Deluge Redux

Soon The Economic Deluge - Forbes.com: "The international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944 is on the verge of breaking down. It could still be saved by heroic measures, especially if these were taken in the United States. They would include an immediate slash in projected government expenditures, an immediate balancing of the budget, and a halt in any further increase in the stock of money.

But in the present political and ideological atmosphere, these measures are very unlikely.

Parallel measures are even more unlikely in Britain or in France. The government in Britain will never give up its socialistic obsessions. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy is caught in a chronic dilemma of either yielding to untenable wage demands or having his country paralyzed by strikes.

And nearly every other country, in varying degree, now operates on the fixed assumption that at least some inflation, some constant increase in its stock of paper money, is necessary to prevent an economic slowdown or setback.

The four paragraphs above--substituting "Charles de Gaulle" for "Sarkozy" and adding "Labor" before "government in Britain"--appeared at the beginning of a Los Angeles Times editorial written by Henry Hazlitt in March of 1969. The editorial concluded that the U.S. was certain to leave the gold standard and commence an inflationary devaluation, with resulting economic chaos."

This is a good place to start. Who knows? You might learn something.