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Tom Woods speaking in Boulder, Co.  This video is 1 hour long, but it may be the best 1 hour ever spent!  Should be mandatory viewing for every American before they enter the voting booth.  Hayek and the Austrian Business - Economic cycle theory are fully explained and applied to historical cycles of boom and bust, with particular attention, very humurous attention i might add, to the 2001 and 2008 financial collapse. One thing puzzles me though.  I kept wondering how it is we restructure the banking system?  Killing the Federal reserve is just the start.  But how do we "free" the market balance of investment, resources and savings from the disruption of artificial or mistaken interest rates?  It seems to me that Banks have always had difficulty with the allocation of investment resources - "capital" with a K. As i listened to Tom, totally captured by his engaging presentation, the depths of his thinking, and the humorous delivery, i couldn't help but think that one way of ending the vicious cycles of interest rate buffoonery would be to end the Federal Bankster Reserve, put the currency into the hands of the US Treasury, with the States electing currency governors to control the Treasury; but fixing the interest rate of treasury currency to the value of "Lawful money" as defined in the Constitution to be that which is redeemable in Gold or Silver.  As in, the historical value of the dollar = 371.25 troy grains of silver.  The fact is, "Lawful money" is a Constitutional requirement. Today we have two kinds of dollars: fiat, or funny money, and, Lawful money.  The conversion rate between fiat dollars and Gold is once again near $1700 per ounce.  My question is; How do we derive a "Lawful Interest Rate" from the ratio of fiat to "Lawful money"?  Seems to me that for the Austrian business cycle to work, some guidance to a "Lawful Interest Rate" must be outlined.

Libertarian Tom Woods addresses the Texas State Liertarian Convention, June 2012.