SCHOLAR ISLAND

Gold

 

"….The people are wild about it, and the senseless nations worship the useless and heavy metal like a divinity. Is this what will help our forthcoming redemption and our future hopes?"

Philalethes

 

"Up on the Madison Fork, the Wasiches had found much of the yellow metal that they worship and makes them crazy."

-Black Elk Speaks

 

"Gold is the root of all evil, it’s the cause of most of the world’s troubles. It makes bankers commit suicide, and good women go wrong. Gold! That’s what them damn lawyers are after. That’s what’s back of it. Somebody wants to see my hole card!"

Death Valley Scotty

 

"(Gold) which does not change its nature, which has no nationality, which is eternally and universally accepted as the unalterable fiduciary value par excellence."

-Charles de Gaulle (Press Conference,1965)

 

"The whole money complex is rooted in the psychology of guilt, and gold is the absolute symbol of sublimation. Money is "condensed wealth; condensed wealth is condensed guilt. But guilt is essentially unclean"

Norman Brown

 

"Dr. Freud relates that there are peculiar reasons deep in our sub consciousness why gold in particular should satisfy strong instincts and serve as a symbol

-John Maynard Keynes 

'The Return to Gold', in Essays in Persuasion,1933

 

 

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit....

   The law of supply and demand is not to be conned. As the supply of money (of claims) increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. Thus the earnings saved by the productive members of the society lose value in terms of goods. When the economy's books are finally balanced, one finds that this loss in value represents the goods purchased by the government for the welfare or other purposes...

   In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holdings illegal, as was done in the case of gold....The financial policy of the welfare state  requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

   This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."

Alan Greenspan  "Gold and Economic Freedom," in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand

 

"With a stiffening of his spine and with a bizarre smile playing on his lips, Bill picked up the mahogany box full of gold and handed it to me.

"This is for you," he said, his voice crackling.

"What do you mean?" I said, genuinely puzzled, although at the same time it was as though a great eagle had soared into my chest with the knowledge of what he was doing. 

"It's a gift," he said.

Inside my chest, I calmly and instantly understood everything; I even understood, without any words, how to respond, how to feel. I sensed a quiet light and warmth coming down into me like the light of the sun. But in my mind there was pure chaos and bewilderment, and the muscles in my shoulders were suddenly filled with devils, tensions of every kind. I don't know what moved me to open the box, but I can remember my thoughts just before I saw the gold. Somehow, my head was telling me that I could coolly look at the gold and politely acknowledge it, as though I were being offered nothing more than a pound of chocolates.

   The radiance of the gold blazed into my brain and powerful bolt of electricity snaked down the length of my torso igniting everything in its path, especially in the region of the solar plexus and genitals. My legs started trembling as though filled with nervous sparrows. My breathing became rough and coarse like the panting of a hungry wolf."

Jacob Needleman

Money and the Meaning of Life

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Book: "Ashanti Gold" by Edward S Ayensu

Book: "The Gold of the World" by George Ch. Chourmouziadis

See article "Is It Goodbye to Gold, or just ‘See ya later?’ by George Melloan

Wall Street Journal Tues,July 13,1999

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Book: "Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s" by David Goodman

Book: "Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California" Ed. by K. Starr & R.J. Orsi

Book: "The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream" by H.W. Brands

Book: "Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold" by Sterling & Peggy Seagrave

Book:" Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians-Treasure from the Republic of Bulgaria" Ed. by Ivan Marazov

Book: "Gold, Dollars, and Power; The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971" by Francis J. Gavin

Book: "The Gold Crusaders, Revised Edition: A Social History of Gold Rushes, 1849-1929" By Doublas Fethering

© 2001

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