In 2003, Dr. Gary North e-published a brief article entitled, "The Myth of the Gold Standard." While Mr. North displays a good deal of historical acumen, the present author maintains that his article misses the theological target at two crucial points, leading to a kind of economic pessimism one would hardly expect from a man notorious for an aggressively "postmillenial" eschatology.

Dr. North argues that there are two problems with the traditional view of "goldbugs." The first is that gold-standard advocates somewhat naively affirm the right of civil governments to coin and manage their own money supply, given their bureaucratic track record as arch-counterfeiters. By this he means that governments act like con-men, first gaining the trust of citizens by printing gold-backed money, only to resort later to the fiat printing of ever-inflating dollars (or rupees, etc.) down the road. And so they have.

He puts it thus: "All of the defenders of the gold standard believe