Liberty Maven

Ron Paul has often come out in support of abolishing legal tender laws and the idea of having other currencies compete with the dollar.  Well, in Michigan the legal tender laws may still be in place but many businesses now accept alternative currency such as gold, silver, and copper coins when doing business:

New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it’s not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency.

Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender.

They sound like real money and look like real money. But you can’t take them to the bank because they’re not made at a government mint. They’re made at private mints.

“I sell three or four every single day and then I get one or two back a week,” said Dave Gillie, owner of Gillies Coney Island Restaurant in Genesee Township.

Gillie also accepts silver, gold, copper and other precious metals to pay for food.

Read the rest of the story and watch a short news clip on this topic.

Ron Paul, in his Texas Straight Talk column, discusses the failure of Keynesianism and why the founding fathers insisted on only gold as silver as currency:

This past week several emerging and ongoing crises took attention away from the ongoing sovereign debt problems in Greece.  The bailouts are merely kicking the can down the road and making things worse for taxpaying citizens, here and abroad.   Greece is unfortunately not unique in its irresponsible spending habits.  Greek-style debt explosions are quickly spreading to other nations one by one, and yes, the United States is one of the dominoes on down the line.

Time and again it has been proven that the Keynesian system of big government and fiat paper money are abject failures in the long run.  However, the nature of government is to ignore reality when there is an avenue that allows growth in power and control. Thus, most politicians and economists will ignore the long-term damage of Keynesianism in the early stage of a bubble when there is the illusion of prosperity, suggesting that the basic laws of economics had been repealed.  In fact, one way to tell if a bubble is about to burst is if economists start talking about how the government and the Central Bank have repealed the business cycle.

The truth is the laws of economics are constant and real, no matter how inconvenient they might be to politicians and bankers.  This reality is setting in and the bills are coming due.  In the mean time, countries that have no money have bailed out other countries that have no money, except for the phony money created by politicians, bureaucrats, and their partners-in-crime at the central banks.  This may be preventing big well-connected banks from having to take on massive losses, but it is all at the expense of the taxpaying citizen.

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“I remember a German farmer expressing as much in a few words as the whole subject requires; ‘Money is money, and paper is paper.’” – Thomas Paine

Originally published May 13, 2010 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/americas-ridiculous-toy-money-1

America’s monetary situation is becoming fairly ridiculous.  This Monday, the Wall Street Journal carried “Will Nickel-Free Nickels Make a Dime’s Worth of Difference?” on its front page.  The article shares the government’s dilemma that minted each $100 box of nickels costs very close to $200, and that the metal content of the coin is worth more than the face value of 5 cents.  The penny, which was already debased from almost 100% copper to 2% copper in 1982 also costs more to mint than its face value.  The pre-1982 pennies are now worth over double their face value.

The nickel’s mass is 5 grams and consists of 25% nickel and 75% copper.  It is the only US coin to never have been devalued by using cheaper metals since it was first minted in 1866.  At that time, both the penny and nickel were worth far, far less than their face value, but were used as placeholders for gold and silver coins.  America’s dimes, quarters, half-dollars were all 90% silver up until 1964 when the silver content became worth more than the face value.  Today’s dimes, quarters, and half-dollars are nickel plating – done on purpose to resemble silver – sandwiched over a cheap copper core.

While the WSJ hems and haws between substituting wood, plastic, aluminum or zinc in the coins, one of the issues with “toy money” or devaluing the coin currency is that it could cause a psychological trigger as citizens realize Congress and the printing operators at the Federal Reserve intends to pursue its permanent monetary policy of inflation, which is a hidden, insidious tax on all Americans who hold dollars.   Read More »

“She was so old that she dried up quickly in the sun… But the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear.” – the Witch of the North, from Frank Baum’s 1900 “Wonderful Wizard of Oz” (p. 6/72)

Originally published May 2, 2010 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/one-step-closer-to-the-end-of-the-yellow-brick-road-1

Well, Technicolor changed the unforgettable color of Dorothy’s shoes from silver to ruby red, but Baum’s work had multiple interpretations, including an allegory for sound money.  The silver shoes danced on the “yellow brick road” made of solid gold to the Emerald City of Oz, where everything seen was faked through green classes (the greenback or dollar) run by the little man behind the screen (the FED/Congress).

After watching the Chinese develop a voracious appetite for gold and silver over the last year before I left China to return home and run for U.S. Congress, one of the strange things I noticed after returning stateside was the non-stop newspaper and TV ads for unwitting citizens to bring in their gold and be paid a fraction of their worth.  It was so bad that even The Onion picked up and satirized the whole event, suggesting the US government could pay off the national debt by selling our gold for irredeemable dollars.   Read More »

The New York Post reports a whistleblower’s claim that the Federal Reserve is suppressing the price of gold and silver.

Gold and silver prices signal inflation. If the Fed can silence this signal then it can make its own product, Federal Reserve Notes, look more valuable than they really are.

If you and I tried to manipulate the market in this way we would go to jail. So why should such behavior be okay for an institution that’s supposed to serve the public interest? If this price manipulation is occurring, then . . .

* It defrauds investors
* It tricks innocent Americans into keeping their savings in depreciating dollars, when they might be better off shifting to more stable assets

Even worse, these false market signals will create more malinvestments, bubbles, bursts, and recessions.

And when that happens you can bet that both the politicians and the Fed will add insult to injury by blaming it all on the free market, when it will really have been the fault of the UN-free market that they created.

Is this what you want?

Should the Fed be able to protect itself at your expense?

Don’t you think you could better plan for your future if you had reliable knowledge about everything the Fed is doing?

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The three G’s are always important but their demand rises, for good reason, during times of extraordinary economic duress. America is going through such a period right now.

Unfortunately, such times also bring out the crazy and confused too. Recently, we have read about shootings at the Smithsonian and Pentagon in DC. A man flew a plane into an IRS building in Austin, TX. A militia group was arrested for plotting the killing of police officers in an attempt to cause an uprising against the U.S. government.

While some attempt to accuse and reveal loose associations between these lunatics and those of use who truly do believe in liberty, we know the truth. They never were and never will be libertarians. They acted, not in self-defense, but on their own twisted apocalyptic emotions.

Moderation should be the watchword when it comes preparation for a future darker than the past. Working on obtaining the three G’s is a good step in that direction.

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From DownsizeDC.org:

Last week we launched our campaign for the new and improved Free Competition in Currency Act. Today, please continue educating Congress about this bill.

You may copy or borrow from this letter . . .

Supporting this bill will enable you to honor your oath of office. The 10th Amendment to the Constitution limits federal powers to only those functions the Constitution specifically mentions. Congress has no power to . . .

* pass a legal tender law
* create a central bank
* create money (the Constitution only authorizes the federal government to make coins out of *existing* gold and silver money)

This means that our current system is the exact opposite of what the Constitution requires . . .     Read More »

A few weeks ago, Ron Paul introduced one of the Downsize DC Agenda bills.

Throughout 2009, DC Downsizers ALONE called for Congressman Paul to re-introduce the three “Honest Money” bills using our “End the Inflation Tax” campaign. We had specifically called for the Congressman not only to resubmit these highly important levers to destroy the government’s inflation tax and to “End the Fed,” but we’d also encouraged every member of Congress to re-introduce these three bills in ONE NEW BILL.

We applaud Ron Paul for doing exactly that. Here is the Statement of Congressman Ron Paul Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act HR 4248 (edited for publication, with emphasis points added) . . .

Currency, or money, is what allows civilization to flourish. In the absence of money, barter is the name of the game; if the farmer needs shoes, he must trade his eggs and milk to the cobbler and hope that the cobbler needs eggs and milk. Money makes the transaction process far easier. Rather than having to search for someone with reciprocal wants, the farmer can exchange his milk and eggs for an agreed-upon medium of exchange with which he can then purchase shoes.

This medium of exchange should satisfy certain properties. It should be . . .   Read More »

Originally published December 30, 2009 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/gata-sues-the-federal-reserve-alleges-manipulation-of-the-gold-market-1

Today, GATA (the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) filed a lawsuit suing the Federal Reserveafter its separate FOIA request was denied.  For a decade, GATA has amassed enormous amounts of evidence that charges that the FED colludes with other central banks and bullion dealers to secretly suppress the market price of gold in order to make their own paper currencies look better.  The last time the central banks secretly manipulated the gold price was from 1961 to 1968, and ended with the violent collapse of the London Gold Pool and the bankruptcy of the post-WWII Bretton Woods global monetary system.

A year ago, Bloomberg L.P., a major financial news firm, filed a FOIA (Freedom of Information Request) from the Federal Reserve to disclose over $2 trillion in off-the-balance sheet emergency loans – funds that Congress and the President to this day have no idea how the nation’s quasi-private central bank spent.  Despite a momentary court ruling commanding the FED to release this information to the public, the FED has effectively evaded the motion.   Read More »

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

You should ask Congress to give you the same option for your own transactions. Otherwise, you risk losing everything you’ve worked for.

Send another letter to Congress asking them to repeal the legal tender law that forces you to do business ONLY in Federal Reserve Notes. In your personal comments use the latest news about countries dropping the dollar for oil transactions.

Here’s what I wrote in my letter to Congress . . .

Several countries are making plans to stop using Federal Reserve Notes for oil purchases. I want the same freedom for my personal transactions.

The Fed has nearly doubled the money supply since last Fall. This will cut the future value of my savings in half and send my cost of living through the roof. Add to that . . .

* The $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare
* Your big bailout schemes,
* Your so-called stimulus package,
* Your cap and trade boondoggle,
* Your disastrous healthcare plans, and the result is . . .

I see no hope for the dollar. You guys have ruined our currency, and I WANT OUT.

If foreigners can stop using Federal Reserve Notes, I should have the same freedom. Why should foreigners have more right to control their own economic destiny than I do?

Many in Washington claim they want to protect the Fed’s independence. What about my independence? I just want you to repeal the legal tender law so I can use forms of money other than Federal Reserve Notes (like gold and silver for instance). Doing this would also moderate the Fed’s behavior. If they want me to keep using Federal Reserve Notes then they’ll have to stop their legalized counterfeiting activities.

Please represent me. Break the Federal Reserve’s money monopoly. Give me the same right that foreigners have.

You can send your own letter to Congress using DownsizeDC.org’s Educate the Powerful System.

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