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At present, financial crises occur, chiefly because the paper currency is redeemable in gold only.

The problem started before World War I. The gold standard was working fairly well. But it broke down because of the war and what happened in the 1920s. And then the U.S. started to become so dominant in the world, with the dollar becoming the central currency after the 1930s, the whole world economy shifted.

The rise in the price of gold is a sign that capitalism has stumbled.

The dollar used to be a gold standard currency. And the dollar is really good in the last century, I mean in the 19th century.

Gold has intrinsic value. The problem with the dollar is it has no intrinsic value. And if the Federal Reserve is going to spend trillions of them to buy up all these bad mortgages and all other kinds of bad debt, the dollar is going to lose all of its value. Gold will store its value, and you'll always be able to buy more food with your gold.

Large sums were paid for the use of money, because the available amount of gold and silver was far less than was needed to carry on the commercial transactions of the times.

I remember being in the Ontario Legislature and the Liberals yelling over at me about the fact that the dollar was rising, and that was bad for business, and didn't I realize that. And I thought, 'What are you talking about?' The value of the currency in part, large part, reflects the world's view of the state of our economy.

In reality there is no such thing as an inflation of prices, relatively to gold. There is such a thing as a depreciated paper currency.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.