Speed Trap

State Trooper: Do you have any idea how fast you were going?
Del Griffith: Funny enough, I was just talking to my friend about that. Our speedometer has melted and as a result it's very hard to see with any degree of accuracy exactly how fast we were going.
--Planes, Trains & Automobiles

Ran across this passage in a speech given by Friedrich Hayek in 1977:

"I am afraid I am convinced that the hope of ever again placing on government this discipline [of restraint of money creation instilled by a gold standard] is gone. The public at large has learned to understand, and I am afraid a whole generation of economists have been teaching, that government has the power in the short run by increasing the quantity of money rapidly to relieve all kinds of economic evils, especially to reduce unemployment. Unfortunately this is true so far as the short run is concerned. The fact is, that such expansions of the quantity of money which seems to have a short run beneficial effect, become in the long run the cause of a much greater unemployment. But what politician can possibly care about long run effects if in the short run he buys support?"

You don't have to be a Nobel laureate like Hayek to to appreciate the relevance to current conditions.

Government is pulling out all stops in hopes that this is the short run and not the long run.

position in gold