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marxbites
73 Comments
The International Gold Rush: Bulls May Soon Be Rewarded
Dig: In 1932 $1 = 1/20th oz gold
Today $1 = 1/1000th oz gold
A 20:1 ratio has become a 50:1 ratio, ergo a $1 buys 1/50th of what it could in 1932.
1/50th = 0.02 = $0.02 cents/$1 of buying power today.
Do you think the FED will keep printing as do most of the saavy, or will it call in dollars from all over the world to raise the $1's purchasing power?
History proves the ratchet is always the former, IE the FED has stolen 98% of the people's wealth via inflation thus far.
Only saps can think it will change it's shylock thieving ways.
The Ben & Hank show is just in it's beginning scenes.
Per the Maestro himself:
Alan Greenspan - “Gold and Economic Freedom” 1967
"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. . . . This is the shabby secret of the welfare/(warfare) statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
The PEOPLE'S property that is.
The International Gold Rush: Bulls May Soon Be Rewarded
"The Creature From Jekyll Island; Revisiting the Federal Reserve"
Then if that snks in go to mises.org for even more in depth history and economics from the Austrains that foretold the fiat enabled rise of the Euro-statists our progressive era policies & Fed were modled after!
What a country of sheeple being merrily led to their own slaughter.
Thing is I was baaaaaing not too long ago myself, before getting myself the education govt purposely denied me and all Americans.
Time for Gold Miners To Consolidate?
Interview with Nick Barisheff: Gold is Money
"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. . . . This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
Time to Buy and Hold Gold
Alan Greenspan - “Gold and Economic Freedom” 1967
"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. . . . This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
John Maynard Keynes
Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency - "By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some....The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose."
Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he breaks, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."
H.L. Mencken
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.
Voltaire
In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other.
Ludwig von Mises
"The cyclical fluctuations of business are not an occurrence originating in the sphere of the unhampered (free) market, but a product of government interference with business conditions designed to lower the rate of interest below the height at which the free market would have fixed it."
Where Are Precious Metals Heading?
In December 1921, the American industrialist Henry Ford and the inventor Thomas Edison visited the Muscle Shoals nitrate and water power projects near Florence, Alabama.
They used the opportunity to articulate at length upon their alternative money theories, which were published in 2 reports which appeared in The New York Times on December 4, 1921 and December 6, 1921.
Objecting to the fact that the Government planned, as usual, to raise the money by issuing bonds which would be bought by the banking and non-banking sector -- which would then have to be paid back with money raised from taxes, and with interest added -- they proposed instead that the Government simply create the currency it required and spend it into society through this public project.
This Thomas Edison quote made it plain in the following excerpt from The New York Times, December 6, 1921 issue ("Ford Sees Wealth In Muscle Shoals").
Here, the reporter reveals the Thomas Edison quote:
"That is to say, under the old way any time we wish to add to the national wealth we are compelled to add to the national debt."
"Now, that is what Henry Ford wants to prevent. He thinks it is stupid, and so do I, that for the loan of $30,000,000 of their own money the people of the United States should be compelled to pay $66,000,000 -- that is what it amounts to, with interest."
"People who will not turn a shovelful of dirt nor contribute a pound of material will collect more money from the United States than will the people who supply the material and do the work."
"That is the terrible thing about interest. In all our great bond issues the interest is always greater than the principal. All of the great public works cost more than twice the actual cost, on that account. Under the present system of doing business we simply add 120 to 150 per cent, to the stated cost."
"But here is the point: If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good."
"The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20 per cent, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who directly contribute to Muscle Shoals in some useful way."
"... if the Government issues currency, it provides itself with enough money to increase the national wealth at Muscles Shoals without disturbing the business of the rest of the country. And in doing this it increases its income without adding a penny to its debt."
"It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30,000,000 in bonds and not $30,000,000 in currency. Both are promises to pay; but one promise fattens the usurer, and the other helps the people."
"If the currency issued by the Government were no good, then the bonds issued would be no good either. It is a terrible situation when the Government, to increase the national wealth, must go into debt and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the fictitious values of gold."
"Look at it another way. If the Government issues bonds, the brokers will sell them. The bonds will be negotiable; they will be considered as gilt edged paper. Why? Because the government is behind them, but who is behind the Government?"
"The people."
"Therefore it is the people who constitute the basis of Government credit. Why then cannot the people have the benefit of their own gilt-edged credit by receiving non-interest bearing currency on Muscle Shoals, instead of the bankers receiving the benefit of the people's credit in interest-bearing bonds?"
//////////////////////...
Rothschild Brothers of London communiqué to associates in New York June 25, 1863
"The few who understand the system, will either be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors 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 advantages...will bear its burden without complaint, and perhaps without suspecting that the system is inimical to their best interests."
Americans are to soon old and too late smart thanks to govt and it's cheerleader beneficiaries in big biz, media & academe.
Where Are Precious Metals Heading?
"If there is no longer a viable government, gold will be worthless. Nobody will be willing to take your gold in exchange for food, clothing, weapons, or any other necessity of survival There will be no "money", only barter"
Gold and silver have always been viable commodity money of intermediary exchange freely chosen by traders over millenia as being the easiest to spot the depredations of king's and tyrant's attempts to clip or debase it.
Not to mention gold/silver's divisibility, high worth/weight, homogeneity, relative scarcity and low annual production usually lower than economic growth, and ergo enjoys growing purchasing power instead of fiat which depreciates our buying power.
My new 1972 VW was $1,989.00. A 1960 3/2 w/pool in Miami was $19K and today would be $200K.
Is it perfect? What is? But Gold & Silver money are what works best for trade and work best at restraining evil bankers and govt always out to rob the people via interest and inflation.
For the straight skinny on money & the FED:
Second Look at the Federal Reserve by Edward Griffin 1 of 7
www.youtube.com/watch?...
Where Are Precious Metals Heading?
"An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other. . . . This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he breaks, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt."
If This Comes True, You'll Be Glad You Own Gold & Silver
We need to chop Leviathan off at the thighs. Dems & Reps alike have proven they collude more often against us for themselves, than for we producers they feed off while themselves only consuming; producing nothing we would buy from it voluntarily.
If This Comes True, You'll Be Glad You Own Gold & Silver
But just wrap your mind around this from:
albensonjr.com/noconse...
//So lets take a brief look at the "conservative&quo... roots of the Republican Party. When the Republican Party ran its first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, back in 1856, Fremont had the backing of several men who were socialist refugees from the failed socialist/communist revolts in Europe in 1848. One of the most well-known of these was Friedrich Hassaurek, an Austrian socialist, who stumped the Midwest in Fremont's behalf. However it did little good at that point, as Fremont was beaten. However, it is worth noting that when the War of Northern Aggression broke out in 1861, General Fremont ended up with a goodly number of these forty-eighter socialists and communists on his military staff while the war was in progress. The Forty-eighter socialists seem to have flocked to Fremont. What did they know about the august general that our "history" books have not bothered to tell us?
Although Fremont was beaten in 1856, the socialists and communists were nothing if not patient. In 1860 they found another candidate worthy of their leftist support--Abraham Lincoln. So in the presidential campaign of 1860 the Forty-eighters all came out for Lincoln. Carl Wittke, author of Refugees of Revolution noted that: "Lincoln was fully aware of the political influence of the Forty-eighters in the campaign of 1860, in persuading many of their countrymen to desert the Democratic allegiance for the Republicans..." It appears that the Forty-eighters had quite a bit of influence in the Republican convention in 1860--even to helping write parts of the party's platform. So much for "conservatism&quo... at the Republican roots!
Establishment historian James McPherson told us in his book Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution that Mr. Lincoln had championed the cause of the socialists and communists in Europe in 1848, so why would he not embrace their unstinting support during his presidential aspirations in 1860? You can accurately label this scenario "the Red roots of the Republican Party."
If socialists and communists supported Fremont in 1856 and Lincoln in 1860 and 1864, we can hardly label the beginnings of the Republican Party as "conservative&quo... now, can we? The roots of the Republican Party were anything but conservative--at best they could be considered deep pink. Our decent, patriotic folks in this country need to become aware of this so they will not be guilty of trying to take us all back to Republican "conservative&quo... roots that do not and never did exist! It is true that the Republican Party did take a more conservative tack in the late 1940s and 50s, and even through the early 60s, but that was out of political necessity and it hardly reflects the real foundation and origins of the GOP.
It is interesting to note that, in 1860, the Democrats were the real conservatives, while the Republicans were the left-leaning radicals. People today should know the difference. The fact that most don't reveals the lack of depth in what most of us received in government schools that passed for education. Sadly, what most of us received was leftist propaganda that was paraded by us under the guise of "history." Sadly, in our day, nothing has changed and our people "still perish from lack of knowledge." //
Some mind blast eh?
Want more reality of the scam our govt is; the elites that bleed us dry who run it from the shadows, pulling the strings of the manipulatable fronts they put in office for the purpose? And the perpetual debt of perpetual wars for supposed peace?
This essay names the names, and connects the dots of the pure evil who have worked so hard in concert to take away the freedoms that some patriots once upon a time gave everything to give us.
Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy, by Murray N. Rothbard
mises.org/resources/12...
There is NO way the people's capital these criminals have squandered on themselves will ever be repaid to those who earned it. Our ONLY choice is to protect what little is left. Turn most of your paper assets into metals.
There is ZERO difference between the Warburg/Rothschild designed 2nd Reich's fiat monetary system, the very blueprint of our own FED, and the inevitable hyperinflation that results when tyrannts rob their people by coin clipping, debasement; or by printing press fiat, once they've fooled the masses into reliquishing their REAL money in exchange for unbacked money debt receipts printed from thin air. Called money because the govt says so. Boy are we stupid.
Ron Paul is dead right. He is also the only Pol I've seen in the 40 years I've paid attention, that truly upholds his solemn oath defending the constitution that no others even come close to.
Vietnam Suspends Gold Imports, Follows FDR's Great Depression Lead
What IKE and JFK warned of, we have full blown.
Note that since non-court historians and journalists exposed Wilson's heinous actions of signing the FED & Fed'l Inc Tax in time for fiat financing of our entry into WW1 he promised he wouldn't, was yet another unconstitutional sham for elites to profit and aggrandize power from, like the CW, SpanAm, WW's 1&2, and all the rest. They founded the CFR to counter a like scenario of exposure of the charlatans for the coming planned WW2. Every war was ALWAYS aggitated for by the progressives of BOTH parties, mostly bankers and their shipbuilders and merchants of death cronies. Prohibitionist reformer Jingos ramming democracy down the throats of new markets at bayonet point via the "open door" policy.
If every Republican utterance of praise for a Hamilton, TR, FDR or Wilson isn't enough proof to reveal the game is rigged, and that BOTH parties are in criminal collusion again and again, well then, we're toast unless we wake up and re-elect no more incumbents - a brutal system enema is waaaaaay overdue - 100years of impaction in the making can be eliminated in just a few election cycles!
Wouldn't TEA be the perfect symbolic liquid! Flush ALL the bastards out!
The WHOLE concept of America was freedom FROM Govt - WTF have we done, eh?
Time to get our limited and nearly cost free govt back so we can once again pursue our happinesses by keeping ALL we earn instead of half, aint it?
Our soldiers are murdered for corp profits, not for American freedom. The elite ruled overbearing offensive violent empire the founders did their all to warn us against becoming, they use as their own commerce protection racket. Monarchically bent Hamilton was the demon seed statists love to praise too, another banker's boy to do that bastard Morris' bidding, who left gapping holes in our constitution for the purpose of exploiting them. He and his elite Federalists would have had America as just another England & they were in the minority. Jefferson and his majority were ALL against the Constitution of, by and for elites privilege.
Freedom vs statism is the true battle - not Dem vs Rep cuz their bosses are the same CFR/NWO criminals
Fading Glory: The Dollar as the World's Reserve Currency
Ludwig von Mises
Reprinted from the New York World Telegram & Sun, May 7, 1951.
19
Inflation
The government provides a part of the funds required for rearmament by inflation, that is, by increasing the quantity of money in circulation and the amount of bank balances subject to check.
The unavoidable consequence of inflation is the emergence of a general tendency of all prices to rise. If the government had procured all the money it needed for rearmament by taxing the citizens, the increased demand on its part would have been counteracted by a drop in the purchases of the taxpayers. The expanded military consumption would have been neutralized on the market by a restriction in civilian consumption. But with inflation the additional demand of the armed forces comes on top of the non-decreased demand of the public and makes prices soar.
What the bureaucrats have in mind when talking about "fighting" inflation is not avoiding inflation, but suppressing its inevitable consequences by price control. This is a hopeless venture. The attempt to fix prices at a lower rate than that which the unhampered market would determine renders unremunerative the business of some producers; that is, those operating at the highest costs. This forces them to discontinue production.
Wartime Experience
Inflation, in conjunction with price control, brings about scarcity. Housewives remember very well what happened in World War II with meat, butter, eggs, and many other articles under the regime of the Office of Price Administration. Yet price control has been re-established.[1] If Congress does not let the present price control law expire on June 30, as scheduled, the country will very soon experience anew not only all the hardships of inflation, but also all the evils created by the vain attempts to conceal these hardships by price control.
Economists know very well that there is only one means available to prevent a further rise in all commodity prices, namely, to end inflation entirely. If the government obtains all its funds from the public and stops increasing the quantity of money in circulation and borrowing from the commercial banks, prices will remain unchanged, by and large, and there will not be any need for the activities of a price dictator.
But the administration does not want to stop inflation. It does not want to endanger its popularity with the voters by collecting, through taxation, all it wants to spend. It prefers to mislead the people by resorting to the seemingly non-onerous method of increasing the supply of money and credit. Yet, whatever system of financing may be adopted, whether taxation, borrowing, or inflation, the full incidence of the government's expenditures must fall upon the public.
With inflation as well as with taxation, it is the citizens who must foot the total bill. The distinguishing mark of inflation, when considered as a method of filling the vaults of the Treasury, is that it distributes the burden in a most unfair way, overcharging those who are least able to bear it.
A Semantic Trick
To avoid being blamed for the nefarious consequences of inflation, the government and its henchmen resort to a semantic trick. They try to change the meaning of the terms. They call "inflation" the inevitable consequence of inflation, namely, the rise in prices. They are anxious to relegate into oblivion the fact that this rise is produced by an increase in the amount of money and money substitutes. They never mention this increase.
They put the responsibility for the rising cost of living on business, This is a classical case of the thief crying "catch the thief." The government, which produced the inflation by multiplying the supply of money, incriminates the manufacturers and merchants and glories in the role of being a champion of low prices. While the Office of Stabilization and Price Control is busy annoying sellers as well as consumers by a flood of decrees and regulations, the only effect of which is scarcity, the Treasury goes on with inflation.
------------------
[1] After the outbreak of the Korean conflict in June 1950, President Truman was authorized under the Defense Production Act (signed September 8, 1950) to "stabilize prices and wages." This price control law was revised several times and extended until April 30, 1953. Eisenhower, who had become President in January 1953, did not request a further extension and it was allowed to expire.
20
Inflation: An Unworkable Fiscal Policy
In dealing with problems concerned with the economics of mobilization, it is first of all necessary to realize that fiscal policies have reached a turning point.
In recent decades all nations have looked upon the income and the wealth of the more prosperous citizens as an inexhaustible reserve which could be freely tapped. Whenever there was need for additional funds, one tried to collect them by raising the taxes to be paid by the upper-income brackets. There seemed to be enough money for any suggested expenditure because there seemed to be no harm in "soaking the rich" a bit more. As the votes of these rich do not count much in elections, the members of the legislative bodies were always ready to increase public spending at their expense. There is a French dictum: Les affaires, c'est l'argent des autres. "Business is other people's money." In these last 60 years political and fiscal affairs were virtually "other people's money." Let the rich pay, was the slogan.
End of an Era
Now this period of fiscal history has come to an end. With the exception of the United States and some of the British Dominions, what has been called the ability-to-pay of the wealthy citizens has been completely absorbed by taxes. No further funds of any significance can be collected from them. Henceforth all government spending will have to be financed by taxing the masses.
The European nations concerned are not yet fully aware of this fact because they have found a substitute. They are getting Marshall Plan aid; the U. S. taxpayer fills the gap.
In this country things have not yet gone as far as they have in other countries. It is still possible to raise an additional $2 or $3 billion, or perhaps even $4 billion, by increasing corporation taxes, and "excess profits" taxes, and by rendering the personal income tax more progressive. But under present conditions, even $4 billion would be only a fraction of what the Treasury needs. Thus, in this country we are also at the end of a period of fiscal policies. The whole philosophy of public finance must undergo a revision. In considering the pros and cons of a suggested expenditure the members of Congress will no longer be able to think: The rich have enough; let them pay. In the future, the voters on whose ballots the Congressmen depend will have to pay.
Inflation, an increase in money and credit, is certainly not a means to avoid or to postpone for more than a short time the need to resort to taxes levied on people other than those belonging to the rich minority. If, for the sake of argument, we leave aside all the objections which may be raised against any inflationary policy, we must take into account the fact that inflation can never be more than a temporary makeshift. Inflation cannot be continued over a long period of time without defeating its fiscal purpose and ending in a complete debacle as was the case in this country with the Continental currency, in France with the mandats territoriaux and in Germany with the mark in 1923.
What makes it possible for a government to increase its funds by inflation is the ignorance of the public. The people must ignore the fact that the government has chosen inflation as a fiscal system and plans to go on with inflation endlessly. It must ascribe the general rise in prices to other causes than to the policy of the government and must assume that prices will drop again in a not-too-distant future. If this opinion fades away, inflation comes to a catastrophic breakdown.
The Housewife's Behavior
If the housewife who needs a new frying pan reasons: "Now prices are too high; I will postpone the purchase until they drop again," inflation can still fulfill its fiscal purpose. As long as people share this view, they increase their cash holdings and bank balances, and a part of the newly created money is absorbed by these additional cash holdings and bank balances; prices on the market do not rise in proportion to the inflation.
But then, sooner or later, comes a turning point. The housewife discovers that the government expects to go on inflating and that consequently prices will continue to rise more and more. Then she reasons: "I do not need a new frying pan today; I shall only need one next year. But I had better buy it now because next year the price will be much higher." If this insight spreads, inflation is done for, Then all people rush to buy. Everybody is anxious to reduce his holding of cash because he does not want to be hurt by the drop in the monetary unit's purchasing power. The phenomenon then appears which, in Europe was called the "flight into real values." People rush to exchange their depreciating paper money for something tangible, something real. The knell sounds of the currency system involved.
In this country we have not yet reached this second and final stage of every protracted inflation. But if the authorities do not very soon abandon any further attempt to increase the amount of money in circulation and to expand credit, we shall one day come to the same unpleasant result. It is not a matter of choosing between financing the increased government expenditure by collecting taxes and borrowing from the public on the one hand and financing it by inflation on the other hand. Inflation can never be an instrument of fiscal policy over a long period of time. Continued inflation inevitably leads to catastrophe.
Therefore, we should not waste our time in discussing methods of price control. Price control cannot prevent the rise in prices if inflation is going on. Even capital punishment could not make price control work in the days of Emperor Diocletian or during the French Revolution. Let us concentrate our efforts on the problem of how to avoid inflation, not upon useless schemes of how to conceal its inexorable consequences.
Taxation the Key
What is needed in wartime is to divert production and consumption from peacetime channels toward military goals. In order to achieve this, it is necessary for the government to tax the citizens, to take away from them the money, which they would otherwise spend for things they must no longer buy and consume, so the government can spend it for the conduct of the war.
At the breakfast table of every citizen in wartime sits an invisible guest, as it were, a GI who shares his meal. Parked in the citizen's garage is not only the family car, but also?invisibly?a tank or a plane. The important fact is that a GI needs more in food, clothing, and other things than he used to consume as a civilian. And military equipment wears out much more quickly than civilian equipment. The costs of a modern war are enormous.
The adequate method of providing the funds the government needs for war is, of course, taxation. Part of the funds may also be provided by borrowing from the public, the citizens. But if the Treasury increases the amount of money in circulation or borrows from the commercial banks, it inflates. Inflation can do the job for a limited time. But it is the most expensive method of financing a war; it is socially disruptive and should be avoided.
Inflation: A Convenient Makeshift
There is no need to dwell upon the disastrous consequences of inflation. All people agree in this regard. But inflation is a very convenient makeshift for those in power. It is a handy means to divert the resentment of the people from the government. In the eyes of the masses, big business, the "profiteers,"... the merchants,?not the Administration?appear responsible for the rise in prices and the ensuing need to restrict consumption.
Perhaps somebody will consider what I am saying here as anti-democratic, reactionary, and economic royalism. But the truth is that inflation is a typically anti-democratic measure. It is a policy of governments that do not have the courage to tell the people honestly what the real costs of their conduct of affairs are.
A truly democratic government would have to tell the voters openly that they must pay higher taxes because expenses have risen considerably. But it is much more agreeable for a government to present only a part of the bill to the people and to resort to inflation for the rest of its expenditures. What a triumph if they can say: Everybody's income is rising, everybody has now more money in his pocket, business is booming.
Deficit spending is not a new invention. During the greater part of the 19th century it was the preferred fiscal method of precisely those governments that were not then considered democratic and progressive?Austria, Italy, and Russia. Austria's budget showed a deficit yearly from 1781 on, until the late '80s of the 19th century, when an orthodox professor of economics, Dunajewski, as Minister of Finance, restored the budgetary equilibrium. There is no reason to be proud of deficit spending, nor to call it progress.
Going After Lower Brackets
If one wants to collect more taxes, it will be necessary to lay a burden greater than hitherto on the lower income brackets, the strata of society whose members consume the much greater part of the total amount consumed in this country. Up to now it has been customary to tax predominantly corporations and individuals with higher incomes. But even the outright confiscation of these revenues would only cover a fraction of the additional funds the country needs today.
Some experts have declared that it is necessary to tax the people until it hurts. I disagree with these sadists. The purpose of taxation is not to hurt, but to raise the money the country needs to rearm and to fight in Korea. It is a sad fact that world affairs now make it necessary for the government to force people who used to buy nylon stockings and shirts to shift to other du Pont products, namely munitions.
In his book on Eternal Peace, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) suggested that government should be forbidden to finance wars by borrowing. He expected that the warlike spirit would dwindle if all countries had to pay cash for their wars. However, no serious objection can be raised against borrowing from the public, from people who have saved and are prepared to invest in government bonds. But borrowing from the commercial banks is tantamount to printing additional bank notes and expanding the amount of deposits subject to check. That is inflation.
Semantic Confusion
There is nowadays a very reprehensible, even dangerous, semantic confusion that makes it extremely difficult for the non-expert to grasp the true state of affairs. Inflation, as this term was always used everywhere and especially in this country, means increasing the quantity of money and bank notes in circulation and the quantity of bank deposits subject to check. But people today use the term "inflation" to refer to the phenomenon that is an inevitable consequence of inflation, that is the tendency of all prices and wage rates to rise. The result of this deplorable confusion is that there is no term left to signify the cause of this rise in prices and wages. There is no longer any word available to signify the phenomenon that has been, up to now, called inflation. It follows that nobody cares about inflation in the traditional sense of the term. As you cannot talk about something that has no name, you cannot fight it. Those who pretend to fight inflation are in fact only fighting what is the inevitable consequence of inflation, rising prices. Their ventures are doomed to failure because they do not attack the root of the evil. They try to keep prices low while firmly committed to a policy of increasing the quantity of money that must necessarily make them soar. As long as this technological confusion is not entirely wiped out, there cannot be any question of stopping inflation.
Look at the silly term, "inflationary pressures." There is no such thing as an "inflationary pressure." There is inflation or there is the absence of inflation. If there is no increase in the quantity of money and if there is no credit expansion, the average height of prices and wages will by and large remain unchanged. But if the quantity of money and credit is increased, prices and wages must rise, whatever the government may decree. If there is no inflation, price control is superfluous. If there is inflation, price control is a sham, a hopeless venture.
It is the government that makes our inflation. The policy of the Treasury, and nothing else.
We have been told a lot about the need for, and the virtues of, direct controls.
We have learned that they preserve the individual's liberty to choose the grocer he prefers. I do not want to examine what value may be attached to direct controls from a metaphysical point of view. I only want to stress one fact: As a means for preventing and fighting inflation or its consequences, direct controls are absolutely useless.
more @: mises.org/story/2945
Silver ETF Starts Off the Year Strong: Can It Continue to Shine?
www.netcastdaily.com/1...
Silver ETF Starts Off the Year Strong: Can It Continue to Shine?
No instance in ALL of HISTORY exists where fractional reserve banking or forced "legal tender" laws was not fraudulent in purpose and fact. Always it has singularly been for robbing the people.
FAME has the straight dope - smart people will read it and act accordingly!!
Stop the fiat money fraud;
protect your savings, your pension, and your job; and,
re-establish a system of honest monetary weights and measures.
The Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education (FAME) is a 501(c)(3) public foundation whose mission is to educate people about the benefits of honest monetary weights and measures, as opposed to arbitrary—and fraudulent—(fiat) money which all of us are compelled to use.
The Danger From our Fraudulent Fiat Money:
Corruption of the political process and the loss of representative government;
Concentration of wealth in fewer hands;
Loss of savings and pensions for ordinary people;
Loss of jobs for ordinary people;
Collapse of our economic system along with mass hardship and suffering;
Social unrest and discrediting government;
A change in the basic form of government, possibly to tyranny.
At the present time, ordinary people have no way to get authoritative information about the perils of fiat money and how they are being defrauded by it. FAME distributes and makes known that information in ways that ordinary people can relate to.
Honest Monetary Weights and Measures—which is almost always Gold-as-money—is the Solution Because it:
Is the principal form of preserving wealth—pensions and savings—for future needs;
Protects property rights of people who produce wealth—primarily working people;
Causes real wages to be higher;
Facilitates real economic growth;
Keeps prices stable and/or gently declining;
Encourages saving and thrift;
Helps keep jobs secure;
Increases the number of good-paying manufacturing jobs;
Discourages debt;
Eliminates great booms and busts, as with the Great Depression;
Reduces the likelihood of war;
Makes for a stronger national defense capability;
Enables social mobility;
Makes it more likely that the people who produce wealth will be able to keep it.
FAME is particularly oriented toward working people because they are the principal victims of the fiat money fraud. As paper-ticket-token money, as we have in the U.S., melts all around the world, including in Russia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea, Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and elsewhere, rich people become less rich and professional people earn less. Working people, however, lose everything. They lose their savings, their pensions, and their jobs. The suffering is palpable. It is our expectation that by helping to lay the intellectual groundwork for a return to an honest monetary system, we can help preclude and ameliorate that suffering.
People should also be mindful that an implosion of our monetary system could very likely result in significant backlash. Recently I reread John Maynard Keynes' remarkable The Economic Consequence of Peace, which he wrote in 1919. As some may recall, Keynes had been an official representative at the Paris Peace Conference and deputy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council after World War I. This book was his critical review of the resulting Peace of Versailles Treaty.
At one point, he wrote about the suffering in Germany and Austria, partially a result of the creation of too much paper-ticket money by the authorities, which he called a "fraud upon the people." There was a relatively small amount of gold backing the German and Austrian currencies, and the French wanted to seize it as part of the reparations. Contemplating the disruption of what Keynes called the "delicate and immensely complicated organization" of commercial relationships and the continuing economic chaos, he wrote fateful lines (some small paraphrasing by me):
"But who can say how much is endurable, or in what direction men will seek at last to escape from their misfortunes? Men will not always die quietly. For starvation, which brings to some lethargy and a helpless despair, drives other temperaments to the nervous instability of hysteria and to a mad despair. Some will seek revenge... "
"The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become profiteers, who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat."
It is urgent that citizens of good will do whatever possible to preclude that ordinary people do not lose their savings, their pensions, and their jobs because of what is, in essence, a giant monetary fraud.
Honest Monetary Weights and Measures
is the Choice of Ordinary People:
Whenever Americans have had the chance to choose the medium of exchange, they have always chosen gold- and/or silver-as-money. An honest monetary system has competition: fiat money. The creators of fiat money—banks and central banks—despite their vastly inferior product, have succeeded because of coercion, misrepresentation and nondisclosure, and also in part because proponents of honest monetary weights and measures have left the playing field. They have failed to promote the benefits of an honest system, and they have failed to expose the fiat money fraud.
We believe that once the facts are on the table, people will once again insist upon honest monetary weights and measures. (There are compelling reasons why the commodity money of choice is gold-as-money. These reasons are more fully discussed in various publications included in this website. See, especially an Interview with Lawrence Parks, FAME's Executive Director. However, FAME's mission is just educational. If, after learning the facts, people wish to use something other than gold-as-money as the medium of exchange, that should be their choice.) To put this another way, we are in favor of a fully-informed electorate and participatory democracy.
FAME's Strategy:
Promote the benefits of honest monetary weights and measures while challenging the coercion, misrepresentation and nondisclosure (fraud) that make fiat money possible. This strategy recognizes that in America the media sets the agenda. As people begin to be concerned about the public policy issues associated with our fraudulent fiat money, the media will perceive that money is an issue, and politicians will begin to address it. The money issue will become self-sustaining. Emphasis will be placed on the following public policy issues:
Corruption of the political process by campaign “contributions” from the financial sector and from large corporations with money created out of nothing, whereas ordinary people have to work for the money they contribute;
Concentration of wealth in fewer hands;
Wealth transfer from ordinary people to the banking system and other segments of the financial sector;
The monopoly that the banking system, especially commercial banks, has on creating fiat money along with special privileges that no other segment of society enjoys (the concept of a legal monopoly is repugnant to the American sense);
Systemic risk that results from the special privileges and guarantees given the banking system that encourages it to take inordinate risk that its principals would not take if their own money were at stake. This puts ordinary people, who do not share in the rewards of the banking system’s risk taking, in danger that there will be an implosion of our economic system along with massive unemployment, loss of savings, and loss of pensions.
FAME’s Commitment and Specific Program:
As a not-for-profit foundation dedicated to full and honest disclosure about the perils of our fraudulent fiat money monetary system and the benefits of honest monetary weights and measures, FAME is uniquely positioned to execute this strategy. FAME’s principals have the knowledge, ability, strategic relationships, emotional commitment, drive, and the enabling vision to achieve an honest system.
We seek two immediate actions:
Repeal of the legal tender, a.k.a. “forced tender,” laws; and,
An end to the misrepresentation--whi... is what helps make it a fraud--of our money as being “Federal Reserve Notes.” We want them to be relabeled what they really are: “Federal Reserve Tokens.”
The Right Thing to Do:
People who want the benefits of living in a free society, and who believe in the heritage of the American ideals as set forth in the Declaration, should join the fight for honest monetary weights and measures because:
It is best for ourselves;
It is best for our families;
It is best for future generations;
It is best for our country;
It is based on truth; and, most important,
Joining the Fight for Honest Monetary Weights and Measures is the right thing to do.
We very much appreciate your time and your help.
Sincerely,
Larry Parks
Executive Director, FAME
Member: Workers Education Local 189, CWA AFL-CIO
Member: National Writers' Union, UAW Local 1981, AFL-CIO
Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, Ltd. 501(c)(3)
Box 625, FDR Station, New York, NY 10150-0625
Tel: (212) 818-1206 Fax: (212) 818-1197
Definition of terms:
Fiat money is money that is created out of nothing and without any work, usually by banks or central banks. The reason we say it is fraudulent is because there is material misrepresentation and nondisclosure associated with it (See: What the President Should Know About Our Monetary System). If it were not for the misrepresentation and nondisclosure, along with laws that compel people to use it ("legal tender," a.k.a. "forced tender"), fiat money would be perceived as bogus, and hardly anyone would use it, let alone save it and permit their pensions to be denominated in it. Commodity money is a physical thing, such as gold or silver. It takes work to create it. Because gold has been the commodity money of choice since antiquity, FAME uses gold synonymously with commodity money. Of course, people may choose whatever they wish to be the unit of account and the medium of exchange.
Commodity Forecasters See Prices Declining
Goto gata.org for the whole story of paper funny money makers trying extremely hard to make the world still believe the phony stuff has any value whatsoever left in any of them.
The scrip nobility's robbery of the taxpayer vias interest and inflation of worthless unredeemable paper may meltdown around their very feet.
The problem is that the vast amount of wealth they have embezzled from generations of Americans can never be recovered - but I say we still should by dividing up every single Foundation and Trust among the people as a good starting point.
Now Banking Reparations is a reparations I can get behind!!
Anyone else feel they deserve a chunk of a Rothschild, Rockefeller or Morgan's fortunes amassed since 1913 when their cartelization via the Fed ended any real competition between them?