WEBVTT NOTE The Gold Dollar 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.000 I would say that we're fortunate to be living in these times, for we're seeing the unfolding of events long explained and predicted by the Austrian tradition. 2 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:16.000 Now maybe that sounds implausible. What's fortunate about our times? 3 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:29.000 The economy is tanking, stocks have tumbled, unemployment is rising, and Washington is pursuing the worst combination of economic policies since Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt. 4 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:37.000 Nor does the guy in charge now seem to have a clue about the limits of what government can do. 5 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:43.000 Consider what it means, however, to live through our times in the light of economic understanding. 6 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:50.000 Even in the face of calamity, there is no mystery, and hence fear is reduced. 7 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:55.000 You look at department stores going belly up, and you know why. 8 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:00.140 You see empty mall parking lots, and you know the reason. 9 00:01:00.140 --> 00:01:05.960 You see people losing their jobs, and there is clarity concerning the cause. 10 00:01:05.960 --> 00:01:12.080 You see depositors and failing banks lose some of their money, and you're not surprised. 11 00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:18.840 Prices behave in ways that shock and surprise everyone else, but you know what's what. 12 00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:23.240 In many ways, it's like watching the movement of the planets with scientific knowledge provided 13 00:01:23.240 --> 00:01:29.640 by Astronomy, or observing the effects of a plague with medical knowledge. 14 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:35.240 Without that understanding, the events look mysterious, like a curse from the gods, and 15 00:01:35.240 --> 00:01:38.060 their patterns appear random. 16 00:01:38.060 --> 00:01:43.460 With the knowledge, with the understanding, we can make sense of the events, patterns 17 00:01:43.460 --> 00:01:46.040 of cause and effect emerge. 18 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:51.620 You see events before they happen, like turning the pages of a script before the movie catches 19 00:01:51.620 --> 00:02:00.620 This gives you a sense of intellectual coherence and some inner peace, even in the midst of calamity. 20 00:02:00.620 --> 00:02:11.620 If you read what Mises wrote during the Great Depression and World War II, you can see firmness of conviction and steadfast calm, even though the whole world was going nuts. 21 00:02:11.620 --> 00:02:18.620 Intellectual clarity is the key to seeing the right things and doing the right things. 22 00:02:18.620 --> 00:02:24.620 It is a matter of knowing the shape of things even before things take shape. 23 00:02:24.620 --> 00:02:28.620 Knowledge provides a means as well of curing the ill. 24 00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:32.620 It provides a way out, an answer that gives hope. 25 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:37.620 This is a major reason why people with an Austrian understanding, 26 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:42.620 in the midst of financial meltdown, keep their wits about them. 27 00:02:42.620 --> 00:02:46.620 Yes, it is frustrating beyond belief to see people in Washington 28 00:02:46.620 --> 00:02:51.620 spending trillions in a futile effort to repeal economic law. 29 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:58.620 It is sheer madness that they are creating vast quantities of new dollars by means of the Fed's power. 30 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:01.620 Even with evidence from the whole of human history, 31 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:04.620 that new money only waters down the value of the old 32 00:03:04.620 --> 00:03:08.620 and does nothing to provide a long-term boost to the economy 33 00:03:08.620 --> 00:03:12.620 and rather only further distorts economic structures. 34 00:03:12.620 --> 00:03:42.620 it's like watching barbers bleed patients in the name of curing them or bringing in the witch doctor to cast out demons from people who were sick but even if our knowledge of events cannot stop what people are doing for now it provides us with a sense of solace in the face of disaster we can keep our heads even as others around us act as if theirs have been cut off in order to understand events there is no 35 00:03:42.620 --> 00:03:48.900 Let us substitute for doing what the media and indeed most economists refuse to do, which 36 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:53.060 is to look at the big picture and the long view over decades. 37 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:58.540 It is a matter of applying the rule that Henry Hazlitt brings home so clearly in economics 38 00:03:58.540 --> 00:04:00.940 in one lesson. 39 00:04:00.940 --> 00:04:05.860 Economics consists in looking at the effects of policies not only on one group, but on 40 00:04:05.860 --> 00:04:11.020 all groups, and not only in the short run, but in the long run. 41 00:04:11.020 --> 00:04:15.180 From the long run point of view, we observe an intriguing illustration of the Austrian 42 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:20.740 warning against ever attempting to bail out an economy that is pushing towards recession. 43 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:26.660 In 2001, the economy wanted to go into recession, but the government wouldn't let it happen. 44 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:31.720 It was the first stimulus package of the new millennium, consisting of vast new funding 45 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:38.180 and vast money creation, with the Fed driving down rates and keeping them at rock bottom. 46 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:42.340 If you look to just the short run, it seems that this worked. 47 00:04:42.340 --> 00:04:46.900 But looking at the long run, we can see that the attempt to forestall recession only ended 48 00:04:46.900 --> 00:04:51.500 in creating a much greater disaster down the line. 49 00:04:51.500 --> 00:04:55.580 Something very similar happened in 1991. 50 00:04:55.580 --> 00:05:01.540 Clinton came to power and shortened the recession, which only created another bubble in financials 51 00:05:01.540 --> 00:05:06.340 that broke and so on until we are where we are today. 52 00:05:06.340 --> 00:05:11.340 Arguably the last time that a recession was permitted to run its course appeared following 53 00:05:11.340 --> 00:05:16.920 the crackup boom at the end of the Carter years as a result of the inflation under Richard 54 00:05:16.920 --> 00:05:24.500 Nixon. Reagan came to power with Volcker at the Fed. Volcker had been appointed by Carter. 55 00:05:24.500 --> 00:05:29.820 Reagan doggedly refused to listen to the screaming and the crying from Congress and the press. 56 00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:35.820 He held the line. He let interest rates rise. The federal funds rate was 20 percent. Prime 57 00:05:35.820 --> 00:05:42.980 was 21.5 percent. In 1982, unemployment reached nearly 11 percent. Inflation, however, fell 58 00:05:42.980 --> 00:05:52.420 from 13.5 percent in 1980 to 3.2 percent in 1983. If we include the SNL debacle, this 59 00:05:52.420 --> 00:05:57.180 was a nearly total blowout, and if Reagan had left it at that, it would have been a 60 00:05:57.180 --> 00:06:03.620 model for how to deal with recession. There is pain and suffering, but wait it out and 61 00:06:03.620 --> 00:06:07.620 and you have a fertile ground in which to build a solid prosperity. 62 00:06:07.620 --> 00:06:13.620 Sadly, you also produce a firm financial footing that invites the government to abuse the system, 63 00:06:13.620 --> 00:06:18.620 as Reagan did with record spending and record deficits. 64 00:06:18.620 --> 00:06:22.620 If we want to look back even further to find better examples of how to handle recession, 65 00:06:22.620 --> 00:06:25.620 we can look at 1920 and 1921. 66 00:06:25.620 --> 00:06:30.620 The less the government did, the better the long-term results. 67 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:39.620 Murray Rothbard's own dissertation on the panic of 1819 shows us a pure case in which nothing was done to fix a problem. 68 00:06:39.620 --> 00:06:44.620 What was notable about this panic is precisely that it never made it into the history books. 69 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:48.620 It didn't because government didn't make it worse. 70 00:06:48.620 --> 00:06:56.620 In the months ahead, we're going to witness more of these ridiculously futile attempts to patch up a failing economy. 71 00:06:56.620 --> 00:06:59.620 And we're going to pay a huge price this time. 72 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:10.620 It won't be like 2001 or 1992. We'll be lucky if it ends up like 1978, 1982. More likely, it's going to be much worse. 73 00:07:10.620 --> 00:07:16.620 And how much worse depends in part on just how stupid the Obama administration is going to be. 74 00:07:16.620 --> 00:07:23.620 Hard to imagine anybody worse than the Bush administration, but we may find out. 75 00:07:23.620 --> 00:07:28.620 We all must deal also with the possible death of the dollar. 76 00:07:28.620 --> 00:07:34.620 Many plans have been proposed through the years to restore a gold dollar, and many have merit. 77 00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:40.620 All these plans provide a means to go back to gold. They're not lacking in technical detail. 78 00:07:41.620 --> 00:07:46.620 They are lacking in something that they can't provide, that is the political will to do the right thing. 79 00:07:47.620 --> 00:07:52.620 They're all premised on an idea that our leaders might be interested in doing the right thing. 80 00:07:52.620 --> 00:07:57.620 thing. But the same people who would be in charge of implementing the reform are 81 00:07:57.620 --> 00:08:03.020 the very ones who got us into the mess. It's hard enough in the course of regular 82 00:08:03.020 --> 00:08:09.460 life to find out anyone who admits an error and reverses course. In politics, it 83 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:15.360 virtually never happens. Even in the case of egregiously immoral effects, the 84 00:08:15.360 --> 00:08:19.300 political class persists in error because it is much more interested in 85 00:08:19.300 --> 00:08:23.620 in saving itself than in saving society. 86 00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:28.220 Giedl Hulsman points out in his new book, The Ethics of Money Production, that, quote, 87 00:08:28.220 --> 00:08:34.020 governments inflate the money supply because they gain revenue from the inflation, unquote. 88 00:08:34.020 --> 00:08:36.140 This is hardly a new insight. 89 00:08:36.140 --> 00:08:42.260 Hulsman quotes the 14th century bishop, Nicolas Heuresme, as follows, I am of the opinion 90 00:08:42.260 --> 00:08:47.540 that the main and final cause of why the prince pretends the power of altering the coinage 91 00:08:47.540 --> 00:08:51.580 is that the profit or gain which he can get from it, it would otherwise be vain to make 92 00:08:51.580 --> 00:08:57.140 so many and so great changes. Besides, the amount of the prince's profit is necessarily 93 00:08:57.140 --> 00:09:03.780 that of the community's loss." The techniques are different today, but the incentive and 94 00:09:03.780 --> 00:09:06.500 moral result are the same. 95 00:09:06.500 --> 00:09:11.540 Holzman points to another change. Today's prince's, quote, have received absolution 96 00:09:11.540 --> 00:09:16.700 from the scientific authorities of our day. Princes used to do their work in secret and 97 00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:19.140 and be disgraced when caught. 98 00:09:19.140 --> 00:09:24.620 Now they announce the policy as responsible statecraft that is consistent with the teachings 99 00:09:24.620 --> 00:09:30.940 of modern economics, and the economists stand ready to nod their heads in agreement. 100 00:09:30.940 --> 00:09:35.740 In the face of this, it is time to deal with political reality that no one in Washington, 101 00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:41.620 except of course Ron Paul, has any interest in whatsoever an orderly plan to restore some 102 00:09:41.620 --> 00:09:42.620 money. 103 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:48.620 And yet the problems of fiat money and financial collapse cannot go unaddressed. 104 00:09:48.620 --> 00:09:53.580 What's more, the institutions of fiat money are failing, and this fact will be undeniably 105 00:09:53.580 --> 00:09:57.460 obvious to everyone in a matter of years. 106 00:09:57.460 --> 00:10:04.060 We will look back on the end of the Bush administration as an economic disaster, a capstone of many 107 00:10:04.060 --> 00:10:08.920 horrible years of foreign policy moved to domestic policy. 108 00:10:08.920 --> 00:10:13.080 They will be disgraced, as will be the new administration that pursues all the wrong 109 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.640 measures as a response. 110 00:10:15.640 --> 00:10:20.200 The new messiah will face the same reality that the old one did. 111 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:25.620 No amount of bluster, political will, determined speeches, and money flowing from the printing 112 00:10:25.620 --> 00:10:30.080 press can get around the problem of economic reality. 113 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:35.280 In an essay written at the end of his career, and recently brought back to life by the Mises 114 00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:40.840 and the Mises Institute. F. A. Hayek discusses the only serious means of reform that is open 115 00:10:40.840 --> 00:10:47.600 to us. Of course we need to get rid of the central bank, but money itself must be wholly 116 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:53.360 untied from the state. It must be restored as a private good, privately produced for 117 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:59.040 private markets. Government must have no role at all in monetary affairs. Money should be 118 00:10:59.040 --> 00:11:05.240 produced by private enterprise alone. Banks must exist only as free enterprise institutions 119 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:07.000 with No Privileges from the State. 120 00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:10.180 Ron Paul outlined a similar program 121 00:11:10.180 --> 00:11:12.560 when he was running for president. 122 00:11:12.560 --> 00:11:15.360 What strikes me is how these policies 123 00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:18.680 accord precisely with what Hulsman writes in his book, 124 00:11:18.680 --> 00:11:20.440 The Ethics of Money Production. 125 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:22.460 For he ends with a call to end all intervention 126 00:11:22.460 --> 00:11:24.060 and monetary affairs. 127 00:11:24.060 --> 00:11:25.680 Coinage must be private. 128 00:11:25.680 --> 00:11:27.820 Banking must receive no privileges. 129 00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:29.800 There should be no legal tender laws, 130 00:11:29.800 --> 00:11:33.200 no guarantees, no restrictions on currency use, 131 00:11:33.200 --> 00:11:37.380 a fully laissez-faire system. 132 00:11:37.380 --> 00:11:42.200 What further striking about the Holzman and the Hayek and the Ron Paul idea is that they 133 00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:46.200 offer no plan for restoring a gold dollar. 134 00:11:46.200 --> 00:11:50.600 It is not that any of them would disagree with the idea, but all of them have fully 135 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:56.160 confronted the reality that the idea of converting the existing fiat currency to sound money 136 00:11:56.160 --> 00:12:03.160 is essentially a 19th century ideal that presupposes an enlightened class of political managers. 137 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:08.200 This condition is not met today. 138 00:12:08.200 --> 00:12:10.200 So what is the means? 139 00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:14.200 It is the same as we propose in every area of national life. 140 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:16.200 Get the government out. 141 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:20.200 Let the people be free to manage their own affairs. 142 00:12:20.200 --> 00:12:24.200 Stop interfering with commercial acts between consending adults. 143 00:12:24.200 --> 00:12:27.200 Stop using violence to interfere with economic affairs. 144 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:35.200 Let the people pursue mutually beneficial exchange based on their own self-awareness and self-assessment of the advantages. 145 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:40.200 Let property owners accept the risk and rewards for their own decisions. 146 00:12:40.200 --> 00:12:44.200 It is the same with monetary policy and banking policy too. 147 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:49.200 Let failing banks die. Let profitable banks live. 148 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:55.200 Let the people choose any form of money. Let the people choose any means of payment. 149 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:58.700 Let entrepreneurs create any form of financial instrument. 150 00:12:58.700 --> 00:13:04.700 Law applies only in the way it applies to all other human affairs, punishing force and fraud. 151 00:13:04.700 --> 00:13:08.200 Otherwise, the law should have nothing to do with it. 152 00:13:08.200 --> 00:13:10.200 And what would be the result? 153 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:15.700 Well, we actually cannot know for sure, but history can be a guide in our speculation. 154 00:13:15.700 --> 00:13:22.700 Throughout all time and in all places, precious metals have emerged as the foundation of the monetary system. 155 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:27.300 I think we can have every expectation that the same would be true today. 156 00:13:27.300 --> 00:13:32.700 Evidence comes from how many people turn to gold in difficult times as a store of value, 157 00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:35.900 a safe house from the machinations of government. 158 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:42.300 Gold is probably destined to be the foundation of any new free market monetary system. 159 00:13:42.300 --> 00:13:50.100 To this extent, and with this expectation, all believers in liberty can consider themselves advocates of the gold standard. 160 00:13:50.100 --> 00:13:52.300 But we have to be careful with this phrase. 161 00:13:52.300 --> 00:13:57.800 It's identified with a particular set of policies associated again with 19th century practice. 162 00:13:57.800 --> 00:14:03.300 It was a policy choice among many, but some favored and some opposed. 163 00:14:03.300 --> 00:14:09.300 A free market monetary system of the future will not be a policy option in this sense. 164 00:14:09.300 --> 00:14:12.800 It is not something we want the government to adopt as its own. 165 00:14:12.800 --> 00:14:16.300 In fact, we don't want the government to adopt any particular policy, 166 00:14:16.300 --> 00:14:20.300 but rather abandon the policy option altogether. 167 00:14:20.300 --> 00:14:25.900 There should be no policy at all in the sense that this word is routinely used today. 168 00:14:25.900 --> 00:14:31.700 In this way, a path forward in money and banking is no different from the path forward in agriculture, 169 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:36.300 labor, health care, education or any other sector. 170 00:14:36.300 --> 00:14:39.300 The right policy is no policy. 171 00:14:39.300 --> 00:14:43.400 The job of the government is to stop interfering altogether. 172 00:14:43.400 --> 00:14:48.200 I'm aware that this is a big intellectual leap for most everyone these days. 173 00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:55.200 But you only need to consider the myriad ways in which government fails at everything it attempts, whereas the market succeeds. 174 00:14:55.200 --> 00:15:04.200 There is nothing about the structure of the universe that confers upon money and banking any special status that requires the government to regulate it, 175 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:11.200 to serve as the lender of last resort, the marker of money, the guarantor of stability, or anything else. 176 00:15:11.200 --> 00:15:16.200 A free market on money would work the same as a free market in anything else. 177 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:24.200 What about making the case for freedom? It's not easy these days. But consider what we are asking. 178 00:15:24.200 --> 00:15:30.200 We're not asking the President to do anything. We're not asking for Congress to intervene with a plan. 179 00:15:30.200 --> 00:15:35.200 No one is demanding that the Fed adopt this policy as versus that policy. 180 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:40.200 All we are asking is that they not intervene in the attempts by the market to fix the problems 181 00:15:40.200 --> 00:15:46.200 They have created that the central bank and the executive department have fastened upon us. 182 00:15:46.200 --> 00:15:53.200 Just imagine what would happen if legal tender laws were repealed and the government stopped intervention in the market for money. 183 00:15:53.200 --> 00:16:01.200 Virtually overnight, we would see the appearance of hundreds, if not thousands, of new payment systems and alternative monies online. 184 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:05.200 Merchants would be free to accept any means of payment. 185 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:10.200 There would be intense competition among them. Some would be foreign currencies like the euro. 186 00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:15.200 Some would be new currencies based on existing commodities such as gold and silver. 187 00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:20.200 I'm certain that we would even see a period of wild experimentation take place 188 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:28.200 for the market to settle back down into a standard system that would be famed for its reliability and stability and honesty. 189 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:33.200 Would we be able to endure the process of discovery? Of course. 190 00:16:33.200 --> 00:16:43.200 We do this every day with our shopping online and searches for good providers of services and products in the physical world and our habits on how to invest our money. 191 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:48.200 The market is a process of trial and error, one that never stops innovating and changing. 192 00:16:48.200 --> 00:16:58.200 We see every day on the World Wide Web how this process of creation and change create the right balance between chaos and order, experimentation and standardization. 193 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:01.200 This would happen in the field of money too. 194 00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:08.200 In fact, it might have happened already had the Feds not intervened to stop the rise of alternative payment systems. 195 00:17:08.200 --> 00:17:12.200 Walmart might have already entered the banking sector. 196 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:16.200 We might have a wide variety of currencies available to us. 197 00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:21.200 Google might have created its own currency based on a number of goods. 198 00:17:21.200 --> 00:17:26.200 We might have more elaborate use of barter in the online world taking place, 199 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:29.200 and that barter solely converting itself into currency. 200 00:17:29.200 --> 00:17:35.100 This might be based on, who knows, Google ad points, PayPal dollars, some other currency. 201 00:17:35.100 --> 00:17:40.900 Had a free market in money been permitted to develop over the last ten years, we would 202 00:17:40.900 --> 00:17:42.820 have an option today. 203 00:17:42.820 --> 00:17:47.580 As it is, we're being forced to stay within a falling dollar system. 204 00:17:47.580 --> 00:17:52.420 What we've been hearing from Washington is that the economy in this country will be patched 205 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:55.640 up by sheer force of will. 206 00:17:55.640 --> 00:17:59.840 If we have hope and work together, everything is possible. 207 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:03.200 There's only one thing standing in the way of this wish. 208 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:05.560 It's called economics. 209 00:18:05.560 --> 00:18:09.080 Economic reality is more than a brick wall. 210 00:18:09.080 --> 00:18:13.320 It's like the sea or the world's tallest mountain 211 00:18:13.320 --> 00:18:16.160 or like the force of gravity itself. 212 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:20.680 Economic forces pay no attention to the wishes 213 00:18:20.680 --> 00:18:23.840 of charismatic leaders and their throngs 214 00:18:23.840 --> 00:18:26.320 of Adoring Followers. 215 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:30.760 However, there is a kernel of truth in the idea that the force of will can make a difference. 216 00:18:30.760 --> 00:18:35.140 Transfer this hope and that will outside the institutions of government and into the free 217 00:18:35.140 --> 00:18:36.300 market. 218 00:18:36.300 --> 00:18:41.520 Let experimentation and innovation begin to take place under conditions of freedom. 219 00:18:41.520 --> 00:18:45.160 We will begin to see the emergence of an answer. 220 00:18:45.160 --> 00:18:49.280 We need the government merely to let the market be free of political violence. 221 00:18:49.280 --> 00:18:53.000 We will begin to see our way out of this mess. 222 00:18:53.000 --> 00:18:59.280 The government today is marshaling every resource and every means at its disposal to prop up 223 00:18:59.280 --> 00:19:06.440 a failing system of the past. Meanwhile, we live in completely new times. These new times 224 00:19:06.440 --> 00:19:12.240 are characterized by an international division of labor, global capital flows, digital information 225 00:19:12.240 --> 00:19:18.480 delivery and the slow but systematic destruction of the establishment in media, banking and 226 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:24.040 and Finance. What is emerging to replace them is something that no government on the planet 227 00:19:24.040 --> 00:19:31.040 can stop. Markets will not be crushed and they will resist control as never before. 228 00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:38.200 These new times are not the 1930s when a few eggheads in Washington could set most prices 229 00:19:38.200 --> 00:19:44.680 and wages and gather the captains of industry to cobble together business cartels. The economic 230 00:19:44.680 --> 00:19:52.680 The economic and financial world moves at the speed of light and is so diffuse that no political authority can act quickly enough to control it. 231 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:56.680 The establishment is going down. 232 00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:09.680 This is another reason that all believers in freedom have reason to rejoice today. 233 00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:16.680 In 12 to 18 months from now, it will be obvious there is nothing the new administration can do to patch things up. 234 00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:22.680 Obama will be humbled before the market, just as Bush and Clinton were before him. 235 00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:30.680 But this time, the humbling will overwhelm any attempt to patch things up or put a spin on the much-needed upheaval. 236 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:37.680 Yes, there is suffering, thanks to what the Federal Reserve and its allies have done to us in past years. 237 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:43.340 But as a student of the Austrian School and a student of the history of liberty, you have 238 00:20:43.340 --> 00:20:48.760 the confidence and the clarity to see that freedom alone provides the answers. 239 00:20:48.760 --> 00:20:54.400 It is time for calm in the face of the storm. 240 00:20:54.400 --> 00:21:01.560 Let advocates of freedom be steadfast, rational, clear and focused on the long term. 241 00:21:01.560 --> 00:21:06.960 Be of good cheer and never stop pointing out the truth about freedom. 242 00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:12.960 The answer is not the left, nor the right, nor the state. The way out of this mess is freedom. 243 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:23.960 It is time we defer to it, and to the revolution in the status quo that freedom implies, and give up pretending as if any politician is going to be able to stop it. 244 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:38.960 Thank you very much.