Next to the Perth Mint's CEO office is an old bookcase filled with many dusty titles from CEOs past. The title "The War on Gold" on the spine of one of them caught my eye today. Published in 1977 by Antony Sutton, it is a bit of a depressing read as little seems to have changed - consider these statements from its back cover:
* The US debt pyramid - what do municipal bonds, domestic bank, and other institutional failures mean for the price of gold?
* Confidence in the monetary system - is panic just around the corner?
* Manipulation of the market price - how long can the US Treasury keep the price of gold down?
* Gold and freedom - why totalitarians always forbid the private ownership of gold.
Same issues being discussed today, over 30 years later. Anyway, I found Mr Sutton's glossary amusing. He prefaces it with the statement "Common words or phrases used by money manipulators, and their meaning is laymen's language." Some selections:
* A Crisis in Confidence - general public discovers it has be conned by politicians and bureaucrats.
* Run on the Bank - general public discovers it has been conned by the bankers.
* Hoarding - precautionary saving of wealth (usually gold) by individuals.
* Reserves - precautionary saving of gold by Governments.