Forum Post: News Article: Steve Forbes: How To Bring Back America

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/steve-forbes-how-bring-back-america

Steve Forbes: How To Bring Back America Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/07/2012

Steve Forbes has a message for a nation dominated by increasingly short-term decisions made on Wall Street and in Washington D.C., and by ever greater economic, financial and currency instability. As long as America continues moving away from sound money; away from sound financial and economic policies; and, ultimately, away from freedom, its future grows more dim. The dot-com and housing bubbles followed by the 2008 financial crisis and the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression serve as powerful lessons. A future of bigger government, higher taxes, more burdensome regulations, less consumer choice and more unrealistic government promises requires more and more Federal Reserve play money.

Steve Forbes has a quintessentially American policy prescription rooted in American history. The answer to America’s economic problems is—and has always been—new wealth creation. New wealth creation doesn’t come from the government or from the Federal Reserve’s printing press. New wealth creation is what happens naturally with stable money based on the gold standard, lower taxes on individuals, a simplified tax code, reduced bureaucracy and free markets.

Interview: Steve Forbes: How To Bring Back America

The Hera Research Newsletter is pleased to present an incredibly powerful interview with Steve Forbes, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media. The company’s flagship publication, FORBES, is the leading business magazine. Combined with international and licensee editions, FORBES reaches more than 6 million readers worldwide. The Forbes.com website is a leading destination for senior business decision-makers and investors with more than 30 million unique visitors per month.

Hera Research Newsletter (HRN): Thank you for joining us today. With the U.S. economy struggling to recover from recession and financial crisis, what policies would you recommend?

Steve Forbes: The only way to recover is to stabilize our money, have a gold backed dollar, simplified tax code and return to a free market.

HRN: You advocate the gold standard?

Steve Forbes: If there’s any better system to ensure a stable value for money, it’s yet to be found. For nearly all of America’s first 200 years, the dollar was linked to gold. Since we went off the gold standard, we’ve had more and more financial, economic and banking crises. For example, if the Federal Reserve hadn’t started to print so much money ten years ago, we wouldn’t have experienced the housing bust or the commodities boom or the sovereign debt crisis in Europe. Eventually, events become a persuasive teacher.

HRN: Don’t we need a flexible money supply?

Steve Forbes: That’s like saying that changing the number of minutes in an hour would be a great tool to increase productivity in the economy. Manipulating weights and measures, whether it’s the number of ounces in a pound or minutes in an hour, is a false way to think that you can achieve prosperity. All gold does is serve as a yardstick to measure the value of your currency.

HRN: Doesn’t increasing the money supply help to stimulate the economy?

Steve Forbes: The only way to increase prosperity is through innovation and productivity. Attempts to manipulate the value of money invariably fail. We’ve had numerous devaluations, and not once has it created lasting prosperity.

HRN: Under the gold standard, would there still be a lender of last resort to backstop the banking system?

Steve Forbes: The gold standard doesn’t prevent lending during a panic. The Bank of England pioneered acting as a lender of last resort in the 1860s under the gold standard.

HRN: Wouldn’t the gold standard prevent financial innovation?

Steve Forbes: No. Financial innovation has been with us for hundreds of years in terms of new financial instruments to meet expanding needs as the global economy becomes more complex. Many of the innovations of recent years, however, have come about in response to the instability of the dollar and other currencies, which has increased volatility in currency and commodity markets. New instruments have been designed either as insurance against volatility or to take advantage of it. If you had stable money, there would be much less hedging and financial speculation.

HRN: Can governments function under the gold standard?

Steve Forbes: Certain countries feel free to spend money whether they have it or not. Fiat money, which can just be printed up, has disguised the real cost. We would never have experienced the kind of government borrowing we’ve had in recent years if we’d had stable money. The gold standard would keep the government honest.

HRN: Doesn’t government deficit spending smooth over recessions?

Steve Forbes: The bottom line for the U.S. is that a weak dollar means a weak recovery. Stability is good for the economy. The simplest thing to do is to re-link the U.S. dollar to gold.

HRN: Wouldn’t that tie the hands of the Federal Reserve?

Steve Forbes: Tie their hands to do what, further harm to the economy? I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

To read entire interview: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/steve-forbes-how-bring-back-america