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Trump’s Economic Era

President Trump supports a semblance of the gold
standard as a part of his economic agenda. He has stated
in several interviews that, “Bringing back the gold
standard would be very hard to do, but boy would it be
wonderful. We’d have a standard on which to base our
money.” Either gold or silver could back up our money.

There have been political reform movements
before that have called for a sound money system. The
author L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz in 1900
as a parable on the Populist Party, a party that was
independent of the Democrats and Republicans and
opposed the “concentration of capital” by banks and big
business. The Yellow Brick Road is the gold standard.
Big business supported the gold standard, while
reformers favored silver and paper money. Oz is an
abbreviation for an ounce of silver, and the Wizard is
any president whose power is illusory. Dorothy
represents virtuous, hard-working citizens who were
attracted to radical politics (sound familiar?) because
they realized things had gone wrong and that the events
needed to change.

COMMERCIAL BANKS AND THE FED

The U.S. banking system consists of a network of
privately owned commercial banks and government-
sanctioned Federal Reserve Banks. A commercial bank
is an institution that accepts demand and savings
deposits and makes loans to the public. There are
approximately 12,000 commercial banks in America,
but small community banks are going out of business
almost every day. Over half of total assets reside in the
following six financial institutions: Bank of America

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