CNN Host Confronts Stephen Moore's Lie About Gold Standard In Real Time

By Karoli Kuns — April 12, 2019

Erin Burnett led off her interview of Stephen Moore by asking him about whether he thought the gold standard was right for modern monetary policy, a topic upon which right wing "economists" follow Ron Paul and the John Birchers.

Moore demurred, "I don't think I've ever said anything much about this but I'm not in favor of the gold standard. I'm in favor of using commodities as a forward looking indicator for what prices are."

To which Erin Burnett says, "Roll clips."

Here we go:

2010: I think we have to re-establish some kind of gold standard
2016: Asked about whether he would recommend gold standard to Donald Trump, "because to Make America Great Again you've got to make the money great again," Moore replied, "This is about monetary policy...I like the idea of going to a gold standard."

Back to you, Stephen.

"I think that a gold standard would certainly be better than what we have right now, but there's a much better system that we could put in place which would not just look at gold but all commodities. I think they're a very good and forward-looking indicator for where prices are going," he spluttered.

Burnett: So you've changed your mind.

Moore tosses some BS on the table: "I think a gold standard would probably be restrictive. What I am in favor of is looking at a whole basket of commodities -- you know, 30 commodities to see what's --"

But wait! He said ALL COMMODITIES 30 seconds ago.

(snip)

Moore, trying again to confuse things: I am. I'm in favor of a rule over discretionary policy....What I'm in favor of is a stable dollar...you want the dollars in your pocket to be worth --

Burnett tries again to point out that he is contradicting all the things he said before, to no avail.

John Harwood sums up the conversation this way:

1. Moore says he doesn’t favor gold standard
2. Erin plays 3 Moore pro-gold standard bites
3. Moore calls gold standard better than current system
4. Moore calls gold standard “overly restrictive”
5. Moore says something like gold standard would’ve prevented financial crisis https://t.co/4adq6bKN9l

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) April 12, 2019

All of this is argle-bargle. Tying monetary policy to a commodities index is a super way to destabilize the dollar and subject it to the whims of gamed markets. After watching this conversation and those clips, I'm pretty sure Stephen Moore has no clue what monetary policy is or how the gold standard works. You'd expect someone who wants to be on the board of the Federal Reserve to understand that, I'd think.

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