government. That's important in an era when President Trump seeks to decouple the U.S. from the world economy and make the U.S. self-sufficient in all things.
What's more, anything backed by gold is an automatic hedge against inflation.
"It would be a good way to ensure that nobody in the following administrations between now and then gets the bright idea to sell off those gold reserves. Let's use them to warehouse, to serve as collateral for this long-term gold bond," Shelton explained.
"And then the gold bond would become a barometer of whether or not the U.S., under people in the White House, under Congress, under people at the Federal Reserve, can really make progress toward balancing the budget, toward achieving sound money."
Hugo Chavez, recall, sold off his country's gold reserves to finance his government, once he blew out Venezuela's oil earnings. Now that country has nothing.
This measure would keep the U.S. from suffering the same fate, if god forbid, another Biden -- or Bernie Sanders, AOC, Kamala Harris, or another leftist lunatic ever gets elected. Their hands would be tied and they would have to live with a balanced budget, spending within their means, a concept which is completely foreign to them.
Something like this would work well with Trump's agenda of Making America Great Again, because in the glory years he's thinking of ... America did have a gold standard.
Shelton is right: Bring it back. The bond concept is a good one. And make her chief of the Fed.
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