From the Radio Free Michigan archives ftp://141.209.3.26/pub/patriot If you have any other files you'd like to contribute, e-mail them to bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu. ------------------------------------------------ Gold Standards and Paper Money-Putting It Straight ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ For centuries - even before Christ - gold, manufactured in coin form, often by private minters(banks), served as the preferred "money" of the world. It has only been in this century that nowhere in the world is a country's paper money redeemable in gold or gold coin. Why is gold the ultimate "money"? Over the centuries there have been hundreds of substitutes, but none possess the characteristics of gold: 1. Easily divisible 2. Universally recognizable 3. Cannot be easily produced ,requiring toil 3. Durable 4. Scarce, and 5. Portable. Anything performing a function of "money" must possess these characteristics to be desired by individuals. As such, silver and other metals have often been substituted, as lesser denominations, but always with the realization - and TRUST - that these other substitutes could be exchanged at will, for gold. Even today, the US copper cent's core is not copper, but zinc. For some counties even zinc is too "valuable" to be used as money, preferring instead aluminum, bronze, and just plain paper. When all US silver coinage was removed from circulation in the Sixties, President Johnson proclaimed: "Silver is now too valuable to be used as money!" An absurd statement, to be sure, but illus- trates a far more sinister underlying belief that Government is best suited to determine and manage a country's medium of exchange. Of course silver was too valuable - it was driven out of circulation by the issuance of too many paper substitutes - Gresham's Law: Bad Money Drives Out the Good! Gold, of course, had ceased to circulate since the Thirties with Roosevelt's confisc- ation of the private holdings of Americans. European Kings and Emperors of centuries past accomplished the same thing by "shaving" or "clipping" a little gold off each gold coin for their treasuries. This ancient practice of theft accounts for the reeded edges on our dimes, quarters, and halves of today. The terms "shaving" and "clipping" still have derogatory delineation in our present day vocabularies. So where are we today? Circulating gold and gold coin, privately held, served the citizens very well as a self-regulating mechanism, disappearing from circulation when its "substitutes"(paper) were issued in abundance and out of proportion to the gold - gold was hoarded. Internationally, foreigners and their central banks preferred gold for their paper and demanded redeemability from our Treasury. Governments eventually became the monopolists in the issuance of gold coin putting their "full faith and credit" forth to enhance trust in their paper issuances. It would be unpatriotic to believe otherwise! With the gold reserves being siphoned-off to foreigners demanding redeemability, in the past govts would reduce their paper issuances which, in turn, would restore confidence in their paper & the gold would return to the Treasury. People, again, would dishoard their gold and accept paper as a trusted substitute. Under the Bretton Woods Agreement the US Dollar was understood to always be redeemable in gold to foreign central banks, meaning that foreigners accept- ing our paper for their goods would turn our dollars in to their banks for their own domestic currencies. This whole procedure is analagous to the whole world giving us a blank check! No central banks ever demanded the physical redeemability - that would have been rude to distrust the United States! Until - the breakdown of the London Gold Pool in 1967 which exclaim- ed to the world that the US Treasury did not have adequate gold reserves to redeem all its paper. Central banks, led by France and Charles deGaulle, lined-up with their dollars, but President Nixon fearing a complete exhaust- ion of our remaining gold reserves, slammed the "gold window" shut, in effect saying: "Go away, we no longer have enough gold to exchange for all the paper money we gave you!" That was 1972. The world has been hostage to our paper ever since, piling up huge amounts as "reserves" in their coffers as monetary bases for their own domestic issues. "Dollar Imperialism" had arrived - and with it - worldwide inflation, an experience never before witnessed on such a grand scale. The US had pulled off, for awhile, the greatest fraud in the history of the world, exchanging a paper with declin- ing value for the products and services of a trusting world. What to do? We are now pitted against each other - class against class, race against race - sex against sex - overweight against the trim - old against the young - parents against children - tenants against property owners - consumers (aren't we all) - against business, and many, many, more I'm sure you can think of. All our value systems have been distorted; we've become a liability-conscious citizenry, families deteriorating and turning their backs on God, a nation demanding their government "do more" and give them ever more paper to chase those goods they value more than virtue. Reward, without toil, is indeed a vice, and our government feeds it to ensure their reelection. We are a ship adrift desperately seeking a moral monetary anchor. Very few of our citizens, I warrant, have read our Constitution yet they loudly proclaim they have "Rights" granted by it - not true - our Rights are God-given, they are endowed to us by our Creator - the Constitution simply reiterates this, our Rights granted by God are a "given" and cannot be circumscribed by any entity. Get a copy, read it, study it and cherish it - and demand your elected representatives live by it. They swore an oath to uphold it - YOU make 'em keep that promise! You'll come across Article I, Section 8....."only gold and silver shall be used as money for all debts......" Surprised? You shouldn't be -our Founders stood fast for individual liberty, knowing full well that gold in the hands of its citizens meant freedom, and government paper meant debt and slavery. Eventually, and soon, some country will return to gold to save its sovereign- ty. I'd like to believe it'll be Mexico, but with our government giving them our tax dollars, I see this as only perpetuating their misery. Maybe the brave country rediscovering gold will be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Who can say, but those citizens taking the moral high ground of private gold ownership will be a beacon of hope and individual freedom to the entire world. Bill ------------------------------------------------ (This file was found elsewhere on the Internet and uploaded to the Radio Free Michigan archives by the archive maintainer. All files are ZIP archives for fast download. E-mail bj496@Cleveland.Freenet.Edu)