# Think Tank > U.S. Constitution >  Honest Money Constitutional Amendment

## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*Honest Money Constitutional Amendment
**
**Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. 
**
Since no individual can rightfully force his neighbor to transact or not to transact in certain medium of exchange, he cannot delegate such authority to his government. Also, free competition in currencies, by the force of Free Market, prevents the government from plundering the people through legalized counterfeiting and debasing of the currency.

Therefore: the government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent operation of private currencies, mints, or free competition in currencies among private citizens, nor charge capital gain, sales, or any other taxes, duties or fees on the medium of exchange. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.*


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Brief explanation of the benefits of this amendment:
Fiat (unbacked) "money" is the single greatest instrument of plunder ever invented by the mind of man. *
Free Competition in currencies kills fiat*, because  fiat cannot exist without aggressive violence of government forced  monopoly, which aggressive violence is the definition of evil, and is  the opposite of justice and of Free Market. 

Again, fiat (unbacked) currency is nothing but an instrument of plunder  of the people by the government, via legalized counterfeiting and  inflation; therefore, Free Market, absent government coercion, will  reject such a fraudulent currency, for the simple reason that no one  likes being plundered!

So, *Free Competition in currencies slays fiat*,  and with it welfare state and warfare state, because it makes it  impossible for the government to rob and plunder the people, and steal  their wealth through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. 

Thus, *Free Competition in currencies* binds the government down  with the chains of sound money, making impossible government plunder via  legalized counterfeiting, and therefore, making possible liberty and  prosperity of the people.

Explanation:

Money rules the world, and he who rules the money rules the world. No law gives government more power than legal tender law, for it creates a government forced monopoly on counterfeiting; allowing politicians and the bankers who bought them to confiscate people's property through the most insidious and deceitful tax of all -- legalized counterfeiting and inflation.

This one amendment, if implemented, would end government fiat, because it cannot exist without coercion. And government fiat will be rejected in a free market of currencies in favor of a more honest and stable one, such as a 100% commodity based, interest free currency. As the result it would effectively end war-state and welfare state, for it would make it IMPOSSIBLE for the government to fund all these unconstitutional ventures through the evil and insidious robbery known as legalized counterfeiting and inflation.

This amendment does not force anyone to do anything, but on the contrary, frees people up, to allow competition in currencies, so the good money can crowd out the bad. Imagine, for instance gold or silver money, competing side by side with Federal Reserve Notes. People will soon notice that the purchasing power of their gold money is constantly increasing, while the purchasing power of unbacked paper money is constantly going down. It will have the appearance of prices going up when expressed in Federal Reserve Notes, and at the same time the prices on the same items expressed in gold or silver money going down! Which money do you think people will prefer to get paid in? That money which preserves and increases their purchasing power of course! When this happens people will begin rejecting Federal Reserve Notes in favor of a more sound 100% commodity based currency! Thus once government force is removed from the realm of money and free competition in currencies is allowed, fiat debt based money will end, because they will be rejected by the free market! You do not need legal tender laws to force people to accept good and honest money, but only bad and dishonest ones. The dirty little secret is that you only need legal tender laws if you are going into government forced counterfeiting business. That is the only reason for such laws.

The problems in our monetary system were created by introduction of improper government force into the realm of money, creating a government forced counterfeiting monopoly known as fiat; therefore the solution is to remove that improper government force, which would kill fiat, and allow Free Competition in Currencies, which will result in establishing of the most stable and honest monetary system known to man by the force of Free Market (most likely 100% commodity based monetary system like gold or silver), because no one likes being plundered. 

Money is just another product that is used as a medium of exchange. And free market can perfect that product just as much as it can perfect a car, an iPod or a light bulb, much better than the government ever can. And if people are truly free, they should be able to choose any medium of exchange they wish, as long as they commit no fraud. 

To criticism that it would produce chaos:

Any manner of chaos is better than the forced, orderly plunder and confiscation of people's property through legalized counterfeiting and paper money inflation, that is the only alternative to this amendment. Of course, if gold and silver were the only tender used by the government (as Constitution demands) this problem would be largely alleviated, but the problem I see is that the government could (unconstitutionally) make government issued paper receipts for gold or silver to be legal tender, and then inflate the receipts. (This has actually happened in the early 1900's.) If a private bank did this and there was a run on the bank it would go bankrupt, but in case of government they will put taxpayers on the hook for this. (Hence was Roosevelt's forced confiscation of people's gold in 1930's to remedy such a run on banks, so people could not demand their gold anymore.) So it's better explicitly put government out of legal tender business all together. The free market can decide perfectly well what the medium of exchange should be.

To criticism that these provisions are already implied in the existing Constitution, we say true, (the authority to establish a legal tender,--an exclusive monopoly on the means of exchange,--is not granted in the Constitution, therefore it is denied under the 10th Amendment), but it was already subverted and ignored by the Congress for over a century, so we are adding stronger language in the form of an explicit amendment, so that the Congress may not easily subvert and overturn it again. It's all about persuasion in the end: the more clear, persuasive and explicit the law is, the more likely the people will uphold and obey it to preserve their liberty (the need amply demonstrated by the last 100 years).

Plus, allowing free competition in currencies is the most harmonious and the least disruptive way to restore an honest and sound monetary system. Let free market decide, or in other words, let the people decide. And then the most efficient and most stable monetary system will naturally emerge, which historically always has been gold and silver. Freedom and prosperity will win out in the end.

If these six words, "legal tender laws are strictly forbidden" were part of the Constitution, we would've had a very different country now!

Remember: Government forced Paper = Tyranny; Gold + Silver + Righteousness = Liberty.

This is the key of power right here. Paper money fraud is what empowers the government to step out of its Constitutional bounds and become a tyrant through counterfeiting and theft; and Gold makes all this for the government impossible, and binds this fraud down, keeping people free and prosperous.

The best way to restore such honest and stable, 100% commodity based monetary system, is to allow free competition in currencies which is the goal of this amendment.


Again:Paper = Tyranny
Gold + Silver + Righteousness = Freedom!The choice is yours!


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This amendment is a part of 7 amendments that were designed to bring the Constitution into harmony with the Fundamental Principles of Liberty, without which Liberty cannot exist:
*Justice Constitutional Amendment (JCA)* The Fundamental Law Constitutional Amendment Honest Money Constitutional Amendment Constitutional Amendment Abolishing Taxation No Judicial Monopoly Constitutional Amendment (NJM) Nullification - Constitutional Amendment  Constitutional Amendment: Abolishing Copyrights and Patents

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## DamianTV

I'd support this.  Duh.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> I'd support this.  Duh.


Thank you!

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## Travlyr

Something like this would fix a great many modern day problems.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Something like this would fix a great many modern day problems.


I agree with you wholeheartedly!!! I think this is key,—key of power, either for tyranny or for liberty: Fiat paper for tyranny; Gold and silver for Liberty. Because gold and silver, if adhered to, break the government's counterfeiting machine! 

Also, 100% commodity based monetary system puts free market in control of money supply, and not the government. I believe these, in part, are the chains Jefferson spoke about, when he said "Let us bind the government down with the chains of the Constitution." 100% gold or silver, or in general, 100% commodity based monetary system, binds the government down with chains as it were, preventing the government from robbing the people through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. 

Fiat paper cannot operate without government force behind it, because it is a fraud! As Jefferson said: "It is error that need the support of government. Truth can stand alone." 100% Gold and silver money do not need government force behind them, because people will accept them willingly, without coercion. 

So, if you end "legal tender" scam, or in other words, you end government force in the realm of money, you end fiat! And when government coercion is ended, through this amendment, 100% gold and silver monetary system will naturally emerge and triumph, without any force on the part of government!

I am convinced, that Liberty simply cannot exist without honest, 100% commodity based monetary system! Freedom (i.e. absence of government force) is the best way to achieve such an honest system!

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## Deborah K

Abolish the Fed.  Period.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Abolish the Fed.  Period.


The problem is that if you only abolish the Fed, but do not put the government out of "legal tender" business, they will be printing the money instead of the Fed. Not much will change! Your masters will simply change their name and wear different hats, but it will be the same people who will still be robbing you through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. Take France; their central bank is 100% nationalized, but since the government still has the power to declare "legal tender" and FORCE everyone to use their worthless paper, France is much further on the way to full blown socialism than even US.

It is NOT enough to abolish the Fed. You need to put the government out of "legal tender" business, or in other words, remove government force from the realm of money. That is the only true solution. Only when free market is in control of money, rather than the government, only then freedom is possible.

Besides, the Fed will abolish itself pretty soon by its destruction of the dollar.  And when this happens, the very same people who engineered the collapse will waltz in as saviors on white horses to graciously present you with solutions, which will be more of the same, only under different names. They will give you more fiat, only on larger scale, say an Amero, or SDR, or any other fiat fraud. 

But if you forbid the government from using force in the realm of money, by outlawing "legal tender" scam, you will end government fiat (because it cannot exist without coercion), and thus put free market, or in other words the people, in control of money; then and only then can you have freedom!

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## Austrian Econ Disciple

How has the second amendment protected your right to defend yourself, and to own arms? The fundamental issue is the actual system and its systemic corruption, inherent in its creation. The greatest bulwark to tyranny is not through telling the gun holder to stop because its been penned, but to remove the initiation of force from the equation. Quell the power systems, you quell the corruption and liberty violations, to the bare minimums. I don't see how you expect to control that power.

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## Travlyr

> How has the second amendment protected your right to defend yourself, and to own arms? The fundamental issue is the actual system and its systemic corruption, inherent in its creation. The greatest bulwark to tyranny is not through telling the gun holder to stop because its been penned, but to remove the initiation of force from the equation. Quell the power systems, you quell the corruption and liberty violations, to the bare minimums. I don't see how you expect to control that power.


Government is not the problem.  Whoever controls the money supply controls the empire.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> How has the second amendment protected your right to defend yourself, and to own arms?


If that amendment was not written in the original Constitution, I do not think we would still have our guns. It takes time to subvert good laws. You have to brainwash the people into letting go of their liberty. It is not easy. It took over 200 years, and we still have the guns. That's why it is important that the good laws be as clear, straight-forward and understandable as possible, as well as the *reasons WHY* these laws are so, and WHY they are important, so that the people may be enabled so much the better to defend those laws.

And if you say the government perverts the interpretation, I say, educate the people about State and Jury nullification of unconstitutional law, then the only definition and interpretation that will really count will be the people's! But for that to work, the good law must be stated EXCEEDINGLY plainly and straight-forward. Unfortunately it is not how most of the Constitution was written. But we can fix it with amendments like this one! 




> The fundamental issue is the actual system and its systemic corruption, inherent in its creation.


If the government is built on correct fundamental principles, that are easily and generally understood and upheld by the people (principles like the Benson principle found here *http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347*) then government becomes a servant of the people, whose only duty is to do for the people what they can do for themselves, namely to protect their property (not steal it). 

See more here:
Man, Freedom, and Government




> The greatest bulwark to tyranny is … to remove the initiation of force from the equation.


Exactly! "Legal tender" law is force. It forces you to accept worthless paper, and thus empower the government who prints it, and so robs you through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. This amendment removes government force from the realm of money, and leaves choosing and controlling the medium of exchange in the hands of free market, i.e. the people. *And I assure you, control of money is the key of power, that must not be left in the hands of government, if you wish to maintain your liberty and prosperity!* Below the righteousness of the people, there is no other more important issue for preserving liberty than an honest monetary system!




> I don't see how you expect to control that power.


Explain to the people the fundamental principles of liberty clearly, including State and Jury nullification, and *THEY* will control the power!

*State nullification:*
YouTube - Thomas E Woods - Principles of 98

*Jury nullification:*
*http://www.freedom-central.net/trialbyjury.html*
(The most brilliant article I have seen on the subject!)

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## Deborah K

So you want to take issuance of currency completely out of the hands of government?  That would mean doing away with Article I section 8, right?  Didn't they try that with the Articles of Confederation?  And wasnt it a disaster?

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> So you want to take issuance of currency completely out of the hands of government?


Not necessarily. I want to prevent the government from instituting a MONOPOLY on issuance of currency. That's a big difference. If the government's continually depreciating paper is forced to compete side by side with say gold or silver currency that is continually gaining in purchasing power, it will expose the government's robbery of people's purchasing power through legalized counterfeiting and inflation, and people will prefer dealing in a currency that preserves and increases their purchasing power. Thus the government will lose the battle of free market, and an honest, 100% commodity based monetary system will naturally prevail! 




> That would mean doing away with Article I section 8, right?


No. There is no need to do that.

First of all, under Article I section 8, the Federal government is given power to COIN money, i.e. to impress out of metal. And in Article I section 10, the States are expressly forbidden to deal in anything but gold and silver. So it is clear, that under the Constitution, the only money Federal government is allowed to issue is 100% commodity metallic money, i.e. gold and silver! They are not granted power to PRINT money. They can issue only in metal, and that only in gold and silver! So if the government wants to declare that a dollar is X grams of gold, they are free to do so; they are even free to mint it if they choose; but they are not free to print paper, or to prevent the people from using any medium of exchange they choose in their private transactions.  

Secondly, the Constitution did not grant to the government the authority to establish "legal tender" and to outlaw all other currencies that could be issued by private citizens. That's why we had a lot of currencies afloat in US before "legal tender" scam was enforced in 1913. So under the Constitution the operation of private mints and private currencies is perfectly legal! And forbidding them is perfectly illegal under the 10th Amendment!




> Didn't they try that with the Articles of Confederation? And wasnt it a disaster?


The disaster was the fiat unbacked paper currency issued by the government known as the Continental. It self-destructed as all unbacked currencies do! So, no, they did NOT try what I am advocating. I am advocating freedom. Let people print or mint their own money, and absent government force, all unbacked paper will quickly self-destruct and be replaced with 100% commodity money, the most stable and honest monetary system known to man, because that will be the choice of a truly free market! 

Freedom works! It is the only thing that does work!

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## Travlyr

> That would mean doing away with Article I section 8, right?


No need for that:

The US Constitution in Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5, states that Congress has the authority to "coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;".

Congress has the authority to "coin Money - the Mint.Congress has the authority to regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin - control by rule of law.Congress has the authority to fix the Standard of Weights and Measures - purity of metal and accurate weights.




> The Original U.S. Dollar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 			
> 				On April 2, 1792, Alexander Hamilton, then the Secretary of the Treasury, made a report to Congress having scientifically determined the amount of silver in the Spanish milled dollar coins that were then in current use by the people. As a result of this report, the Dollar was defined[6] as a unit of measure of 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams) of pure silver or 416 grains of standard silver (standard silver being defined as 1,485 parts fine silver to 179 parts alloy[7]).
> 
> In section 20 of the Act, it is specified that the "money of account" of the United States shall be expressed in those same "dollars" or parts thereof. All of the minor coins were also defined in terms of percentages of the primary coin  the dollar  such that a half dollar contained ½ as much silver as a dollar, quarter dollars contained ¼ as much, and so on.

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## Deborah K

> Not necessarily. I want to prevent the government from instituting a MONOPOLY on issuance of currency. That's a big difference. If the government's continually depreciating paper is forced to compete side by side with say gold or silver currency that is continually gaining in purchasing power, it will expose the government's robbery of people's purchasing power through legalized counterfeiting and inflation, and people will prefer dealing in a currency that preserves and increases their purchasing power. Thus the government will lose the battle of free market, and an honest, 100% commodity based monetary system will naturally prevail!


But they don't have a monopoly because they gave their right to issue currency away to the Fed who has control over the amount of money in circulation and how much it costs to borrow it.  





> First of all, under Article I section 8, the Federal government is given power to COIN money, i.e. to impress out of metal. And in Article I section 10, the States are expressly forbidden to deal in anything but gold and silver. So it is clear, that under the Constitution, the only money Federal government is allowed to issue is 100% commodity metallic money, i.e. gold and silver! They are not granted power to PRINT money. They can issue only in metal, and that only in gold and silver! So if the government wants to declare that a dollar is X grams of gold, they are free to do so; they are even free to mint it if they choose; but they are not free to print paper, or to prevent the people from using any medium of exchange they choose in their private transactions.  
> Secondly, the Constitution did not grant to the government the authority to establish "legal tender" and to outlaw all other currencies that could be issued by private citizens. That's why we had a lot of currencies afloat in US before "legal tender" scam was enforced in 1913. So under the Constitution the operation of private mints and private currencies is perfectly legal! And forbidding them is perfectly illegal under the 10th Amendment!


So are you saying that if Congress took back their Constitutional responsibility from the Fed, and went back on a gold standard that they couldn't issue reciepts for the gold/silver backed currency?  

Also, my understanding of the Constitution is that it is based in common law, meaning if it is not expressly forbidden, then a thing is okay.  What you are suggesting seems to be rooted in Napoleonic law, meaning that if it is not expressly granted then it is forbidden.




> The disaster was the fiat unbacked paper currency issued by the government known as the Continental. It self-destructed as all unbacked currencies do! So, no, they did NOT try what I am advocating. I am advocating freedom. Let people print or mint their own money, and absent government force, all unbacked paper will quickly self-destruct and be replaced with 100% commodity money, the most stable and honest monetary system known to man, because that will be the choice of a truly free market!


Yes, I am aware that fiat currency is what gov'ts issue when they want to have a war.  But under the Articles of Confederation, there were so many different currencies i.e. dutch, english, spanish, etc.  And the states themselves often wouldn't honor the currency of another state.  This is what I mean by a disaster.





> Freedom works! It is the only thing that does work


Yes, Freedom works, it's just that getting people in large societies like ours to understand what it really is seems futile at times.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> But they don't have a monopoly because they gave their right to issue currency away to the Fed who has control over the amount of money in circulation and how much it costs to borrow it.


Ok, Federal Reserve has the monopoly; and it has this monopoly through a legal tender law that was passed by the Congress. Undo the "legal tender" scam, i.e. remove the government coercion, and Fed's fiat comes to not, for people will reject it in favor of gold and silver currency, because it will preserve and increase their purchasing power, rather than lose the purchasing power and have 97% of it stolen, as was the case with Federal Reserve Notes since 1913.




> So are you saying that if Congress took back their Constitutional responsibility from the Fed, and went back on a gold standard that they couldn't issue reciepts for the gold/silver backed currency?


Yes. The power to print such receipts is not granted to the Congress in the Constitution, therefore it is denied under the 10th Amendment. For which I am very grateful, because you cannot trust the government with it. They have done this before. They overprinted gold certificates before without the gold to back it up. If a private bank does this, and there is a run on the bank, the bankster goes to jail, because he committed fraud. But if a government commits this fraud (as they have done) they will put the taxpayer on the hook for this. So, no, thanks. Let's not allow the government to do it again!

But it does not mean that you have to give up the conveniences of paper or electronic transactions. No! The Congress can coin gold and silver money, but a private company or a bank can issue paper certificates or electronic transactions fully backed by this 100% commodity money. This way, the paper certificates and computer signals are NOT the money, mere warehouse receipts for the money,--gold and silver, which can be demanded as physical delivery in full at any time, and thus check the scheming bankers. 




> Also, my understanding of the Constitution is that it is based in common law, meaning if it is not expressly forbidden, then a thing is okay. What you are suggesting seems to be rooted in Napoleonic law, meaning that if it is not expressly granted then it is forbidden.


This is a very important question. The Constitution was written to limit the power of the Fedreal government to very few enumerated powers. Under the 10th Amendment, which Jefferson called the key stone of the Constitution:

_"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."_
So, in case of the Federal government, if a power is not explicitly granted in the Constitution, it is denied to the Federal government under the 10th Amendment.




> Yes, I am aware that fiat currency is what gov'ts issue when they want to have a war. But under the Articles of Confederation, there were so many different currencies i.e. dutch, english, spanish, etc. And the states themselves often wouldn't honor the currency of another state. This is what I mean by a disaster.


Allow truly free market to operate, unfettered by government force, and the most stable and honest monetary system will prevail, because no one wants his/her purchasing power to be stolen or lost! 100% commodity based currency fits that stable and reliable definition the best. If Gold or silver is money, then their purchasing power is determined by their weight. If Congress wishes to define a dollar as X grams of gold or silver, they are permitted to do so; but even if they didn't, free market would create a standard on its own, that will be famed for its reliability, convenience and trustworthiness.  




> Yes, Freedom works, it's just that getting people in large societies like ours to understand what it really is seems futile at times.


Freedom is nothing more than private property (broadly interpreted, of course, which would include your body, your mind, your conscience, your speech, etc.). Therefore to protect liberty is nothing more or less than to protect private property, because certainly Freedom does not exist without private property! Anything destructive of private property is destructive of liberty, because ultimately private property and liberty are the same. Check out my other post on this subject: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=251255.

The principles of freedom are simple but sublime, they carry with them their own convincing power. The people will have to embrace these true principles or become enslaved. Because only "the truth shall make you free."

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

I edited and expanded the previous post. Please take a look.

Thank you!

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## Deborah K

> Ok, Federal Reserve has the monopoly; and it has this monopoly through a legal tender law that was passed by the Congress. Undo the "legal tender" scam, i.e. remove the government coercion, and Fed's fiat comes to not, for people will reject it in favor of gold and silver currency, because it will preserve and increase their purchasing power, rather than lose the purchasing power and have 97% of it stolen, as was the case with Federal Reserve Notes since 1913.


Indeed.  Which is why I believe the first order of business is to abolish the Fed.




> Yes. The power to print such receipts is not granted to the Congress in the Constitution, therefore it is denied under the 10th Amendment. For which I am very grateful, because you cannot trust the government with it. They have done this before. They overprinted gold certificates before without the gold to back it up. If a private bank does this, and there is a run on the bank, the bankster goes to jail, because he committed fraud. But if a government commits this fraud (as they have done) they will put the taxpayer on the hook for this. So, no, thanks. Let's not allow the government to do it again!


Isn't this fractional reserve banking?  In which case, with the Fed gone, it should still be illegal for private banks to do it.





> But it does not mean that you have to give up the conveniences of paper or electronic transactions. No! The Congress can coin gold and silver money, but a private company or a bank can issue paper certificates or electronic transactions fully backed by this 100% commodity money. This way, the paper certificates and computer signals are NOT the money, mere warehouse receipts for the money,--gold and silver, which can be demanded as physical delivery in full at any time, and thus check the scheming bankers.


Okay, thank you for clearing that up.  




> This is a very important question. The Constitution was written to limit the power of the Fedreal government to very few enumerated powers. Under the 10th Amendment, which Jefferson called the key stone of the Constitution:
> 
> _"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."_
> So, in case of the Federal government, if a power is not explicitly granted in the Constitution, it is denied to the Federal government under the 10th Amendment.


I wish someone could drive that point home with Congress.  They have taken the "general welfare" clause and the "commerce" clause to new heights (or should I say "lows".)




> Allow truly free market to operate, unfettered by government force, and the most stable and honest monetary system will prevail, because no one wants his/her purchasing power to be stolen or lost! 100% commodity based currency fits that stable and reliable definition the best. If Gold or silver is money, then their purchasing power is determined by their weight. If Congress wishes to define a dollar as X grams of gold or silver, they are permitted to do so; but even if they didn't, free market would create a standard on its own, that will be famed for its reliability, convenience and trustworthiness.


I agree.  I'm just not a fan of competing currencies.  I see a clusterf'k with that idea.





> Freedom is nothing more than private property (broadly interpreted, of course, which would include your body, your mind, your conscience, your speech, etc.). Therefore to protect liberty is nothing more or less than to protect private property, because certainly Freedom does not exist without private property! Anything destructive of private property is destructive of liberty, because ultimately private property and liberty are the same. Check out my other post on this subject: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=251255.
> 
> The principles of freedom are simple but sublime, they carry with them their own convincing power. The people will have to embrace these true principles or become enslaved. Because only "the truth shall make you free.


Agreed.  The people will never see freedom for what it truly is until their mindset reverts back to individualism and away from their indoctrinated collectivist thinking.  That, to my way of thinking, is the real challenge we face.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Indeed. Which is why I believe the first order of business is to abolish the Fed.


As I said, Ending the Fed is a good idea, but if you end the Fed but leave the power to declare paper as "legal tender" in the hands of government, ultimately you will not change a thing! The same people will be robbing you through legalized counterfeiting and inflation, only they will do it while using a different name and wearing government hats. 

We must eliminate government force and coercion in the realm of money, if you wish to enjoy freedom and prosperity; which is only possible if you outlaw "legal tender" government medium-of-exchange monopoly scam, and thus allow an honest, 100% commodity based monetary system freely arise, such as 100% gold and silver system. I am convinced that Liberty is quite impossible without such a free, and honest, 100% commodity based monetary system!




> Isn't this fractional reserve banking? In which case, with the Fed gone, it should still be illegal for private banks to do it.


Not necessarily. Fractional reserve fraud existed long before Federal Reserve, and frankly, if a private bank wants to engage in it with a full consent and knowledge of its clients they can do so.  (I do not know anyone crazy enough to knowingly and willingly put money into such a bank). And if such a bank fails to deliver the gold or silver upon demand, they should be persecuted for fraud.  But the US government has absolutely no authority to engage in "fractional reserve" banking, and in fact, they are violating several provisions of the Constitution when they do so. The Constitution authorizes the Federal government to issue, and the States to deal in, only 100% gold and silver money, and nothing else!




> I agree. I'm just not a fan of competing currencies. I see a clusterf'k with that idea.


Are you a fan of Freedom? Free market competition is the very thing that insures currency's (or any other product's, for that matter) quality and stability. Remove the competition, and you removed the very mechanism that forces a business to perfect and maintain its product! If people are truly free, they should be free to deal in ANY currency they choose to, as long as they do not defraud anyone! 

If you think that one government forced currency will be more orderly, you could argue that one government forced car model would be more orderly, or one government forced computer model, etc. Yes, it will be more orderly, but it will be the order that is found, say, in a cemetery. It will suck the life out of people's free enterprise and creativity and thus destroy the economy, not to mention create a very fruitful field for government corruption. Above all it is immoral, for government has no right to force anyone to do anything, that you as individual, have no moral right to force your neighbor to do, because the only legitimate authority the government has is what you as individual delegated to it, and you cannot delegate an authority you do not have! So if you, as individual, have no moral right to force your neighbor to use, (or not to use), a particular currency, you have no right to ask your government to force him for you.

(It's called the Benson principle, and it is one of the Fundamental Principles of Liberty, without which Freedom is impossible. Please check out this: http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347) 




> Agreed. The people will never see freedom for what it truly is until their mindset reverts back to individualism and away from their indoctrinated collectivist thinking. That, to my way of thinking, is the real challenge we face.


I completely agree with you there!

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## Travlyr

> I agree with you wholeheartedly!!! I think this is key,key of power, either for tyranny or for liberty: Fiat paper for tyranny; Gold and silver for Liberty. Because gold and silver, if adhered to, break the government's counterfeiting machine! 
> 
> Also, 100% commodity based monetary system puts free market in control of money supply, and not the government. I believe these, in part, are the chains Jefferson spoke about, when he said "Let us bind the government down with the chains of the Constitution." 100% gold or silver, or in general, 100% commodity based monetary system, binds the government down with chains as it were, preventing the government from robbing the people through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. 
> 
> Fiat paper cannot operate without government force behind it, because it is a fraud! As Jefferson said: "It is error that need the support of government. Truth can stand alone." 100% Gold and silver money do not need government force behind them, because people will accept them willingly, without coercion. 
> 
> So, if you end "legal tender" scam, or in other words, you end government force in the realm of money, you end fiat! And when government coercion is ended, through this amendment, 100% gold and silver monetary system will naturally emerge and triumph, without any force on the part of government!
> 
> I am convinced, that Liberty simply cannot exist without honest, 100% commodity based monetary system! Freedom (i.e. absence of government force) is the best way to achieve such an honest system!


You present good strong arguments in this thread and seem to have a good handle on what is necessary to get our liberties back.

----------


## DamianTV

When wars are fought, money is spent in the beginning, middle, and end.  In any dishonest money system, the only group that really wins is the banks that fund the war.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> You present good strong arguments in this thread and seem to have a good handle on what is necessary to get our liberties back.


Thank you very much for your support and encouragement!

God bless!

----------


## Seraphim

> Thank you very much for your support and encouragement!
> 
> God bless!


I agree with you whole heartedly. EVERYTHING you said I agree with. I knew the vast majority of what you said, but there were a few small points that I hadn't thought of that really brings a lot of it together.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> I agree with you whole heartedly. EVERYTHING you said I agree with. I knew the vast majority of what you said, but were a few small points that I hadn't thought of that really brings a lot of it together.


Thank you!!

----------


## robert68

> Not necessarily. Fractional reserve fraud existed long before Federal Reserve, and frankly, if a private bank wants to engage in it with a full consent and knowledge of its clients they can do so.  (I do not know anyone crazy enough to knowingly and willingly put money into such a bank)...


Whats the difference between 100% backed commodity banking and the commodity storage business?

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Whats the difference between 100% backed commodity banking and the commodity storage business?


Not much. It is essentially the same. And paper and computer signals, in this correct scenario, are NOT money, but merely warehouse receipts for the real money--the commodity being held by the bank (secure warehouse).

----------


## osan

> *Honest Money Constitutional Amendment*
> *Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden.*


Sounds OK, but is it enough?  The Constitution specifies coin in specie only.  They don't give a damn about that - why would they respect this?  Another problem: they will enact legal tender laws anyway and call it something else.  This is typical and it seems to work like a charm.

Thoughts?

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Sounds OK, but is it enough?  The Constitution specifies coin in specie only.  They don't give a damn about that - why would they respect this?  Another problem: they will enact legal tender laws anyway and call it something else.  This is typical and it seems to work like a charm.
> 
> Thoughts?


Good point. The difference here is education. The language of this amendment contains the WHY. It explains WHY legal tender laws are forbidden, because they cause the rise of fiat monetary system and paper money inflation. When the WHY is spelled out in the Constitution itself (in this amendment) the people will be empowered to defend it, because ultimately it is the people who must defend the Constitution, because the government will not.

Do you have suggestions on improving the language further? I will be glad to hear it!

Thank you!

How about this: 

*Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. Government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent free competition in currencies among private citizens. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.*
Is that better? Can we improve it more?

Thanks again.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Another tool that the Fed's use to shut down competing monetary systems, especially gold and silver ones is capital gain taxes. We should take care of that too.

How's that:

*Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. Government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent free competition in currencies among private citizens, nor charge capital gain taxes on the medium of exchange. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.*

----------


## osan

> How about this: *Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. Government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent free competition in currencies among private citizens. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.*Is that better? Can we improve it more?
> 
> Thanks again.


How about this:
All money systems must be based upon tangible and non-perishable commodity specie conforming to Article I, Section 10 of this Constitution, at the very least.  All paper currencies must denominate said commodities by either weight or volume measure and must be *immediately* convertible upon demand.
Note it specifies money *systems*, leaving open the legitimacy of non-governmental currencies.  Also notice that it specifies materially constant measures of "value" - weight and volume - rather than the ambiguous nonsense called "dollar", which signifies _nothing_ measurable and constant.   Measurability and constancy are the keystones of sane monetary systems.  Without this, there is not inherent controllability and therefore no basis for confidence, save that of ignorance and lassitude.  We can readily see how well those have served our interests.

That said, I ha ve no porblem with fiat currency in principle.  In reality, however, the fact that most human beings cannot be trusted to the door with administering such systems, they are therefore wholly impractical and must be avoided like the plague.

All of this discussion of money systems does, however bring to the fore a deeper problem - one that has not been sufficiently solved even by gold standards... though the latter has thus far worked better than any other.  The problem is one of representing _value_ and perhaps more importantly, of stabilizing that representation, which is the way in which value is _maintained o ver time._  If I work for 30 years, store every penny, sock it away in my mattress, then get hit by a car and spend the next 20 years in a coma, popping out of it and finally returning to my mattress, the value of the stash should not have altered.  In our current system, that is clearly not the case due to the built-in inflationary characteristic.  The result is that I have been effectively robbed of a good part of that 30 years of working and saving.  If hyperinflation struck during that time, I have been effectively robbed of it all.  One should not be REQUIRED to assume RISK via investing in order to maintain value.  That is as anti-liberty as anything could possibly get.

So, the question then revolves around what sort of universal value system could we contrive that would allow us to stuff that mattress, go away for 30 years and then come back to a stash whose value remains unchanged.  That, me friends, is the $64 question, and until an answer is found, we will always fall prey to the thieves, scoundrels, and mountebanks whose lives revolve around picking the pockets of the good citizens of the nation.

I've seen bitcoin, but do not yet understand its principle of operation.

In any event, what is needed is a unit of value-representation that cannot be altered by any means whatsoever - cannot be counterfeited or otherwise debased.  Not an easy solution to find, I suspect.  Consider gold coin - If I debase the specie 10% from .900 fine to .810 fine, I have upped the supply by 10% (actually a bit more) and who is going to know?  How many people spend their days assaying the coinage?

My first blush swag at a immutable unit of value could be "time".  Thoughts?

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> How about this:
> All money systems must be based upon tangible and non-perishable commodity specie conforming to Article I, Section 10 of this Constitution, at the very least. All paper currencies must denominate said commodities by either weight or volume measure and must be immediately convertible upon demand.


Well, my concern is twofold: first if you allow the government to PRINT say gold certificates as theyve done in the past, and they overprint it, creating more paper claims than the actual gold they have, (and if a private bank did that and there was a run on the bank it would go bankrupt), but the government cannot go bankrupt, therefore it will put taxpayers on the hook for this. So, I would put the government out of printing business all together. 

Secondly, you can legitimately bind the government to use the kind of money you specified (and I like that! Good work!) but not the people. Your amendment violates the Benson Principle (please see http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347 ) because it gives the government authority that cannot be delegated to it by the individual. Do you have moral right to force your neighbor to transact (or not to transact) in specific currencies? No. Therefore you cannot delegate this authority to your government, because you cannot delegate an authority you do not have.

Freedom works. Remove government force from the realm of money, and you will allow the operation of unfettered free market; when that happens, government fiat will end because it cannot operate without government force and coercion; thus 100% commodity based monetary system will freely arise, because it is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man, and therefore it will be the free choice of the free market, because no one likes his purchasing power being stolen by governments printing press. Freedom works. It is the only thing that does work!





> That said, I ha ve no porblem with fiat currency in principle.


Enlighten me please. By definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiat+money) fiat money is conjured out of nothing and then forced by the government upon the people. Therefore the government who issues and spends such fiat money is able to lay claim to peoples goods and services in exchange for worthless paper. How is that just? How is that not plunder? How is that not SOMETHING for NOTHING?  Which is actually a definition of theft and fraud.




> Consider gold coin - If I debase the specie 10% from .900 fine to .810 fine, I have upped the supply by 10% (actually a bit more) and who is going to know? How many people spend their days assaying the coinage?


Even though 100% commodity based monetary system is not 100% counterfeit proof, it is INFINETELY more legal-counterfeit proof than fiat, because fiat itself is fraud. It is MUCH, MUCH easier to legally counterfeit in 0s and 1s than in gold bullion! So we must use the system that is the most stable and honest, that we know about.

Secondly, the purchasing power of say gold, tends to increase with time, so when you come out of the comma in 20 years (per your example), if your savings were in gold currency, your purchasing power has actually increased, (rather than being stolen as in fiat case)! A great thing for those who save money say for a retirement!

So 100% commodity based currency, especially gold and silver, approach your perfect system most nearly!
Thats why I said 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man!




> My first blush swag at a immutable unit of value could be "time". Thoughts?


Problem with time is that you could get sick, or your debtor could get sick. How are they going to trade you their time? And what quality that time will be? It varies from person to person. So there is nothing stable about that! 100% commodity based monetary system works MUCH, MUCH better! In fact, better than anything else we know about!

----------


## osan

> Quote:
>                                                                       Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _How about this:
> All money systems must be based upon tangible and non-perishable commodity specie conforming to Article I, Section 10 of this Constitution, at the very least. All paper currencies must denominate said commodities by either weight or volume measure and must be immediately convertible upon demand._
> 
> Well, my concern is twofold: first if you allow the government to PRINT say gold certificates as they’ve done in the past, and they overprint it, creating more paper claims than the actual gold they have, (and if a private bank did that and there was a run on the bank it would go bankrupt), but the government cannot go bankrupt, therefore it will put taxpayers on the hook for this. So, I would put the government out of printing business all together.


If the penalties for "over printing" are draconian as I believe they ought to be with officials spending the remainders of their miserable existences in solitary confinement, I believe that the problem will become vanishingly small.




> Secondly, you can legitimately bind the government to use the kind of money you specified (and I like that! Good work!) but not the people. Your amendment violates the Benson Principle (please see http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347 ) because it gives the government authority that cannot be delegated to it by the individual. Do you have moral right to force your neighbor to transact (or not to transact) in specific currencies? No.


Forgive me, I have not yet read the cite you provide - dial up sucks... one of the minor disadvantages of living in the middle of nowhere.  So please forgive any errors I may make here.  My amendment allows for an arbitrary number of currency systems, private or otherwise.  Nobody is bound to use one only or any given system.  Use what works - use that in which you have confidence.  In such a wildly free and competitive market, the good ones will edge out the others, will they not?

That all said, in some way I do have the right to require a given currency.  If I am selling my car and I will accept only platinum or gold ounces for it, that is my prerogative.  If you do not have any or are otherwise unwilling to make that trade, then you do not buy my car.  It is as simple as that.  We either reach a mutually satisfying agreement or we do not.  Freedom of choice cuts both ways.





> Therefore you cannot delegate this authority to your government, because you cannot delegate an authority you do not have.


Understood and agreed, but I do not believe this to be the case with the amendment I contrived.  Could you please explain to me how it would be so?  I just cannot see it, for some reason.




> Freedom works. Remove government force from the realm of money, and you will allow the operation of unfettered free market; when that happens, government fiat will end because it cannot operate without government force and coercion; thus 100% commodity based monetary system will freely arise, because it is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man, and therefore it will be the free choice of the free market, because no one likes his purchasing power being stolen by government’s printing press. Freedom works. It is the only thing that does work!


We are in violent agreement.


     Quote:
                                                                      Originally Posted by *osan*  
_That said, I ha ve no porblem with fiat currency in principle._




> Enlighten me please. By definition (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fiat+money) fiat money is conjured out of nothing and then forced by the government upon the people. Therefore the government who issues and spends such fiat money is able to lay claim to peoples’ goods and services in exchange for worthless paper. How is that just? How is that not plunder? How is that not SOMETHING for NOTHING? Which is actually a definition of theft and fraud.


Conjured out of nothing is, in principle, irrelevant.  If every dollar that is printed accurately and faithfully covered precisely that much "added value" that enters into an economy, there would be no trouble at all because that piece of paper would, in fact, represent REAL and tangible value.  The other side of that _might_ be a requirement to destroy notes that represented value lost.  How that would be accomplished would be anyone's guess.  This, of course, is all hypothetically speaking in terms of pure principle.  In practice, as I mentioned, it is not workable.  We must also be keenly aware that "value" is a very subjective concept, and this is well demonstrated at the auction house where some item is put up for bids.  People bid what they feel the item is worth.  At the outset it is worth nothing because nobody has yet bid.  If nobody bids, the value remains at zero.  If an opening bid is made, the auctioneer works it until bidding activity ceases and the highest bidder wins.  What was the value of the item?  There was no_ single_ value attributable to it, but probably a plurality of values, each for a given bidder.  Value floats and that complicates things.  Nevertheless, having a measurable and stable currency takes one big step in reducing that complexity, but loss of "value" is possible in any case.  When times are tough and food scarce, its value rises.  Your $20MM in gold bouillion may not buy you an egg in certain circumstances... and you cant' gain susenance from eating gold. 

     Quote:
                                                                      Originally Posted by *osan*  
_Consider gold coin - If I debase the specie 10% from .900 fine to .810 fine, I have upped the supply by 10% (actually a bit more) and who is going to know? How many people spend their days assaying the coinage?_




> Even though 100% commodity based monetary system is not 100% counterfeit proof, it is INFINETELY more legal-counterfeit proof than fiat, because fiat itself is fraud. It is MUCH, MUCH easier to legally counterfeit in 0’s and 1’s than in gold bullion! So we must use the system that is the most stable and honest, that we know about.


Agreed.




> Secondly, the purchasing power of say gold, tends to increase with time, so when you come out of the comma in 20 years (per your example), if your savings were in gold currency, your purchasing power has actually increased, (rather than being stolen as in fiat case)! A great thing for those who save money say for a retirement!


Agreed with the caveat that this assumes "normal" conditions and nothing extreme such as severe food shortages.




> So 100% commodity based currency, especially gold and silver, approach your perfect system most nearly!
> That’s why I said 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man!


No argument from me.

     Quote:
                                                                      Originally Posted by *osan*  
_My first blush swag at a immutable unit of value could be "time". Thoughts?_




> Problem with time is that you could get sick, or your debtor could get sick. How are they going to trade you their time?


Forgive my imprecision.  By "time", I meant units of time for which ione is compensated.  A 10-hour bill denotes 10 work hours.  The problem there, of course, is the differeing values in the times of different individuals.  That of a garbage collector... erm, I mean "sanitation engineer" is not equal to that of a neurosurgeon.  Then again, some may argue that it is.  This is the inherent problem that perhaps cannot be solvable.

The best solution, of course, would be the invention of Star Drek style replicator technology whereby a person's every material need is attainable for the mere asking.
\
In any event, we agree on commodity basis.  Adding other precious metals may not be a bad idea, especially to combat the dullards who speciously assert that there is not enough gold to go around.  Rhodium, ruthenium, rhenium, tungsten, iridium, osmium... these would all be suitable additions to the commodity pool.

I would still insist on denominations based on hard measurement.  Pounds, ounces, grains... or if we want to go all metric-***, then kilograms, decagrams, grams, milligrams...

Each certificate would represent precisely its face value measurment in the metal it is assigned.  "Ten grains fine gold" and so forth.  The problem I see, however, is the inter-specie valuations.  Hwo are they etablished and is it reasonable to give them an immutable rational value?  for example, oen ounce of gold may be defined as 20 ounces of silver, thirty five ounces of tungsten, 1/2 ounce of rhodium, 3 ounces of iridium, and so on.  Without a constant relative value, pricing of retail items would become a nightmare, and with so many commodity metals backing the notes, pricing will be tough in any event.  That is the virtue and cenvenience of units such as "dollars", but they really cannot be trusted IMO due to the corrupt nature of far too many human beings, most of them occupying governmental positions wherein they can screw the pooch far too easily.

Couterfeiting would still be a major problem and in a convertible system it becomes a far worse issue.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> If the penalties for "over printing" are draconian as I believe they ought to be with officials spending the remainders of their miserable existences in solitary confinement, I believe that the problem will become vanishingly small.


Fine, you may be right. But even if you put the guy in jail, where will the gold come from for those who are holding extra paper? In the case of government the taxpayers will be put on the hook for this. Thus the problem is not isolated by a bankruptcy of one institution, but is spread to ALL in the country, because the government does not go bankrupt without dragging everyone with it. This is why Id prefer following current US Constitution, which only permits Congress to COIN money, but NOT to print it (under the 10th Amendment).




> My amendment allows for an arbitrary number of currency systems, private or otherwise. Nobody is bound to use one only or any given system.


That is not what your amendment actually says. It says: All money systems must be  All means all, public and private. I wholeheartedly support your proposed restrictions placed on the government (minus the printing part), but I cannot support putting such restrictions on private citizens because that would violate the Benson Principle, which is one of the Fundamental Principles of Liberty. (Please see the link when your dial-up allows  http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347




> Understood and agreed, but I do not believe this to be the case with the amendment I contrived. Could you please explain to me how it would be so? I just cannot see it, for some reason.


According to your amendment ALL currencies must follow certain rules you specify. And these are good rules (minus perhaps the printing part). But however good your rules are, the only entity that you may apply them to is the government, if you get a majority to agree with you, that is. But you have no moral right to FORCE your neighbor to follow these rules for the currency he creates privately. He can create any ridiculous currency he wants and use it, as long as he does not defraud anyone in the process. So if you have no moral right to FORCE your neighbor to follow these rules for his private currency, you cannot ask the government to FORCE him for you. Why? Because the only legitimate authority the government has is what you, as individual, delegated to it, and you cannot delegate an authority you do not have.  
Now, if you think your amendment does not force private citizens to follow your rules for their currencies, then you are mistaken, for it says ALL currencies, which means public and private. So to square with the Benson Principle you need to reword it to apply ONLY to the government, but NOT to private citizens.

Other then that, I think these would be great rules to follow for private currencies as well, as long as you do not FORCE them to do so. I would personally use only currencies that follow the rules you outlined! But thats the beauty of free market, the best currency freely wins, and that without any government FORCE! Freedom is beautiful!




> We are in violent agreement.


Thanks! 




> Conjured out of nothing is, in principle, irrelevant. If every dollar that is printed accurately and faithfully covered precisely that much "added value" that enters into an economy, there would be no trouble at all because that piece of paper would, in fact, represent REAL and tangible value.


The problem is how do you propose that piece of paper enter into circulation? Someone has to spend it into circulation first. He who spends it first will be getting SOMETHING (goods and services) for NOTHING (worthless paper). So there is an act of plunder occurring at the point of creation of such unbacked currency, at the moment it first enters circulation! Sure, you are assigning certain added value to that piece of paper, but you created a claim to that added value out of nothing. Therefore he who issues that piece of paper and uses it FIRST, commits an act of plunder.

Of course in a truly free market people will largely reject such unbacked paper, (who likes being plundered anyway). But if you make that fiat paper legal tender, you can now FORCE people to take it, and your plunder is enforced by the government!

Did I miss anything?

Thanks.




> Adding other precious metals may not be a bad idea, especially to combat the dullards who speciously assert that there is not enough gold to go around.


Good point. But did you ever considered that there ALWAYS will be enough gold in the world to support economy of ANY size, even if gold supply remained constant (which it isnt, it is growing at a healthy rate). How so? Well, if the economy expanded and gold supply did not, the purchasing power of gold will simply increase to cover new goods and services in the economy! A great thing for those who save money, say for a retirement! Your money buys more and more as time goes by!





> I would still insist on denominations based on hard measurement. Pounds, ounces, grains... or if we want to go all metric-***, then kilograms, decagrams, grams, milligrams...


Good point, and I agree. 

But did you know that originally the word dollar meant a certain WIEGHT of silver. The word pound (as in British pound £) meant (surprise!) a pound of silver, etc.  So originally, names of currencies meant a specific WEIGHT of certain precious metal. But gradually, the banksters succeeded in divorcing the names of currencies from weight of underlying commodity. Thus entered in the fiat fraud. The rest is history. 




> The problem I see, however, is the inter-specie valuations.


Free market will sort it out well. I wouldnt even mind the value of different metals floating against each other depending on supply. And to those who say this is chaos, I say, this chaos is much better than the orderly theft and plunder accomplished by unbacked fiat!




> Couterfeiting would still be a major problem and in a convertible system it becomes a far worse issue.


However bad metal counterfeiting is, it will NEVER be as bad (not even close) as legalized counterfeiting enabled by government forced unbacked fiat! The orders of magnitude of difference are ASTRONOMICAL!

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

O, forgot sales taxes on the medium of exchange. The idea here is that you don't pay sales tax when you change $5 bill into quarters, so you shouldn't pay sales tax say on gold and silver when you use them as money.

All these are Ron Paul's ideas, I simply put them in the form of an amendment that also explains to people WHY it is important.

Please see the updated version at the very top. 

Thanks.

----------


## osan

> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _If the penalties for "over printing" are draconian as I believe they ought to be with officials spending the remainders of their miserable existences in solitary confinement, I believe that the problem will become vanishingly small._
> 
> Fine, you may be right. But even if you put the guy in jail, where will the gold come from for those who are holding extra paper? In the case of government the taxpayers will be put on the hook for this. Thus the problem is not isolated by a bankruptcy of one institution, but is spread to ALL in the country, because the government does not go bankrupt without dragging everyone with it. This is why Id prefer following current US Constitution, which only permits Congress to COIN money, but NOT to print it (under the 10th Amendment).


Your point is well taken, but as you point out below, this is a risk we take no matter what system is set into place.  One possible solution is nth-order blind redundancy in the system.  Have 'n' layers of processing, each unaware of the existence of the others.  Nobody knows who else may be keeping the books and each has their ass on the line such that any accounting tricks could be discovered by another operator, which would spell disaster for careers.  Any such error not provably criminal is categorized as negligent and those connected lose their jobs and may never again work at Treasury.  Proven criminal action sees life in prison, no exceptions, no parole, no mercy.   Anyone willing to risk such stakes _needs_ to be in prison.   In any event, make crime and negligence painfully unattractive where money issues are concerned.




> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _My amendment allows for an arbitrary number of currency systems, private or otherwise. Nobody is bound to use one only or any given system._
> 
> That is not what your amendment actually says. It says: All money systems must be  All means all, public and private. I wholeheartedly support your proposed restrictions placed on the government (minus the printing part), but I cannot support putting such restrictions on private citizens because that would violate the Benson Principle, which is one of the Fundamental Principles of Liberty. (Please see the link when your dial-up allows  http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347


I see your point.  Well taken and I probably agree, though I will have to think about it a bit more.




> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _Understood and agreed, but I do not believe this to be the case with the amendment I contrived. Could you please explain to me how it would be so? I just cannot see it, for some reason._
> 
> According to your amendment ALL currencies must follow certain rules you specify.


Yes, I was not intending to deliver a comprehensive corpus here.  I don't have all the answers - just trying to get the basic notions out there.





> And these are good rules (minus perhaps the printing part). But however good your rules are, the only entity that you may apply them to is the government, if you get a majority to agree with you, that is. But you have no moral right to FORCE your neighbor to follow these rules for the currency he creates privately.


Now I see your point more clearly.  I must agree.




> He can create any ridiculous currency he wants and use it, as long as he does not defraud anyone in the process. So if you have no moral right to FORCE your neighbor to follow these rules for his private currency, you cannot ask the government to FORCE him for you. Why? Because the only legitimate authority the government has is what you, as individual, delegated to it, and you cannot delegate an authority you do not have.


yes.





> Freedom is beautiful!


Indeed 






> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _Conjured out of nothing is, in principle, irrelevant. If every dollar that is printed accurately and faithfully covered precisely that much "added value" that enters into an economy, there would be no trouble at all because that piece of paper would, in fact, represent REAL and tangible value._
> 
> The problem is how do you propose that piece of paper enter into circulation?


That is the $64 question.




> Someone has to spend it into circulation first. He who spends it first will be getting SOMETHING (goods and services) for NOTHING (worthless paper). So there is an act of plunder occurring at the point of creation of such unbacked currency, at the moment it first enters circulation! Sure, you are assigning certain added value to that piece of paper, but you created a claim to that added value out of nothing. Therefore he who issues that piece of paper and uses it FIRST, commits an act of plunder.


Not sure this is necessarily true, but I would have to think about it more.  Right now my head hurts from too much thinking. 




> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _Adding other precious metals may not be a bad idea, especially to combat the dullards who speciously assert that there is not enough gold to go around._
> 
> Good point. But did you ever considered that there ALWAYS will be enough gold in the world to support economy of ANY size, even if gold supply remained constant (which it isnt, it is growing at a healthy rate). How so? Well, if the economy expanded and gold supply did not, the purchasing power of gold will simply increase to cover new goods and services in the economy! A great thing for those who save money, say for a retirement! Your money buys more and more as time goes by!


But this is the inverse of inflation, which is good for those holding a quantity of  specie and not good for those who do not.




> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _The problem I see, however, is the inter-specie valuations._
> 
> Free market will sort it out well. I wouldnt even mind the value of different metals floating against each other depending on supply. And to those who say this is chaos, I say, this chaos is much better than the orderly theft and plunder accomplished by unbacked fiat!


Agreed.



> Quote:
>  	 	 		 			 				 					Originally Posted by *osan*  
> _Couterfeiting would still be a major problem and in a convertible system it becomes a far worse issue._
> 
> However bad metal counterfeiting is, it will NEVER be as bad (not even close) as legalized counterfeiting enabled by government forced unbacked fiat! The orders of magnitude of difference are ASTRONOMICAL!


I am referring to paper counterfeiting in a specie-backed paper system.  A good operator prints up a batch and redeems for a few tons of gold over, say, a couple of years.... if there is a run, big poo hits the fan.  Private systems may be even more vulnerable - anti-counterfeiting protection is very costly.  Small operators could likely not afford it.  How are holders of the legitimate certificates to be reasonably protected when the bad guys strip the small small operators of substantial proportions of their reserves?

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> One possible solution is nth-order blind redundancy in the system. Have 'n' layers of processing, each unaware of the existence of the others.


The problem still remains of coercion. Fiat cannot operate without government force backing it up, because it is a fraud. That force violates the Benson Principle which is one of the Fundamental Principles of Liberty, without which Liberty cannot survive and prosper. (http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347)

Free competition in currencies works much better to check government fraud, because if people notice government money losing its purchasing power, they will simply reject it in favor of a more stable currency that preserves and increases their purchasing power! And given truly free market in currencies it will overwhelmingly be 100% commodity based, interest free monetary system, -- the most honest and stable monetary system known to man! And all that WITHOUT government force! Freedom is beautiful!




> But this is the inverse of inflation, which is good for those holding a quantity of specie and not good for those who do not.


Extremes of deflation may be harmful to businesses, but at least mild deflation, i.e. increase in the purchasing power of money, is good for the poor people, and for those who save for, say, old age. On balance this is a MUCH more positive occurrence than having their savings stolen by government’s printing press! Inflation hurts the most the poor and those on fixed incomes, and those who save money. Conversely, deflation benefits most the poor, those on fixed incomes, and those who save money! I’d say a mild deflation is a very healthy thing to have in an economy! And that’s precisely what would happen with gold or silver as money! It would protect the old, the poor, and those who save money!




> I am referring to paper counterfeiting in a specie-backed paper system. A good operator prints up a batch and redeems for a few tons of gold over, say, a couple of years.... if there is a run, big poo hits the fan. Private systems may be even more vulnerable - anti-counterfeiting protection is very costly. Small operators could likely not afford it. How are holders of the legitimate certificates to be reasonably protected when the bad guys strip the small small operators of substantial proportions of their reserves?


I am not quite sure what you are talking about.
I see three possibilities:

	a) counterfeiting of paper by criminals, (but that’s no different than what we have now, and ways to deal with that are pretty well developed).

	b) overprinting of paper gold (or commodity in general) certificates with no gold (or commodity) to back it up. In this case physical delivery demand is the ultimate check. You can even demand that bank A deliver your gold (or commodity) to bank B that you trust, and thus check bank A. Or you can demand physical delivery to you. That is the ultimate check for overprinting.

	c) Counterfeiting of the metal by diluting with baser metals. Free market will quickly come up with cost effective ways to detect that. This technology already exists and is readily available!

All these things can be sorted out by private enterprise and free market MUCH better than the government can!

----------


## robert68

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by robert68  
> Whats the difference between 100% backed commodity banking and the commodity storage business?





> Not much. It is essentially the same. And paper and computer signals, in this correct scenario, are NOT money, but merely warehouse receipts for the real money--the commodity being held by the bank (secure warehouse).


Id rather be paid interest on my bank deposits than pay storage fees.

----------


## robert68

> ...
> That’s why I said 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man!


Could you cite evidence that an economy with a 100% commodity based monetary system, would be vibrant and growing? 

There were no bank failures in Canada or Hong Kong during the period of 1934 -1965, and I don’t think either had a 100% commodity based monetary system. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n1-3.html

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Id rather be paid interest on my bank deposits than pay storage fees.


No one prevents you from authorizing your bank to loan out your money at an interest! Of course there will be no FDIC, as under 100% commodity system, no one will bail you out by the printing press if your bank loses your money! So the failure will be isolated to you and your bank, rather than spread out to everyone holding fiat paper dollars, whose purchasing power would be stolen by the FDIC's printing press if it were to bail you out! 

Thus 100% commodity based monetary system enforces contracts (no bailout is possible), and isolates failure (everyone cannot be plundered to bail you out)! All these are very desirable qualities in an honest monetary system!

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Could you cite evidence that an economy with a 100% commodity based monetary system, would be vibrant and growing? 
> 
> There were no bank failures in Canada or Hong Kong during the period of 1934 -1965, and I don’t think either had a 100% commodity based monetary system. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n1-3.html


US in late 1800's had the dollar fully based on gold and silver, with multiple competing currencies insuring integrity of money via free competition in currencies. It was the time of unprecedented growth and prosperity in the US.

As for absence of bank failures, it is not an indicator of success of a currency (remember bank could be bailed out by a printing press). The true measure of value of a currency is how well it preserves its purchasing power. And we know that ALL unbacked paper currencies, historically, lost their purchasing power! I said lost, but I should've said had their purchasing power stolen. Because purchasing power is never lost, it is simply transfered to another by the printing press inflation. Case in point US "dollar" lost 97% of its purchasing power since 1913, when Federal Reserve Fraud was instituted!

Conversely, gold and silver have preserved, and actually increased their purchasing power since 1913! So given true freedom to transact in anything they choose, what do you think will people choose a) fiat paper that has its purchasing power constantly stolen by government's printing press inflation, or b) 100% gold and silver (or in general any other commodity) money, whose purchasing power is preserved and actually rises over time?

I'd say given freedom, people will choose the latter! Because 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man!

----------


## osan

> The problem still remains of coercion. Fiat cannot operate without government force backing it up, because it is a fraud. That force violates the Benson Principle which is one of the Fundamental Principles of Liberty, without which Liberty cannot survive and prosper. (http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=12347)


OK, I $#@!ed up here in equating paper money with fiat currency.  What I was really speaking of was _value-backed_ paper, even where such backing is not necessarily tangible.  This is, in principle, perfectly workable.  In practice, the well established "features" of human behavior make it practically impossible.

Never mind. 




> Free competition in currencies works much better to check government fraud, because if people notice government money losing its purchasing power, they will simply reject it in favor of a more stable currency that preserves and increases their purchasing power! And given truly free market in currencies it will overwhelmingly be 100% commodity based, interest free monetary system, -- the most honest and stable monetary system known to man! And all that WITHOUT government force! Freedom is beautiful!


But the problem you cited earlier still exists: how does one correct erroneous or criminal issuance of paper certificates?  Once the horse has bolted, closing the barn door fails to suffice.  The problem is similar to that of unringing a bell.





> Extremes of deflation may be harmful to businesses, but at least mild deflation, i.e. increase in the purchasing power of money, is good for the poor people, and for those who save for, say, old age.


You are attempting to establish as legitimate an artificial delineation between business and "people".  They are one and the same.  Robbing Paul to pay Peter is no better than vice versa.  The effects are effectively the same and the debilitating results will be strongly analogous, if even at all distingushable.  If business suffers, the markets suffer, and WE are the markets and the businesses.  No matter how you cut it, inflation and deflation are equally bad because they constitute distortions and instability in value in a very general way, and that is very bad.  Localized distortions are bad enough, but all else equal, a healthy economy should be able to absorb them and find new and equally fit equilibria.  But when the overall system of value representation is compromised beyond a point, bad things happen and there is no place to which one may "escape", economically speaking.  The general health of the economy has degraded and people suffer loss.





> On balance this is a MUCH more positive occurrence than having their savings stolen by governments printing press!


Not really.  It is just far less likely to be as extreme and in that sense we agree.  Fully convertible, precious commodity backing imposes discipline upon those managing any money system.  When I show up with $20K in certificates and the bank is unable to redeem them, there is precious little wiggle room for tap dancing around the truth.  In such cases, a few very pointed questions would have to be answered, unlike in the fiat system where any of a great number of outright lies may be employed to excuse or even refuse to redeem.  And yes, there is a convertibility feature even in the fiat system we currently use: the check.  A check is essentially a _cash-backed_ money system.  I once loaned a friend $35K so she could buy a house.  Three months later she gave me a check for a mere $10K.  I went to her branch in Freehold NJ to cash it.  The teler turned sheet-white, then said she would not cash the check unless I opened an account.  I told her she was full of $#@!, in almost those words.  Manager came and continued to refuse.  Using something like Socratic method, I painted them into a corner and they finally realized I was nobody to $#@! with and they cashed the note.  But the fact that they even attempted to refuse a check drawn on THAT branch says much about the way things work these days.  One is looked upon with some contempt for asserting his property rights.  This is a strong symptom of fascism at work.  BTW, when I came in with a $25K check the following month, they cashed it right away, if with a sour look on their pusses - they remembered me. 




> Inflation hurts the most the poor and those on fixed incomes, and those who save money. Conversely, deflation benefits most the poor, those on fixed incomes, and those who save money!


There appears here a subtext that one holds greater property claims than another.  I cannot agree with this.  




> Id say a mild deflation is a very healthy thing to have in an economy!


Depends on how one defines "mild".




> And thats precisely what would happen with gold or silver as money! It would protect the old, the poor, and those who save money!


Maybe.  A big question in all of this is bootstrapping such a system.  How is the extant gold distributed?  _That_ is a key point of buggery, IMO.  It is likely that there will initially be a very distorted distribution, which in and of itself may not be a problem.  But if there was to be a revolutionary change in that distribution in the direction of increased entropic equilbrium, there will be very big problems in terms of deflation because of the greatly grown economy.  The finite specie, being rapidly redistributed through free market activity (as assumption), the purchasing power of a unit of gold should go way up.  Wages go down, the wealthy grow far wealthier yet inject no additional inherent value into the economy.  IOW, the problems we see now would still be present, only in reverse.

Another problem is hoarding.  If I run John Doe Corp. and just sock the money away generation after generation, the value of specie goes through the ceiling and our economic power soars.  IMO hoarding would become a core practice for some companies.  I would not take too many large corporations to effectively corner the precious specie market, which would be yet another reason to expand the menu of commodities to back the currency.  A problem that I see there is that there should still be a strong tendency to hoard certain backing elements.... like gold.  It's human habit as observed over the past several thousands of years.




> a) counterfeiting of paper by criminals, (but thats no different than what we have now, and ways to deal with that are pretty well developed).


It IS different in that in a convertible system the threat of comig up short at redemption time presents problems of a very real and somewhat different nature.  Fiat systems can absorb counterfeiting more readily in this respect and is an advantage, within limits.




> All these things can be sorted out by private enterprise and free market MUCH better than the government can!


yeah, in addition to technology, life/death sentences for counterfeiters.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> What I was really speaking of was value-backed paper, even where such backing is not necessarily tangible. This is, in principle, perfectly workable.


Again, under principles of liberty, you are welcome to use ANY monetary system you please, as long as you commit no fraud. But do allow others to do the same, to use or refuse any monetary system they wish in their private transactions. I agree with you, that given free competition in currencies value-backed paper (where value may be intangible) could still exist, but the day will be won, by far, by 100% commodity based, interest free monetary system, -- the most honest and stable monetary system known to man.





> But the problem you cited earlier still exists: how does one correct erroneous or criminal issuance of paper certificates? Once the horse has bolted, closing the barn door fails to suffice. The problem is similar to that of unringing a bell.


In case of free market, if a currency producer debases his currency by overprinting, people will simply refuse it in favor of a more honest and more stable currency. Free market will put him out of business, and a court will put him in jail for fraud. Of course it is not perfect because mortals are at work, but it is much better than when there is ONLY one currency forced upon all, and you cannot escape that fraud because of government force! At least free market has a natural and robust self regulating mechanism, that does not violate principles of liberty, but rather establishes them!





> But if there was to be a revolutionary change in that distribution in the direction of increased entropic equilbrium, there will be very big problems in terms of deflation because of the greatly grown economy. The finite specie, being rapidly redistributed through free market activity (as assumption), the purchasing power of a unit of gold should go way up. Wages go down, the wealthy grow far wealthier yet inject no additional inherent value into the economy. IOW, the problems we see now would still be present, only in reverse.


Gold supply in the world is growing at a healthy rate of 2%-5% per year. Gold supply is NOT finite. It is actually infinite. I have heard of enormous potential for gold mining, plus of technologies allowing to convert baser elements into pure gold. All in all, between gold, silver and 100’s of other commodities, crowned with freedom to freely use any of them, we will be perfectly fine, as far as medium of exchange is concerned! As long as we have our Freedom!





> A problem that I see there is that there should still be a strong tendency to hoard certain backing elements.... like gold. It's human habit as observed over the past several thousands of years.


There is nothing wrong with hoarding. I’ve noticed that often the word “hoarding” is used as a derogatory term for “saving.” Besides, if people hoard gold, you can use silver (supply of which is much more numerous and available than gold), if they hoard silver (it is really hard to imagine silver market cornered, it’s VERY hard to do) use 100’s of other metals and commodities. The idea here is that as long as the medium of exchange cannot be conjured out of nothing, and its purchasing power determined by its intrinsic value, you should be fine. In a free environment like that, with multiple commodities competing as the medium of exchange, hoarding will quickly lose its appeal, but saving will be encouraged!

----------


## osan

> Again, under principles of liberty, you are welcome to use ANY monetary system you please, as long as you commit no fraud. But do allow others to do the same, to use or refuse any monetary system they wish in their private transactions. I agree with you, that given free competition in currencies value-backed paper (where value may be intangible) could still exist, but the day will be won, by far, by 100% commodity based, interest free monetary system, -- the most honest and stable monetary system known to man.


You finally hit on the salient point: interest-free.  Yes, unlimited printability is a definites hazard in fiat systems, but that could be controlled.  The part that really screws the pooch is the interest, especially where debt levels are high.






> In case of free market, if a currency producer debases his currency by overprinting, people will simply refuse it in favor of a more honest and more stable currency.


Insufficient.  The producer has committed FRAUD and should spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement.  Period.  No exceptions.  If we want this $#@! to stop, we have to make the cost unattractively high.  Unbearably high.  Once the debased currency has hit the market, those holding it have been robbed as surely as if I shoved a pistol in their kissers and gave them the "your money or your life" schtick.  No effective difference whatsoever.




> Free market will put him out of business, and a court will put him in jail for fraud. Of course it is not perfect because mortals are at work, but it is much better than when there is ONLY one currency forced upon all, and you cannot escape that fraud because of government force! At least free market has a natural and robust self regulating mechanism, that does not violate principles of liberty, but rather establishes them!


Again we agree.  Jesus.... this is eery. 




> Gold supply in the world is growing at a healthy rate of 2%-5% per year. Gold supply is NOT finite. It is actually infinite. I have heard of enormous potential for gold mining, plus of technologies allowing to convert baser elements into pure gold. All in all, between gold, silver and 100s of other commodities, crowned with freedom to freely use any of them, we will be perfectly fine, as far as medium of exchange is concerned! As long as we have our Freedom!


The big "if".




> There is nothing wrong with hoarding. Ive noticed that often the word hoarding is used as a derogatory term for saving. Besides, if people hoard gold, you can use silver (supply of which is much more numerous and available than gold), if they hoard silver (it is really hard to imagine silver market cornered, its VERY hard to do) use 100s of other metals and commodities.


That's my argument for those who claim that hoarding will sink the economy.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> You finally hit on the salient point: interest-free. Yes, unlimited printability is a definites hazard in fiat systems, but that could be controlled. The part that really screws the pooch is the interest, especially where debt levels are high.


That is an interesting point. When free competition in currencies exist it ENDS both fiat and interest attached to money creation, because 100% commodity based, interest free money will be the preferred choice of free market! (Who likes being plundered anyway?) Freedom accomplishes all this without government force and without coercion. Freedom REALLY works! In fact, it is the only thing that does work!

----------


## osan

> That is an interesting point. When free competition in currencies exist it ENDS both fiat and interest attached to money creation, because 100% commodity based, interest free money will be the preferred choice of free market! (Who likes being plundered anyway?) Freedom accomplishes all this without government force and without coercion. Freedom REALLY works! In fact, it is the only thing that does work!


If one stops to consider it, which most people apparently do not, the very concept of interest on _currency,_ that is to say, its _issuance_, is absurd on its face.  It is utterly preposterous, in fact.  But it also lends a vital clue to the nature of our current system of "money", wholly supporting the fact that the issuers of the currency are illegitimate in that role in that they are making a profit on the _issuance_ of the life blood of the economy.  That is, by definition, issuance of debt and NOT money per sé.  Out system is so hopelessly corrupt in this sense, yet so few people recognize it or even care.  That is testimony of just how pathetic we are on the whole these days.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> If one stops to consider it, which most people apparently do not, the very concept of interest on _currency,_ that is to say, its _issuance_, is absurd on its face.  It is utterly preposterous, in fact.  But it also lends a vital clue to the nature of our current system of "money", wholly supporting the fact that the issuers of the currency are illegitimate in that role in that they are making a profit on the _issuance_ of the life blood of the economy.  That is, by definition, issuance of debt and NOT money per sé.  Out system is so hopelessly corrupt in this sense, yet so few people recognize it or even care.  That is testimony of just how pathetic we are on the whole these days.


In the condition of free market in currencies, when government force and coercion are removed, you are allowing anyone to create any currency he wishes, even a fiat debt based interest bearing one; The beautiful thing is that in the condition of Liberty and Free Market, such currencies will be simply rejected in favor of more stable and more honest currencies, especially in favor of 100% commodity based, interest free currency, -- the most stable and honest currency known to man! Freedom, that is absence of government force and coercion, accomplishes all that! I think that  is quite remarkable! Freedom is truly the only thing that REALLY works! Wow!

----------


## robert68

> *US in late 1800's had the dollar fully based on gold and silver,* with multiple competing currencies insuring integrity of money via free competition in currencies. It was the time of unprecedented growth and prosperity in the US.
> 
> As for absence of bank failures, it is not an indicator of success of a currency (remember bank could be bailed out by a printing press). The true measure of value of a currency is how well it preserves its purchasing power. And we know that ALL unbacked paper currencies, historically, lost their purchasing power! I said lost, but I should've said had their purchasing power stolen. Because purchasing power is never lost, it is simply transfered to another by the printing press inflation. Case in point US "dollar" lost 97% of its purchasing power since 1913, when Federal Reserve Fraud was instituted!
> 
> Conversely, gold and silver have preserved, and actually increased their purchasing power since 1913! So given true freedom to transact in anything they choose, what do you think will people choose a) fiat paper that has its purchasing power constantly stolen by government's printing press inflation, or b) 100% gold and silver (or in general any other commodity) money, whose purchasing power is preserved and actually rises over time?
> 
> I'd say given freedom, people will choose the latter! Because 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and stable monetary system known to man!


The multiple currencies ended with the new federal banking laws adopted in the early 1860's, to fund the civil war. Also, from "Accounting for Fractional-Reserve Banknotes and deposits— or, What’s Twenty Quid to the Bloody Midland Bank?" by Lawrence White"




> For centuries—even before government guarantees came on the scene—Western payment systems predominantly have used banknotes and demand deposits backed by fractional rather that 100 percent reserves...
> 
> Warehouse certificates were not a viable type of circulating currency note; in fact, _warehouse certificates are inherently unsuited to circulate and are not known ever to have circulated historically_.


And from "What Has Government Done to Our Money?" by Murray Rothbard




> It is well-known that banks have rarely stayed on a "100%" basis very long.

----------


## robert68

> No one prevents you from authorizing your bank to loan out your money at an interest! Of course there will be no FDIC, as under 100% commodity system, no one will bail you out by the printing press if your bank loses your money! So the failure will be isolated to you and your bank, rather than spread out to everyone holding fiat paper dollars, whose purchasing power would be stolen by the FDIC's printing press if it were to bail you out! 
> 
> Thus 100% commodity based monetary system enforces contracts (no bailout is possible), and isolates failure (everyone cannot be plundered to bail you out)! All these are very desirable qualities in an honest monetary system!


Paying storage fees has the same net effect as inflation, loss of ones wealth. And if a fractional reserve bank has a liquidity problem, it can sell off other bank assets or use the reserves of another branch to get past it. For the longest time, historically, branch banking wasn’t permitted in the US, hence lots of bank failures, unlike Canada, which during the same time period permitted branch banking and didn't experience bank failures (and they didn't have deposit insurance).

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> The multiple currencies ended with the new federal banking laws adopted in the early 1860's, to fund the civil war.


Exactly! You want to end multiple currencies if you want to rob people through legalized counterfeiting and inflation as Lincoln did for the war effort. That is exactly my point. If you wish your government to rob you then forbid competition in currencies! Because free competition in currencies prevents the government from robbing people through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. Because, given the freedom, the people will reject government fiat in favor of a more honest and stable monetary system, especially 100% commodity based, interest free one, — the most stable and honest monetary system known to man!

But mind you, after the war, Lincoln’s decree was overturned by the congress and multiple currencies were again allowed to compete. This forced the government to gold backing again. They could not conjure “money” out of nothing anymore. There was a huge spike in prosperity at that time.




> For centuries—even before government guarantees came on the scene—Western payment systems predominantly have used banknotes and demand deposits backed by fractional rather that 100 percent reserves...


True, but absent government force, if there was a run on bank, the bankers went bankrupt, or to jail! Now this restraint is removed, therefore we have unlimited robbery through legalized counterfeiting and inflation!





> Warehouse certificates were not a viable type of circulating currency note; in fact, warehouse certificates are inherently unsuited to circulate and are not known ever to have circulated historically.


You are reading bankster propaganda, my friend! 100% commodity backed currency is nothing more than warehouse receipts, and yes, it has been done on multiple occasions. Every time it was practiced there was unprecedented spike in the prosperity of the people, because 100% commodity based monetary system is the most honest and the most stable monetary system known to man!




> Murray Rothbard: “It is well-known that banks have rarely stayed on a "100%" basis very long.”


It is true, but they did stay on 100% basis at times, and when they did there was stability and prosperity in the economy without the busts of “business cycle,” which exists only because of legalized counterfeiting.

Murray Rothbard was an adamant advocate of 100% commodity based monetary system and of free competition in currencies as the means of establishing such system! Please watch:

The Case for a 100% Gold Dollar by Murray N. Rothbard

YouTube - The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (Part 1 of 2) by Murray N. Rothbard

YouTube - The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar (Part 2 of 2) by Murray N. Rothbard

----------


## robert68

Lawrence White and George Selgin are Misean economic professors, hardly banksters, and theyve produced much scholarly work on this subject, for decades now.  Considering the fact youre not backing up youre assertions with any evidence, have got your mind made up on the subject matter, and because the subject of fraction reserve banking was discussed well in a thread by that name recently, I have no further submissions.  Peace out.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Considering the fact youre not backing up youre assertions with any evidence, have got your mind made up on the subject matter, and because the subject of fraction reserve banking was discussed well in a thread by that name recently, I have no further submissions.  Peace out.


What points would you like to see backed up by evidence? I will be glad to provide the evidence. Please clarify. Thank you!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Is it better now? (Added the second paragraph to the amendment. Please see at the top of the thread.)

----------


## Liberty Ghost

This is an excellent approach to cleaning up the ambiguity that exists regarding Constitutional money.  I applaud your effort! 

There are a couple of points that I think may be worth discussing in the context of your proposed amendment:

Free seigniorage, or the free coining of metal, as a Constitutional right would confirm the commitment of the government to gold and silver (although it needn't specify the metals to be coined). Essentially what the government is pledging to do would be to buy raw metal from the public and sell the coins back without a markup, the costs to be borne by the government. For more read: http://www.professorfekete.com/artic...yAndCredit.pdf

It might also be wise to include a protection of the right of the people to own gold and silver in any form, as this right was abolished and criminalized under FDR and needs to be restated to erase the precedent.

While you're at it, you might include it as the duty of the government to give a full audited accounting of all moneys held in trust for the people at least every two years.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> This is an excellent approach to cleaning up the ambiguity that exists regarding Constitutional money.  I applaud your effort! 
> 
> There are a couple of points that I think may be worth discussing in the context of your proposed amendment:
> 
> Free seigniorage, or the free coining of metal, as a Constitutional right would confirm the commitment of the government to gold and silver (although it needn't specify the metals to be coined). Essentially what the government is pledging to do would be to buy raw metal from the public and sell the coins back without a markup, the costs to be borne by the government. For more read: http://www.professorfekete.com/artic...yAndCredit.pdf
> 
> It might also be wise to include a protection of the right of the people to own gold and silver in any form, as this right was abolished and criminalized under FDR and needs to be restated to erase the precedent.
> 
> While you're at it, you might include it as the duty of the government to give a full audited accounting of all moneys held in trust for the people at least every two years.


Thank you 'Liberty Ghost' and welcome!

I think free market in currencies as enabled by this amendment will force the government to make their product (government issued money) competitive. I think it was mistake in the founders to allow the government to coin money. At best they could declare a fixed standard, like "a dollar is x onces of gold," and that's it. But as the Constitution does allow them coin money, (and the States can use nothing but gold and silver coin as money) then if their product is expansive because of excessive markups etc, people will simply use the money produced by more competitive producers.

Freedom works.  Since money is just another commodity, or just another product, that just happened to be used as the medium of exchange, then Free Market will be able to perfect it just as any other product, provided the government FORCE is removed, as per this amendment.

The problem was created by introduction of government FORCE where it had no moral right of being. Therefore to remove this inappropriate government FORCE is the only solution. That's what is done by this amendment.

----------


## Liberty Ghost

The whole point of a Constitution is to forge the chains that will serve to bind government most effectively.   Part of that is to remind the people what the limits of government are.  Ultimately, it is the ideas which live within each individual that defines both the individual and society.

Our country is perhaps the first country in history firmly based upon the notion that the free individual is the the key to a nation's prosperity. This is not an easy thing to see, even today, for most people. There is a tendency among all classes to think that if only their neighbor would follow their ideas, that both the neighbor and they would benefit.  The temptation to thus control what your neighbor can or cannot do is omnipresent.  When governments are given any power, this temptation is given access to the means of force and coercion ensues.  

The fact that our country is in the mess that it is in, is testimony to the fact that we must forge stronger chains and bind government more closely than even our Founding Fathers attempted.

Money is poorly understood by a majority of people and this fact has been exploited by those who would take away our liberties and enslave the masses.  We must bind them down in such an unambiguous fashion as to make it impossible, to the best of our ability, for such conditions to prevail again.

It is for this reason that I worry that an amendment as abstract as this proposal will not be understood by the majority of the people.  That this amendment authorizes competitive currencies is good, but to the average man, is the idea lucid enough?  When we speak of competitive currencies, we are really talking primarily of allowing gold and silver to resume their proper role and functions.  I fear that an abstract notion may be too large an idea to plant all at once for most people.  

I think there is wisdom in strengthening the original intent of the Constitution with regard to money, I think that Congress should only be authorized to coin money. I think we should strive to remove any doubt as to what that means so as to preclude a fiat currency. I think it better if we concentrate on clauses which seek to limit the governments ability to print representations of money.  We should expressly outlaw legal tender laws.

We should seek also to define acceptable banking practices; practices which allow for competitive innovation, but which do not permit any sort of fraud.  We should address competitive currencies in the light of private enterprise, not as a function of government.  Let us stay with money which has proven itself through millennia.  

We should seek to make it impossible to establish any sort of central bank.  I think it best if we remember in this regard that we rest money on two pillars: that money should be the property of the individual and that concentration of the control of money invites greed and corruption.  If government or any power has the power to change the value of money they are causing harm to the property holder, which cannot be allowed, it is an act of violence. Counterfeiting should be dealt with very harshly.  It should be considered a hostile act and listed as a possible justification for an act of war to be declared.

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## DamianTV

> This is an excellent approach to cleaning up the ambiguity that exists regarding Constitutional money.  I applaud your effort! 
> 
> There are a couple of points that I think may be worth discussing in the context of your proposed amendment:
> 
> Free seigniorage, or the free coining of metal, as a Constitutional right would confirm the commitment of the government to gold and silver (although it needn't specify the metals to be coined). Essentially what the government is pledging to do would be to buy raw metal from the public and sell the coins back without a markup, the costs to be borne by the government. For more read: http://www.professorfekete.com/artic...yAndCredit.pdf
> 
> It might also be wise to include a protection of the right of the people to own gold and silver in any form, as this right was abolished and criminalized under FDR and needs to be restated to erase the precedent.
> 
> While you're at it, you might include it as the duty of the government to give a full audited accounting of all moneys held in trust for the people at least every two years.


This post is awesome!  This is what I wanted to see!  I know myself well enough that I get trapped and caught up in the same idea, and spin our wheels.  This is exactly what an Honest Money System needs to have.   And youre absolutely right.  The people need to have some way to have an Unrevokable Right to have money.

Possible Improvement and Suggestion:

_No Local, State, Federal, National, International, or Interplanetary (thinking for the future...) shall pass a law abridging the right of the people to own things of value, nor shall be allowed to impose any form of taxation, fee, or form of financial imposition on the owner, as it provides a means by which an entity can separate the rightful owner from the rightfully owned._

Rethinking while I was blurting that out.  Kind of goes along with the idea of revoking the governments power to tax things that it doesnt have the right to.  People should have the right to own gold, hands down.  What will happen very quickly is either that right is revoked, or they will impose an ownership tax.  The idea taht the government can tax you for something you own outright means that you dont really own it outright, and since they didnt own any part of it to begin with, paying taxes on those things is a form of flat out theft.  Also kind of removes the idea that we can LICENSE what you can own, tax you on it when you buy it, then tax you on it for owning it.  Think of GUNS.  I'd probably be fine with a sales tax, but not a Property Tax on somethign I already paid for.  What the $#@! am I doing?  Paying the Rent To Own Government  pretty much RENT to Own what I already Own?  Yeah, ya know what?  Here is a Cuisinart.  Go sodomize it some more you dickless thieves.

ALL THINGS that can be owned should remain owned by the people, including Gold, Silver, Platinum, and a Baloney and Humus Sandwich.

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## Live_Free_Or_Die

> Indeed.  Which is why I believe the first order of business is to abolish the Fed.
> 
> I agree.  I'm just not a fan of competing currencies.  I see a clusterf'k with that idea.


Ron Paul disagrees with you.  Ron Paul advocates repealing legal tender law before ending the federal reserve.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Ron Paul disagrees with you.  Ron Paul advocates repealing legal tender law before ending the federal reserve.


Good point. You will notice that my Honest Money Constitutional Amendment is simply Ron Paul's "Free Competition in Currencies Act" in the form of a short amendment.

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## DamianTV

I dont really care what people use for currency, they can use legal tender, gold, silver, chickens and other various livestock, but I think it should be required that when the government pays its bills, it pays with value, not IOU's, which is all the FRN's are anyway.  People use em amongst themselves, but when the government can get something for nothing, it becomes dangerous.

(agreeing for the most part with you on this one...)

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## Deborah K

> Ron Paul disagrees with you.  Ron Paul advocates repealing legal tender law before ending the federal reserve.


I was under the impression that he believes repealing legal tender laws would be easier than ending the Fed, not that he thinks it should be done first.  In any case, both need to be done.  I care not what order it's done in.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> I dont really care what people use for currency, they can use legal tender, gold, silver, chickens and other various livestock, but I think it should be required that when the government pays its bills, it pays with value, not IOU's, which is all the FRN's are anyway.  People use em amongst themselves, but when the government can get something for nothing, it becomes dangerous.
> 
> (agreeing for the most part with you on this one...)


Great! You got it right! That is exactly my position!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> I was under the impression that he believes repealing legal tender laws would be easier than ending the Fed, not that he thinks it should be done first.  In any case, both need to be done.  I care not what order it's done in.


Good point. I think repealing "legal tender" scam will end the Fed, because fiat money cannot exist without government coercion (because by their nature fiat money are nothing more than plunder).

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

I added a poll at the top of this thread. Please vote!

Thanks.

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## DamianTV

Question

If we want a commodity based economy in a free market, what happens to the value of the currency when / if we hit Peak Oil, Potato Blight, Drought that kills massive crops?

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Question
> 
> If we want a commodity based economy in a free market, what happens to the value of the currency when / if we hit Peak Oil, Potato Blight, Drought that kills massive crops?


Wherever happens, you will be MUCH better off with free competition in currencies and 100% commodity based money, than with government forced fiat, because the government will not be able to rob you through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. The markets will be able to adjust and recover much faster under free market conditions and sound money, than under government regulation and theft. 

Free market is the best system known to man, it is an expression of individual liberty.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul Competing Currencies Can 'End the Fed' Softly

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Since I cannot edit the top of the thread, I'll have to post updates here:


Honest Money Constitutional Amendment

*Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. 

Since no individual can rightfully force his neighbor to transact or not to transact in certain medium of exchange, he cannot delegate such authority to his government. Also, free competition in currencies, by the force of Free Market, prevents the government from plundering the people through legalized counterfeiting and debasing of the currency.

Therefore: the government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent operation of private currencies, mints, or free competition in currencies among private citizens, nor charge capital gain, sales, or any other taxes, duties or fees on the medium of exchange. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.
*


If I had to say what the benefits would be, I'd say:

*Free Competition in currencies kills fiat*, because fiat is nothing but an instrument of plunder via legalized counterfeiting and inflation by a government forced monopoly, therefore it cannot exist without government force. Free Market, absent government coercion, will reject such a currency because no one likes being plundered.

So, Free Competition in currencies slays fiat, and with it welfare state and war state, because it makes it impossible for the government to rob and plunder the people, and steal their wealth through legalized counterfeiting and inflation. 

Thus, Free Competition in currencies binds the government down with the chains of sound money, making possible liberty and prosperity of the people.

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## DamianTV

Im all for competing currencies (for people, govt should ALWAYS pay in something in value, gold, silver, etc, not paper), but the problem is that currency is not money it is the ghost of money.  Now, the question is, who gets charged with printing the Currency or competing Currencies?  The banks?  We go right back to square one, where we are right now.

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## Travlyr

> Im all for competing currencies (for people, govt should ALWAYS pay in something in value, gold, silver, etc, not paper), but the problem is that currency is not money it is the ghost of money.  Now, the question is, who gets charged with printing the Currency or competing Currencies?  The banks?  We go right back to square one, where we are right now.


Why not let anyone and everyone print currency without restriction and let the best currency printer win?

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Exactly! Money is just another product. The most stable and trustworthy product wins! How simple is that!

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## Seraphim

This may be semantics....but CURRENCY is a product. MONEY is a commodity. 






> Exactly! Money is just another product. The most stable and trustworthy product wins! How simple is that!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> This may be semantics....but CURRENCY is a product. MONEY is a commodity.


Agreed.

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## Travlyr

Promoting an _"Honest Money Constitutional Amendment"_ would be a good way to spread the message of liberty.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

I love the link you provided:

Gold, Peace, and Prosperity
by Ron Paul
http://mises.org/books/goldpeace.pdf

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## Travlyr

> I love the link you provided:
> 
> Gold, Peace, and Prosperity
> by Ron Paul
> http://mises.org/books/goldpeace.pdf


Thank you. It is one of my favorites because in that paper Dr. Paul shows how PM's are honest mediums of exchange and the primary path to liberty. He is even smarter than he appears.   Plus, it is quick & easy to read.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Honest Money Constitutional Amendment

*Fiat monetary system and paper money inflation being some of the greatest enemies of liberty and prosperity of the people, legal tender laws are strictly forbidden. 

Since no individual can rightfully force his neighbor to transact or not to transact in certain medium of exchange, he cannot delegate such authority to his government. Also, free competition in currencies, by the force of Free Market, prevents the government from plundering the people through legalized counterfeiting and debasing of the currency.

Therefore: the government shall make no law establishing an exclusive form of currency that the people are forced to use in private transactions, neither shall it prevent operation of private currencies, mints, or free competition in currencies among private citizens, nor charge capital gain, sales, or any other taxes, duties or fees on the medium of exchange. The right of the people to transact among themselves in any currency they choose shall not be abridged.
*

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*MSNBC: Fleckenstein: The Fed is Printing Money to Cover Bank Theft Leading to Food Price Inflation, and Unrest in the World*

*http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540...14080#41414080*
http://dailypaul.com/156169/fleckens...food-inflation

Sound Money is the proposed solution.

*Sound Money is the solution:* 
Implementing this amendment is the best way to accomplish it.
http://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewt...p?f=19&t=10942

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## DamianTV

One of the things I can not stand about the Stock Market is the idea of Derivatives and Hedges.  Basically betting the value of the company goes down makes money for the Hedge investors.  They also have a very funny way of giving the current fiat currency value by basing its value on itself, which turns into a round robin.  People will try to do the same damn things in a Free Market because there is potential for profit so unless the value of an Honest Money System can be based completely and solely on material things (food, electronics, etc) and not immaterial things (abstract value of a company, not on what it produces) it wont work.

The problem is that so many stocks are currently based on the fluxuating value of the fiat currency being exchanged, if we were to try to base the value of any form of currency on companies that create the fluxuation in the value of that currency, it gives all the power to control the value of the currency to those companies and not to the people, which is where it belongs.

My understanding of the Stock Market flat out sucks, and I admit that.  Things that I do understand that get sold on the Stock Market should not be used as the basis of value for a currency.  The Stock Market doesnt just trade on ownership of a company and adjust values of stocks, it bets on stocks losing value, amongst other things, which results in a payout for someone else that owns those Hedge stocks, and how that works is completely beyond me.  And yeah, I know Stock Market != Free Market.  I just dont like the idea of Market Manipulation, regardless of the currency or competing currency.

I still think that government should be the one to print the currency, and regulate the value thereof, interest free, because a functional government would not turn over that power to a private central bank.  But what to base the value of the currency on, other than precious metals, I dont know and dont really have any good suggestions, but I know it shouldnt be based on something that can the value of the currency to fluxuate one iota, because that opens up the system for abuse.

Competing Currencies, thats great, just make sure the government pays their bills with value only.  The competing currencies can base their value on what ever of value that the government is required to pay in.

Thinking out loud here, but maybe the solution to the problem isnt to allow the value of the currency to be a variable, but fix it and lock it down, and not even congress can have the power to change or regulate the value of the currency once it is set.  Our biggest problem is that we turned over all the power to the private central bank, and I dont even think that god himself could fix the problem without pissing a lot of people off.  People that have made fortunes by doing nothing but dicking with the value of money.

The stock market has been so ripe for abuse that the fruit has spoiled and become rotten.  None the less, I dont think we will ever be able to get rid of the idea of having some form of Stock Market, but setting the value of money on that just gives them a bigger piece of the prize.

How did the stock market used to work prior to the introduction of the Fed?

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## Travlyr

> One of the things I can not stand about the Stock Market is the idea of Derivatives and Hedges.


It is gambling. People like to gamble for some reason. I personally loathe gambling, but that's just me ... the casinos are always full.

What I find interesting about real money is that when people trade honestly value for value, then most people would reject paying for needless wars, excessive government pensions and entitlements. In other words, government would starve and shrink to virtually nothing because people would resist much more if they actually saw first hand how much wealth was being stolen by paying 50 -> 60% of their gold/silver out of pocket rather than having it taken from them sleight-of-hand through inflation. The political process would die.

And what would we do with our lives? Our entire culture, entertainment, our daily living is consumed with politics. Elections, regulations, registrations, licensing, police, wars, TV shows, radio, Internet news, and virtually everything we do is tied to politics. People's minds are consumed with politics... it gives us purpose. 

How would we spend our days if we could travel freely, if we could be as prosperous as this abundant world offers, if people weren't killing each other over differences of opinion/beliefs?

General Politics is by far the most popular category even on these forums. 
General Politics (187 Viewing)Foreign Policy & Affairs (6 Viewing)Civil Liberties (5 Viewing)National Sovereignty (3 Viewing)Economics & Sound Money (25 Viewing)Health Freedom (5 Viewing)Freedom Living (5 Viewing)Bearing Arms (15 Viewing)U.S. Constitution (4 Viewing)Education (2 Viewing)

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## DamianTV

And like casinos, it isnt ever the machines themselves that are rigged, the idea of profit in a casino is hidden in the payout rates.  Casinos have been popping up in every state for a while now so I figure that a lot of people are now able to see right through their schemes.  They promise 99% payback or what ever it is for said particular casino or even down to each individual game is all based on the mathematical statistics, so according to the statistics of winnings, only one percent is taken out of your original investment on every spin of the wheel or throw of the die.  

Gambling is gambling, but I think the idea of gambling with peoples futures and livelyhood by force is part of what got us to dig our holes even deeper.  Now sure, if you buy a stock in some company, its like loaning that money, and they pay it back based on how well the company does.  Loaning I dont have a problem with.  Paying out interest, yeah, I think there is a problem there.  Positive Interest is always good for them, likewise, they dont want to see the value of their companies go down.  People will always want all of the benefits with none of the risks.  So they are told to put their money into the stock market and "leave it there".  And why wouldnt they?  Putting money into a savings account that accrues 0.000000001% interest each month, but a person has to pay $10 monthly savings "fee" every month, just putting ones money into a savings acct does jack $#@!.  And I think people are completely spoiled rotten by the idea of money working for itself.  

People seem to be in love with the idea of putting money into some sort of account and letting it grow like it is a naked horny supermodel come to life.  Banks make their money by loaning out money they dont have, and paying interest on the loans from the people.  But WE were the original ones that made the original loans to the banks by putting 98% of our currency into them.  Then they turned around and loaned us back the money we orignally gave them.  People become angry when their money goes away and riot with lit torches and pitchforks ready to burn the hot and horny supermodel at the stake for doing exactly what the word horny implies that it was supposed to do from the start, which is to screw you.

But had we not put our money in the bank to begin with, we would never have gotten this far.  First, we agreed that gold and silver should be used as a standard world wide currency because it could be spent anywhere.  But not everyone had gold.  Some people did and some people didnt.  A few of those that did may have gotten the idea of loaning out their gold at interest.  But our gold was heavy and physically cumbersome, and it could be stolen from one person by another person.  We didnt have standing armies to protect the little heavy gold we had that weighed down our pockets.  We couldnt afford to.  And the idea of a "protector of gold" was born.  A bank.  Multiple people could store their gold someplace safer than their pockets, pouches, or purses.  

The story splits into two branches here.  One way follows how people started exchanging their gold recipts as if it were the real gold.  The other branch follows the Banker and the idea that the gold was protected from all except those already inside.  A crafty banker realized at some point that if people had him store their gold, he could loan out gold that did not belong to him, and collect interest on it.  The two branches merge back together as the banker has a stroke of genius when the idea that he could write legal loans and give the person paper and collect interest on the paper as if it were real gold.  I think the two ideas happened nearly at the same time because the scam went on for quite a while.  There had to be some gold in there, so although it was being loaned out, it wasnt actually coming out of the banks coffers, much like today.  People would put more gold in and take out paper recipts, so there was usually a surplus of gold in the vault.  When people caught on, they were angry, but the consequences did not turn out as one would expect.  The Banker offered the people that loaned their money to the bank to profit from the interest that the banks were charging to the people that they made loaned to.  

What really happened was that the banks wrote out more gold recipts than they had.  The first gold recipt was the first fiat currency.  If there was always gold to back the recipt, the gold recipt was not fiat.  This may not have been completely their fault.  When a person makes a withdraw in actual gold, that gold no longer exists to loan against.  In order to make sure the gold recipts do not represent something that is not in the bank, depending on the size of the withdraw (or redaction of a loan to the bank), the bank would have to pass that on to their loan customers, probably in the form of a loan call, where the bank calls in for the entire ammt of the loan to be repaid immediately.  If the person that had taken out the loan is unable to pay, the bank is unable to destroy the corresponding gold recipts and the currency becomes fiat, as it does not represent what exists.  This idea is also very small scale, but even at this scale, there will always be fiat currency, even if it is for a brief time.  

There is a certain ammt of time that it takes between when a person makes a withdraw from their "savings" (remember, I am calling that a public loan to the bank), and the ammt of time that it takes for the bank to collect the recipts back from their other loan customers.  During that period of time, before, the gold recipts can physically be destroyed (burn the note I guess) more notes exist than the bank has gold to back.  This is acceptable, even to me, as long as the system can rebalance itself.  And I dont think the banks should have to wait for payments from their loan customers to destroy a proportional ammt of gold recipts.  Banks make the most profit by loaning out as many gold recipts as possible, so the gold recipts are usually not even in the bank to begin with.

The other important idea here is that this is also the first time that debt was introduced into the mathematical equation.  The first non interest free loan was the first form of inflation.  It isnt just the total of gold vs the total gold recipts that has to be balanced.   In my book, even on a very small scale, think of 3 people.  A saver who makes the original loan to the bank, the bank that loans out the savers gold, in the form of a gold recipt, and the loan recipient.  When interest is applied to the loan, more debt now exists than gold.  On this scale it isnt bad, but in order to rebalance the equation, perpetual growth is required.  The loan has to be repaid with interest on gold that never belonged to the bank.  For a minute, make the idea of interest illegal and out of the picture.  In fact, expand it to include all forms of fees or methods by which the bank can make a profit.  The bank is no longer profitable and the only money it is allowed to collect is the orginal loan value.  Now think of how the equation works.  The total number of gold recipts is exactly equal to the total ammt of gold loaned to the bank which is also exactly equal to the total ammt of debt owed to the bank, and indirectly, to the original person that made the original loan to the bank.  Upset anything in this trifecta, and the system becomes unstable, and requires perpetual growth to be sustained.  

Gold Total == Gold Recipt Total == Debt Total

Profit can only result from the unbalancing of this equation, but unfortunately, if the bank makes no profit, they have no way of affording the protection of the gold.  There is one possible method that this could work, but it is also unrealistic in todays corrupt world.  And that is for the Goverment to be the Bank.  Interest Free Loans ONLY.  I cant seem to come up with a way to allow Fractional Reserve Banking into the picture without it upsetting the equation by making the value of currency a variable and not a constant.  Fractional Reserve Banking was introduced to further unbalance the equation, and is a smoke and mirrors game designed to hide the fact that through banking, more debt has been created than.  Fractional Reserve Banking must be completely prohibited, even by the government, as well as interest.

Because of the fact that more debt has been created than can ever be repaid, through Fractional Reserve Lending Practices, Interest, and Bank Fees, I think the only thing that can save us is a complete and total DEBT RESET.  It has NEVER happened in the history of all mankind to the best of my knowledge.  Im also trying to think hard on how not to use gold (mostly because Fort Knox is empty) and put the value of the currency on something else.  To me, the Free Market idea wont work because it creates a Round Robin loop which causes the value of the currency to be based upon itself.  But the value of the currency has to be set in stone on something of value.  Debt does have value, but only has value to Bankers.  In my simple little brainfart of an idea, three things determine the value of the currency.  #1 The ammount of the thing of value in existence in the banking system, the proportion of paper or digital notes that reflect the thing of value (which should be 1:1), and the total ammount of debt.  Increase the debt to a level higher than there exists total currency and total thing of value (avoiding gold) and the system is unbalanced, which paves the road for both profit and loss.  One persons profit is another persons loss.  

Imagine a bar stool with three legs,  if one of the legs of the bar stool is a litte bit longer than the other two, the bar stool doesnt immediately fall over, the extra weight is distributed to the other two legs, but as the inbalance grows, it can only go so far before it reaches a point where it can be lightly pushed either way.  If the length of the three legs of the bar stool are equal, and the debt leg is being propped up, if whatever is propping up the debt leg is removed, the bar stool can still remain precariously balanced.  It takes a push to send the bar stool either way, and it can be something as small as blowing on it.  It can fall one way or the other.  One way the bar stool can crash down is on to the debt leg, and it slams, and may still rebalance itself and remain standing (Debt Reset), but a very light nudge in the opposite direction causes the bar stool to fall completely over and the debt leg is completely on top of the other two legs.

A lot of this is thinking out loud, and I've already revised this a bunch of times for ideas that just dont pan out.  But this idea of Debt Reset is sticking.  One of the things that I think people will immediately misunderstand about a Debt Reset is that all debt is eliminated and we act like it never happened.  Yeah, and I am ok with that, in fact, I love that idea so much I think I'll get married to it!  But think of the Bar Stool Economy for a second.  If the debt leg comes crashing down, the bar stool can still fall over, but if the debt is let out a little more slowly, down to the point where the total debt is about equal to the total ammt of currency, then we should have a rock solid foundation on which we can build even higher.  That is what the Debt Reset needs to be able to do.  Even if we do have ourselves the absolute perfect and infallable Honest Money System, it still wont work unless we can rebalance the debt with the total currency and whatever that currency represents as value.

There are some tricks with weights that can be used to heavily manipulate the tipping point of the bar stool.  Think of a high wire act for a second.  A guy standing on a high wire with a big long poll which is adusting his center of gravity.  The further that the ends of that poll dip down, the further that the guy can lean side to side and not fall.  Imagine this as the way that debt is currently being used.  Both sides of the poll bend down with the weight of debt.  If the debt enough on both sides of the poll, the walker can lean pretty far one way or the other and not fall.  In fact, the tightrope walker can lean much further side to side than he can if he isnt being counterbalanced by the weights.  Now imagine that the debt on one side of the poll represents money, because in todays world money = debt.  No debt means no money.  But the versa is not true.  No Money does NOT mean that no Debt exists.  So it still kind of works with both sides being debt.  One side is debt money, the other side is just flat out debt.  And all the debt money is going to try to pay off the total debt, which just continues to grow and grow and grow.  One of two things can happen here.  The guy falls off the debt debt side, or the tightrope snaps.  Either way, the guy falls to his death at the same rate.

The big point about this entire hemmoroid of a post is BALANCE and what we are balancing.  Its not about gold or the history of gold, its not about how the banks $#@! everyone at every available opportunity, it is about creating a system that is designed to maintain balance.  If we can not correct the biggest problem that more debt exists than money, then we will not be able to put our bar stool economy on stable ground and it will fall over just the same.  I think that one of the reasons that no other nation has been able to do what the United States has done is because we started with a clean slate.  Level Ground upon which our Bar Stool Economy has rested.  But now the weight on that bar stool economy has deformed the very ground upon which it rests and thus putting the foundation of a new economy on unlevel ground is to start unbalanced to begin with.

Thus, the big question remains.  What else besides Gold or other precious metals can we use to base an entire Honest Money System on, that is not subject to a variable degree of value or methods of inbalance?

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## Travlyr

> Thus, the big question remains.  What else besides Gold or other precious metals can we use to base an entire Honest Money System on, that is not subject to a variable degree of value or methods of inbalance?


Interesting post. 

Here is the way I see it:
Life is an inherent natural right. Since air, water, and food are fundamental to life, then air, water, and land are birthrights. Land, water, and air should be divvied up between the people without obligation. 

Since all wealth comes from the earth, then landowners can become wealthy (wealthy meaning having more than subsistence). Some landowners have precious minerals or oil, while others have preferred location, and still others have fertile land to grow food, wood, hemp, etc. When landowners produce more than they need, they become wealthy. Then they can trade, or barter, their excess goods for someone else's excess goods.

Now, since bartering is cumbersome, then a medium-of-exchange can be a better alternative. I like silver because it is a rare useful metal. So I would probably require people to bring silver to my office if they want what I have. Now, you may prefer gold, paper, or a promise in exchange for your goods ... it makes no difference to me ... you might even prefer chickens, or pretty rocks. Currently, legal tender laws make these competing currencies very difficult to exchange for goods, and it shouldn't be that way.
_
Separation of State and Money_ is as fundamental to freedom as _Separation of State and Religion_. The State has no business requiring me in what to believe or use for trade.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> To me, the Free Market idea wont work because it creates a Round Robin loop which causes the value of the currency to be based upon itself. But the value of the currency has to be set in stone on something of value.


You are wrong. In a Free Market the value of the currency is derived the same way how the value of cars or of milk is derived, because in a Free Market, currency or money, is just another product. That’s all. You do not require the value of cars to be set in stone, nor the price of milk. Yes it is beneficial if whatever we use for money has a stable value i.e. stable purchasing power. That is why 100% gold, silver, or some other precious commodity will win the Free Competition of currencies, because 100% commodity based currency is the most stable and honest monetary system KNOWN TO MAN. (Nothing better has yet been invented!) Even Jesus said: “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed...”




> it is about creating a system that is designed to maintain balance.


Exactly, that system is called the Free Market. Unstable currencies will die, just like bad cars or lousy TV sets, or spoiled milk. Free Market will KILL unstable currencies.
Free Market is Freedom expressed in economic sphere. It is improper government FORCE that created the problem, and it is Freedom, (i.e. *removal* of improper government force), that will fix it. That is the whole point of this amendment.

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## DamianTV

To me it seems that a Free Market is the effect of having an Honest Money System, not the cause of it.  If the money system is not balanced, how can the market be free?

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## Travlyr

> To me it seems that a Free Market is the effect of having an Honest Money System, not the cause of it.  If the money system is not balanced, how can the market be free?


Laissez-faire free-markets are self-regulating which keeps them in balance. Let the best product win & keep winning until some other product aces it ... so to speak.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> To me it seems that a Free Market is the effect of having an Honest Money System, not the cause of it.  If the money system is not balanced, how can the market be free?


You are right, truly Free Market cannot exist without an honest currency. But it was government coercion that forced fiat money fraud upon us; therefore, let us remove the improper government force from the relm of money, and allow free competition in currencies; then fiat will die, and the most honest and the most stable monetary system prevail, because it will be the preference of most people (no government force required). Freedom is truly magnificent!

As Frederic Bastiat put it:
_May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works._ 

--Frederic Bastiat (1801 to 1850)

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

G. Edward Griffin on Free Markets

http://alt-market.com/articles/griffinfreemarkets

"The most direct way to break the fiat money monopoly would be to repeal the Legal Tender law. If competition were allowed in the marketplace, people could trade in units of anything they wish that has real value. Gold is an example of a tangible unit of trade, meaning that the value is contained within the item itself, but anything could be used so long as people are free to accept it or reject it, even chocolate bars or tickets to Disneyland. Mr. Griffin is a supporter of gold and gold-backed money, which are really the same thing. Gold-backed currency is not the same thing as a gold standard; a gold standard is when the government sets the value of gold instead of the free market."

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul speaks of Free Competition in Currencies.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty



----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul on the Colbert Report - April 25, 2011 - Talks about Sound Money!  

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-col...-2011/ron-paul

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*I like this article because it give Free Competition in Currencies as the true solution to restoring and maintaining a sound and honest monetary system.*



Courtesy of Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Th...-End.-The.-Fed.

Three words to fix our monetary system: End. The. Fed.
The Federal Reserve's easy money policies are leading to tumultuous markets. Something drastic should be done.
By Joel Bowman, Guest blogger / April 25, 2011

Choppy week in the markets, wouldn’t you say? Gap down one day, gap up the next. That’s what you get when the tub is full of Fed-faked funny-money. Bigger waves…more tumult…less predictability. And a whole lotta motion sickness along the way.

Markets are always and forever in a process of price discovery, torn between demand for lower prices from buyers on one side, and the profit motive from sellers on the other. Somewhere in the middle, the two parties will come together to exchange their goods and services. In other words, they “discover” an agreeable price at which everyone finds value. This is what the free market does naturally. Low prices invite demand…driving prices higher. High prices invite competition (supply)…driving prices lower.
Obviously, therefore, you expect a bit of movement, a bit of price fluctuation as buyers and sellers jostle for position. What you don’t expect is multi-hundred point daily swings in the stock markets. You don’t expect gold to jump $20, $30 or more in a 24-hour period. (Remember, before FDR confiscated all the gold in the land back in 1933, an ounce of gold was only “worth” $20. More correctly, a dollar was worth 1/20th an ounce of gold. Then, in one fell swoop, the original New Dealer “revalued” the metal to $35 an ounce, thereby devaluing the dollar to 1/35th an ounce of gold.)
The point is, a $20 or $30 movement in the price of gold back then would have been unthinkable (but for political strong-arming). Today, with the dollar having been beaten, bludgeoned and fisticuffed down to less than 1/1,500th an ounce of gold, twenty bucks here or there is hardly worth mentioning, such is the woeful state of the world’s leading fiat money.
Of course, markets don’t demand fiat currencies. Free individuals don’t wake up one day and say to themselves, “Gee… Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an unquestionable, unaccountable, centrally controlled monopoly on counterfeiting to help debase our medium of exchange, saddle the populace with that most insidious of all taxes – inflation – and to sell our kiddies future down the drain? I know, let’s create a Federal Reserve!”
Such institutions don’t come about “naturally.” They require political pull and the gun-for-rent that is the government. They take cover behind rooking legalese, as is found in “The Federal Reserve Act of 1913,” and the absurd prevarications of its “dual mandate,” which is, at present, sold to the terminally credulous public under the noble-sounding, though entirely erroneous mission statement of “price stability and maximum employment.”
Anyone with a basic, non-Ivy League-approved understanding of economics knows this to be a ridiculous goal in the first place. For one, gold takes care of price stability itself. Has done for thousands of years. Price instability is the direct result of fiat monies and manipulation of the money supply by self-serving central banking cartels. From tulipmania to techmania, one can find, at the rotten heart of every inflationary crisis, a central banker with an equally rotten brain and/or heart.

As for the “fetish of full employment,” as Henry Hazlitt so eloquently explains in his classic,Economics in One Lesson: 
“The progress of civilization has meant the reduction of employment, not its increase. It is because we have become increasingly wealthy as a nation that we have been able virtually to eliminate child labor, to remove the necessity of work for many of the aged and to make it [financially] unnecessary for millions of women to take jobs.
“The real question,” continued Hazlitt, writing in 1946, “is not how many millions of jobs there will be in America ten years from now, but how much shall we produce, and what, in consequence, will be our standard of living?”
The Fed is the work of Woodrow…a creature of Congress. As George F. Will, writing in The Post, once put it, mission creep is part of the “metabolic urge” of government agencies. The Fed is no different. It is an Ouroboros running out of tail on which to feed. There’s nothing free market about this beast, Fellow Reckoner…and nothing free market about the economy that stands on its sunken shoulders.
Without space for competing currencies, the invisible hand is bound and cuffed, unable to feel around in the dark, to set reliable prices. Value is distorted, malinvestment promoted.
In the end, you get unpredictable stock market volatility and a dollar shaved to within 1/1,500th of its life. Exactly what you’d expect, in other words.
The solution? Here, a modest suggestion:
End…The…Fed.
Instead, allow competing banks to issue competing currencies. Allow the fundamental underpinning of an economy – it’s medium of exchange – to discover its own “fair value.” Witness competition weed out banks that lend imprudently and that rip off customers, to the favor of those operating with prudence and fiscal integrity. Watch institutions that choose to issue baseless, paper money go bust without federal bailout funds and those that adhere – freely, without let or hindrance – to a gold standard garner the public trust their thrift and judiciousness earns them.
Wishful thinking, you say? Well, until such a time comes to pass, here’s another suggestion, courtesy of our Reckoner-in-Chief, Bill Bonner:
“Buy gold. Be happy.”

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Forbes: Ben Bernanke’s Lone Positive Legacy: A Return To The Gold Standard

http://blogs.forbes.com/billfrezza/2...gold-standard/

The best way to return to gold standard is to allow free competition in currencies:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...onal-Amendment

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Silver Shines as an Economic Solution

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Gold is Money explained.

*VIDEO: Jim Turk explains that gold is money, not an investment. Investments are used to create wealth by producing products or services. Money doesn't create anything. Its role merely is to maintain purchasing power while waiting to spend it. When people hold national currencies as money and those currencies lose purchasing power, they lose their wealth. When they hold gold as money, they maintain their wealth. GoldMoney 2011 Jun* 7




from http://www.realityzone.com/currentperiod.html

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## LibertyEagle

Dude, stop double-posting your threads.  It's really not necessary.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...onal-Amendment

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ok. I wish there was an easy way to move the thread from one category to another.

Thanks.

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## Zippyjuan

Simple. Just add on to one of them and stop adding to the others.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Simple. Just add on to one of them and stop adding to the others.


Ok.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Video: Ron Paul Talks Gold in Washington on "The Street"

http://finance.yahoo.com/video/compa...risis-25695490

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

This amendment covers precisely the same points as Ron Paul's proposed "Free Competition in Currencies" legislation:

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk 7/11/11: Restore Sound, Constitutional Money

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## DamianTV

> Ok. I wish there was an easy way to move the thread from one category to another.
> 
> Thanks.


You could ask a Mod to Lock that thread with a link to which ever thread has the most prominent information.  Not that it is a banned subject, just focused the discussion on that topic in another thread.

---

Back on topic.

Our current money is nothing short of Poison.  How did the Founding Fathers fight a Fiat Money System?  They created their own Interest Free Value Based Currency.  I believe that may be Step #1.  We give their Poisoned Currency right back to them by using another form of Currency.  Thus, when (not if) the system collapses, they can fall on their asses and we wont be stuck holding their bills.

Step #2, Stiff The Fed.  Whether by Choice, or by Default, we are going to Stiff The Fed one way or another.  And I dont think that a Total Economic Collapse is more than a year off, I think it is within the range of 3 to 6 months, but only time will tell how that pans out.  We need an ALTERNATE CURRENCY, RIGHT NOW.

Edit:  Then I find this.  Guess someone agrees with me...
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-bl...nment-spending

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> We need an ALTERNATE CURRENCY, RIGHT NOW.


Amen!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Sign a petition for Ron Paul's 

*"Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011"!!!*

http://www.votervoice.net/core.aspx?aid=972&issueid=26226

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

"What is Constitutional Money?" with Edwin Vieira -- Ron Paul Money Lecture Series, Pt 2/3

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul Grills Ben Bernanke On Competing Currencies




Freedom is the solution! Free Competition in Currencies KILLS fiat, debt based, interest bearing system! And together with fiat it kills welfare state and warfare state!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul: A Gallon of Gasoline for a Dime!

Ron Paul Interview With Cavuto On Oil & The Dollar 03/05/12

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that putting money on the gold standard would handicap the government's ability to address economic conditions.* [He is right, which is one of the advantages of the gold standard. It is not the government's role to address economic conditions. Doing so is the primary reason the economy now is in a tailspin. The free market is the only force that can create a robust economy. Bernanke works for a banking cartel that derives great profits from fiat money. Those profits would be drastically reduced under the gold standard because banks could not collect interest on money they create out of nothing. They would need real deposits from their customers. Imagine that!] Reuters 2012 Mar 20 

From http://www.realityzone.com/currentperiod.html

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## Weston White

Well Ben Bernanke can go about saying whatever he wants to [Does anybody really expect anything more from an establishment hack?], but until he can deduce what he does state other they by mere hypothesis or conjecture, whatever words that happen to reverberate from that forked tongue, being concealed within that gray bearded mouth of his are purely falsehoods shaded by rhetoric.

Which he cannot of course, there is simply not any truth to his stance, other than the necessity to continue printing our national funny money that itself holds no actual value, as it would of course mean that the federal government would thereby, once again, be required to practice financial prudence and thus its perpetual shopping spree at the till of the American taxpayer will be finally over once and for all.

And really, when you have just so happened to of turned your soul over to the establishment, I ask you, what fun is there in admissions of culpability?

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Good point! Thanks!

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Here is an amazing graphical representation of derivative exposure of 9 biggest banks. Only fiat fraud makes this possible.

Click to see:


Be carefull, however, the article speaks of the dangers of "unregulated" markets. The only regulations you truly need are those imposed by Free Markets,-- the most stringent regulations,-- and MUCH stricter than bought out government regulators who actually allow the fraud. The regulations of Free market are bankruptcy, and fraud prosecution. These are the only regulations one needs if justice is to prevail!

Note, that these astronomical derivatives do NOT become weapons of mass financial destruction unless a government bailout takes place. Then this mountain of debt is transferred upon the shoulders of everybody else via inflation. But if no bailout is allowed, then the offending bank goes bankrupt; its good assets are transferred to other banks, and devastation is localized only to the offending party. That's the way Free Market works, and its regulations are MUCH stricter then those of government regulators who actually allow fraud!


*Also take a look at the cost of war, also made possible by fiat money!*

*http://demonocracy.info/infographics...st_of_war.html*

 (Fiat = war) is the formula first discovered by Rothschilds. It is a true one. None of the world wars would have been possible without fiat money fraud! 

Thus Free Competition in Currencies, which necessarily kills fiat (which cannot exist without a government forced monopoly), ends most wars as well as welfare state, and brings to forefront Sound, 100% commodity based currency, which is the most stable, and the most honest monetary system known to man.

*http://demonocracy.info/infographics...t/us_debt.html*
*http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_greek.html
**http://demonocracy.info/infographics...orld_debt.html*
"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave 
them the power to create money and control credit, and 
with a flick of a pen they will create enough to buy it back." 
-Sir Josiah Stamp, former President, Bank of England

*Thus, Free Competition in Currencies 
is a great protector of Liberty!*

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ben Swann Gets Reality Checked:
Turns out he is right . Gold is money.

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## PierzStyx

Your poll is stupid. Honest money is *already* written in the Constitution. Your amendment is just unneeded.

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## ClydeCoulter

I DO NOT support ammending the Constitution at this time.  A Constitutional Convention in these times would/could be disasterous.

I would LIKE To SEE the senate be restored back to the states, etc...

Imagine the MSM during a constitutional convention, damn, let's not go there UNTIL we RESTORE THE REPUBLIC.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> I DO NOT support ammending the Constitution at this time.  A Constitutional Convention in these times would/could be disasterous.
> 
> I would LIKE To SEE the senate be restored back to the states, etc...
> 
> Imagine the MSM during a constitutional convention, damn, let's not go there UNTIL we RESTORE THE REPUBLIC.


Constitutional Convention is NOT the same as passing an amendment. 
I am AGAINST a Constitutional Convention, but FOR an amendment.
You can have an amendment, WITHOUT a Constitutional Convention (which convention would jeopardize the entire Constitution!)

There has been ONE constitutional convention, but MANY amendments have been passed WITHOUT a constitutional convention (including the 17th, which took the senate from the states, which you say you wish to reverse). That is a good desire, but this is precisely HOW you reverse it, or "restore the republic", by reversing and abolishing wicked laws, including wicked amendments like the "16th" (non-amendment) and 17th. 

This is HOW you restore the republic, by abolishing wicked laws! There is no other way to "restore."

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Your poll is stupid. Honest money is *already* written in the Constitution. Your amendment is just unneeded.


Your comment is stupid. Constitution had a flaw when it gave the power to create money into the hands of government. Free Market can take care of it INFINITELY better. This very power was taken by the congress and gradually perverted through gradual introduction of fiat money and legal tender frauds, as well as "taxation" of alternative currencies. My amendment seeks to fix this error and weakness in the original constitution, the need amply demonstrated for by the last 200 years!

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## bolil

[QUOTE=Foundation_Of_Liberty;2811912]

Gold supply in the world is growing at a healthy rate of 2%-5% per year. Gold supply is NOT finite. It is actually infinite. I have heard of enormous potential for gold mining, plus of technologies allowing to convert baser elements into pure gold. All in all, between gold, silver and 100s of other commodities, crowned with freedom to freely use any of them, we will be perfectly fine, as far as medium of exchange is concerned! As long as we have our Freedom!

QUOTE]

Hey FOL, when are you going to run for office?

Supposing gold was finite, and supposing that all of the reasonably accessable gold had been mined and claimed (same with silver) this would matter little.  As I understand, money is simply a designation given to widely accepted mediums of exchange.  Facillitators.  Gold, as history and tradition shows us is the most widely accepted medium of exchange, it is the most efficient facillitator, followed closely by silver.  Please excuse my lack of proper jargon in the following section.  Should gold, for any reason, lose its ability to facillitate transactions (For example if "peak" gold were met) new moneys/currencies/facillitators will emerge spontaneously to relieve the pressure (just as gold spontaneously became the prime facillitator of transactions- Lithium comes to mind.  In the past Tobacco, Fish, and other things have been used).  It is likely that should your excellent amendment become law most people would use many different currencies/monies/facillitators.  One for local transactions, one for long distance transactions.  One for expensive purchases, another for less dear ones... and just what in the hell is wrong with that?

As far as litium is concerned, and I do not know this for sure,it would be rather dangerous to carry around a lithium coin.  This is where a private bank comes in.  They store the lithium safely, and mint lithium notes.  They also serve as a broker, selling lithium to producers of hi tech things (whose demand is what gives lithium its value).  I am having difficulty reconciling something here.  As the litium is purchased, and used, the stores are depleted (while they can be replenished through extraction) so in order to operate ethically and for profit the broker/bank would have to keep net stores larger than issued lithium notes... Ill work on this, likely to no avail.

Another great thread, a pleasure to read.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Thank you, bolil!

Excellent points! Free Market will perfect the medium of exchange as it perfects any other product, and the best and most honest service providers (i.e. banks) will stay in business, and bad ones will be rejected, as long as the government is forbidden to interfere via immoral use of force by granting monopolies, immunities and privileges to the thieves!  

The problem in banking was created by introduction of immoral use of government force, therefore the solution is to remove the immoral government force, and expose the banksters to the full weight of Free Market discipline, via Free Competition in Currencies, and the laws of justice (from which they are shielded now by the government, which institutionalizes legalized plunder). Thus Freedom is the answer! Free Market is the answer, which is simply the expression of God-given individual liberty in the sphere of economics and enterprise.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul: We Must Have Parallel Currencies

_Before the United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, Hearing on Sound Money: Parallel Currencies and the Roadmap to Monetary Freedom, August 2, 2012
_
One of the most pressing issues of our time is the push for monetary freedom. The only sound monetary system is one which protects sound money and allows consumers, businesses, and investors the freedom to transact in the currency of their choice. The importance of sound money is summed up nicely by Ludwig von Mises: "It is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments." It is no wonder that governments fight tooth and nail against sound money, as sound money protects the well-being of the middle class and the poor while preventing the expansion of government.

Read the rest: http://paul.house.gov/index.php?opti...id=16:speeches

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Epic Congressional Testimony: A Man calls congressmen who support the Fed THIEVES! 


"Your are irrelevant!" "The greatest thing you can do for us is STAY OUT OF OUR WAY!"

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk 8/13/12: 
Legalize Competing Currencies!

----------


## martinez

> I DO NOT support ammending the Constitution at this time.  A Constitutional Convention in these times would/could be disasterous.
> 
> I would LIKE To SEE the senate be restored back to the states, etc...
> 
> Imagine the MSM during a constitutional convention, damn, let's not go there UNTIL we RESTORE THE REPUBLIC.


here here!

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> here here!


http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post4545342

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Tom Woods Answers Myths About Sound Money




Smashing Myths and Restoring Sound Money 
Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Lindsey Williams: The dollar to lose much of its purchasing power by the end of December 2012, and to go into hyperinflation by April or June of 2013. 

Get out of all paper assets, because you WILL lose them. Buy food-storage now (it will be too expensive in December); buy durable goods now, and if anything is left after that buy silver and gold. You have been warned. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."



If You Enjoyed This Presentation From _Lindsey Williams_
Please Buy “2102 The Beginning of the End” 3 DVD Set From Prophecy Club

*Be warned:*
Now the "elites" are going to "back" SDR's initially with gold and silver, to sucker people in, just like they did with Federal Reserve Notes, which initially were "backed" by gold, but that backing was gradually and quietly removed, until you end up with 100% UNBACKED currency, so they can plunder the peoples of the world at will by pressing a few keys on a computer to create trillions out of nothing. This is the same fraud in progress. This is how SDR's will start, and that is how they will end.

The only REAL solution is to allow *Free Competition in Currencies*, that Freedom demands. Thus Free Market will end fiat fraud, because unbacked fiat is ONLY possible via a government FORCED MONOPOLY, and speedily dies when *Free Competition in Currencies* is present. *THAT is the TRUE Solution.* _Everything else are different shades of a lie._ Demand *Free Competition in Currencies*, as advocated by this amendment, and demand PHYSICAL delivery of gold and silver. That is the *ONLY* way to restore an honest monetary system and to ensurer LIBERTY and Prosperity of the people. There is NO OTHER WAY.

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty



----------


## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*The                Myth of Fed Independence*

*by                Murray                N. Rothbard*
   

_Excerpted                  from_ The                  Case Against The Fed 
By  far the                  most secret and least accountable operation of  the federal government                  is not, as one might expect,  the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret                  intelligence  agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations                  are  under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional                   committee supervises these operations, controls their  budgets,                  and is informed of their covert activities. It  is true that the                  committee hearings and activities are  closed to the public; but                  at least the people’s  representatives in Congress insure                  some accountability  for these secret agencies.

It  is little                  known, however, that there is a federal  agency that tops the others                  in secrecy by a country  mile. The Federal Reserve System is accountable                  to no  one; it has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no                   Congressional committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its                   operations. The Federal Reserve, virtually in total control of                   the nation's vital monetary system, is accountable to  nobody –                  and this strange situation, if acknowledged at  all, is invariably                  trumpeted as a virtue.

Thus,  when                  the first Democratic president in over a decade  was inaugurated                  in 1993, the maverick and venerable  Democratic chairman of the                  House Banking Committee,  Texan Henry B. Gonzalez, optimistically                  introduced some  of his favorite projects for opening up the Fed                  to  public scrutiny. His proposals seemed mild; he did not call                   for full-fledged Congressional control of the Fed’s budget.                   The Gonzalez Bill required full independent audits of the  Fed’s                  operations; videotaping the meetings of the Fed’s  policy-making                  committee; and releasing detailed  minutes of the policy meetings                  within a week, rather  than the Fed being allowed, as it is now,                  to issue  vague summaries of its decisions six weeks later. In                   addition, the presidents of the twelve regional Federal Reserve                   Banks would be chosen by the president of the United States  rather                  than, as they are now, by the commercial banks  of the respective                  regions.

It  was to                  be expected that Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan  would strongly resist                  any such proposals. After all, it  is in the nature of bureaucrats                  to resist any  encroachment on their unbridled power. Seemingly                  more  surprising was the rejection of the Gonzalez plan by President                   Clinton, whose power, after all, would be enhanced by the  measure.                  The Gonzalez reforms, the President declared,  “run the risk                  of undermining market confidence in the  Fed.”

On  the face                  of it, this presidential reaction, though  traditional among chief                  executives, is rather puzzling.  After all, doesn’t a democracy                  depend upon the right  of the people to know what is going on in                  the  government for which they must vote? Wouldn’t knowledge                   and full disclosure strengthen the faith of the American public                   in their monetary authorities? Why should public knowledge  “undermine                  market confidence”? Why does “market  confidence”                  depend on assuring far less public scrutiny  than is accorded keepers                  of military secrets that  might benefit foreign enemies? What is                  going on here?

The  standard                  reply of the Fed and its partisans is that  any such measures,                  however marginal, would encroach on  the Fed’s “independence                  from politics,” which is  invoked as a kind of self-evident                  absolute. The  monetary system is highly important, it is claimed,                  and  therefore the Fed must enjoy absolute independence.

“Independent                   of politics” has a nice, neat ring to it, and has been  a                  staple of proposals for bureaucratic intervention  and power ever                  since the Progressive Era. Sweeping the  streets; control of seaports;                  regulation of industry;  providing social security; these and many                  other  functions of government are held to be “too important”                   to be subject to the vagaries of political whims. But it is one                   thing to say that private, or market, activities should be free                   of government control, and “independent of politics”                   in that sense. But these are _government_ agencies and operations                  we are talking about, and to say that _government_  should                  be “independent of politics” conveys very  different                  implications. For government, unlike private  industry on the market,                  is not accountable either to  stockholders or consumers. Government                  can only be  accountable to the public and to its representatives                  in  the legislature; and if government becomes “independent                   of politics” it can only mean that that sphere of government                   becomes an absolute self-perpetuating oligarchy, accountable to                   no one and never subject to the public’s ability to  change                  its personnel or to “throw the rascals out.” If  no person                  or group, whether stockholders or voters, can  displace a ruling                  elite, then such an elite becomes  more suitable for a dictatorship                  than for an allegedly  democratic country. And yet it is curious                  how many  self-proclaimed champions of “democracy,” whether                   domestic or global, rush to defend the alleged ideal of the total                   independence of the Federal Reserve.

Representative                   Barney Frank (D., Mass.), a co-sponsor of the Gonzalez  Bill, points                  out that “if you take the principles that  people are talking                  about nowadays,” such as “reforming  government and opening                  up government – the Fed  violates it more than any other branch                  of government.”  On what basis, then, should the vaunted “principle”                  of  an independent Fed be maintained?

It  is instructive                  to examine who the defenders of this  alleged principle may be,                  and the tactics they are  using. Presumably one political agency                  the Fed  particularly wants to be independent from is the U.S.                   Treasury. And yet Frank Newman, President Clinton's Under Secretary                   of the Treasury for Domestic Finance, in rejecting the  Gonzalez                  reform, states: “The Fed is independent and  that’s one                  of the underlying concepts.” In addition, a  revealing little                  point is made by the _New York Times_,  in noting the Fed’s                  reaction to the Gonzalez Bill:  “The Fed is already working                  behind the scenes to  organize battalions of bankers to howl about                  efforts to  politicize the central bank” (_New York Times_,                   October 12, 1993). True enough. But why should these “battalions                   of bankers” be so eager and willing to mobilize in behalf                   of the Fed’s absolute control of the monetary and banking                   system? Why should bankers be so ready to defend a  federal agency                  which controls and regulates them, and  virtually determines the                  operations of the banking  system? Shouldn’t private banks                  want to have some sort  of check, some curb, upon their lord and                  master? Why  should a regulated and controlled industry be so much                   in love with the unchecked power of their own federal controller?

Let  us consider                  any other private industry. Wouldn’t it be  just a tad suspicious                  if, say, the insurance industry  demanded unchecked power for their                  state regulators, or  the trucking industry total power for the                  ICC, or the  drug companies were clamoring for total and secret                   power to the Food and Drug Administration? So shouldn’t we                   be very suspicious of the oddly cozy relationship between the                   banks and the Federal Reserve? What’s going on here? Our                   task in this volume is to open up the Fed to the scrutiny  it is                  unfortunately not getting in the public arena.

Absolute                   power and lack of accountability by the Fed are  generally defended                  on one ground alone: that any change  would weaken the Federal                  Reserve’s allegedly  inflexible commitment to wage a seemingly                  permanent  “fight against inflation.” This is the Johnny-one-note                   of the Fed’s defense of its unbridled power. The Gonzalez                   reforms, Fed officials warn, might be seen by financial markets                   “as weakening the Fed’s ability to fight inflation”                   (_New York Times_, October 8, 1993). In subsequent  Congressional                  testimony, Chairman Alan Greenspan  elaborated this point. Politicians,                  and presumably the  public, are eternally tempted to expand the                  money  supply and thereby aggravate (price) inflation. Thus to                   Greenspan:  
The  temptation is to step on the monetary accelerator or at least                   to avoid the monetary brake until after the next election.  Giving                  in to such temptations is likely to impart an  inflationary bias                  to the economy and could lead to  instability, recession, and economic                  stagnation.

The  Fed’s                  lack of accountability, Greenspan added, is a  small price to pay                  to avoid “putting the conduct of  monetary policy under the                  close influence of  politicians subject to short-term election                  cycle  pressure” (_New York Times_, October 14, 1993).

So  there                  we have it. The public, in the mythology of the  Fed and its supporters,                  is a great beast, continually  subject to a lust for inflating                  the money supply and  therefore for subjecting the economy to inflation                  and  its dire consequences. Those dreaded all-too-frequent inconveniences                   called “elections” subject politicians to these  temptations,                  especially in political institutions such  as the House of Representatives                  who come before the  public every two years and are therefore particularly                   responsive to the public will. The Federal Reserve, on the other                   hand, guided by monetary experts independent of the public’s                   lust for inflation, stands ready at all times to promote  the long-run                  public interest by manning the  battlements in an eternal fight                  against the Gorgon of  inflation. The public, in short, is in desperate                  need  of absolute control of money by the Federal Reserve to save                   it from itself and its short-term lusts and temptations. One  monetary                  economist, who spent much of the 1920s and  1930s setting up Central                  Banks throughout the Third  World, was commonly referred to as                  “the money doctor.”  In our current therapeutic age,                  perhaps Greenspan and  his confreres would like to be considered                  as monetary  “therapists,” kindly but stern taskmasters                  whom we  invest with total power to save us from ourselves.

But  in this                  administering of therapy, where do the private  bankers fit in?                  Very neatly, according to Federal  Reserve officials. The Gonzalez                  proposal to have the  president instead of regional bankers appoint                  regional  Fed presidents would, in the eyes of those officials,                   “make it harder for the Fed to clamp down on inflation.”                   Why? Because, the “sure way” to “minimize inflation”                   is “to have private bankers appoint the regional bank presidents.”                   And why is this private banker role such a “sure way”?                   Because, according to the Fed officials, private bankers  “are                  among the world’s fiercest inflation hawks” (_New                  York Times_, October 12, 1993).

The  worldview                  of the Federal Reserve and its advocates is  now complete. Not                  only are the public and politicians  responsive to it eternally                  subject to the temptation to  inflate; but it is important for                  the Fed to have a  cozy partnership with private bankers. Private                  bankers,  as “the world's fiercest inflation hawks,”                  can only  bolster the Fed’s eternal devotion to battling against                   inflation.

There  we                  have the ideology of the Fed as reflected in its  own propaganda,                  as well as respected Establishment  transmission belts such as                  the _New York Times_,  and in pronouncements and textbooks                  by countless  economists. Even those economists who would like                  to see  more inflation accept and repeat the Fed’s image of                   its own role. And yet every aspect of this mythology is the very                   reverse of the truth. We cannot think straight about money,  banking,                  or the Federal Reserve until this fraudulent  legend has been exposed                  and demolished.

There  is,                  however, one and only one aspect of the common  legend that is                  indeed correct: that the overwhelmingly  dominant cause of the                  virus of chronic price inflation  is inflation, or expansion, of                  the supply of money.  Just as an increase in the production or                  supply of  cotton will cause that crop to be cheaper on the market;                   so will the creation of more money make its unit of money, each                   franc or dollar, cheaper and worth less in purchasing power  of                  goods on the market.

But  let us                  consider this agreed-upon fact in the light of  the above myth                  about the Federal Reserve. We supposedly  have the public clamoring                  for inflation while the  Federal Reserve, flanked by its allies                  the nation’s  bankers, resolutely sets its face against this                   short-sighted public clamor. But how is the public supposed to                   go about achieving this inflation? How can the public create,                   i.e., “print,” more money? It would be difficult to                   do so, since only one institution in the society is legally  allowed                  to print money. Anyone who tries to print money  is engaged in                  the high crime of “counterfeiting,”  which the federal                  government takes very seriously  indeed. Whereas the government                  may take a benign view  of all other torts and crimes, including                  mugging,  robbery, and murder, and it may worry about the “deprived                   youth” of the criminal and treat him tenderly, there is one                   group of criminals whom no government ever coddles: the  counterfeiters.                  The counterfeiter is hunted down  seriously and efficiently, and                  he is salted away for a  very long time; for he is committing a                  crime that the  government takes very seriously: he is interfering                  with  the government’s revenue: specifically, the monopoly                   power to print money enjoyed by the Federal Reserve.

“Money,”                   in our economy, is pieces of paper issued by the  Federal Reserve,                  on which are engraved the following:  “This Note is Legal                  Tender for all Debts, Private, and  Public.” This “Federal                  Reserve Note,” and nothing else,  is money, and all vendors                  and creditors must accept  these notes, like it or not.

So:  if the                  chronic inflation undergone by Americans, and  in almost every                  other country, is caused by the  continuing creation of new money,                  _and if_ in  each country its governmental “Central Bank”                  (in the  United States, the Federal Reserve) is the sole monopoly                   source and creator of all money, _who then_ is responsible                   for the blight of inflation? Who except the very  institution that                  is solely empowered to create money,  that is, the Fed (and the                  Bank of England, and the Bank  of Italy, and other central banks)                  _itself_?

In                  short: even before examining the problem in detail,  we should                  already get a glimmer of the truth: that the  drumfire of propaganda                  that the Fed is manning the  ramparts against the menace of inflation                  brought about  by others is nothing less than a deceptive shell                  game.  The culprit solely responsible for inflation, the Federal                   Reserve, is continually engaged in raising a hue-and-cry about                   “inflation,” for which virtually _everyone_ _else_                   in society seems to be responsible. What we are seeing  is the                  old ploy by the robber who starts shouting  “Stop, thief!”                  and runs down the street pointing ahead  at others. We begin to                  see why it has always been  important for the Fed, and for other                  Central Banks, to  invest themselves with an aura of solemnity                  and  mystery. For, as we shall see more fully, if the public knew                   what was going on, if it was able to rip open the curtain covering                   the inscrutable Wizard of Oz, it would soon discover  that the                  Fed, far from being the indispensable solution  to the problem                  of inflation, is itself the heart and  cause of the problem. What                  we need is not a totally  independent, all-powerful Fed; what we                  need is no Fed  at all.



_Murray                  N. Rothbard__                   (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School, founder  of modern                  libertarianism, and chief academic officer of  the Mises                  Institute. He was also editor – with Lew Rockwell –                  of_ The                  Rothbard-Rockwell Report_,                  and appointed Lew as his executor. See                  Murray's books._
Copyright                © 2013 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.                Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided                full credit is given.
 

*The                Best of Murray Rothbard*

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Gold & Silver Ep1: Mike Maloney - Hidden Secrets of Money 




Here are the details for you:
http://successcouncilmail.com/link.p...=196&L=368&F=H

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

How Our Monetary System Works And Fails

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*Bankers Tell It Like it is 
Top 10 Quotes that Reveal their Crimes*

...

The history of banking in the modern era (since the  establishment of the Bank of England in the late 17th century), has been  nothing but an ugly cavalcade of theft of sovereign national treasuries  too vast to calculate. From the beginning, these large private central  banks (the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan,  etc.), were intentionally designed to operate freely above the rule of  law in their respective nations. They have been the financiers of most  of the conflicts and wars in the last two centuries and are continuing  to do so unabated to the present. Countless millions have died in these  bankers’ wars in service to the unbridled greed of these financiers.

 Through the massive inflation of each nation’s currency they  dominate, the bankers have robbed the citizens of the purchasing power  of their money and with it, their life savings. Since the establishment  of the Federal Reserve in 1913, for example, the purchasing power of the  US dollar has been eroded to nearly 1/100th of its original value. This  has not been accidental. This was planned from the beginning. Private  fractional reserve central banking is the greatest criminal conspiracy  that continues to this day to hide in plain sight.

 But please, don’t just think this is only our opinion. Fascinatingly,  the bankers themselves have throughout the decades, clearly revealed  their purpose and intent. At this juncture, we would like to offer some  quotes for you by the highest ranking members of the banking elite, past  and present.


*“The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing.”*William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England in 1694

*“Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.”*Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild.

*“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.”*Gutle Schnaper, wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and mother of his five sons

*“The few who understand the system will either be so interested  in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be  no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body  of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage  that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without  complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is  inimical to their interests.”* The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863

* “Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The  Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power  to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough  deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all  the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for  this world would be a happier and better  world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and  pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create  deposits.”*Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain

*“When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in  our account to cover the check; but when the Federal Reserve writes a  check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the  Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money.”*From the Boston Federal Reserve Bank pamphlet, “Putting it Simply.”

*“Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities.  Intrinsically, a ‘dollar’ bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are  merely book entries.”*“Modern Money Mechanics Workbook” – Federal Reserve of Chicago, 1975

* “I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told  that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit  of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of  their hand the destiny of the people.”*Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924

*“I am just a banker doing God’s work.”*Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs, 2009

*“Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good.”*Alexander Dielius, CEO, Germany, Austrian, Eastern Europe Goldman Sachs, 2010

 So there it is in their own words. The arrogance, elitism, and  condescension of bankers towards the common citizen are starkly  revealed. These brilliant criminals have created the Ponzi scheme of all  Ponzi schemes and so far, protected it from any form of criminal  prosecution. However, that might be about to change. Awareness of their  criminality is growing throughout the world at a rapid pace but never  doubt that this group will fight tenaciously and be willing to go to any  extremes to protect their centuries’ old scam. We predict there will  undoubtedly be more strange banker deaths ahead of us in the ensuing  weeks, months, and years.

 The next time you walk into your local bank, please ask yourself this  question, “Do I really want to entrust my hard earned wages and savings  to a centuries’ old criminal scheme?” If you don’t, please consider  gold and silver for protection of your wealth.”

_Read full article: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/03/n...it-like-it-is/_

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

US Petrodollar (backed by oil and violence) is about to be collapsed by Russia

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*The Biggest Secret About Banking Has Just Gone Mainstream*

                                               Posted on April 28, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog 

*Banks Create Money Out of Thin Air  Conferring Enormous Windfall Profits At the Expense of the People*

 Weve pointed out for 4 1/2 years that banks create money out of thin air.
 Specifically, it has now been conclusively proven that loans come first  and then deposits FOLLOW.
 This is the most important secret about modern banking  because it debunks one of the biggest myths preventing a strong economy, challenges one of the main pork barrel profit centers for big banks  and opens up incredible opportunities for a prosperous economy.

This odd and counter-intuitive  but crucially important  truth has now gone mainstream 
 Specifically, the Financial Times Martin Wolf  one of the worlds most influential mainstream financial writers -  says  that, since banks create money out of thin air, they should be stripped  of this power, and limited to normal depository functions. Wolf  indicates the centrality and importance of the issue with his subtitle:
The giant hole at the heart of our market economies needs to be plugged.And Business Insider  the worlds most popular financial news blog  is currently running this as its top two front page stories:



(Read the Business Insider stories here and here.)
 If we reclaimed the power to create credit from the too big to fail banks, we would all be _much_ _wealthier_

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

Ron Pauls Warning: Big Changes Coming for the US Economy

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

*What Will Trump Do About the Central-Bank Cartel?*

*Trump could end global banking tyranny*

  Thorsten Pollet | Mises.org -   February 13, 2017 




> Of course, change for the better doesnt come from politics. It comes from _better ideas_.  For it is ideas that determine human action. Whatever these ideas are  and wherever they come from: They make humans act. For this reason the  great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1881  1973) advocates the  idea of the sound money principle 
> 
> The sound-money principle  has two aspects. It is affirmative in approving the markets choice of a  commonly used medium of exchange. It is negative in obstructing the  governments propensity to meddle with the currency system.
> 
> Mises also explains convincingly the importance of the sound money principle for each and every one of us 
> 
> It  is impossible to grasp the meaning of the idea of sound money if one  does not realize that it was devised as an instrument for the protection  of civil liberties against despotic inroads on the part of governments.  Ideologically it belongs in the same class with political constitutions  and bills of right.
> 
> Misess sound money principle calls for  ending central banking once and for all and opening up a *free market in  money*. Having brought to a halt _political globalism_ for now,  the new US administration has now also a once in a lifetime chance to  make the world great again  simply by ending the states monopoly of  money production.
> ...


Full article here.

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## Zippyjuan

> US Petrodollar (backed by oil and violence) is about to be collapsed by Russia


Update?  Has it collapsed yet?

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> Update?  Has it collapsed yet?



Yet another example of you being antagonistic and breaking the site rules.  Along with your now "supporting member" status.  





> Zippyjuan
> Supporting Member
> 
> 
> Posts
>     32,358	
> Join Date
>     Feb 2008

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## Foundation_Of_Liberty

> Update?  Has it collapsed yet?


It will.

This is why we need free competition in currencies so that people may have an alternative. 

Justice demands this freedom. Denying it is unjust and immoral.

Besides, 98% of purchasing power of the dollar has been stolen already since 1913. Is that not a collapse?

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