Oakland, CA—America’s money should be stable, honest and dependable. Yet inflation continues to drive up prices and the American dollar is becoming less trustworthy in the world’s marketplace. Our money is not sound.
In her new book Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Judy Shelton offers workable solutions to provide price stability for consumers, bypassing the whims and distractions of politics, to focus on what drives economic growth.
As Shelton puts it, money is “a moral contract between the government and the citizens.” Thus, if central bankers fail to recognize “the negative impact of their policies on productive economic growth, it does not make sense to grant them yet more control over the economy.”
Shelton proposes launching new Treasury Trust Bonds backed by the United States government that reaffirm gold convertibility—the first such approach since the Bretton Woods system was dismantled in the early 1970s. She recommends a commission be appointed to investigate ways to set a fixed value for the dollar—an important way America’s economy can earn public trust.
This is no curmudgeonly demand to reinstate the gold standard of yore. Neither is it a simplistic demand to return to the Bretton Woods era. Instead, in a series of sophisticated steps, Shelton lays out how gold can provide a universal measure of value across borders, create new financial opportunities, and dramatically increase prosperity around the world.
She offers a solution to provide sound money at home and abroad, “in order to bring clarity of purpose and restore faith in our currency as an honest measure to reinforce the integrity of the U.S. dollar as the most trustworthy currency in the world,” says Shelton.
Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money is a must-read for anyone invested in the future of the American—and global—economy.
Author Biography: Judy Shelton, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at Independent Institute, former chairman of the National Endowment for Democracy, and former U.S. director of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
For more information, contact Robert Ade, [email protected], or (510) 635-3690.
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