Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Get back to the gold standard

The March 29 editorial “Before deficit gets out of control, lawmakers should act responsibly ” addresses the most important and pressing political issue today. That’s the so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which says that a nation can simply print all the money it wants to spend. History says otherwise.

In the ’70s, President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. would no longer honor the gold standard. Known as the “Golden Handcuffs,” it restricted politicians from spending more money than they could tax. Since we abandoned gold, the government money spigot has opened wider and wider.

MMT has already been established in the minds of the political class and has encouraged the latest crop of socialists to dream big. With nothing to restrain the money printers, a wild ride is coming.