http://mises.org/daily/4020
The linked editorial is an excellent read. It shows how much better our situation would've been if the Fed had just kept deflating two years ago.
It illustrates how Jackson became pro-hard money (after all, he was the first president to start a true hard money policy as the silver standards started by Monroe and Washington were phony silver standards called the silver exchange standard). Interestingly, Jefferson destroyed the last remnants of the silver exchange standard, just like Nixon destroyed the last remnants of the gold exchange standard. Why Jefferson did that, I don't know. I believe the country was on 100% fiat money from the time Jefferson suspended the counterfeit silver standard started by Washington until Treasury Sec. Dallas started the counterfeit silver standard back up in the Monroe Admin. Then when Jackson got rid of the Central Bank, he issued the Specie Circular which was the first hard money standard the country was on. That lasted until Lincoln replaced it with the National Banking Acts. Then Grant got the country back on hard money. That lasted until 1913, when the country went on the gold exchange standard which was very unstable because Congress kept debasing it and the Fed controlled the specie reserve ratio for commercial banks.
So for a true hard money standard, you don't want any government mint, any national control of specie reserve ratios, interest rates, and you don't want any regulations whatsoever. And you don't want the government to collect in both gold and silver. Only one or the other (and keeping government revenues to a minimum) is best.
The linked editorial is an excellent read. It shows how much better our situation would've been if the Fed had just kept deflating two years ago.
It illustrates how Jackson became pro-hard money (after all, he was the first president to start a true hard money policy as the silver standards started by Monroe and Washington were phony silver standards called the silver exchange standard). Interestingly, Jefferson destroyed the last remnants of the silver exchange standard, just like Nixon destroyed the last remnants of the gold exchange standard. Why Jefferson did that, I don't know. I believe the country was on 100% fiat money from the time Jefferson suspended the counterfeit silver standard started by Washington until Treasury Sec. Dallas started the counterfeit silver standard back up in the Monroe Admin. Then when Jackson got rid of the Central Bank, he issued the Specie Circular which was the first hard money standard the country was on. That lasted until Lincoln replaced it with the National Banking Acts. Then Grant got the country back on hard money. That lasted until 1913, when the country went on the gold exchange standard which was very unstable because Congress kept debasing it and the Fed controlled the specie reserve ratio for commercial banks.
So for a true hard money standard, you don't want any government mint, any national control of specie reserve ratios, interest rates, and you don't want any regulations whatsoever. And you don't want the government to collect in both gold and silver. Only one or the other (and keeping government revenues to a minimum) is best.