Monthly Archives: July 2009

Competing Currencies

I’ve long been interested in legal tender laws and the notion of competing currencies. Ron Paul gave a great overview before the US House of Representatives, February 13, 2008:

“At this country’s founding, there was no government-controlled national currency. While the Constitution established the Congressional power of minting coins, it was not until 1792 that the US Mint was formally established. In the meantime, Americans made do with foreign silver and gold coins. Even after the Mint’s operations got underway, foreign coins continued to circulate within the United States, and did so for several decades.

On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: �Don’t steal � the government hates competition.� Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to introduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition.

The first step consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency. However, there is nothing in the Constitution that grants the Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. We, the Congress, have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.

Historically, legal tender laws have been used by governments to force their citizens to accept debased and devalued currency. . . . If people are free to reject debased currency, and instead demand sound money, sound money will gradually return to use in society. . . .

The second step to reestablishing competing currencies is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. Evidently the government felt threatened, as Liberty Dollars had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service this past November.

. . . .

The final step to ensuring competing currencies is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Short-term capital gains rates are at income tax levels, up to 35 percent, while long-term capital gains taxes are assessed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent. Furthermore, these taxes actually tax monetary debasement. As the dollar weakens, the nominal dollar value of gold increases. The purchasing power of gold may remain relatively constant, but as the nominal dollar value increases, the federal government considers this an increase in wealth, and taxes accordingly.” (Read the whole speech at dailypaul.com)

Senator Schiff?

From LewRockwell.com:

Peter Schiff has set up an exploratory committee for a run against Sen. Chris “the Crook” Dodd. Writes Peter:

As you know, I have been seriously considering running for U.S. Senate against Chris Dodd.

Everywhere you turn there is evidence of just how bad our economy is getting. Growing unemployment, families that are struggling to put food on the table, and retirees that are having to make the choice between doing without or joining the millions of others that are looking for a job. Unfortunately, many of our economic woes have been created by government intervention and politicians who believe themselves to be economic “experts.”

I believe that my experience and qualifications would make me well-suited to serve Connecticut, especially during a time when Washington needs fewer career politicians and more people with real-world financial experience that can be a voice of reason and help prevent the continued intrusion of government into our lives, jobs, and pocketbooks.

See the handsome Schiff site here, and thanks to Michael Woods.

I’m a big fan of Peter Schiff.

Obama’s signing statement hypocrisy

“President Obama signed the $106 billion war-spending bill into law Friday, but not without taking a page from his predecessor and ignoring a few elements in the legislation.

Obama included a five-paragraph signing statement with the bill, including a final paragraph that outlined his objections to at least four areas of the bill.

President George W. Bush was heavily criticized for his use of signing statements, declaring he’d ignore some elements of legislation by invoking presidential prerogative.

The Obama administration announced in the statement it would disregard provisions of the legislation.” (Read more from the hill.com)

More change we can believe in?

We are no longer a republic. We are an elected dictatorship.

Hypocritical NYT calls Iranian interrogation tactics “torture”

All of this is from salon.com:

Clark Hoyt, New York Times Public Editor, April 26, 2009:

A LINGUISTIC shift took place in this newspaper as it reported the details of how the Central Intelligence Agency was allowed to strip Al Qaeda prisoners naked, bash them against walls, keep them awake for up to 11 straight days, sometimes with their arms chained to the ceiling, confine them in dark boxes and make them feel as if they were drowning.

Until this month, what the Bush administration called “enhanced” interrogation techniques were “harsh” techniques in the news pages of The Times. Increasingly, they are “brutal” . . . .

Scott Shane, who covers national security, said he and his editor in the Washington bureau, Douglas Jehl, negotiated over the wording of the first paragraph. Shane wrote that methods used in the prisons were “widely denounced as illegal torture.” Jehl changed that to the “harshest interrogation methods”

. . . .

he said: “I have resisted using torture without qualification or to describe all the techniques. Exactly what constitutes torture continues to be a matter of debate and hasn’t been resolved by a court.

. . . .

The New York Times today:

Inflamed CNBC host calls bloggers ‘digital dickweeds’

“Television is a place of maturity and thought. The blogosphere is a place of ‘dickweeds.’ That’s according to CNBC host Dennis Kneale, who’s declared the recession over, and who went postal on critical financial bloggers Tuesday.” (Read more from rawstory.com)

Let them acknowledge THIS, as part of the reason big media is struggling – sending us (me) to Iraq, declaring the recession over, censoring and slandering Ron Paul, ignoring Palestine, reframing every important national debate as something irrelevant and quaint, instigating war with Iran, spreading irrational stock-market euphoria, vilifying freedom, rationalizing tyrrany. . . I am a blogger. Hear me roar!

Rand Paul on Obamacare

Rand Paul: Who are [the 40 million uninsured in America]? . . . a third of them make more than $50,000 a year, a third of them are elligible for medicaid but haven’t figured out how to apply for it, and about 20% of them are not citizens. A good percentage of them are also uninsured for a short period of time.

Washington Post publisher apologizes for auctioning influence

“WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post’s publisher apologized to readers Sunday for a plan to charge business leaders and lobbyists for intimate dinner discussions with government officials and the newspaper’s journalists.

A flier surfaced last week promoting a plan to charge $25,000 to sponsor one of a series of dinner parties that would include off-the-record conversations with Post journalists and access to Washington insiders. The series was canceled Thursday.” (Read more from finance.yahoo.com)

The Year The Newspaper Died

“As you may have noticed, newspapers have had a rough 2009. But you may not quite appreciate the magnitude of the collapse.

So far this year:

* 105 newspapers have been shuttered.
* 10,000 newspaper jobs have been lost.
* Print ad sales fell 30% in Q1 ’09.
* 23 of the top 25 newspapers reported circulation declines between 7% and 20%.

What happened?

The economy collapsed and advertising budgets went with it, accelerating a process already underway: the Internet’s erosion of the entire newspaper industry.” (Read more from businessinsider.com)

Don’t let these sob stories fool you. We are in a golden age of journalism. The old guard is just upset that they losing money and influence. Telling the truth is beginning to matter.

DeMint Audit the Fed amendment blocked by hypocritical Senate Leadership

With Sanford disgraced, and Ron Paul unlikely to run for president again, Senator Jim DeMint may be our best hope for 2012. I hope he runs.

Description from a campaign for liberty email: “Seizing on a chance to take quick action to bring Audit the Fed up for a vote, and with the GAO provisions in mind, Senator DeMint attached the full text of S 604, the Senate version of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, to HR 2918 as Senate Amendment 1367 before it was considered for final passage.

However, Senate Democrats refused to even allow a vote on the amendment! That’s right. The internationalist, Fed-loving elite in the Senate used a parliamentary tactic to shut down DeMint’s amendment.

After Senator DeMint brought Audit the Fed to the floor, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska raised a ‘point of order’ to prevent a vote, claiming that the amendment violated Senate Rule 16 by ‘legislating’ on an appropriations bill. The Senate president agreed, and the amendment was shot down.

Senator DeMint did not back down, though, and directly challenged Senate leadership by pointing out the other GAO audits contained in the bill. As Senator DeMint listed them off, the Senate president was forced to agree with Senator DeMint that each one he described, all of which would be left in for final passage, also violated Senate Rule 16.

Which tells us at least one thing: the problem wasn’t with ‘legislating’ on the bill or violating Senate Rules (which is commonly done). Shooting down the amendment was about preventing a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in its history!”