In this world, what isn't lacking, somewhere, though? Sometimes it's this, or that: here what's missing's gold. - Goethe, Faust, Part II, translated by A.S. Kline Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column of August 24, "Galt, Gold and God," rails against an interest in the gold standard, which he attributes to Paul Ryan. Krugman lambastes Ryan, ironically enough, for an observation the latter made paraphrasing Keynes: "'There is nothing more insidious that a country can do to its citizens,' he intoned, 'than debase its currency.'" Rather than alluding to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, however, Krugman would do well to dig into a classic: Goethe's Faust, Part II. Scott Minerd, chief investment officer at Guggenheim, writing in the Financial Times recently, brilliantly called contemporary monetary policy "the ultimate Faustian bargain." Paper money comes straight from Mephistopheles. The History of Money by Jack Weatherford recounts the story. Faust and Mephistopheles visit the court of the emperor during the pre-Lentin carnival season of masquerades and tricks. The emperor is besieged....
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