Home » Posts tagged 'eichengreen fallacy'

Tag Archives: eichengreen fallacy

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

The Gold Standard Did Not Cause The Great Depression, Part 2 » The Cobden Centre

November 16, 2014

The Gold Standard Did Not Cause The Great Depression, Part 2 » The Cobden Centre.

As noted in my previous column, AEI’s James Pethokoukis and National Review‘s Ramesh Ponnuru — among many others — appear to have fallen victim to what I have called the “Eichengreen Fallacy.”  This refers to the demonstrably incorrect proposition that the gold standard caused the Great Depression.

Pethokoukis proves exactly right in observing that “Benko is a gold-standard advocate and apparently doesn’t much like the words ‘Hitler’ or ‘Nazi’ to be in the same area code of any discussion of once again linking the dollar to the shiny yellow metal.”  “Doesn’t much like” being falsely linked with Hitler?  Perhaps an apology is more in order than an apologia.

My objecting to a demonstrably false implication of the (true) gold standard in the rise of Nazism does not constitute a display of ill will but rather righteous indignation.  To give Pethokoukis due credit he thereupon generously devoted anAEIdea blog to reciting Peter Thiel’s praise for the gold standard, praise which triggered a hysterical reaction from the Washington Post‘s Matt O’Brien.

Pethokoukis’s earlier (and repeated) vilification of gold was followed by a column in the Washington Times by a director of the venerable Committee for Monetary Research and Education Daniel Oliver, Jr., Liberty and wealth require sound money. In it, Oliver states:

– See more at: http://www.cobdencentre.org/2014/11/the-gold-standard-did-not-cause-the-great-depression-part-2/#sthash.U1Yzkw5v.dpuf

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress