1953 newspaper article excerpt on world and US gold

[68Camaro]

Ran across this while doing some family genealogy research. I didn't include the start of the article, which would have made for an awkward clip, as this part contains the relevant info. The article starts with speculation that the "Reds" were selling gold to depress the price. It goes on in the clip to remind us of the then recent history of the prior 20 years, and includes the national debt number, as well as the already common shenanigans between the Treasury and the Fed to bypass the regulatory budget and debt rules.

1953 gold market.png (647.78 KiB) Viewed 1317 times

[Lemon Thrower]

a few years later Unc Sam and his pals were selling gold to keep the price capped at $35. France eventually said I'm out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Gold_Pool

[shinnosuke]

Who cares about gold and debt ceilings. I'm going to eat me a $2.25 steak dinner!

[thecrazyone]

Who cares about gold and debt ceilings. I'm going to eat me a $2.25 steak dinner!

No dancing?

[Recyclersteve]

The inflation factor 71 years later is really something.

Back then just $22 billion in gold was needed to back our currency. Now we have almost $1 TRILLION of interest PER YEAR on the federal debt, which is simply shocking to me.

[thecrazyone]

If that doesn't scream red alert, I don't know what does. Today's society is so oblivious. When bad times come again, it's going to be Bedlam.

[68Camaro]

If that doesn't scream red alert, I don't know what does. Today's society is so oblivious. When bad times come again, it's going to be Bedlam.

To those who are younger (than me), while in the moment it seems like the movement of time is slow, time actually flows fairly quickly. It was not all that long ago (to me) that our entire national debt was less than 500 billion dollars. At the time, that was considered by many to be a shocking amount. Some, even then, spoke of the possibility that if we didn't control our spending that we could end up at a point where the interest on our debt could exceed the then debt. For most (then) that seemed inconceivable.

We are there; and actually have been there for a few years.

The interest on our debt now exceeds all the other individual categories of the so called federal budget. The interest on the debt is far larger than our defense budget, which should alarm everyone, even those who believe we spend too much on defense.

This can continue for only a few more years. Of course those in charge will do everything in their power to keep the balls in the air. Eventually something will create a reset. A natural disaster, a financial collapse, a larger war, or all the above.

This is, I am sad to say, the great weakness of a democratic republic, and it highlights the soft underbelly of our society. As capable and as determined to succeed as Americans are, we do not like to put limits on ourselves, and we love to give away the money of "others", being too short sighted to realize the long term affects of that policy. Certain societal and cultural norms can keep that in check for a handful of generations, but eventually the outside pressures cause the former norms to collapse (as we've seen the past 50 to 80 years) and when that happens all restraint is gone. We are at that point.

Long term isn't so long, after all. It can all come crashing down within a single lifetime.