Saturday, July 10, 2004

A Primer - Part III

Larry Summers and Gibson's Paradox...

For some background information on Gibson's Paradox, go to The Golden Sextent and scroll down to the Essays section. There you will see a link to Gibson's Paradox Revisited: Professor Summers Analyzes Gold Prices.
Then visit this article which brings it all together...

Taylor On US Dollar & Gold

From the link...

One very influential person in the Clinton Administration was very much aware of Gibson's Paradox, which Keynes noted was one of the best documented relationships in all of economics. Gibson's Paradox stated that if "real" interest rates decline, the price of gold will rise vis-a-vis the currency. BUT THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION KNEW FULL WELL THAT A RISING GOLD PRICE WOULD HURT THEIR ABILTY TO LEVERAGE AMERICA'S FUTURE FOR THEIR OWN POLITICAL GAINS. Hence, the Clinton Administration began to intervene in the gold market to "cap" the price of gold, just as Lawrence Summers clearly noted they must do in a paper he co-authored while a professor at Harvard in the late 1980s.