Ron DeSantis fumes about fiat currency ‘problems’, stops short of backing return to Gold Standard

Iowans now have a better understanding of Ron DeSantis’ position on America’s devalued dollar.

During a speech in Council Bluffs on Saturday, the 2024 Republican presidential candidate fumed about the issues with “fiat currency,” but did not back a return to the Gold Standard abandoned by the United States by Franklin D. Roosevelt originally in 1933, with the ultimate separation happening during the Richard Nixon era.

“I think the fiat currency has had a lot of problems,” DeSantis said at an event hosted by the Never Back Down super PAC.

The Governor offered specific criticism of Quantitative Easing, a policy embraced in earnest after the 2008 economic crisis, with a second helping of it as federal spending expanded amid the pandemic of 2020.

“There’s no question what the fed has done to manipulate the economy has not been good,” DeSantis said. “If you look at the financial crisis when that happened, they did this thing called quantitative easing and this is like, you know, big time expansion and it was supposed to be like an emergency situation.”

“And what they did is they basically made QE something that was permanent almost. I mean, it became a normal part of monetary policy,” DeSantis added.

DeSantis noted that policy benefited people with “assets” but was detrimental to “middle income” people. While he doesn’t believe a return to the Gold Standard is possible, he does advocate an “audit” of the Federal Reserve, and compelling the Fed to focus on “price stability” rather than economic “central planning.”

At least some of these themes were introduced in July, when the Governor’s campaign rolled out its “Declaration of Economic Independence.”

The Governor then decried “boom-and-bust” policies enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that have been “costly for average Americans,” claiming “quantitative easing” made the rich richer. “Venture socialism” has been the order of the day, DeSantis said, with corporate bailouts and carveouts.

Post Views: 0