Friday, March 6, 2009

Keynes as Evil Manipulator

Lew Rockwell has a post up this morning hinting that John Maynard Keynes traded on inside informaton. I suspect he was, not on individual companies but based on what moves the Bank of England was about to make with regard to interest rates etc.

I think he also did worse than that. My suspicions are that Keynes along with Bernard Baruch loaded up with gold stocks because they advised FDR (for personal gain) to confiscate gold from private owners and then encouraged FDR to prop up gold by having the Reconstruction Finance Corporation buy it. Keynes even wrote an open letter in the New York Times calling on FDR to fix the dollar at a higher gold price---which FDR did only months after Keynes' letter.

Starting in late 1933, everyday, FDR would meet with advisers and set the gold price--driving the price up (when every other commodity price was collapsing). Finally, in April 1934 as part of the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, the price of gold was fixed at $35 an ounce--67% above its pre-1933 price. Keynes and Baruch made huge profits, since they had both loaded up on gold stocks. Of course, the average American had his gold confiscated and ended up with zilch.

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