Pres. Kennedy assasination theory...?

Question

I heard someone speaking about Pres. Kennedy's intent to return America to the gold standard monetary system, and if I remember correctly, the speaker related this intent to why some people in high places like BIG BANKERS would have liked to've seen Pres. Kennedy not alive.

Can anyone explain why a return to the gold standard would hurt BIG BANKERS and/or does anyone know of any books that discuss this conspiracy theory on the Kennedy assassination? Thank you to all who answer.

Answer 1

You are asking two questions. Here they are in order

The gold standard is a monetary system. Gold is used in coin or bullion form as money. Paper money is backed by gold. This means you can exchange the paper money for real gold.

The problem with using gold as coinage is it's weight, softness and rarity. Carrying large amounts of money is difficult. Gold wears quickly so true amount of a coin changes, and there's a limit to how much gold there is. The American five dollar coin was about the size of today's nickel.

While paper money solves many of the problems with gold coins, there is the potential for problems when large numbers of people try to convert their paper money for gold. In times of emergencies, depressions and panics, runs on banks to convert to gold are common. When the bank doesn't have enough gold to redeem the paper money, it will fail. In American people used gold and silver certificates, what we today recognize as dollar bills.

A major problem with the gold standard is that the amount of money in circulation is limited. Investment funds are hard to obtain and industrial expansion difficult. Banks benefit but business suffers from a lack of investment dollars.

During the 1800 and attempt was made to adopt a bimetal standard. Silver in a ration of 15 to 1 of gold would be used. This was popular among farmers and those seeking to expand their business. The resulting inflation would increase prices paid for crops and allow farmers to pay off loans made under the gold standard. Bankers hated this as the bank loans were being paid back with inflated currency.

Until the 1930s people still used gold certificates as money. With the start of the Great Depression the Federal Government recalled all gold coins and gold certificates. It became illegal to hold own gold. The famous Lindbergh Kidnapping was broken partly due to the ransom being paid in gold certificates. When the bills were passed, they immediate cast suspicion on the kidnapper.

Silver certificates were used until the 1960s. You could actually purchase an ounce of silver using them. The nation then shifted to the dollar bills we use today. Not backed by metal, they are supported by the economy.


With the Kennedy assassination theories better be ready for a big paper. A few years ago I ran across a book that contained summaries of the known Kennedy assassination theories. As I recall there were some 40 odd.The big banker theory is however, new to me.

Commenting on the various theories, one critic stated that the grassy knoll was quite "crowded with gunmen," and none of them, or witnesses saw the other assassins!

I prefer the "Umbrella Man" theory. There is a person captured in a number of photos and films of the assassination. He's holding a black umbrella. (open on s sunny day with no rain!) The theory is that a gun was concealed by the umbrella and provided a clear shot over the heads of the crowd.

Impossible? Not supported by facts? The theory is contradicted by other facts? That's the problem with all the Kennedy assassination theories. All suffer from problems with facts.

When you do your research, remember that the author of each theory has invested a great deal of time, money and prestige in "his" theory. They will not take kindly to anyone that pokes holes in "their" theory.

Another thing to keep in mind is the saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Most theorists present their case then demand someone else prove otherwise. That's just the opposite of the scientific method. Put it this way: A light in the sky is just that, a light. Someone can claim it's the Starship Enterprise, however the burden to prove their claim is on them, not us. It's the same with the theories.

Most published theories contained a phrase similar to: "Supposed a gunman carried an umbrella..." a few pages later this becomes: "The gunman with the umbrella gun selected a location..." See how "suppose" suddenly became "fact"?

There was an early claim that the bolt-operated rifle could not be reloaded fast enough. The theory ran that it took so many seconds to work the bolt, loading the rifle. Three shots totaled so much time. The President was in range for less then that time. "Therefore a second gunman was there." However, the theory required that the gunman start with an unloaded rifle. The President would come into range, the rifle would be loaded, etc. Once one started with a loaded weapon, there suddenly was enough time.

The "magic bullet" theory is popular. Theories that use this claim the bullet that hit the two men had to change direction after hitting Kennedy, shift to the right several inches; then pass through Connelly. This ignores the known seating arrangements and positions of the two men at impact. In fact I watched a TV special recently where they reenacted the shooting. The same type of weapons, same ammo lot and same distance and speeds. The bullet impacts were within an inch or two of the actual wounds.

One witness that claims to have heard shots from the grassy knoll also claims to have run across the street and up to the knoll. Pictures of her show her standing in the same spot and never crossing the street. She also claims Kennedy turned and waved to her. The photos disprove this.

Photos of a supposed gunman positioned on the grassy knoll have been analyzed. What some theorists claim to be a man standing is really an object only 18 inches high.

Most Kennedy theories require a vast complex conspiracy to operate. It's amazing that such a conspiracy has lasted 40 years. After all, it was impossible for a President to conceal an affair in the White House!

Belief in a conspiracy benefits the theorists. After all they can always claim that the cover-up has removed the very evidence needed to "prove" their theory. To explain this further, remember the saying: "It's a total fiction and so can never be disprove!" Most theories of the assassination claim that the truth is going to come out, soon, just wait, they promise, really.

So, keep a healthy dose of skepticism, use critical thinking and start your research with these sites:

Answer 2

I don't know of any books on this subject, though I stopped reading them when I became convinced beyond any doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy to kill JFK. It has been proven beyond any reason to doubt. Now, there might be some book on the subject, and they might have an interesting theory about the assassination, but Oswald had nothing to do with it, and they had nothing to do with JFK's death.

The Warren Commission report, although not perfect, was pretty much correct.

If you read the book CASE CLOSED by Posner and watch the A&E documentary THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION - BEYOND CONSPIRACY, you will find that a conspiracy theory, based on the evidence of the time and evidence made possible by modern technology (such as 3-D computer models) shows that there were no shots other than Oswalds.

I could list 1000 different reasons Oswald acted alone, but to keep it brief here are just a couple:

--- Oswald told people for months that he would become famous by killing an important person, and had even attempted to do that once before but failed.

--- Oswald started working at that building 5 months before it was even considered for JFK to go to Dallas.

--- The he-can't-fire-three-shots-that-quickly theory is silly. An 85-year-old man did it in the A&E special.

--- The Mob, the Cubans, the Russians - all rejected Oswald because he was unbalanced and violent. As the KGB agent said, "If we were going to find someone to kill Kennedy, would we have picked such an obvious person, someone who had publicly been to Russia and sent back?"

--- Although witnesses were confused (as you can imagine) the overwhelming majority of them pointed to the book depository.

The list foes on and on.

I used to be a big conspiracy buff - I read all the books and believed that one of them had to be true. Turns out that facts can be twisted a hundred different ways, but the cold, hard facts are that Oswald was an unbalanced man who happened to be in the right place at the right time to do a terrible thing.

Answer 3

The most important book suggesting conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination written at the time is Rush To Judgment by Mark Lane. The "Gold Standard" theory is new to me and completely bonkers. There was no plan to return to the gold standard in the Kennedy administration. Fidel Castro and the Mafia are the villains in most of the conspiracy theories.

Answer 4

First off, the United States was taken off the gold standard in 1933 as FDR's "100 Days" program. This was done so that the dollar's value was solely backed by consumer confidence. It was also done to keep people from hoarding gold in the Great Depression. A return to the gold standard would not necessarily hurt bankers, but it would allow for a lesser amount of money to enter the mainstream economy as people would cash in their paper currency for hard gold. Therefore, bankers would have to keep up with the international prices for gold to see how much it was worth.

Answer 5

I find it ironic that some who like to think of themselves as “conservative patriots” are advocates of a system that would export the control of our nation’s money system to foreigners.

[This is article 1 of 3 in this week’s portion of my nonpartisan “Ironies” series, a diverse array of criticisms, distributed evenly and fairly among an inclusive list of ideologies—liberal, conservative, and nondenominational—to achieve my Diversity and Inclusion goals for 2007.]


Hey, I like gold coins just as much as the next person; they’re shiny, they don’t tarnish, the artwork is beautiful, and they just feel valuable sitting there in my hand. But that does not mean that I think the gold standard would be a good basis for our monetary system. I think it’s a really bad idea. That irritates some who think of themselves as conservative, or patriotic, or fiscally responsible—and there are more than a few politicians in that group.

Although I haven’t found many economists, of any ideology, who think the gold standard is a good idea for today’s economy, I have seen internet forum after internet forum packed with participants who do. Even though most economists understand both the economic inadvisability and the political impossibility of a return to the gold standard, that message hasn’t yet reached the status of common knowledge. With this article, I’m giving that message a boost, I hope.

I assume we can all agree that inflation is undesirable, regardless of what we’re using for “money”: paper, seashells, cows, cow patties, whale teeth, or gold coins. When it takes more “money” next year than this year to buy bread of equal quality (in equal supply and equal demand), “money” has lost some of its value. That’s inflation, and it’s undesirable because it means money is not maintaining a stable value for economic transactions. [By the same token, deflation is just as undesirable, for the very same reason.]

Money that maintains a stable, predictable value is the goal, because that eliminates one complicating variable for people exchanging real goods and services.

So what’s wrong with a dollar that’s tied to gold, instead of today’s dollar that’s tied to nothing but the federal government’s decree? After all, with mere “fiat money” won’t the government (as history has demonstrated) eventually turn up the printing presses to inflate its way out of the debt, or to gain the illusion of higher tax revenue without having to raise taxes? Wouldn’t tying the dollar to gold protect the value of the dollar?

Well, the best answer to that might be a thought experiment:

Assume we were on the gold standard today. What if science all of a sudden came up with a new technology that flooded the market with gold—say, a high-volume nanoscale process that extracted gold from seawater at a cost of a nickel per ton of gold?

Answer: That would be the gold equivalent of cranking up the printing presses and flooding the market with paper dollars.

Here’s how Dr. Rick Boettger chose to convey the same idea (in his book The Deficit Lie—one of the most entertaining economics books I’ve ever read and re-read):

Using gold to back up money is like using old poker chips to back up new ones. Gold is nothing but an old-fashioned form of money.

Now for a more-realistic angle on that same thought experiment:

Assume we were on the gold standard today—even though 90% of the world’s gold is produced by foreigners, and even though a significant portion of the known gold deposits are controlled by Russian and South African goldmine owners. What if the Russian, South African, and other goldmine owners, colluding with their political leaders, decided their countries could deal the US economy a big blow—thereby gaining a significant relative advantage in international trade and power—if they restricted or cutoff their gold production? How would our gold-standard economy respond to a “Gold Embargo”?

More importantly: Why expose our monetary system to the ups and downs and lags of world gold production? Why invite "monetary shocks" that would precipitate excessive inflations or deflationary recessions? Why not leave the control of our currency’s stability—our paper “fiat” currency—in the hands of Americans? Wouldn’t that be better than ceding control to Russian or South African goldmine owners? After all, as this Cato article pointed out:

...no country has ever been able to maintain a gold standard . . . gold's value [as money] derives from its long history as a store of value and is wrongly assumed to be intrinsic.

I’m with most economists: control of America’s monetary system belongs with Americans. Today, that’s the Fed Board of Governors. Hey, they aren’t perfect; they’ve made some pretty bad mistakes in the past. Not only that, but there are some people (e.g., see the Cato article above) who think the Fed’s job could be quasi-automated. Nonetheless, the Fed Board of Governors is in control now—and it is a group of Americans with a clear objective of keeping US dollar inflation low and under control.

Summary
Ironically, the gold standard is anti-American. Paper “fiat” money—money that’s money just because the government says it’s money and everybody accepts it as money—is better than gold.