Tag Archives: Money/Economy/Taxes

Ron Paul on Competing Currencies

Ron Paul’s recent statement on the House floor.

excerpt: “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. Gresham’s Law describes this phenomenon, which can be summed up in one phrase: bad money drives out good money. An emperor, a king, or a dictator might mint coins with half an ounce of gold and force merchants, under pain of death, to accept them as though they contained one ounce of gold. Each ounce of the king’s gold could now be minted into two coins instead of one, so the king now had twice as much “money” to spend on building castles and raising armies. As these legally overvalued coins circulated, the coins containing the full ounce of gold would be pulled out of circulation and hoarded. We saw this same phenomenon happen in the mid-1960s when the US government began to mint subsidiary coinage out of copper and nickel rather than silver. The copper and nickel coins were legally overvalued, the silver coins undervalued in relation, and silver coins vanished from circulation.

These actions also give rise to the most pernicious effects of inflation. Most of the merchants and peasants who received this devalued currency felt the full effects of inflation, the rise in prices and the lowered standard of living, before they received any of the new currency. By the time they received the new currency, prices had long since doubled, and the new currency they received would give them no benefit.

In the absence of legal tender laws, Gresham’s Law no longer holds. If people are free to reject debased currency, and instead demand sound money, sound money will gradually return to use in society. Merchants would have been free to reject the king’s coin and accept only coins containing full metal weight.”

Read more from ronpaul2008.com

NY Times Applauds Fed’s Robbery of American Public

The NY Times enthusiastically applauds the Dow’s recent rally.

Jim Rogers, respected CEO of Roger’s holdings, comments why the Fed’s artificially-created market rally is good for bankers, but BAD FOR AMERICANS. “It’s certainly good for me. It’s not good for the world, but it’s good for me, and I don’t approve at all.”

“Why is it the end of the world if an investment bank goes bankrupt? Where is it in the federal reserve’s mandate to bail out xyz investment bank. . . If you bail out every investment bank that gets into trouble, that’s not capitalism, it’s socialism for the rich, and why should 300 million Americans suffer so we can bail out two or three investment banks?”

Asked what he would do if he had Fed Chairman Bernanke’s job, he said: “Step one is abolish the Federal Reserve and step two is resign. . . . no country in the world has ever succeeded by debasing its currency.”

See Also:
–Fed Releases Crisis Preparedness Video
–Fed Prints Another $200 Billion Out of Thin Air
–SWAT Team Disperses Crowd of Hundreds Awaiting Housing Applications I think this will become an increasingly common sight, here in the U.S.S.A..

Comptroller General on Our Gov’t’s Finances

David Walker, is comptroller general of the U.S. He says “the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan, but our own fiscal responsibility.”

Watch it!

This segment was originally broadcast on March 4, 2007 (CBS). It was updated on July 8, 2007. I resent their mention of 1992 Presidential candidate Ross Perot who talked about these issues, when they non-mention the candidate talking about it today: Ron Paul.

The Media has bored “growth” into our brains as the best barometer of a healthy economy. I wonder if growth isn’t a false metric of economic health. Perhaps “growth” is good for the bankrupt (and greedy) federal government, but not necessarily beneficial for the public.

Bush Establishes Financial Propaganda Council

(from blacklistednews.com)

“Permit me to issue and control the money of the nation and I care not who makes its laws.” Mayer Amsched Rothchild, a prominent European banker in the eighteenth century

“If the American people ever allow the banks to control issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied.” Thomas Jefferson

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” Thomas Jefferson

“The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.” Curtis Dall (Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son-in-law), My Exploited Father-in-Law

Five Predictions for 2008

1) Corporate Media will believe their own propaganda and be astonished by Ron Paul’s success – starting tomorrow.

2) The push to attack Iran will resume once the presidential primaries are decided. If Israel bombs Iran, they’ll do so after the primaries, but before President Bush leaves office.

3) Our economic woes will be worse than predicted.

4) The price of gold will reach $1000/ounce.

5) The threat of child predators will be leveraged as an excuse to regulate the internet, or internet access.

America’s Forgotten War Against the Central Banks

This fascinating piece discusses the tension between our government and Central Banks in every chapter of our history. Worth studying.

“By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens…There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” (John Maynard Keynes)

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies … If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” (Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826)

“Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence… would be more formidable and dangerous than a military power of the enemy.” (President Andrew Jackson – July 10, 1832)

“Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce…and when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.” (President James A. Garfield, 1881, two weeks before his assassination)

On June 4, 1963, John F. Kennedy signed a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, a mere four months before his assassination on November 22, 1963. This decree returned to the U.S. Federal government the Constitutional right to create and “to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.”

(Read More)

Inflation

I started paying attention to our monetary system since watching the very disturbing America: Freedom to Fascism.

Two Ron-Paul clips about how inflation happens:
–Speech in Iowa — inflation is often a transfer of wealth from the working masses to the bankers and government institutions that spend newly-printed (and not yet inflated) money.
–On the floor of Congress discussing the integrity of the dollar.

The occasion for this post is this: The Federal Reserve (which is about as federal as Federal Express) has just injected $31.25 BILLION into the economy. I think the key to understanding this is picking apart the process behind the word “injected.” It results in the transfer of wealth described by Ron Paul in the clip above. That’s not to say money should never be printed, but it ought to be done by Congress, as specified in the Constitution. In 1913, they abrogated their responsibility by creating the private and very secretive Federal Reserve.