The High Cost of Gold

One of more important Paultard campaigns this past year was their call to return to the gold standard. Oh sure, there were always a few would scoff and insist that Ron Paul wasn't really advocating for a "gold standard," but their clarification on the matter usually amounted to saying that "Monster Island isn't actually an island -- it's actually a Peninsula!" Well, maybe so, but it wasn't the "island" part that concerned me.

Now, we could go over the fact that the gold standard doesn't actually solve any of the problems that Paultards claim that it will, or the fact that the current system grants us with economic flexibility. Instead, I'm going to target one of Ron Paul's more naive claims, his insistence that "there will always be enough gold so long as no one interferes with the free market mechanism." Apparently, Ron Paul believes that the invisible hand can create gold from thin air, so long as the market is there to demand it, like villagers in "Black & White" who pray to the player for grain. Unfortunately, Ron Paul neglects one critical fact: Gold mining is expensive. Not just in raw dollars, but also in terms of the human and environmental toll.

The Paultards look at a hunk of gold, and all they see is a glittering rock. They don't really put much thought in how it got there, like a person who loves eating meat, but who doesn't want to know the conditions that the animal was raised in. A recent article from Spiegel online reports the some of following hard truths associated with their beloved metal:

• Mining enough gold for just one wedding ring produces about 20 tons worth of waste.
• There are no proper environmental standards, nor do miners consider the rights of local restaurants. For example, in Guatamala, mines have been set up in areas which the residents consider sacred.
• Goldmines use an estimated 182,000 tons of cyanide a year, effectively destroying the land. Further, the toxic waste poisons the ground water and rivers, and in Indonesia, it is dumped directly into the Ocean. In fact, these substances are so toxic that we are still dealing with the effects of waste products left behind by the Ancient Roman Empire.
• Mining operations tend to only employ a few people, and local residents rarely see the benefits to their economy.

Meanwhile, in Mozambique, the high price on gold has encouraged a hefty rise of slave labor, prostitution, and disease. Drinkable water is also becoming scarce as a result of pollution. The temperatures reach below freezing levels at night, causing workers to freeze to death. And all this for a few grams of gold dust, scattered throughout the Earth.

The problems in the gold industry combines two things that makes libertarianism what it is: A love for gold, and a hatred of regulation. The problem is bad enough right now, when gold is primarily used for the sake of technology and jewelry. But what happens if we increase the demand for gold even further, by forcing people to exchange in gold currencies for all transactions in general? Returning to the gold standard under a libertarian system would cause the price to skyrocket even further, causing people to harvest as much gold as possible for as little cost as possible, environmental and social concerns be damned.

This is also the main reason why Ron Paul's solution of returning to the gold standard to end the oil crisis doesn't work. He's not actually increasing the supply of oil at all, he's simply matching one hard to extract finite resource to another hard to extract finite resource, in the hopes that two wrongs can make a right. It's sort of like having a diet plan that hopes to bring a 500 pound man to average body mass, not by asking him to lose weight, but by forcing everyone else to become fatter.

CLCV: Ron Paul's Stance on Global Warming

The California League of Conservation Voters has recently released a breakdown of where all the candidates stand on the issue of global warming. Ron Paul currently lists energy and environment as two of the major issues on his official campaign website. So surely, you would think that Ron Paul would be willing to put some thought on the very issues that he's hoping to campaign on, right? Think again. From their website under Ron Paul:

LCV Lifetime Score: 30%
Carbon Cap And Targets: No articulated position
Fuel Efficiency: Opposed 33 mpg in 2005
Renewable Electricity Standard: No articulated position
Efficiency Targets: No articulated position
New Coal Plants And Liquid Coal: No articulated position
Answers to our questions? Did not answer

The Ron Paul campaign a campaign of empty promises. His supporters will proclaim his as a straight talker who's willing to give thoughtful responses to the pressing issues of our day, but his inability to even answer basic question says otherwise. The Ron Paul campaign boils down to a few sound bites like "I will work to restore a free-market in energy," without going into detail on how that would actually work, much less actually delivering on it. In short, Ron Paul is a politician, and not even a very good politician. Global warming is one of the most pressing matters of our age, and the "free" market has decided that they enjoy Al Gore's message a lot more than Ron Paul's. Why does Ron Paul hate the free market so?

Of course, Paultards will probably insist that the potential devastation of the all human life as we know it isn't a "real" issue, like Ron Paul's doomsday prediction on hyperinflation. Because imagining a scenario where the factories at the US Mint goes crazy ala I Love Lucy and starts doubling our money supply exponentially over and over again is so much more plausible than believing that an unchecked and massive output in carbon emissions might produce problems faster than the free market can correct for.

Popular Mechanics on Ron Paul: Geek the Vote, 2008

Popular Mechanics has recently set up a page which breaks down the top twelve Presidential candidates based on their opinions on eight different subject that are important to their readers: Autos, Digital/Tech, Energy/Climate, Environment, Firearms, Infrastructure, Science/Education, and Space. According to Popular Mechanics, "We did not analyze any of the proposals, and we do not necessarily endorse them."

On these issues, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee and the least defined candidates currently running, with established positions on only three of the eight subjects: Digital/Tech, Environment, and Firearms. Ron Paul is the only candidate running who has no response on energy/climate, and one of only three candidates who has no response on the auto industry. While Ron Paul does comment on environmental policy, his response consists of nothing more than typical "Let's privatize everything and hope that the problem fixes itself" libertarian rhetoric.

The Ron Paul supporters would like to keep the focus on Iraq, because they know that this is where Ron Paul is popular. However, we need to remember that there are other major issues that will present themselves in the upcoming years. First, there is the issue of climate change, which has world wide implications that might persist for centuries to come. Just about everyone who lives on Earth has a reason to be concerned about climate change. Secondly, there is the issue of universal health care, which not only affects the 40 million Americans who aren't currently being covered, but also the millions of Americans who are denied coverage despite being being insured.

How can Ron Paul hope to represent the American people, if he doesn't plan on addressing the bulk of their concerns?