For Greenspan, Gold Once Glittered

In a chapter titled "Money: The Forbidden Issue in American Politics," Paul narrates his mid-1990s meeting with Greenspan at a special meeting in Congress in which the two were photographed together. As a long-avowed advocate of returning to a currency based on the gold standard, Paul decided to bring along his original copy of Greenspan's 1966 article from the Objectivist Newsletter called "Gold and Economic Freedom."

In the paper, Greenspan laid out an economic and moral case for a commodity-based monetary system vs. a fiat paper system, like the one now used in the U.S. When Greenspan wrote the paper, the U.S. dollar was still loosely tied to the gold standard. President Richard Nixon later severed the already tenuous link completely in 1971 -- the beginning of a painful period of stagflation in the U.S. economy.

When Paul presented Greenspan's old paper to him, the Fed chairman agreed to sign it.

"As he was doing so, I asked if he wanted to write a disclaimer on the article," Paul writes. "He replied good-naturedly that he had recently reread the piece and that he would not change a word of it. I found that fascinating: could it be that, in his heart of hearts, Greenspan still believed in the bullet-proof logic of that classic article?"

Years later, Paul brought up the article and its arguments to Greenspan when he was giving public testimony to the Financial Services Committee in 2005, and Greenspan changed his tune.