Is it Time for Malta to Endorse a 100% Gold Standard? (Part 1 & 2)

A Strategic-Philosophical Meditation on Sovereignty, Wealth, and the Fate of Nations (Part 1)

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Table of Contents

Part 1:
1) The Currency of Sovereignty
2) The Moral Question: Fiat as Injustice, Gold as Justice
3) Menger’s Lesson on the Origins of Money and the Discipline of Reality
4) The Civilisational Stakes: Gold as Permanence and Truth
5) Historical Precedents for Small States on Gold
6) How a Maltese 100% Gold Standard Would Operate?
7) The Austrian-Nationalist-Libertarian Synthesis: Productive Sovereignty
8) The Maltese Middle Class Under Gold: A Lifestyle Secured
9) Family, Home, and Inheritance Under Gold: The Four-Child Household
10) Fiat + Cheap Labour + Property Speculation = Collapse of the National Standards of Living
11) Ending Cheap Labour Importation: A 100% Policy Toolkit

Part 2:

12) Demographic & Family Growth: Children’s Allowance as Statecraft
13) Narizny’s Grand-Strategic Frame: Monetary Discipline & Ruling Coalitions
14) The Human-Scale Economy: Schumacher’s Lesson for Malta
15) The Social Contract Under Gold
16) The Constitution of Money
17) Geo-Economics and Security: Malta as Niche Power
18) Resilience Under Crisis Scenarios
19) Against International Financial Institutions
20) Crisis Playbook & Drills

Part 3: 
To be Continued

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1. The Currency of Sovereignty

 

4. The Civilisational Stakes: Gold as Permanence and Truth

Civilisations are like men, they need anchors. Without anchors, they drift away, tossed overboard by the storm, seduced by an allusion, intoxicated by the present moment until they forget the long chain of generations that binds them together. Some civilisation have anchored themselves in law, others in faith, others in language. But all of them shared one fundamental characteristic when they were at the peak of their heights – Their money was anchored to something beyond the reach of political abuse. So here, gold rises again because its the most enduring civilisational anchor ever known.

Why? Gold resists corruption. It doesn’t decay, nor rust, nor melts away in crisis or inflates itself to the winds of political rhetoric. A gram today, is a gram tomorrow, just as it was a gram in the days of our great-grandfathers. It did not require any speeches, or decrees, neither did it require any form of promise/s. Gold simply endures.

When Hayek reflected back on the gold standard, he saw that the downfall was not economic, but political. Governments passionately hate the gold standard not because it failed, but because it refuses to bow to their incompetence and serve them. Gold is more disciplined than all the states in all human existence put together! Gold refuse illusions and it’s the one anchor that tells Politicians the painful truth “You may not spend what you do not have. You cannot promise what you cannot deliver. You cannot send your peoples’ money out of your nation for International Political applauses. You may not debase reality to buy applauses and another term in power. You cannot engage in prolonged warfare and in large numbers. ” – And for this, it was casted aside. As Hayek put it: the gold standard was hated not because it failed, but because it denied rulers their narcotic of discretion.

For better clarity on the subject, the next question should be “What happens when money is no longer anchored in permanence?” – We see it and feel it everywhere around us. Fiat currency allows political fantasies – deficits without end, promises without costs, obligations without substance. It whispers to politicians that they may govern without sacrifice or responsibility, to bankers that they may lend without savings, to societies that may consume without producing. And yet, like every illusion, the truth will eventually re-asserts itself through inflation, debt slavery, destruction of the middle class, social depressions, and the slow corrosion of trust itself.

Gold demands the truth. Every expense must be matched by revenue, every debt by realistic repayment, every commitment by real capacity. It ties the hands of politicians, so that the hands of families may remain free. It forces nations to live within reality and in this, demand for truth lies not in weakness, but in civilisational strength.

If Malta were to tie its currency to gold, it would not be a romantic gesture, nor a return to some primitive nostalgic era. It would be a cultural statement that would say: “we Will not build our future on sand, we will not trade in illusion, we will not in-dept our children to buy today’s applause”. It would mean that we choose permanence over expediency, truth over fantasy, reality over rhetoric.

In a century where illusions multiply and paper promises crumble down, to anchor money in gold is to anchor your civilisation itself, to untie it is to cast generations into the sea without a keel.

6. How a Maltese 100% Gold Standard Would Operate?

Of course, we can perverse on the abstract of Maltese 100% Gold Standard, but such a question will be incomplete without asking: how would this system work in practice?

This question must be answered plainly, as sovereignty without architecture is only philosophical. A small nation like Malta is in desperate need for philosophers (such job is stolen by lobbyists), but such questions must move forward from mere philosophy to move our nation forward; We need discipline meeting reality.

We must first discuss its Unit and parity – The Maltese lira must be defined in grams of fine gold and not in shifting the shadows of another Euro, Dollar, or Sterling. A weight that carried faith, not mere promises. Parity will be lock into the constitution itself, changeable only by a national referendum, supermajority, and who suggests it, will bare a full-life long responsibility! No government, no parliament, no crisis or emergency decree can tamper with it! Only a constitutional supermajority plus referendum may alter parity, and whoever proposes it bears lifelong political liability.

This is the first line of defence: Sovereign definition itself!

Now we must turn around eyes on, on reserves – A 100% gold backing without compromise! Every banknote, every cent deposited, every unit in circulation must be backed gram for gram by gold in the vaults. No fractional illusions, no maturity mismatches disguised as liquidity. George Selgins’s insistence on Austrian Rigor – Praxeology applied to banking, will teach us that if money is to be trusted, it must not rely on political fictions. Selgin reminds us: if money is to be trusted, it must never rely on fractional illusions. Maltese banks would hold gold as custodians, not as magicians. Payments banks would move gold-backed units; investment banks would intermediate only time deposits, with maturities strictly matched. If you lend, you lend what you actually possess at the given moment in time.

At the third stage, we must enforce it as national defence. Debasement, double pledging, rehypothecation, credit expansion – these actions will not long be considered as technical violations, but rather, a threat to our national security itself! As truthfully they are! A nation that allows his money to be corrupted, allows its sovereignty to be hollowed. Just as treason is punished with severity, monetary betrayal should be as equivalent! Discipline in this field is deterrence itself.

A triad is formed when binding architecture, reserves, and enforcement. An action of sovereignty itself! Malta cannot project military power across oceans (although, it can protect itself against anyone, including superpowers with its specific deterrent strategy – This will be discussed in later thoughts on this page); but it can project itself as a credibility, small Nation across generations.

Credibility rooted in the vaults, becomes the quietest, yet strongest form of national defence! Debasement is not a technicality; it is treason in slow motion, and must be punished as such.

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Part 2

12. Demographic & Family Growth: Children’s Allowance as Statecraft

If labour sovereignty guards the dignity of today, demographic sovereignty guards the survival of tomorrow. A nation can endure foreign debt, it can endure even invasions, but it cannot endure extinction by arithmetic. And Malta, like Europe, stands at the edge of this abyss. Five births a day, and if fortune smiles upon our nation, only one/two is/are Maltese, one/two is/are European, the rest third-country nationals. This is not by fate; it is by design. A deliberate act of demographic replacement statecraft imposed on us, using the language of economics as cover.

Here, Portellian Thought does not flinch. The family unit is sacred and not merely private, but the frontline of our civilisation. Raising children is not a lifestyle choice. It is an act of sovereignty, the most profound act of national defence. If the State is to be worthy of its name, it must recognise this, and not with slogans but with material action.

That is why we must sharpen the arithmetic: one child is extinction, two is stagnation, three is fragile survival, four is security. The four-child household is not utopia, it is the bare minimum of continuity. This is a survival formula.

But the formula alone is not enough. It must be backed by tools of economic statecraft. Inspired by David A. Baldwin reminds us that statecraft is not only coercion abroad, but the allocation of resources at home to shape our survival. Just as subsidies and fiscal policy can be used to favour corporations and lobbyists, so too can they be redirected to favour our birth rates, continuity, and the survival of our blood. That is why we say clearly: children are sovereign wealth.

The policy instruments must be blunt, unapologetic, and permanent:

The Progressive children’s allowance:

• One child — €3,000 annually (€250/month)
• Two children — €4,800 annually (€400/month)
• Three children — €7,200 annually (€600/month)
• Four children — €10,800 annually (€900/month)

Parental leave must also be taken into consideration. Two full years of paid maternity leave for Maltese and Maltese-European couples only, split as they choose, so that children are nurtured at home, and not outsourced from birth to strangers.  

An eligibility restriction must also be in place. These allowance and assistance are for indigenous Maltese and Maltese-European kin only. They are not a welfare tool for imported demographics to ease off our replacement. Every allowance paid and every benefit taken to a Maltese and Maltese-European families must be tied to one less visa for cheap labour, and less corruption/ abuse from the businesses and the entire supply chain that brings them here. Birth will replace importation.

• Resource allocation: All subsidies for speculative industries, maintenance of non-essential governmental entities/ ministries, non-strategic immigration schemes, vanity projects, non-strategic governmental malinvestments, deadweight governmental institutional malinvestments, and the removal of governmental welfare abuse, so these funds must be diverted directly into the natalist fund. This is an OUR Civilisational budget, not a charity fund!
• Birth Rate linked to National Security: Every born child is a shield against our extinction, a rightful heir of our homeland, worldview, and memory; a producer, an entrepreneur, a philosopher, a defender, an artist of our tomorrow. Demographic vitality must be treated as what it actual is – A National Security doctrine, alongside sovereignty and defence.

As of this point onwards, natalism is no longer a sentimental topic and it becomes a statecraft. Our demographical survival must become institutionalised with the same seriousness as military readiness, or disease national security emergency control. If our navy protects our sea, our aircrafts protect our skies, then allowances and benefits protect our cradle of our civilisation. Both are national defence!

Malta 2040 – Two Futures mini-hypothesis.

If natalist statecraft succeeds: Malta in 2040 will become loud with children. Schools will be full of our future – not replacements, apprenticeships will start thriving, trades will get alive again, and there will be an outburst of SMEs, Entrepreneurs, and Sole traders from different fields. Improvisation and innovation will start to spike upwards. The four-child household will no longer remain a rare phenomenon, but rather a normalised norm again, through stabilised money through honest money, and supported by the nation itself. Skilled Maltese security through the return of our youths that once fled and our blood that fled to build other nations, will return, drawn by stability and pride, bringing with them their wealth, capital, and diverse expertise. Malta’s high Culture and high Politics will be on the ascend with numerous spillover effects. Malta is small, but sovereignty assured. It will be anchored by families that multiply, homes that endure, and skills that are reborn. We will become again a Nation with a future! A Nation with a long-term strategic vision.

If natalist statecraft fails: Malta in 2040 will be silent from its blood, but very loud with its replacements. Schools are shuttered, villages empty of its heirs, our worldview forgotten, and our language eroded, and if we are lucky, we will be remembered as the last generation. Bringing the absolute end to the Maltese civilisation. The Maltese will become too outnumbered within their our homeland that they won’t even be capable to pose a single threat to invaders, and they will live on their knees at the mercy of the invaders, until they perish; the Maltese folklore will become such a minority within its homeland that practicing it will pose a security risk to who practice it, while every single sector will be filled with cheap labour without loyalty to the nation, nor the people, nor to who we are. Likewise, the Maltese Parliament will be composed of mainly invaders, while keeping the Maltese two-party system, and they will decide themselves for the Maltese indigenous people. All of the Maltese stone patrimony houses will be sold off and demolished to fully extinguish any traits or forms of Maltese identity; inheritance will be replaced by tenancy. The Nation will become a hotel, not a homeland. While the flag might remain the same, but flying it will be pointless without the real heirs of the nation to fill it, thus it will mark that the land belongs to others. This is sheer extinction by treason, incompetence, and negligence, a death by arithmetic, not fire.

These policies have a double-edged effect:

• They will strengthen the Maltese bloodline and genetic memory, ensuring ethnic survival across generations, reaching the target of a one million indigenous Maltese population, populating all of the Maltese Archipelago, and the four islands of 10km by 10km each.
• The middle-class dignity will be restored, and we will notice a spike in high cultured middle class, together with an increase of nationalised SMEs, Entrepreneurs, and Sole traders making up over 80% of the market, which will show that the nation’s values their sacrifice and continuity more than they value cheap labour invasion, cheap low quality materialism, and market dominations by geoeconomic means, thanks to the decisions taken by globalist politicians.

The facts are clear. If a nation fails to reproduce itself, it is not sovereign, it is only a tenant on borrowed time. Sovereignty without natalism is a flag without people. Under the gold standard and Portellian natalism, Malta will choose differently and will challenge the agenda that was imposed on us. We will multiply. We will endure. We will deport anyone that doesn’t belong here. And we will show that demographic policy, when rooted in discipline, is one of the highest forms of economic statecraft.

13. Narizny’s Grand-Strategic Frame: Monetary Discipline & Ruling Coalitions

Kevin Narizny explains to us that the Grand Strategy of every nation is not written in clouds or idealism, but rather, it is written in hard ledger of its ruling coalitions, the real puppeteers that decides survival to the average populace. These elitest rule by preserving themselves and they craft policies through their puppet politicians for the good of the coalition, not for the nation or the people!

In Malta, our coalition is pitifully narrow: A revolving case of specific ideological politicians, specific developers, obviously specific bankers and financiers, and party specific loyalists that orbits around the axis of patronage. Yet, all these coalitions now bow proudly to foreign power and influence! So, what’s the interest of the members of the coalition under fiat? Ensuring to keep the illusion and speculations alive! Print more, borrow more, build more, import more, and ensuring to further skyrocket the national debts as a whole! Until mankind fully forgets what it means to be human. Fiat Fuel cheap credit, cheap credit fuels speculative construction, speculative construction demands imported labour, and imported labour props up the fantasy of prosperity. The coalition survives, while the nation and the civilization dissolves.  

Such survival logic, as interpreted by Narizny, is when the coalitions bend the economy to ensure their own continuity. And under fiat, their survival is cheap and its paid by the populace. They can mortgage tomorrow for applause today, but when the bill arrives, it will be too late for accountability, and the future generations will inherit unsustainable debts, which automatically makes them slaves for the system immediate from birth!

Under the gold standard, the calculus breaks. No coalition can inflate itself to popularity. No minister can conjure prosperity with debts and illusions. No developer can endlessly stack cages of concrete in every piece of land/ property that they can get their hands on, upon illusions of credit. Gold enforces reality – Every promise must be weighed, and every cost must be paid.

This is where Portellian Thoughts sharpens Narizny’s insights. Gold is discipline, not merely restraint. It forces the necessary evil of coalition to align with the nation’s and civilizational survival. If we deprive them of endless credits or migrants, they will be forced to build time with productivity, labour, and endurance. Which will stabilize our way of life in the process. Grand Strategy, now, it becomes a political permanence.

In Economics Statecraft, we are reminded by David A. Baldwin that power is not only coercion, but the ability to resist coercion. So the same principle can be applies here, gold immunises the coalition from its own worst temptation – buying time through the manipulation of the fiat’s value and purchasing power. It will shackle any leader that tries to sell our sovereignty for temporary applauses and in doing so, it will transform calculus itself.   

Mini Scenario: Coalition Under Fiat vs Coalition Under Gold

Malta by Fiat: The survival of the coalition by expansion is through submitting to foreign control by credit, by expand by deficits, migration inflow, construction-financial bubbles, and other forms of bubbles. The middle class is bled dry, youth flee for a better life, property is inflated-shrinkflated-and-skimpflated, and wages collapse/stagnate. The nation decays slowly, so the coalition can survive, until finally the ruins that they’ve created would consume them.

Malta by Gold: The coalition is of Maltese origins and bases its survival on discipline and on the national worldview. Their power grows stronger in the longer by nurturing local skills and expertise, stabilize wages, increases the overall improvisations good/s and service/s, and investing in long-term sectors. Through gold, expenditure must first be saved before spent and promises that they cannot deliver will no longer deceive. This way, coalition survives by ensuring the survival of the nation and the civilisation.  

So Malta’s Grand Strategy must be sovereignty that is anchored in survival, not speculation, in gold reality, but not in the fiat illusion. Monetary discipline is more than the economics realm that are visible to the eye; it is also statecraft, coalition-checkmate, and civilisation endurance.

In its clarity, Narizny was brutally clear – grand strategy is not born of ideals, but of coalitional bargains. The foreign policy of a state is the reflection of who pays the bills and who cashes the benefits. Industrial coalitions produce protectionism, financial coalitions demand openness, military coalitions demand expansion. Strategy, in his worldview is not seen as “the national interest”, but rather, the survival of the ruling elitists that are in power.

As we’ve seen in Malta’s ruling coalitions, they are financial, and construction driven. Thus, their grand strategy its like an inward parasite – it prioritises endless property speculation, cheap labour pipelines, cheap low-quality materialistic goods/ services, and European funding schemes. Defence, demographics, sovereignty, culture, worldview, language, etc., these do not matter to the coalitions, as they do not fund it. Therefore, the survival logic of the coalition makes our national strategy one of dependency, because they will profit from such dependency.

As Narizny had nicely showed us the ruling coalitions can be forced to realign when their illusionary instrument collapses. This is where gold will intervene to save us, by instilling discipline. Under a 100% gold standard, coalitions cannot inflate their way out of trouble or import bodies to feed their pyramid scheme. Now, they will be forced to embrace a national survival strategy, through long-term productivity, industrial capacity, labour and skill security, demographical vitality, and worldview survival for improvisations. In Narizny’s terms, the “survival calculus” of the ruling coalition is now chained to the survival calculus of the nation and the civilisation themselves.

Here’s the Portellian twist to Narizny: gold is not just economic discipline; it is grand strategic reconfiguration. The incentives of the ruling elites are diverted away from the parasite, towards national preservation. Their ambitions are shackled to the endurance of the populace. And here, monetary policy becomes more than just finance. It becomes the very architecture of Malta’s grand strategy.


14. The Human-Scale Economy: Schumacher’s Lesson for Malta

Schumacher had warned us that this gigantism that’s being worship in the modern age – bigger states, bigger governance, bigger corporations, bigger lies. However, by Malta’s its own nature, was not built for gigantism. We are too small, too human, too bound to soil and sea, and we are a very small island of 27km. So, copying the structures of continental giants is not only foolish, but a suicidal extinction.

Fiat economies worship gigantism because only giants can swallow the cheap credit that’s pouring from central bankers, and let’s not forget all those industries involved in any governmental perpetual activity/ies. Developers, franchises, financial conglomerates, war industries, etc. are the beasts that thrive on debts. The National valued ones like the artisan, the family shop, the sole trader, the entrepreneur, the SMEs? They suffocate. They struggle to stay afloat. Their savings evaporates into thin air, their labourers and their skills are undercut, they struggle to afford experience, their skill is reduced to a mere curiosity.

This order is turned around under gold. The Portellian gold system, growth cannot be a conjure figure on a piece of paper. Growth must be generated through real work, real money, real savings, real skills. This discipline restores the balance between man and economy.

This means that the tradesmen can pass on his workshop as a patrimony, not as a debt-ridden liability, or a dead trade struggling to stay afloat without the possibility of improvising the trade itself. He can now price his creation with confidence that tomorrow’s coin will not betray his efforts of today. He can now save properly and expand his workshop without begging for loans that dissolve in inflation.

This will restore humanity to economics. Parents will once again be able to earn honest side incomes from family ventures, artisanal skills, and small trades. An untaxed survival streams outside the suffocating grasps of the corporate state economy. Children will now not only be grounded in schools, but also in workshops and cultural related trades, learning generational trade skills that feeds and secures both their family and their nation. Skill secured will be cultivated national out of our flesh and blood, not eradicated and imported via dependency.

This is what Portellian Thoughts describes as a “Human Economy”. Pro-Nation, Pro-Family, Pro-People, Pro-Liberty. This not anti-growth at all, this is real growth from our roots. This is not anti-market, this the market restored to its natural size. This is an economy where freedom is measured not through how much credit one can borrows, but how many children a craftsmen can raise and culture on honest wages, how much dignity a family shop can preserve against foreign franchises, how many Maltese can remain Maltese through the work of their own hands.

In 2040, Malta under gigantism will be composed of strip malls at every corner run by imported brands and owner, apartments stacked like cages, youths enslaved to service jobs for outsiders. The nation survives only on a piece of meaningless paper. Nothing more.

Now if one imagines Malta in 2040 under the gold standard and utilising the human scale economy. Vineyards on terraced hills, numerous trades workshops around town, villages, and cities. Their goods are being exported, while there’s a healthy micro-economy. Family shops that endure for generations, skills improved and evolved over generations, Goods and Services are woven into our Maltese/ Mediterranean/ European guilds of trade. We will display a small nation in size, but vast in the national cultural soul – dignified, distinct, rooted, and Sovern.

In his work “small is beautiful” Schumacher was right. Small is indeed beautiful. But Malta will prove something more. It will prove survival and continuation. Gold makes this possible. Family makes it real. And together, they form the human-scale order where liberty, nation, and civilisation endure.

15. The Social Contract Under Gold

The survival of a nation is not held together by law and order alone, nor by armies, nor by a piece of paper that calls it “Sovern”. At the core for its survival lies trust. It is an invisible contract that binds rulers and the ruled, neighbour and neighbour, community, family and soil. Once that trust is broken, no law, army, or border can save you.

But yet, fiat breaks this contract through betrayal. It gives out the false illusion that it is neutral, but in reality, it’s an outright theft. It preaches stability, but it dissolves a man’s wage worth in silence. The labourer that works twelve hours a day, saves, and plans for his son’s apprenticeship/ University; wakes up one day in the future to use them only to find his efforts diluted by the by the invisible ink of the central banks. The tradesman balance his accounts, only to see his savings mocked by the next wave of imported labour importation and the next tsunami of printed money through price speculation. Fiat whispers “Your prudence is worthless; you time and sacrifice will not endure. Your dedicated efforts to build something, will melt!”.

As such, trust is not built by speeches. It is restored by weight! And Gold is exactly that – a visible covenant that whispers to man “What you earn, you will keep. What you save, you will pass on. The sacrifice of today, will endure in the future. It binds the rulers and the populace alike to the same reality, replacing them into equilibrium. Ministers will be forced to stay disciplined, so they cannot manipulate prosperity by raping the printing machines at cost on our future generations. No party can buy survival by loaning tomorrow. Under gold, every debt is real, every promise weighted, and every cost accounted for!     

Here were Portellian thoughts human scale economy fuses with the social covenant of our nation and people. The family business in Valletta would know its ledgers are honest, not because some law says so, but because reality say so. The tradesmen in Qormi can now set aside his savings without fear that his tools will cost double as much within a year. The family in Rabat knows that the coin saved for their daughter’s dowry will not rot into dust, until they are used. The tradesmen son can inherit more than just resources, a workshop, and a clientele, he inherits trust itself.  

As we are, under Fiat currency, the social contract is a lie. The state robs it, but in front of the masses he pretends that he protects it. He pretends that he rewards work, while at the same time subsidising speculation. He pretends that he cares about our families, while pricing us out of their very own nation and communities themselves, stripping us from our labour dignity, security, national demographical growth, and a future within our own homeland, while replacing us and our children with imported invaders to replace us within our homeland by a passive means. Fiat also robs us from a future within our homeland!   

Gold on the other hand, it re-anchors this contract itself. It forces the state to live in honesty, grounded in reality: If it wants to spend, it must ask permission openly. If it wants to tax, it is forced to confess it and be transparent about it. There will be no hidden thefts, not quiet expropriation through inflation. It places the state back into its rightful place – As a guardian of the covenant, not as slaves to the private money creators.

This covenant is of a psychological nature as well, more than mere financial. If a populace savings endures, they will start to rethink again in terms of generations. They will invest with more confidence and save without fear. They will raise children peacefully and in faith, but never in panic. They will have faith again in our institutions because our institutions will be completely bandaged to honesty.

Therefore, the gold standard is not a nostalgia. It is a rebirth, a restoration of the bond that fiat destroyed. A bond between the populace and the state, the ruler and the ruled, family and patrimony, work and reward.

Malta can once again become impregnable by invasions, sieges, starvation, and even drought; but it can never survive internal corrosion of trust. Fiat speeds up the corrosion, silently, daily, and irreversibly. Gold restores, and in this restoration lies the rebirth of the Maltese covenant: Nation and Populace as family, State as their guardianship, and money, as the truth.


16. The Constitution of Money

This social contract must be carved into stone. Sentiments fades, speeches dissolve, laws can be amended, but the constitution must always endures! Thus, the covenant must be enshrined in law, because only then, can the covenant be carved into the nation’s legal architecture and becomes our destiny. Therefore, if Malta wants sovereignty, it must adopt the Constitution of Money.

Firstly, Gold Parity must become constitutional. The new Maltese unit of account can be called anything really, Maltese lira reborn or goes by a new name rooted in our soil. But irrespective of the nation, the unit of account must be defined in grams of fine 24ct. gold. This is sovereignty that the definition cannot be bent by parliamentary majority or a ministerial whim. It can only be altered by the gravest act of collective will: A constitutional supermajority, with clearly defined timeframes, and by a referendum voted for by the people themselves. This way, money will be removed from politics and entrusted directly to the nation.

Secondly, an anti-debasement laws must be established, and such laws must be harsh and brutal, to anyone that violates it. To dilute, falsify, or rehypothecate Malta’s reserves is an act of treason. Monetary crimes are crimes against sovereignty, because when one debases the coin, he is debasing the nation and the populace. The punishment must fit the crime. Those who melt the bedrock of trust must face prosecution as saboteurs of the state, the nation, and the people.

Thirdly, we develop a peoples’ institutional guardianship. An independent Peoples’ Monetary Security Auditor General must be created. This institution must be completely independent, beyond the reach of Central Banks, Banks, and the government himself (including European institutions). Their allegiance must be to the Nation and to the People; and nobody else. Hence, why their wages must be aligned with such a high level of responsibility. This department will publish monthly bar list, reconcile reserves with obligations, and certify public audits. The vault and its content, MUST NEVER remain a mystery; they must be a civic museum of trust. A place where the populace, by appointment only, may witness the very bars that anchors their sovereignty. Schoolchildren must learn from primary age the importance of gold, the penalties against debasements, how debasements feel and affects everything around them, the threats posed by fiat; as well as they must learn the weigh, assay, and the meaning of money itself. Money measured by truth and reality.

Fourthly, we must ensure for history to not repeat itself. So, we must build an effective and efficient firewall between the State and the Printing! Under no circumstances can deficits be financed by raping the printing press. Every tax must be explicit, each bond redeemable, every expense visible. What cannot be afforded, cannot be promised. This is what constitutional honesty is required!

This Constitution of Money will elevate monetary integrity to the same plane as freedom of speech, real private property rights, sovereignty of borders, etc. It will tell every citizen “Your savings are not at the mercy of politics. Your Children’s inheritance is not a minister’s plaything. Your money is your own.” …. Through bandaging the state, the nation and the people are liberated. A government shackled by gold cannot buy votes anymore with borrowed illusions or petty politics to pretend that their a governance. They will be forced to govern within the confines of reality. This is not weakness. This strength in its highest forms.

For Malta’s case, entrenching gold into our very Constitution (e.g. like in the American constitution) would proclaim to the world “We are small, but incorruptible. Our People have a valuable worth. We are vulnerable, but untouchable. We are constrained, but therefore unbribable; and thus, we are truly free”. Such a constitutions would protect our money and the memory of our people across generations.

17. Geo-Economics and Security: Malta as Niche Power

In War by Other Means, Blackwill and Harris reminds us that in our age, the battlefield is not only land, air, and sea; but markets, currencies, flows of capital, FDIs and more. Geoeconomics is the art of wielding economic instruments as weapons of war: To coerce, deter, slow, and shape the behaviour of other States. Those who command money, energy, and trade routes often wield greater influence than those who command battalions.

So where does this leaves Malta? In size, we are small, yes. In Militarily, we are not even considered close to modest! But in a world where currencies and economies are weaponised, neutrality is not simply the absence of war, it is a deterrent strategy. It is the possession of a credible anchor. And under gold, is where Malta transforms from a pawn on a chessboard, to a master chess player. And if Malta ventures into the Gold Conflict Resolution Services Specialisations, with payments made in gold, it will transform Malta into a gigantic Geo-Political player that all superpowers would have an interest in protecting militarily, if needs be.

A Maltese gold-backed currency, fully redeemable, 100% reserves, constitutionally enshrined, would serve both the household and the nation/ region itself. As other national currencies, such as the Euro, Dollar, Sterling, Yuan, and Rubbles are deployed as weapons of sanctions and coercion, while the populations are the ones that really suffers, smaller states and non-aligned actors will seek a safe clearing house – a neutral unit of account immune to political manipulation. Malta, if disciplined, would become exactly this.    

The logic is quite simple. In terms of production, Malta can never outproduce countries like France, Germany, Netherlands, etc., neither can it out-arm them. But through credibility, Malta can outperform them all, because its anchors are incorruptible and such a credibility service can be sold off at a price. (Of course, this is over and above the global conflict resolution services).

In Economic Statecraft, David A Baldwin made it clear that power is not only the ability to coerce, but also is the ability to resist coercion. Malta cannot project force across any sea, land, or air, but it can project credibility across ledgers. Malta can become unbribable, unfreezable, uninflatable. To hold on to reserves in Maltese gold is to trust a system that no empire can counterfeit. To settle trade in Maltese Gold Units means to escape the tug-of-war of financial giants. To store gold in our vaults, is to join a covenant of permanence rather than a cycle of manipulation.

Neutrality without credibility is just rhetoric. But Neutrality with gold is architecture. It will allow Malta to speak what’s carved in stone “We are small, but our word weighs as much as the bars within our vault. Trade here, settle here, arbitrate here, and you will not be at the mercy of distant powers”.

This it the Portellian Geo-economic blend – We turn smallness into leverage, vulnerability into deterrence, discipline into diplomacy. A Gold Standard Malta would be a niche power defined by singularity. A singularity of trust, permanence, and sovereignty. And in our contemporary century of illusions, such singularity is strength beyond measure.

18. Resilience Under Crisis Scenarios

A nation that does not prepare for the storm, will drown in the first flood. The virtue of the gold standard is not only in peaceful, calm times along, but also a way to force discipline before the storm breaks out. In Malta’s case, the question is not whether a crisis will come about or not, but how we will address various crises. So, let’s take a look at how Malta under the gold standard would look like when the world is shaken by crisis.

Financial Crash – When we are dealing with the Fiat system, a crash would mean panic printing. Basically, central banks will flood the markets with liquidity (credit), propping up insolvent banks at the cost of eroding the value of the currency itself. Here, is where the ordinary populace is sacrificed for the illusion of “systemic stability”. Those who are discipline and save, wakes up one fine morning only to see that their prudence has been expropriated, and wages melts before they touch the hands.    

But under a 100% gold standard, the bank would operate under 100% reserves. So, they cannot print credit out of thin air. Solvency is guaranteed by design. Savings will remain intact, yes, but at the cost of tight credit. This tight credit will ensure that the purchasing power of the currency would not evaporate into thin air because of reckless printing of money! The tradesmen in Qormi, the grocery in Rabat, the other tradesmen in Valletta, and the fisherman in Marsaxlokk, would feel a temporary slow down period that feels like disruption, not confiscation. Therefore, the income and their savings will not be stolen from their mouths by the invisible hand of inflation.

Sanctions & Geopolitical Isolation – Today, nations are brought to their knees by financial blockades. The SWIFT cut-offs, frozen reserves, embargoes, sanctions etc., are the new weapons of empires. But Maltese Gold Reserves held securely in our vaults cannot be frozen by another nation.

If Malta were to be removed from the Euro payment system, trade would still be settled in gold units (and every single nation of earth accepts gold!). Grain imports, energy contracts, maritime insurances etc., would not collapse, because settlement would rest on the honesty of weight, not on political permission. Thus, neutrality anchored in gold is survival in the age of sanctions.

Pandemic shocks – During the 2020, Fiat states had financed the lockdowns and stimulus by creating money out of nothing, triggering a wave after wave of inflation, and still more to unfold. Under the gold standard, such an illusion would not have been possible, and this is precisely why it is strength. Public health measures would have been financed through transparent borrowing or reallocation, with costs openly borne, while speculative industries and dependent of speculative labour would have had to face reality and shut down their operations. No stealth taxation, no silent theft.  

Recovery during post-crisis would not be poisoned by runaway inflation. Citizens will be secured in their savings, and they could spend again with confidence, instead of with dread. Stability in money would mean stability in spirit. The knowledge that we sacrificed today will not be nullified tomorrow.

Energy War – When global supply chains are disrupted, whether through war, or embargoes, or geo-political tensions, the currency of survival is trust. Through panic, fiat currency will collapse, but a gold backed currency will retain international purchasing power even in such turmoils. Oil, gas, grain, water, fuel, medicine etc., are the lifeline that will flow, because suppliers would accept settlement in gold, immune to political manipulation.

Energy sovereignty is about paying for the supplies with money that the world respects.

In the Portellian Doctrine of Crisis Discipline Fiat states improvise, while gold states prepare. Gold compels foresight, while it kills the illusion of limitless flexibility and replaces it with the armour of readiness. It forces a nation to live and survive within its means in peace, so that in crisis it does not collapse in panic.

A nation the size of Malta cannot control global shocks. But it can control how it faces the challenges stemming from global shocks. Malta under gold is an olive tree bark, but Malta under fiat is just a mere leaf, tossed, bent, and carried away by the wind.


19. Against International Financial Institutions

Here, is where we must draw our swords and raise our shields openly. For what are the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, and their lesser satellites, if not the globalisation of fiat? These aren’t neutral arbiters proving stability, they are the cartels of dependency through fiat. While they sell an image of themselves that “they are offering us assistance”, but in reality, is coercion through the control of the medium of exchange.

The Austrian School are known to attack this very reality. Rothbard Murray tells: the central banks are not guardians of stability, but managers of cartel privilege. They exist to preserve the monopoly of money creation, a privilege that always serves the elites at the expense of the savers and producers. Ludwig von Mises had also shown us that inflation is not by accident, but rather, by design. It is the deliberate mechanism by which the state robs the saver and the producer, by eroding the purchasing power and manipulates the market forces for political convenience. Friedrich Hayek even said that they are arrogant to belief that monetary planners could outwit the spontaneous order of human exchange.

From the Nationalist school then, Friedrich List said: true sovereignty is not abstract liberty, it is productive independence. A nation that cannot command its own credit, its own labour, its own reserves, cannot be called a nation.

This is what Albert Hirschman worded as “dependence”; When a small state relies on another for its vital instruments, such as currency, credit, capital flows, investments etc., it ceases to be sovereign. Dependency is not partnership. It is subordination. Malta today lives in precisely such a structure. Our lifeblood does not flow through our veins but is pumped to us by foreign institutions.

In Turbo-Capitalism, Edward Luttwak had further sharpened this insight: global capital does not merely discipline markets, it disciplines states. It rewrites the priorities of governments bending them toward the demands of liquidity, flows, and speculative “confidence”. The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are the holy representative of this empire. They present coercion as assistance and subjugation as modernization. But most importantly, loans are given if you give up your existence and accept restructuring, privatization, liberalism, representative democracy, etc. This is not sovereignty. This is indirect colonisation, by means of fiat!  

Hans-Hermann Hoppe outlash had stripped them from their last mask: Central banking is monarchy without responsibility. It is the rule of unelected elites, consuming today what belongs to tomorrow. High-Time-Preference predators who live by devouring the future. The IFIs extend this pathology across borders. They are, in essence, an empire through debt. Debt as conquest, dept as occupation, debt as the silent substitute for armies. Which make the conquest of the many by few a possible reality.   

By including Economic Statecraft by David A. Baldwin here, we can further sharpen our blade. He reminds us that economic instruments are tools of power no less than tanks or fleets. Sanctions, loans, credit, aid, etc., are not gifts! They are sold to us through their puppet/s politician/s , as gifts, but they are nothing more then chains! Chains, because they are weapons. They can have the ability to coerce, punish, deter, and reward. And the IFIs wield these tools, as empires wield their armies. Their conditionalities are not reforms, but invasion by other means. However, Malta anchored in gold stand outside of this arsenal. As Baldwin reminds us: the power to resist coercion, is in itself a form of power. Refusing dependency transforms you from a pawn into a player.

To add more wisdom for Malta’s case, this time from E. F. Schumacher, Small is beautiful. The institutions of fiat worship gigantism – giant banks, giant financiers, giant debts, giant corporations, giant flows of anonymous capital. But Malta is small. In a small size, lies the advantage in itself – resilience. A small nation of gold is unassailable, because it cannot be harmed by the instruments of manipulation that depend on scale. It will be the craftsman, the tradesmen, the entrepreneur, the educators, the doctors, who will survives shocks, not conglomerate. Malta on gold will re-gain the ability to self-govern itself through a human scale, while become invulnerable to the gigantism of IFIs.

To speak in plain language, Malta must rebel and refuse the “support” of the IMF, rejects the ECB dictates, and walk away from World Bank conditions. This is not an economic suicide, but rather, an economic resurrection. For the nation that binds itself to gold, the leash is broken. Reserves will not be monitored on a 3^rd party ledger, but through bars with our own vaults. Credit is dependence, while gold is trust rooted in reality.

With gold in our hand, we will be in a position to look these institutions in the eyes and say: We will trade, but we will not beg. We will cooperate, but we will not kneel.

The Portellian lens is therefore merciless in its clarity: Central banks and the IFIs are not our partners. They are instruments of coercion. Their “assistance” is designed to produce dependency. Their “guidelines” are designed to strip sovereignty. Their “credit” is designed to enslave us and erase our existence.

The return to gold will severe the chains that enslave us. To constitutionally forbid dependency on foreign fiat credit is to rebuild sovereignty on the oldest and firmest foundation. This is dignity. This is survival. Not isolation, but freedom and civilisational.

For the Portellian order, dependency is treason and discipline is freedom.

A Mini-scenario of Malta 2035 – IMF Dependency vs Gold Sovereignty

Let’s develop two Malta’s scenarios in 2035, one as we are, dependent of the IMF and another, an independent Malta under gold.

Malta under IMF Dependency – The year is 2035 and the Maltese government is crippled by spiralling deficits and stagnated wages and accepts a “stabilisation package” by the IMF. As usual, the terms are familiar: cut subsidies, privatization of the nation’s geo-strategic infrastructural assets, liberalise the labour market and kill your national skill and labour security for dependency, implement their “modernised” taxation system etc. Hospitals are sold to foreign conglomerates. Ports are leased to global logistics firms. Maltese workers are told to compete with imported labour for declined wages, poor employment conditions and positions, throw away real skills/ trade so you accept DEI hirers, and flexibility is what Brussels mandates. Property prices will soar higher as land is reclassified for speculative development, property ownership will be in the control of the few (many, even owned by non-Maltese, who are loyal to a specific party to ensure the Maltese will not revolt against the party that they themselves identify themselves with – easy populace control), while young Maltese flee the prison island to get everything what they own state had deprived them off by design.

The streets of Malta will be filled with resentment simmers and rage. Families know their savings buy less each quarter. Children’s allowance will become a luxury for the indigenous Maltese and will shrink under austerity. SMEs, Sole traders, and entrepreneurs will be bled dry by foreign banks, while multinationals enjoy tax rebates. Sovereignty will become a simple rhetoric – a thing of the past (just like Malta’s reunification with Italy, post-Independence, became a thing of the past). Real power will reside in memoranda drafted in Washington, London, Frankfurt, and Brussels. Malta, small, complaint, weak, eroded completely from its roots, will be absorbed into the colonized bloodstream of dependency.    

Malta under Gold Sovereignty – This Malta will be a heaven on earth. In this Malta, Gold sovereignty was enshrined in the Constitution in the 2020’s and the people are expected to know it by heart. By 2035, the Maltese Lira will be fully redeemable in gold to Maltese only, and 250 Tonnes will rest in our vaults beneath Floriana, and heavily guarded by human enhanced elite force of the Armed Forced of Malta. When international shocks ripple across Europe, Malta will not beg for bailouts, and it will become the beacon of light for these nations to follow in our footsteps. We will settle trade in gold, immune to sanction, devaluation, or inflation.

The Maltese middle class will become a force to be reckoned with, composing at least 75% of the native population. Family businesses will be found in every village, town, and cities that will find stability in contracts that mean what they say. Parents will be able to save for their children’s education with confidence that their savings will not melt into thin air, and they will be able to bring up highly Cultured Maltese. Skilled trades are prized again, as cheap labour importation will cease to exist, and they will be benefiting from a shadow banking license to give out loans to Maltese in gold. The State will become microscopic; thus, it will be able to support Maltese families with real demographic policies – progressive children’s allowance, real maternity leave, and cultural dignity.  

Foreign investors will come not for subsidies, but for credibility and the trades that are mastered by Maltese experts. Malta will not only be seen as the Switzerland of the Mediterranean, but the beacon of light, guiding others towards a new golden dawn. The nation is small yes, but discipline, incorruptible, unbribable, and transformed into a Mediterranean island fortification.

Two different futures, one is based on dependency, and the other on sovereignty. One Malta is outsources, leased, and drained. The other Malta disciplined, trusted, and enduring. And the choice in the road was simple: fiat dependency or gold sovereignty.


20. Crisis Playbook & Drills

Resilience is rehearsed into the marrow of the people, not merely written in manifestos alone. A nation that wishes to endure must live as an army even in peace. Declarations inspire the populace; drills prepare them. Gold gives us the armour, but it is useless unless the people know how to use it and apply it. If Malta wants to survive the 21^st Century Geo-political turmoil and the demographical war, Malta must design a crisis playbook to be able to transform the gold standard from a passive shield into an active doctrine of deterrence, resistance, recovery, and preserve.

Convertibility – Under no circumstance can trust remain abstract. David Hume had warned us that habit is the anchor of belief. Every year, the Maltese state must stage national convertibility drills. Treasury windows open, redemption requests processed, vault bars weighted and displayed, reconciliation dashboards streamed live. ONLY Maltese Banks, businesses, and households must all participate, so that every Maltese sees with their own eyes the currency claim as solid as the bar in the vaults, and not a mere illusion.

Hayek, Mises, and Rothbard each warned about the dangers posed by the fiat illusion, that the belief that a piece of meaningless paper promises could be substituted for reality! Convertibility drills are the antidote. A ritual that will force discipline not only onto the government but also extended upon the populace. Confidence is not the minister’s gift or even his word. It is the practiced into the people.

Sanctions Drills – Edward Luttwak had called sanctions “the war of the strong against the weak, fought by strangulation”. Blackwill and Harris remind us that the currency system itself has become a weapon. The IMF, ECB, and Washington’s SWIFT switches can cut a nation’s lifeline in an instant. Hirschman had explained this fact a long time ago – dependency is vulnerability.   

Therefore, Malta must simulate sanctions every year – every good/ service bought and/or sold, will be invoiced and paid in gold. Maritime insurances, logistics, and shipping fees will be priced in Maltese Lira. This exercise has to be practical and not merely theoretical. Shipments cleared, accounts settled, contracts honoured, all outside the of the fiat trap. The world must learn one thing – Malta will NOT BE strangled into submission!

Economic Warfare: Offensive and Defensive – Geoeconomics is war by other means. Blackwill & Harris gave us the doctrine. Baldwin gave us the lens of economic statecraft. Power lies not only in coercion but also in resistance. Malta’s gold currency is both the sword and the shield.

Defensively, Malta bypasses fiat blockades. Trade will be settled in gold, our vault reserves as insurance, supply contracts written in incorruptible money. Offensively, Malta raises the premium on credibility, offering refuge to capital fleeing inflationary giants, becoming a hub for Mediterranean clearing, and attracting flows away from coercive powers. Luttwak’s in his work Tubo-Capitalism had further and said that small state, through credibility, outmanoeuvres the giants.

Industrial and Labour Security – Resilience must start at home. E.F. Schumacher in Small is beautiful had taught us that not because it is quaint, but because small units are resilient. Malta must drill industrial continuity. Can our localized SMEs, Artisans, and Tradesmen operate under blockade? Can apprentices replace imported labour when borders close? Can families sustain themselves when global supply line are fractured or collapsing?

Labour sovereignty is a practice. Each year, the nation must test whether skills can replace cheap labour imports. Youth must be trained not only in theory, but in real life scenarios. The baker without imported flour; the carpenter without imported timber, the nurse without imported assistances etc. Sovereignty is practiced until it becomes embedded within the muscular and nervous systematic memory.  

Resilience Protocols – Finally, resilience must be codified. Offline fallback payment systems denominated in gold. Emergency ration boards priced in gold. Crisis bonds issued with sunset clauses. Neighbourhood associations trained in mutual aid. Ministries constrained by law to act within reserves.

Narizny’s coalition logic applies here: In crisis, coalitions survive by illusion or by reality. Fiat coalitions improvise, lies, and borrows aggressive against tomorrow. Gold coalitions prepare, drill, preserves, and survive.

The Portellian Doctrine is quite simple here- Fiat nations improvise, but gold nations drills. Malta cannot rely on size, numbers, or firepower. It must rely on preparedness, credibility, and unity. When the storm comes, the fiat nations will panic and print, but gold nations will open their vaults, display their bars, and carry on – because everyone accepts gold!

A mini-scenario of Malta 2030 – Crisis Drills in Action

Malta under Fiat – A financial shock that ripples from any country in Europe’s sovereign debt market. Malta will be bound to the Euro, sees capital fight overnight. The ECB will respond with injecting liquidity, however, the effects in Malta will be devastating – Banks freeze credit lines, property speculation collapses, and government will announce a “temporary” austerity. Supermarkets ration imports as the euro weakens against the dollar, and fuel, oil, and gold prices spike above the ceiling!

The Maltese People will be forced to improvise. Citizens will line up outside banks, unsure whether deposits are secure. SMEs, Sole traders, tradesman, entrepreneurs will fold within weeks. The government will keep on insisting that the system is stable, while secretly negotiating a standby facility with the IMF. Panic is the father of distrust. Distrust enhances collapse. Collapse ensures social chaos.

Malta under Gold – Malta that practiced. It’s the same year, and the crises still erupts. However, Malta under a gold standard will activated its practices Crisis Playbook. Convertibility drills are launched, Maltese are redeeming notes for bars in our vaults, livestreamed audits confirm parity, and confidence steadies.

Sanctions Drills from the past will prove their worth. All needs resources contracts will switch to gold settlements with Mediterranean and European suppliers. Our localized SMEs, Sole traders, tradesman, and entrepreneurs will continue their operations as normal; their savings remains intact, their contracts remain reliable. Apprentices trained in labour drills step into roles once filled by imported workers, ensuring continuity in hospitals, shipyards, farms, industries, etc.

Malta will become the centre of all international notices – “Malta, a tiny island resists shock waves, after shock waves, as Gold Currency Holds”. Investors will flee volatile fiat country and seek stability in the Maltese currency. Instead of collapse, Malta will attract capital like never before. Malta will demonstrate sovereignty in practice.

The Contrasts are shocking!
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Author
Mr. Terrence Portelli

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