Yesterday at the top of his Fox News show, Glenn Beck said that America might be “facing the end of the almighty dollar.” He then did an entire segment decrying the demise of the dollar and warning about hyperinflation. As a brilliant solution, he advocated that Americans turn to gold, even using props to show how badly off people will be if they don’t invest in gold:
BECK: So, everybody gave us the gold. We still had a nice stack of cash here, and gold.
You’re over here. You don’t have any gold, right? This is you. This is you. This is your savings.
How much did you lose if you had any money in your 401k? Did you lose, let’s say, I don’t know, 40 percent of it? So, that’s gone.
He then brought on David Buckner of Columbia University to echo his gold cheerleading:
BECK: Any way to protect yourself?
BUCKNER: Well, you invest in things that are friendly to inflation.
BECK: Gold.
BUCKNER: Gold, real estate and some realm of the world.
Watch it:
“So Beck essentially scares his audience into believing that hyperinflation and economic collapse is a near sure thing and then advises them to buy gold to protect themselves,” writes Ryan Witt for the Examiner.com. “All along Beck never mentions that a gold-buying company happens to be one of his few remaining sponsors.”
As Witt notes, eighty companies have stopped advertising on Beck’s show since Color Of Change started its boycott in August. These companies include major names like General Mills, AT&T, Wal-Mart, and Bank of America. Most of Beck’s remaining advertisers are conservative organizations like the National Review or little-known corporations such as…the Superior Gold Group, Rosland Capital, and Goldline International. In fact, during Beck’s gold promotion show yesterday, Goldline ran an ad that said almost exactly what Beck said on his show: Americans should be buying gold because of hyperinflation. Watch it:
Goldline’s website also features a picture of Beck and the quote, “Before I started turning you on to Goldline, I wanted to look them in the eye. This is a top notch organization that’s been in business since 1960.”
On The Wonk Room, Pat Garofalo points out that CNBC is now using Beck as an economic indicator, taking Beck’s conflict-of-interest tirade as the true indicator that the dollar’s six month slide in value is effectively over.
Transcript:
BECK: Tonight, are we facing the end of the almighty dollar? [...]
So I’m sure we can all assume that the dollar is here to stay, and everything is just peachy. But in the off-chance that, maybe, somebody in the Middle East wouldn’t tell us exactly the truth, you know, that they’re not exactly 100 percent reliable, maybe we should discover what it means for our dollar and our country if it’s no longer pegged to oil. What does that mean for you?
Well, everybody — everybody, let me show you this. A long time ago, back after the world — after the World War, in fact, during World War I, it started. America had a whole bunch of gold. Everybody had gold. OK? But they were borrowing money from us, because they were fighting the war. So, we said, “You know what? Why don’t you just give us some gold?”
Now, after World War II, we officially went to the gold standard for the U.S., and we said, “You know what? There’s just not enough gold for everybody. Why don’t you just use the dollar? And what we’ll do is we’ll give you guys an equal amount of money so everybody has currency. U.S. dollars — it’s fantastic, and we’ll just stay — we’ll keep all the gold, and we promise, we’re never going to trash our dollar. We never would do that to you guys because we love you, and we’re trustworthy.” Got it?
So, everybody gave us the gold. We still had a nice stack of cash here, and gold.
You’re over here. You don’t have any gold, right? This is you. This is you. This is your savings.
How much did you lose if you had any money in your 401k? Did you lose, let’s say, I don’t know, 40 percent of it? So, that’s gone.
Now, did you know that the dollar has lost nearly 29 percent of its value in the last seven years? Twenty-nine percent. OK, that’s gone. Just gone. [...]
BECK: So, where in — and this is what — who’s getting screwed here? The big guys understand what’s going on. Who’s getting screwed here? The little guy.
BUCKNER: It’s going to be the American individual –
BECK: People.
BUCKNER: — the American citizen, because what we’re going to do is we’re going to go over there and the government is going to be able to pay off through inflation, but people — people won’t be able to.
BECK: Any way to protect yourself?
BUCKNER: Well, you invest in things that are friendly to inflation.
BECK: Gold.
BUCKNER: Gold, real estate and some realm of the world. It’s kind of a twisted way of saying it.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCKNER: — if you have it.
BECK: If you own it.
BUCKNER: You’re never going to be able to sell it because interest rates will go so high people won’t be able to, you know, finance it, but your value will go up, because it’s inflation-driven. Now, these things have been — they’re not just little warnings. They are things that — they are depending upon. The government is depending upon that.
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