Seth Lipsky at The New York Sun wants Trump to tackle inflation—fair enough. But his call to “rally public opinion” before pegging the dollar to gold is a mess. Lipsky’s sweating a persuasion tour like it’s a must for a hard money revolution. Why the panic? When America moves, the world follows—no pep rally needed.
Nixon didn’t beg to ditch Bretton Woods in ‘71. No chats, no polls—just a Camp David huddle, a gold peg axed, and a “New Economic Policy” dropped on live TV. The public accepted it, though it led to worse outcomes. Trump’s got the thumotic fire to fix that. Lipsky’s got it backward: commanders don’t plead, they lead.
Why telegraph the play? Touting a gold peg early hands rivals like China and Russia a shot to front-run our markets or dump dollars for chaos. Geopolitics is chess, not a soapbox. Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, knows this cold. In a November sit-down with Roger Stone, he nailed Nixon’s float as the root of today’s dollar rot—$100 in 1971 buys $15 now.
Why might now be the moment for a swift dollar fix? Robert Mundell wrote in his 1998 essay, “Could Gold Make a Comeback?”, “A superpower never pushes monetary reform unless it sees a chance to break a threat to its hegemony.” Trump’s warned global players not to seek dollar alternatives. Bessent gets it—a gold-pegged dollar is a hammer to smash budding rival systems (think BRICS).
The fix? Peg the dollar to gold, hard and fast. First, audit and confirm the U.S. Mint’s 147.3 million ounces at Fort Knox—over half the government’s hoard. That’s enough to back a stable gold standard and anchor the dollar’s value. Nixon cut the cord with an executive flick; Trump can tie it back just as swiftly. Gold kills monetary inflation—prices become clean supply-demand signals, not floating-dollar-fueled distortions.
Bessent’s no theorist—he’s got his finger on the pulse of market signals. Three months ago, with gold at $2,600 an ounce, he flagged Costco’s gold bar boom as a “rocket ride” signaling distrust in fiat currency. Now, with gold at $2,875, that ride’s underway. This surge shows a public craving for stability that a gold peg could deliver.
Mundell told Bretton Woods Research over a decade ago the world could adopt a gold-pegged dollar “practically overnight” with the right leadership. Trump’s that leader—Bessent’s the brain.
Lipsk is wise - he notes prices rose just 0.2% a year under gold from 1792 to 1913—but he’s off on the mode: persuasion’s for poets, not presidents backed by the popular vote. Nixon didn’t ask; he did. Trump’s got the mandate—and the gold—to restore a stable dollar and let prices signal supply and demand like they did during America’s first Golden Age of economic expansion and innovation. No megaphone required.
