Greenspan said on any number of occasions that his model was that a 'fiat currency' works when it emulates the rigor of the gold standard.
I am using this post as a placemarker to gather a few citations along these lines. Sometimes people doubt these things, and it is not always easy to go back and find the actual idea in print.
I will place other example here as I find them but it is not a high priority because Alan Greenspan has never deviated from this point of view. One of the most poignant examples I have was when Ron Paul asked him if he still believed in what he wrote in his famous essay on Gold and Economic Freedom.
And Greenspan answered that he would not change a word.
I think the squaring up of what Greenspan believed, and what he did as Fed Chairman, is one of the more interesting conundrums that I hope that time will explicate.
The other of course is why the flaming liberal and 'socialist' Obama is really closer to Richard Nixon in his performance and outlook than most would care to admit, on either the right or the left.
This is from a 2007 Interview by National Public Radio with Alan Greenspan on Turbulence and Exuberance
Greenspan: Well actually, we were not fundamentally regulators [at the Fed]. The vast portion of our efforts were not involved in bank regulation.
NPR: No, but you were regulating interest rates, which have a profound effect on world economies.
Greenspan: You're raising really a very interesting question. I have always argued that the gold standard of the 19th century was a very effective stabilizer. It kept inflation essentially at zero, and I felt it was critical for the tremendous growth that occurred for the American economy in the latter part of the 19th century. When we went off the gold standard essentially in 1933, we then had to have what we call "fiat money" which is essentially money that is - it's printed paper money. Which unless we restrict the volume of, can be highly inflationary.
The type of interest rate regulation that I and indeed most central banks in the last 20 years have been involved in...has been to try to replicate the laws and rules that were governing the gold standard.
And so it is an odd situation where all the central bankers -- while none of them are advocating a return to the gold standard -- nonetheless try to replicate the various types of interest rate policies that the gold standard would have created. And it is an interesting question whether you call that regulation, or basically functioning of a central bank in stabilizing the economy."
I remember all such statements of Greenspan's vividly because they were one of the few times in which I felt that he was telling the truth, at least as he sees it.
I think that a fiat currency can 'work' if it emulates the rigor of an external standard. And exceptions that can be made to this rigor during times of exogenous shocks could be a quite useful tool for monetary policy.
The problem is that it NEVER seems to work out that way in the real world. It does not take long for financiers and politicians to discover the heady power and easy money to be had in manipulating the markets and the fiat currencies to their own advantage, the public and the real economy be damned. And then a pigfest ensues, and a nation's savings and civic virtue are consumed.
"And, indeed, since the late '70s, central bankers generally have behaved as though we were on the gold standard. And, indeed, the extent of liquidity contraction that has occurred as a consequence of the various different efforts on the part of monetary authorities is a clear indication that we recognize that excessive creation of liquidity creates inflation, which, in turn, undermines economic growth.
So that the question is: Would there be any advantage, at this particular stage, in going back to the gold standard? And the answer is: I don't think so, because we're acting as though we were there. So I think central banking, I believe, has learned the dangers of fiat money, and I think, as a consequence of that, we've behaved as though there are, indeed, real reserves underneath the system."
Greenspan, A., Hearing on Monetary Policy Report, US House Committee on Financial Services, 20 July 2005, Washington D.C.
From: Jude Wanniski < jwanniski@polyconomics.com
To: Ben.S.Bernanke@ * * * * *.GOV
Subject: Fwd: Re: Savings glut
5:44 pm, 7/21/2005
I thought you should see this. Greenspan was plain awful in his testimony this week. But members of Congress don't know any better, so they slobber all over him. He again said we don't need a gold standard, because he has demonstrated since he came to the Fed in 1987 that the central bank could "replicate" the gold standard.
Take a look at the dollar/gold price from 1987 until today and you will see how terrific he has been in replicating the gold standard. I can't wait for him to leave, Ben, because he now has so much invested in his Fed legacy as a Maestro that he could never admit he screwed up almost all along the way.
Famous 2005 Exchange Between Ron Paul and Alan Greenspan about the Gold Standard
Related: Why There Is Fear and Resentment of Gold's Ability to Reveal the True Value of Financial Assets
