A Patriots Manifest April 05 2008
By William White
When it comes to Libertarian/Constitutionalist/Religious Conservative politics while there are large areas of disagreement the basic ideas can be put together in a mix all factions can stomach:
Specie rather than fiat currency (mis)managed by a central bank.
More federalism and less centralism.
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Although less of a partisan issue there is also a growing consensus about other things.
Since the 1920s, at least, the product life cycle has made the economy as a whole less predictable than it was is in the past.
This reduced predictability is due to better information and better predictive models amplifying the effects of surprises to produce a more boom/bust economy.
There is a huge element of back to the future of the 1930s in any degree of central economic planning, like say for national defense, infrastructure, public health and police work, which are government activities that should be centrally planned to increase survival probabilities.
While this list can be and should be extended, for Hyper-Calvinist Social neo-Darwinists such as myself what is bizarre is the lack of attention to unintended consequences in transition plans
Take a transition to specie. A switch to gold, silver, copper, platinum or whatever as currency will spur investment in extraction and refining technology. And there are a lot of areas that can be invested in:
The massive industrialization of space requires very little gearing up from where we are right now due to the x-prize for commercial flight and the DARPA prize for tethered satellites/sky-hooks. An orbiting tethered satellite with landing/launch platforms at say 124 (200 km) and 620 (1,000 km) miles up could probably be built now. The solar exploration tethered satellite(s) with an endpoint at 651 miles, a center of gravity in go-synchronous orbit and its other endpoint 25-50% of the way to the moon can be built now. Gold and silver from the entire solar system should come to a nifty sum.
Nano technology to extract precious metals from existing tailings and slag here on Earth will pop when, depending on the costs and revenues, it makes sense but costs will have a downward slope once this factor kicks in.
Likewise bio-technology in mining (the use of microbes in gold mining has been claimed for the Romans but the available evidence does not strike me as conclusive) and the use of high -tech ceramics will also pop and costs will decline in an unexpected fashion. Plus these and other factors will interact to reduce total costs.
While it is unlikely that $0.625/ounce gold will be made possible by switching to specie at $1,000/ounce a switch to specie will lead to declining costs and that will create hard currency inflation. I would like to see a de bate about:
What percentage of the money supply will be purchased at a given price before the gold price is revised downward?
How far down should it be taken in each step?
How is the old currency (s) supposed to be taken out of circulation without angering everybody in the world?
What about gold becoming a critical factor in superconductors or some such and going out of circulation? Will prices escalators also be needed and multiple types of specie?
Those questions need to be addressed beforehand.
The views expressed by William White are his and his alone and may not be the views expressed by A Patriots Manifest. Thank you .... Michael Roller...