This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, November 29th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

How We Get From Here, Depreciating Fiat Money controlled by

Adventuresome Central Bankers to their gold standard and price stability

is not as long a path as you might imagine.

So says Cato Institute adjunct scholar Kevin Dowd.

We spoke at theen Institute's monetary conference

held this month.

Well I think that the number one criticism is that the monetary interventionists hate it. To me that's its most obvious virtue.

Now you quote Alan Greenspan in your paper here in pointing out that the people who don't

like it also realize that economic freedom and money are connected.

That's correct. So Greenspan, this was before Greenspan's apostasy, this is an old paper by Greenspan in 1966

when he was still a libertarian gold standard advocate.

It's a beautiful quote.

It basically says that the enemies of gold and the enemies of freedom are essentially the same.

When I talk to Larry White about gold standard, he argues, well you don't want to be the first country

that goes from wherever you are back to a gold standard, but being the second country could be nice.

You understand that idea?

Yes, I do.

Whether being the first mover is an advantage or a disadvantage.

You can argue it both ways.

I think Britain was the first mover in 1819 it was a very sound thing to do I think

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