Matt Ray



Articles by Matt Ray

Two Cheers for Vivek Ramaswamy for His Commentary on the Fed

The 2024 presidential primaries have never been in much doubt, but Vivek Ramaswamy emerged from his presidential campaign poised for the future. In part, Ramaswamy distinguished himself with his criticism of the Federal Reserve. For most of the election cycle, scarcely a word has been said about the Fed by other 2024 presidential candidates. It is therefore worth reviewing what Ramaswamy had to say about monetary policy during his campaign.As Jonathan Newman noted, Ramaswamy’s principal proposal was a stable price level for the dollar. Ramaswamy promoted this idea throughout his campaign, but our focus will be an article by Ramaswamy in the Wall Street Journal that presents his case in greater detail. Ramaswamy writes:Beginning in the late 1990s, the Fed’s scope drifted to include

Read More »

Will Oklahoma’s Legislature Embrace Sound Money? Maybe

On February 5, 2024, Oklahoma Representative Cody Maynard introduced House Bill 3027, which would eliminate all capital gains taxes on gold and silver and expand legal tender to include not only gold and silver coins issued by the US government, but other specie that an Oklahoma court rules to be within state authority to make or designate as legal tender. While the bill has yet to be debated and passed in the Oklahoma House, this could be a realistic step toward sound money and a model for other states to follow. In the long term, we must also seek the nullification or repeal of all federal taxes and restrictions in order to achieve a free market in gold and private commodity money, but this becomes more plausible with each additional restriction removed at the state level.Needless to

Read More »