John Buchanan Robinson Quotes

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense... that gold and economic freedom are inseparable.

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.

When America went off the gold standard, its financial doom was sealed.

We want a money that some government mandarin can't just whisk into existence with a pen stroke.

America really started to die when the Federal Reserve was founded, and it really started to die in 1971 when the gold backing was taken away from the dollar, and this currency with Ben Bernanke just printing up or counterfeiting as much money as he wants and destroying the economy is really destroying the economy.

I don't think central banks are going to give up fiat currency anytime in my lifetime.

There is never enough gold to redeem all the currency in circulation.

Economies typically do not function well in hyperinflation. The real value of government debt might disappear, but the economy is likely to disappear with it.

China needs a currency that reflects underlying economic fundamentals.

Now comes Roosevelt who seeks to render the money of the United States worthless by unlawfully declaring that it may no longer be converted into gold at the will of the holder.

Long before we wake up from our dream of prosperity through an inflated currency, our gold … will have vanished and no rate of interest will tempt it to return.

We have lost control over the financial system ... by printing much more money than in previous years.

We were not foolish enough to make a currency coverage of gold of which we have none

The Federal Reserve Act as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency... I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency.

When the government runs out of lenders, it can do something that households are forbidden to do: print money.

Americans have seen the value of the dollar slowly decline due to the steady erosion of inflation.

We have a government that purposely counterfeits and debases the currencies, and I believe that the alternative would be a competition. That means that anything that wants to substitute for the American dollar should be permitted.

Inflation destroys savings, impedes planning, and discourages investment. That means less productivity and a lower standard of living.

War has generally had grave and fateful consequences for the American monetary and financial system. We have seen that the Revolutionary War occasioned a mass of depreciated fiat paper, worthless Continentals, a huge public debt, and the beginnings of central banking in the Bank of North America.

In 1971, the U.S. 'closed the gold window,' starting an era of global fiat money reference-pricing that has been unprecedented in history. Never before had the world operated on the basis of no country anywhere having a currency tied to something with intrinsic value like gold.

The monetary managers are fond of telling us that they have substituted 'responsible money management' for the gold standard. But there is no historic record of responsible paper money management ... The record taken, as a whole is one of hyperinflation, devaluation and monetary chaos.

Fiscal crises often turn into financial crises, dealing a blow to the real economy.

What is the effect of unlimited coinage of silver in this country? and I invite your attention to this particularly, because it is a question of vital importance.

When you have a perfect free market, it's difficult to predict the future. But when you have a market that is disturbed by government manipulations and money-printing, it's impossible to make any predictions.

I think money is due for some sort of collapse. People are going to realize that money has a half-life, like radioactive elements.