Review article
https://doi.org/10.46458/27121097.2018.SI.131
THE OUTBREAK OF A NEW CONFUSED CENTURY, MONETARY AND FINANCIAL CHAOS, RECONSIDERED
Mario Pines
orcid.org/0000-0002-7500-1943
; DEAMS University of Triest, Italy
Abstract
The forced overthrow of the historic meter of commercial development, the monetary Gold Standard, as adopted originally in the USA on the first of August 1914’s, triggered, and led during the next decade, the great inflations in France, Germany, Russia and almost all other European Countries. The ensuing convulsions of the social order, the rise of the speculator opportunities, the obliteration of the savings of the laboring and middle classes, based on fixed incomes, produced directly and afterwards, the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, and Nazism. They were follow-ups of the floating European currencies, perennial budgetary and balance of payments deficits, Central banks’ emergency money printing, currency wars and the neo-mercantilism practices.
After Nixon 15 August 1971 second American repudiation of the new Gold Exchange Standard, we entered a slow replay of the first experience, trough inflation, large monetary quantitative expansions and, through bursting bubbles, recessions and stagnations and, finally, new consequent barriers and tariffs perspectives. The most relevant comment, I always share in my speeches is this, coming from a statement on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jacques Rueff. The comment address has been formulated by Lewis E. Lehrman, at the parliament of France (Assemble Nationale), on November 7, 1996: “Money will decide the fate of mankind, because individual liberty is only possible - or even thinkable - when confined within the boundaries of a collective discipline, calculated to curb the disorders that uncontrolled action is bound to provoke”. (Rueff, 1971).
Keywords
Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Finance; Internal and external deficits; International payments.
Hrčak ID:
221513
URI
Publication date:
20.5.2019.
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