Tag: ALD

Bernard Von Nothaus: Arrest Me

Just got the latest post from Bernard on the US Mint’s continuing effort to scare the users of the Liberty Dollar, and to libel Bernard and NORFED. All the promotion of the Liberty Dollar aside, I think he sums up the argument quite nicely when he says:

As the Monetary Architect of the Liberty Dollar and the responsible party, if I am such a heinous criminal I should be indicted by the United States Department of Justice. Alternatively, the US Mint immediately must stop claiming that using the Liberty Dollar, as voluntary barter is a crime. The idea that an American citizen cannot use a piece of gold or silver (or, for that matter, anything) in voluntary transactions between consulting adults is preposterous, antagonistic to a free market, and totally without legal merit or any law purporting to prohibit it.

They really need to back off on this. Looking at the law, I can’t see where they have any grounds to prosecute. I still think we need to stage an event with the media present, and conduct business exclusively in ALD in front of the cameras. Let them prove there is a crime being committed.

Legal Battles and the People Who Fight Them

On the subject of the current challenge facing the Liberty Dollar, I agree with the sentiment of a recent poster to ALD-forum who said:

Its obvious that someone has to volunteer to become the legal guinea
pig and stage an official drop with media present, challenging the
government to arrest and charge. When nobody shows up to arrest, the
media can call bullshit on the Mint’s claims. If they do arrest, we’ll
have a legal circus to promote the LD, with an eventual aquittal that
will be even more powerful.

Someone willing and able to fight that battle is probably going to have to take it to court in order to remove the threat that the US mint has left hanging over our heads (‘our’ being ALD users) although the mint might buckle under public pressure if the latest strategy from NORFED is picked up by enough people. That remains to be seen.

But then he goes on to add this little proviso:

This is how all big legal cases are set up. Rosa Parks was not just
some black lady on a bus, that event was entirely staged to trigger a
legal case by the socialist group she belonged to. Same with Roe v
Wade.

There is no need to besmirch good causes with epithets like ‘socialist’ (and when an individualist uses the term ‘socialist’ as an adjective, it is always an epithet, an insult. Be advised of that) If you go looking for info on Rosa Parks, or Roe vs. Wade, the purported linkage between these groups and the individuals who originally took the action are not immediately apparent.

What is apparent is the need for someone who disagrees with another person’s perceived agenda, having to take shots at them by alluding to connections that may or may not exist. They attempt to cheapen the success of the previous litigation by leveling accusations against the people who have tried this same route in the past.

So let me ask the question again, but ask the real question; Wasn’t ending the Jim Crow laws a good cause? Wasn’t establishing a right to privacy a good cause? Of what concern are the allegiances of the players in the here and now? Does that change the value of the outcome?

Some of the peanut gallery piped up with examples of other governments giving tax dollars to non-entities.

a Person Unborn has the right to have his or her interests represented in Her Majesty’s Courts, as well as the Federal Court of Canada. Six other provincial statutes categorically mention the rights of Persons Unborn in British Columbia. One of the most telling being the Worker’s Compensation Act RSBC whereby BC pays money to a child unborn, on equal terms with his born siblings.

Thus, the child ‘en ventre sa mere’ meets the test for Personhood, via his Estate, he can do and own / he or she ( or the twins etc. ) is liable for income tax !

As some sort of proof that the unborn (getting off in an abortion argument. Been there, done that) are persons. that governments recognize the unborn as a person is hardly groundbreaking. The US recognizes corporations as persons, and they have no physical body or brain function (one might even go so far as to say none of the members of the average corporate board display any brain function) It really proves nothing.

Autonomic reflexes are not consciousness (a la Terri Schiavo) and normal human brain patterns are quite distinct; the absence of them being the deciding factor in declaring someone ‘dead’; can you be alive without them? Can you have consciousness and motive will without them? The answer to that question is no.

Let’s say that it can be successfully litigated that the American Liberty Dollar as a competing currency is not illegal under US law, will our opponents label it as “Libertarian/extreme right wing/etc.” and attempt to discredit and overturn it based on that observation?

If the We the People foundation are successful in making the government answer it’s petition (the right to petition that is specifically mentioned in the First Amendment to the Constitution) through a litigative process, are tax cheats irresponsibly crippling the gov’t? Will these observations change what is good about the decisions?

Editor’s note. I find it interesting that the clues are all there for me to see, all I have to do is acknowledge them. White supremacist talking points. Christianist anti-abortion arguments. I’m even using their own causes as arguments for my cause without even knowing that they are all the fruit of the same tree. That I was the odd man out, not them.

…and I didn’t see it. Not for at least eight more years, while listening to these same people run down Barack Obama. Then my eyes were opened. If only I had been paying attention when I needed to be.

US Mint vs. ALD: More Press

More stories in the press on the subject of the recent announcement from the US mint. There isn’t as much attention being paid to this as I would like, but it still appears to be making a few headlines. 33 hits today, quite a step up from the 4 or 5 of a few weeks ago.

It’s still nothing more than a threat. No arrests made, no further elaboration from mint officials on the glaring errors in their statements. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who is familiar with the problems that We the People has been having getting their very simple questions answered.

But, like the tax protest problems, the law relating to money in the US is not exactly clear on the subject. Well actually it’s quite clear on the subject, it just isn’t being followed by the Federal Reserve or the government of the US. If it was, there would be no need for alternative currencies like the Liberty Dollar. The US dollar would provide a store of value. Inflation wouldn’t occur. We wouldn’t be in anything approaching the financial mess that this country is in right now.

Anyway, here’s a few of the stories I’ve run across.

Liberty Dollar medallions could land coin collectors in jail Trots out the 7 year old hatchet job from the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of the argument against the Liberty Dollar. Other than that it’s rather even handed.

The Washington Post says: ‘Liberty Dollars’ Can Buy Users A Prison Term, U.S. Mint Warns. But they only quote the same tired sources who misquoted the constitution in their original press release, and the above referenced hatchet job. No additional information, and much more negative than the Missoulian article.

As bad as the article is at the Washington Post, it’s nothing like the entrapment and complete mischaracterization that plays out on this video from WCBS. I’m actually embarrassed for the reporter who did this story. Is this what passes for journalism these days?

On a completely different note, the Philadelphia Inquirer wants to know: Is it sounder than a dollar? and quotes one of my more favorite statistics:

To use a concrete example, in 1948, gasoline sold for 25 cents a gallon, so a buck bought four gallons.

The dollar of that era was a silver certificate backed by just over three-quarters of an ounce of silver. That same quantity of silver still buys about four gallons at today’s prices – proof, say Liberty’s advocates, that precious metal retains its value while Federal Reserve notes, which they derogatorily call “FRNs,” diminish in value the moment they hit the street.

In what can only be called a positive piece for the Liberty Dollar. About the only article I’ve read that doesn’t toe the government line on the illegality of using Liberty Dollars in transactions. I hadn’t realized that the government had outlawed the barter system. I think they’ll have a hard time enforcing that.

Finally, UPI posted this last Wednesday, which has been picked up in several media locations:

U.S. Mint: ‘Liberty Dollars’ a buck short

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) — Alternative “Liberty Dollar” coins being circulated have prompted the U.S. Mint to remind users they can lose their liberty for five years for using them.

The silver and gold coins are produced at the private Idaho mint of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code, The Washington Post reports.

They first appeared in 1998 as the brainchild of NORFED co-founder and “monetary architect” Bernard von NotHaus, who claims on the group’s Web site the coins are a hedge against inflation.

The group claims to have more than $20 million in Liberty coins and notes in circulation, which is a bane to U.S. Mint officials.

“Merchants and banks are confronted by confused customers demanding they accept Liberty Dollars. These are not legal coin,” mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey told the Post, adding users could face a 5-year prison sentence.

In response to a public warning issued by the Mint, NORFED responded on its Web site, saying: “Here it is in plain sight … the Liberty Dollar is not a coin, not legal tender, and backed with inflation proof gold and silver!”

UPI

A buck short, indeed. As if the mint has any idea what the value of a dollar really is. A deer skin (a buck) goes for a good bit more than a dollar these days. I think they need to arrest a few people. Let’s see how strong their case is.

Editor’s note. I left this article pretty much alone. I did remove a few links to previous articles that I had compressed into one longer article on the subject. I was tempted to add this one to that article as well, but decided to let it stand. Why? Because it is cautionary tale about how dangerous it is to think you know things that you don’t actually know and can’t really explain.

I find it amusing, in hindsight, that I was so certain that the Liberty Dollar system was in the right and that this would be proven in court, all the while ignoring that nagging little voice that pointed out just how far into the wrong the marketing had spread before it was checked by the warning from the US Mint. What came after these events should not have been a surprise.

Liberty Dollar Usage a Crime?

This is a troubling development: Liberty Dollars Not Legal Tender, United States Mint Warns Consumers But the troubling part isn’t in the headline, it’s at the end of the press release:

NORFED’s “Liberty Dollar” medallions are specifically marketed to be used as current money in order to limit reliance on, and to compete with the circulating coinage of the United States. Consequently, prosecutors with the United States Department of Justice have concluded that the use of NORFED’s “Liberty Dollar” medallions violates 18 U.S.C. § 486, and is a crime.

This represents a reversal from previous rulings from the gov’t; which has, up to this point, given the alternative currency movement a pass. Referencing the code, this appears to be the pertinent section:

TITLE 18
PART I -CRIMES
CHAPTER 25 – COUNTERFEITING AND FORGERY
§ 486. Uttering coins of gold, silver or other metal

Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

But, I would like to know, how do they plan to enforce this? If I want to accept silver for my services, I’m not sure that they have any grounds for prosecution, short of a sting operation.

There is also the issue of use of the phrase current money, which is essentially defined as legal tender. This is not a term used to describe Liberty Dollars.

If they wish to broadly interpret current money to include ALD, then it also applies to any token used in any business that substitutes for a fixed amount of cash; car wash tokens, bus tokens, arcade tokens, etc.

Maybe the mint and the justice department should have read the disclaimer on the Libertydollar.org website. They might have realised that this issue has been researched already.

“Gold and Silver Libertys are neither legal tender, money, “current money” nor coins; they do not resemble nor appear to be coinage minted, issued, authorized, or approved by any government agency; and do not relate to taxation or avoidance of taxation. They are privately minted one-ounce gold and silver examples of the goods on deposit for the warehouse receipts distributed by NORFED.”

Henceforth, all Gold and Silver Libertys will be provided with the clear understanding that it is NORFED’s intent that all Gold and Silver Libetys are provided as examples of the goods on deposit for the warehouse receipts distributed by NORFED. Of course, what you and thousands of other freedom loving, consenting adults choose to do in response to the government’s fiat money is beyond NORFED’s ability or duty to police.

The International Libertarian has an entry on the subject, as well as several pertinent quotes from Federal Reserve spokesmen (and others) who reviewed the currency and found nothing illegal about it.

The story had 4 mentions today (9/16/2006) USA Today, Free Market News Network, Asheville Citizen-Times and the original Rocky Mountain News story.

Only the USA Today story mentions a rebuttal from NORFED and the Liberty Dollar. In fact, not even the home site for the Liberty Dollar, libertydollar.org, has a mention of the tempest in a teapot that the mint announcement seems to have stirred up. I had to go to a third party site to read the entire press release.

So what has happened? Goliath just introduced David to millions of Americans as a nationally recognized underdog. Just as Pepsi went up against Coke with their “take the Pepsi Challenge” campaign, the Liberty Dollar will take it to the people to decide which currency they should use. Welcome to “Just try the Liberty Dollar” campaign. So keep doing “the drop” and spreading the word. We are within our rights to offer Liberty Dollars for goods and services to whoever will voluntarily accept them.

Liberty Dollar Says NO to the US Mint Allegations (via the Wayback Machine)

Big Black Balloon Dramatizes Debt

Bernard von NotHaus is staging a media event the day after Bernanke’s next expected interest rate hike (August 9th)

The day after Ben Bernanke raises interest rates for the 18th time, Bernard von NotHaus, noted Monetary Architect, will present a $50 Gold Federal Reserve Note for redemption as specified on the Note and guaranteed by the Constitution, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at 33 Liberty Street in lower Manhattan.

Anticipating rejection, von NotHaus will present the sorry outcome of a National Debt gone wild at the Press Conference, while a large black balloon with “NATIONAL DEBT” lettered on it inflates behind him until it bursts, just as von NotHaus predicts the US economy will burst.

mmdnewswire.com via the Wayback Machine.

I don’t want to be too hard on Helicopter Ben. He really is facing a no-win scenario. There isn’t any way out of the current fiscal crisis. A hundred years of fiat paper is coming home to roost, most likely during his tenure in office. Yep, you can almost feel sorry for him, till you remember all the perks that come along with his job.

Oh, the pain, the PAIN.

The “for coverage by CBS” link at the bottom of the Press Release leads to a totally unrelated, yet interesting, news article about the Chambersburg Chamberfest that features Liberty Dollars being used to bolster local commerce. It also features a close up of the ALD vending machines that were rolled out last year at Liberty Dollar University. Don’t know why they felt the need to include that.

Anyone taking bets on whether Bernard gets his gold from the Fed? Didn’t think so. There hasn’t been any gold backed currency since about 1933, and I doubt they left a clause in to cover all that old paper that still says Gold Certificate on it.

…Of course, it helps if the Fed chairman actually does what you say he’s going to do. Who knows why Bernanke didn’t raise interest rates today. The symptoms related to looming inflation are nothing if not stronger today than they were at the last Fed meeting, so why not raise the rates again? Perhaps interest rates really have nothing to do with inflation? Perhaps they actually make inflation worse?

…And he didn’t get his gold.

Mr. von NotHaus walked into the Federal Reserve and attempted to redeem a 1928 $50 gold note in exchange for 2.5 ounces of gold. But he was turned away, because the value of an ounce of gold has since increased thirtyfold.

investmentnews.com

Moderator no More

I’ve been pondering what to say on the subject of my hasty exit from moderating Liberty Dollar Online. Not that it’s a stunningly popular site, or that many people will notice. It’s just that events like this can be very instructional if one simply takes the time to ask “what happened here?” in the proper light.

So let’s properly light the scene.

The forum owner, the administrator and the moderator, when those hats are worn by separate people, need to act as a team on issues concerning the operation of the forum. This may seem like an obvious statement, and since teamwork is an often overlooked part of management, perhaps it is obvious in the true sense of the word. In this particular instance, all three hats were worn by different people, a fact I was unaware of until just recently, having not been informed that the owner of the site had farmed out administration duties to a third party.

In a team, the players all know who’s on the field, what their roles are, and what parts of the field are used for what purpose. In a forum this constitutes as knowing what types of posts go where, what types of member behavior is allowed (or, perhaps more easily, prohibited) and what types of moderation response is expected.

If you look at the site “Liberty Dollar Online” and think about where a post on any specific topic might go, you’ll find the first stumbling block. As a tangential issue, I’ll just touch on this here and be done with it. Where do you put a post concerning the Federal Reserve and its relationship to gold? General is where they end up. Where do you put a post concerning an offer of ELD? Those to end up in general as well. In fact, most posts went to general and then had to be moved to their proper place on the forum. Why? Because the topics of the different sub-forums are too limited, or the wording on the forum description doesn’t illuminate the expected contents of the forum. Then there is the cover all bets type threads that could just as easily be a forum (or a poll) in themselves. Heaven forbid a moderator touch one of those immortal sacred cows. The wrath of the heavens (that would be the members who created and continuously add tangents to said thread) will descend upon the moderator who does.

The lackluster forum names and the catch all threads were stumbled over and either dealt with or ignored based on who had admin rights for what and when; so basically, the team isn’t really communicating well, and no one really knows where anything needs to be. But we are giving it the old college try.

As a secondary light source, I would like to add that the forum klashistan was described to me as a place where anything goes (remember this point, there will be a test later) I liked the idea, myself. Someplace to consign threads, and the contributing members to same, that have descended into ad hominem hell. It saves the moderator from endless accusations of “you deleted” and “I’ve been wrongly banned” type bullshit.

…and it is bullshit, because moderating is an unpaid, thankless job, and most of the ingrates who use forums have no idea just how thankless it is. The next time one of you average members out there posts criticism of site moderation on a particular site, and it stays there, you should give that moderator a medal. Hell, throw him a party. Because there isn’t any reason that he had to leave it there.

That handles the lighting. Now for the play itself.

A pain-in-the-ass member from a Yahoo Group dedicated to the Liberty Dollar decided to join the Liberty Dollar Online forum; and when I say Mark Queen is a pain-in-the-ass, I have previous postings to prove it. That’s a condensed version. The thread lasted at least a month in time and spanned at least 20 posts. Definition of pain-in-the-ass.

And he wasn’t the first one. A few others joined up earlier, and finding that I was the dreaded moderator they left, letting the owner know that they were leaving because of me. Good riddance, not that I actually cared one way or the other. None of them posted much of anything to credit or damn themselves with. I’ll cherish a adversary who can put together a decent argument just as highly as I do someone who shares common cause with me. However, incompetent whiners I have no time for. It’s not my fault so few of them are up to the task.

But, Pain-in-the-ass Queen is savvy, so he posts his attacks directly to Klashistan, and refuses to elevate his discourse above the ad hominem level. When he first posted his issues with ALD, I dutifully created a poll that highlighted several of his points, in the proper forum, and invited everyone to come on in and discuss it. You could hear the crickets chirp.

Months go by. The new members come and go, not much happens, and Mark Queen is still pissing in the wind. Then he insults my dog. Well, I’m impervious to most attacks these days, but my dog was deeply offended. After pondering my response (the umpteenth response to the same question, mind you) I decided that anything goes (I said there would be a test later) meant for the moderator as well, and I locked the thread in question, giving myself the last word in the thread, as it were.

Pain-in-the-ass Queen complains to the site owner, Frank Motley. The site owner listens, his willingness to listen being only slightly affected, I’m sure, by the fact that Mark Queen has done business with him in the past, and is a friend of his. If I had known the number of relationships involved in this little fiasco (this wasn’t the first time I had a run in with a friend of the owner) I would never have volunteered to moderate in the first place. When the members can go whine to the boss directly, and he listens, then the writing is on the wall.

The site owner has the site administrator reverse my judgment. No questions of “hey, why did you do this Anthony?” No “would you mind changing this back?” Just a slap in the face by someone I’ve never met or conversed with, and a public statement of my lack of authority, albeit a feel good “he’s a great benefit to the site but has no real authority” type statement.

I’d been toying with bowing out as moderator for awhile anyway, and this had a straw that broke the camel’s back type of feeling to it, so I made my stand on principle, knowing what the outcome would be.

…If a moderator can’t moderate, then what is he? If anyone can whine to the site owner, and he’ll reverse the moderator’s judgment, then who is really the moderator?

Not surprisingly, Frank has his own spin on things:

Not that I think it matters, but I have not “chosen Mark” over Anthony or anyone else. I made myself perfectly clear above.

It does matter, and you did choose. Not one person over another perhaps, but the troublemaker with whom you identify over the office of moderator (the hat I was wearing at the time) that you despise. Perhaps despise is too strong a word, but your adversarial relationship with moderators in the past has definitely negatively colored your perception of what a moderator’s job is, and has left you with the tendency to side with the troublemakers, even on your own site.

Mark Queen may have been instrumental in Liberty Dollar circles once upon a time, but he has ceased being anything other than an agitator looking for reasons to snipe at alternative currencies. The only reason he would want to know the data he keeps demanding and stating “isn’t a problem to collect” (as long as you ignore the facts concerning validity, privacy and compensation for work performed) is so he can damn the entire system as ineffectual; because the data will look ineffectual alongside the data from the Fed that he wants to compare it to.

It is a Mark of Dumb-ass Queen’s cluelessness that he would attribute my locking the thread to my somehow losing the argument. As if mindlessly repeating the same objections for several months constitutes an argument.

Additionally, if Frank had wanted to post a response to Mark Queen’s objections (objections that had been offered several months previously) it could have been done in the appropriate forum, just like he ended up doing anyway. There was no need to unlock the thread in question, no need to post to klashistan at all, except to show the moderator just who was boss. There was never any question who was boss. The only question was “who’s the moderator?”

It was never me, apparently.

So, what was learned, what information can be taken from this little charade? With tongue in cheek, I offer the following:

  • Never volunteer for a job. Any veteran of the military can tell you that; I should have listened to one of them.
  • Know who the Boss’ friends are, and make sure you have the good dirt on them first. They’ll make up dirt about you if they have to, so you better be prepared.
  • Make sure to disappear any posts that offend your dog, rather than violate some unwritten rule that only applies to moderators.
  • Make sure that the forum headings are clear enough that people can figure out where posts should go and be flexible enough to change them when the membership still can’t figure it out.
  • Make sure the next moderator understands that “anything goes in Klashistan” applies to everybody else but him.
  • Make sure the next moderator knows how to contact the administrator directly; and let him know that it’s actually a different person, not you with a better attitude.

…and finally:

  • When a member horrifies you by childishly defacing the entire forum with blank posts, and the forum owner confides in you that the member learned that behavior from the owner himself on another forum, quit right then. Don’t wait for the other shoe to drop. You’ll thank yourself later.

I don’t know what the future holds for Liberty Dollar Online. I had great hopes for it once. The forum traffic that I had anticipated never materialized, in part because the libertydollar site itself has so far refused to direct traffic to it. There is no better place on the web to get quick answers to ALD questions, but it remains largely under utilized. So to for Frank’s other site, Liberty Auctions, which is a great auction site that allows for the use of alternative currencies…

(This is in stark contrast to eBay, a site worried about you not using dollars to pay for transactions, but apparently unconcerned when false car auctions are listed. That’s another story.)

…but is largely unknown even in alternative currency circles. Don’t ask me why, the sites work well. Perhaps it’s a marketing/exposure question. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.

No hard feelings Frank. I’d do business with you in the future. I’m just done with LDO for now.

…and with that, I return you to the regularly scheduled rant.

Editor’s note. In hindsight I’m glad this cooperative endeavor fell through. I would have hated to have to explain how I was related to the American Liberty Dollar system after the federal government started cracking down on Bernard and his business schemes. I wonder what Frank Motley thinks of all this in the rearview mirror? I haven’t heard from him since that day.

Liberty Dollar Not welcome in Idaho?

I got notice of the Ponderay, Idaho Police issuing a warning concerning the use of ALD in their jurisdiction. They must have missed the notice from the Federal Reserve that there is no crime being committed when people offer and accept alternate currencies as payment.

The retailer in question also apparently neglected to look at the currency itself, or they might have noticed the very obvious contact information on the reverse that would have allowed them to contact a local resource and redeem the silver for federal reserve notes if they mistakenly accepted the silver in payment.

nor can they be accepted at banks

That’s the quote from the article that gets me. The banks could, in fact, accept them. Some banks do. Most of them don’t because they refuse to offer them in change, legitimizing someone else’s private currency. This reminds me of Bernard’s comment on the subject from a few years ago:

He (a banker) asked me “what am I supposed to do with these?” I said, “well you could just put them in the cash drawer and offer them in change.” He thought for a moment, then said (horrified) “no, we couldn’t do that”

So, those of us who deal in the alternative currencies have to just work around the bank obstacle. Once again a furor over being given something of value when what the business wanted was a worthless piece of paper. I remain baffled.

Postscript

I wasn’t baffled at all. Not really. Retailers don’t want to hassle with cash in the first place. Not anymore. That they do it at all is because the customers want to use cash and they are required to accept transactions in legal tender, which federal reserve notes are. If they had their way they would conduct all business electronically. Much less of a headache.

The real culprit here isn’t the retailer, it is the marketing strategy espoused by Bernard in all of his videos. People were told that the silver could be used “just like money.” In the early documentation he referred to it as currency, a strategy that he was forced to change when the treasury objected to the allusion that private money was current money or the money of the realm, legal tender. As I say frequently on this blog words do have meanings, and it is important to know what those legal definitions are when you start making what amounts to a legal argument.

Even abandoning claims that the coins or medallions or rounds or whatever euphemism you want to come up with to cover the barter instrument you are trying to trade, even abandoning all claims other than that you are free to barter with a merchant for a fair price for his goods, the merchant is still left with having to store the silver securely somewhere if he allows trades for it. Unless you explain this to the merchant in advance, you haven’t fully informed them of the liabilities of accepting the trade. If you don’t explain it, then you have the kinds of problems that merchants everywhere have when accepting trades in unfamiliar money. They don’t know what to do with it other than to trade it for something else. This is not the kind of activity that makes your accountant happy.

Every coin that I traded with merchants I tried to follow up on later, just to see what they thought a few days or weeks afterwards. Followed up to see if they wanted to trade them back or to put out the sign saying they wanted more. Some of them did want dollars they could put in the bank, and I took the coins back with no hard feelings. Most of them did not. It was like a souvenir. Something to hide under the cash drawer to take out and look at later.

This is not currency in any practical sense. In the end, that is the downfall of all of these hard money strategies. The downfall of the gold standard itself. No one wants the hassle of tracking and trading them, but they sure look nice sitting there under lock and key.

Rev 02/05/2022

Precious Metals on the Rise?

I’m not going to pretend to be an authority on the subject, but if some of the recent news is any indication, I think it’s safe to say that gold and silver will continue to rise:

Item number 4 in this month’s Liberty Dollar News:

“Cheuvreux, the equity brokerage house of Credit Agricole, the huge French bank, distributed a 56-page report that completely endorses in detail the findings of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee that the price of gold has been surreptitiously suppressed by Western central banks and that those banks do not have the gold they claim to have. “

“The report, written by Cheuvreux’s mining sector analyst in London, Paul Mylchreest, is titled “Remonetization of Gold: Start Hoarding.” It repeatedly cites GATA by name and foresees an “unprecedented” rise in the gold price, possibly accompanied by a spike to as much as 2,000 USD.”

Liberty Dollar News


Me personally? I won’t hold my breath on gold going as high as $2000 an ounce. But the news of central banks not having as much gold as they claimed should ensure that the price of gold will continue to rise.

I don’t have any ‘authoritative sources’ to cite for silver’s continued rise, but there is enough rumor and scuttlebutt on the web (if you go looking) to make the case look pretty good.

Then there is this:

By any calculation silver is not worth 9.00 per ounce.

Its true value is in the range of 79.50 to 700,000.00 per ounce depending on what relative formula you use.

Based on rarity of production (at mine in 2004) and using the price of 530.00 for gold then silver should be 79.50/oz. Based on the idea that silver is the only material ordained as money, and it is the only thing that backs, or owns, every piece of worthless paper in the world that passes for money, securities, bonds, etc., then silvers true value is in the range of $700,000.00 plus per ounce. There are a hundred other formulaes by which you may want to value silver in U.S. Dollars.

Whatever the economy is doing, silver will continue to increase in value relative to anything that it is measured against. Notwithstanding market manipulation which will ultimately fail.

Moriyah

I’d like to repeat the important bit there. Every dollar in circulation is supposed to be backed by approx. 3/4 of an ounce of silver. That puts the price per ounce of silver in existence at $700,000.00 plus. A staggering number. One that leads me to believe that silver isn’t going to be dropping in price anytime soon.

Liberty Dollar Basics

So, what is the Liberty Dollar? This is the forum where we hope to answer those types of questions. If you are new to ALD, take some time and read the many pages of information that can be found on the Liberty Dollar site. I’d start with the Introductory Essay. Don’t want to read about it? You might want to check out the History Channel special that is linked on the Libertydollar.org front page, or just click here. (download link)

Still too much information for you?

Short and sweet then. The Liberty dollar is money. Technically speaking, it is money based on one ounce of silver; a dollar value is attached to that ounce of silver that roughly equates to the Federal Reserve Note dollar value of the 1 ounce silver numismatic items currently in circulation.

Huh? Too short? Sorry. Once upon a time…

There was a time in the not too distant past when the US dollar was based on an amount of real metal, and you could trade paper dollars and checkbook dollars for real silver dollars if you wanted. (If you really want to know more about that go here) Even before that time, US money was based on a quantity of metal. From the very beginning of the US as a nation, the dollar was represented as being worth a certain amount of silver (371 4/16 grains) and it remained that way through most of US history until the Federal Reserve was established to regulate money. Since that time, the number of dollars in circulation has been increased to the point that what was once a dollar worth of silver is now (at this writing) nearly 10 dollars. The Liberty Dollar was created as a way to combat this growing problem. The Liberty Dollar is first and foremost based on a unit of silver weight (1 ounce .999 fine silver) The ounce of silver is then divided into the number of dollars that current market price for silver dictates, based on a formula that can be found here. What it amounts to is that the dollar value increases as the silver value increases, providing a store of value as money ought to be.

Wikipedia

The liberty dollar is not just silver rounds, though. It is also available as certificates and as an online ‘electronic‘ currency, all fully backed by silver, and redeemable for silver.

Still have questions? Well, that is what we are here for. There are many other resources to tap at the liberty dollar site, including “The Mother Lode of Information“. Look around there, browse here; or just post a note. We’ll try to point you in the right direction.

Postscript

This is an introduction to the American Liberty Dollar that I wrote for the Liberty Dollar Online forums. Those forums are long gone from the internet and can barely be found in the Wayback Machine archive.

The one embarrassment that I have about this article is the numerous links to the Liberty Dollar site itself. Bernard’s notions of salesmanship have never been to my liking, and every one of those links goes to examples of his marketing. I have left them here for their instructional value alone. The title was changed at some point in the distant past from Reminting Fee.

Clark Howard’s War on ALD

Someone has been stirring up trouble over at the American Liberty Dollar (ALD) forum under the subject heading “Customer No Service” and it reminded me of a thing I went through on Clark Howard’s BBS a few years back. It reminded me of that event because Customer No Service is a trademark Clark Howard phrase, and Clark Howard has hated ALD from the beginning.

I used to listen to the Clark Howard show on a regular basis. I gave it up when his forum hitmen banned me for posting this stuff. I still don’t listen to him, although the mere sound of his voice no longer sends my blood pressure over the red-line. I’ll take silver coins over green paper any day; but there are some people who seem to think the words Federal Reserve Note (FRN) equate to some kind of guaranteed value.

Attention Clark Howard Listeners:

The Silver Liberties are not paperweights. They are made of .999 fine silver. They are stamped with a value of $10 (that’s FRN value) and can be exchanged for same if you desire green paper instead of real silver.

You can go here: http://www.norfed.org for more information.

For local Austin Retailers who accept Liberty Dollars, go here:

http://www.austinlibertymerchants.org

For local silver info:

http://www.austinsilver.com (dead link -ed.)

—————

The caller to the show that complained about receiving silver instead of FRN’s highlights the predicament that the monetary system is in. Something with actual value is worthless in her mind, while the worthless green paper has value.

The banks OF COURSE will not take private money. The private money is a liability for them, whereas the Federal Reserve has been a cash cow that generates unprecedented returns for member banks. The last thing they want is for the inflationary reserve notes to be replaced.

I can print green pieces of paper all day for the people who think paper has value because it says FRN on it. An ounce of silver will always be an ounce of silver; a green back could be worth as much as a Continental tomorrow. Who knows? Perhaps you should read The Creature from Jekyll Island before casting aspersions on others.

You might want to put on your foil hat first. Don’t want those weirdo free thinker rays to penetrate, do we?

-RAnthony

Actually, the foil hats are most often used to keep the gubbament and alien mind control rays out. ( The mind control rays from the combined gubbament and alien conspiracies are particularly damaging.)

Excellent and entertaining website you linked.
Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie
An Effective, Low-Cost Solution To Combating Mind-Control

It contains many technical details and ideas not easily found just anywhere. It and its many links to other technical information are just as much–or more–useful as your links about gubbament conspiracies.

The calculator for computing required thickness of the foil is especially useful–and I rank its value right up there with your conspiracy theories, too.

The website is quite comprehensive, so the only technical detail I might add it that there are aluminum foil tapes used to seal ductwork, which might be more effective than scotch tape in constructing a foil beanie.

Hope this helps. 

jimb

I’ll grant that what occurred with the establishment of the fed was a conspiracy; but to refer to it as a theory is to discount the exhaustive research that went into not only The Creature from Jekyll Island, but the 4 or more works that were written previously on the subject, and that are referenced in the book.

It would be equivalent to saying that gravity is a theory, or that sunlight is a theory. Doesn’t wash, sorry.

The FED was a sucker ploy, and the U.S. fell for it. We live now in the world Jefferson warned us about.

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 wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

(Jefferson never said this -ed)

Pretend otherwise all you like.

-RAnthony

And a green piece of paper will still be a green piece of paper tomorrow, unless I destroy it. Similarly, your ounce of silver will always be an ounce of silver, unless you destroy it. Silver has no more intrinsic value than paper. Both have the value that they have because people will trade goods and services for them. If that changes, either one could be worthless when trying to acquire goods and services. For example, in a case of a major earthquake, you might have trouble buying clean water and food with paper or silver, but you could use cigarettes. In that case, the “money” is worthless, because the food and water others have are much more valuable. The cigarettes are something people value, though.

ratbert2k

“Silver has no more intrinsic value than paper”…and, in fact, I think I’ll let that statement stand by itself.

For those who doubt the veracity of the above, you might want to check into a concept known as “investing“, and the materials known as “precious metals“. Just a thought.

-RAnthony

… from someone who posted a note like yours. Maybe you can join some fellow simpletons in the tax protest movement?

rs-two

Be sure to ask “how high?” the next time you’re in for an audit. After all, once you’ve waived your fifth amendment rights and sent in that 1040, you are an admitted criminal waiting to be found.

Just a thought. http://www.anti-irs.com (none of the sites that make claims concerning the validity of the IRS should be taken seriously unless you are wanting to adopt the teachings of White Nationalists. -ed.)

I’ve learned not to use the word ‘intrinsic’ since this exchange took place. Tangible is what most people would equate to intrinsic in meaning.

At the time I posted this stuff I wasn’t a Liberty Associate, I was simply attempting to enlighten the public concerning money and value. I did eventually sign up with the Liberty Dollar a few months after that. The moderators on Clark Howard’s BBS banned me, leveling the charge that I was trying to profit off of his audience. A false accusation, at the time.

If the average American can’t figure out why Silver money has value and paper money does not, then things are much worse than I had originally thought, and the time to get behind precious metals is now.

Postscript

Where to start with this one? I’d like to pretend that I was on drugs and so not responsible for most of the text here, but that would be lying and I’m trying not to do that here. I left the two quotes in that I did when I re-edited this article specifically to illustrate the baiting that was going on in the BBS at the time. There was a lot more back and forth like that like that. One of the two quotes is from someone that, in hindsight, I wish I had taken more seriously. He was, at least, trying to be even-handed. In my blind belief in Libertarian ideals, in the fact that physical commodities would always have more value than promissory notes, I let the sense that several people tried to focus on me be deflected by those beliefs.

…which is why I now end up having to strike out the bullshit that I was repeating at the time. In my defense, I was desperately trying to distinguish between the natural limits on a physical commodity as opposed to the near unlimited supply of paper currency which could be created. As opposed to the truly uncounted and uncountable electronic dollars that currently reside in most bank accounts across the world. Without the social order, tradable commodities will have value when other things do not. Metals will have more use and therefore more value than old printed paper so long as humans trade commodities. This is simple fact, not something to be debated.

The problem with all of these distinctions is that they are subjective in nature. Paper has no more or less value in relation to minted silver unless you look at the subject through human eyes. They both simply exist. This is more than could be said for any form of electronic currency including the now long-dead Electronic Liberty Dollars. I quit supporting Bernard Von Nothaus when he crafted Donald Trump Liberty Dollars. No matter what I think about holding and trading physical commodities as stores of value, I can’t be associated with anyone who thought that Donald Trump should be president.

I’m working on an EPHN article about money. One of these days I’ll get around to publishing that one, too.