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Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
Sources:
Alternet, November 26, 2008
Title: “As Crisis Mounts, Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate and Illegal”
Author: Daniel Denvir
Utube, Fall 2008
Title: “Invalid Loans to Ecuador: Who Owes Who”
Producer: Committee for the Integral Audit of Public Credit
Foreign Policy in Focus, December 15, 2008
Title: “Ecuador’s Debt Default”
Authors: Neil Watkins and Sarah Anders
Student Researcher: Rosemary Scott
Community Evaluator: Tim Ogburn
Sonoma State University
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/10-ecuador-declares-foreign-debt-illegitimate/
In November 2008, Ecuador became the first country to undertake an examination of the legitimacy and structure of its foreign debt. An independent debt audit commissioned by the government of Ecuador documented hundreds of allegations of irregularity, illegality, and illegitimacy in contracts of debt to predatory international lenders. The loans, according to the report, violated Ecuador’s domestic laws, US Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, and general principles of international law. Ecuador’s use of legitimacy as a legal argument for defaulting set a major precedent; indeed, the formation of a debt auditing commission sets a precedent.
In the 1970s Ecuador fell victim to unscrupulous international lending, which encouraged borrowing at low interest rates. But in over thirty years the country’s debt rose from $1.174 billion in 1970, to over $14.250 billion in 2006, a twelve fold increase, due in large part to interest rates that rose at the discretion of US banks and Federal Reserve from six percent in 1979 to twenty-one percent in 1981.
The commission revealed that Salomon Smith Barney, now part of Citigroup Inc., issued unauthorized restructuring of Ecuador’s debt in 2000 that lead to exorbitant interest rates, which, combined with illegal borrowing by former dictators, has turned the country, along with many of its Southern neighbors, into a major capitol exporter to its Northern “benefactors.” Over the years, the country has made debt payments that far exceed the principal it borrowed.
Of all loans made between 1989 and 2006, fourteen percent was used for social development projects. The remaining 86 percent was used to pay for previously accumulated debt. Continuously from 1982 and 2006, the country paid foreign debt creditors $119.826 billion for capital and interest, while receiving over the same period $106.268 billion in new loans, which amounts to a total negative transfer of $13.558 billion.
The human costs are staggering. Every dollar spent on illegitimate international credit means less is available for fighting poverty. In 2007 the Ecuadorian government paid $1.75 billion in debt service alone, more than it spent on health care, social services, the environment, and housing and urban development combined.
While the risks of default are high, Ecuador had only two options: keep paying a dubious and illegal debt at the risk of social unrest, or default and face the wrath of the international market.
Under the World Bank system, which oversees investment treaties, there is no public accountability, no standard judicial ethics rules, and no appeals process. Ecuador has thus exposed a major problem in the international financial system: the lack of an international, independent mechanism for countries to resolve disputes over potentially illegitimate and/or illegal debt. Ecuador’s findings could set a precedent for the poorest of indebted countries, whose debt burden has long been criticized as predatory and inhumane.
Ecuador has called on Latin America to forge a united response to foreign debt. Venezuela, Bolivia and Paraguay have recently created debt audit commissions. The country has also asked the United Nations to help develop international norms to regulate the foreign debt market.
A bill pending in the US Congress presents an ethical step forward. The Jubilee Act, which passed the House of Representatives in April 2008, would require the Comptroller General to undertake audits of the debt portfolios of previous regimes where there is substantial evidence of odious, onerous, or illegal loans. The legislation also instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to “seek the international adoption of a binding legal framework on new lending that . . . provides for decisions on irresponsible lending to be made by an entity independent from the creditors; and enables fair opportunities for the people of the affected country to be heard.”
Update by Daniel Denvir
In June 2009, Ecuador announced that it had reached an agreement with 91percent of creditors to buy back its debt for 35 cents on the dollar, confirming many analysts’ predictions that the default was a strategic move aimed at getting a “haircut” on their debt. Ecuador’s default drove down the price of their debt, making a buyback far more affordable. Many analysts believe that Ecuador had already started to quietly buy back debt on the secondary market, a claim the government has declined to comment on. Ecuador was expected to pay $1.075 billion for $3.375 billion in debt.
Following the December 2008 default on the Global Bonds 2012, Ecuador defaulted on the Global Bonds 2030 in March. Ecuador continued to pay the Global Bonds 2015, although there is widespread speculation that the successful buyback will lead them to default on that debt, too. Some analysts disagree, noting that allied Venezuela owns some of the 2015 bonds, while others say that maintaining payment could be a way to stay in the free market’s good graces.
The default and buyback received widespread coverage in the business press, but aside from my article, IRC Americas was the only English-language outlet to dedicate in-depth analysis to the political and economic significance of the debt auditing commission, illegitimate debt and default. The Financial Times, undertaking a sober analysis of the long-term impact of Ecuador’s default, noted “Analysts fear that the government’s deliberate default on two bonds—almost a third of its foreign debt—could prompt other countries to follow suit as they seek to navigate the financial crisis.” Investors are worried about the precedent Ecuador is setting as the first country in decades to default while technically having the ability to pay.
One prominent international investment advisor is quoted as saying that Ecuador’s default was a “brilliantly run and managed process. They nailed the timing.”
To get involved with the movement against illegitimate debt, contact Jubilee USA (http://www.jubileeusa.org/).
Update by Neil Watkins and Sarah Anderson
After Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa announced the default in December 2008, the financial press smoldered with condemnations and predictions of dire consequences for this small South American nation.
Most articles quoted only the harshest critics. Ecuador had “lived up to its reputation as a banana republic” (Investor’s Business Daily). Ecuador was “one of the axis of evil in Latin America” (Financial Times). A separate article in the Financial Times did quote two sympathetic analysts, but that effort at balanced reporting was an extreme exception.
We found no examples of mainstream press reporting on the long history of Ecuadorian activists calling for action to address illegitimate debts. Indeed, Ecuadorian civil society had long advocated for the creation of a commission to examine the nature of Ecuador’s debt. That commission was founded in 2007, and its results formed the basis for the Correa government’s decision to default.
The mainstream media gave the overwhelming impression that this default was the result of the personal whim of a political extremist. Virtually every story labeled Correa as a leftist and emphasized his ties to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The analysts quoted reinforced this message. “I think this default is nonsense. The market sees it as politically motivated” (Euromoney). A former International Monetary Fund official said the default reflected “a ridiculous ideology” (Bloomberg).
Meanwhile, activists associated with the global Jubilee network that has campaigned for the cancellation of illegitimate debts in countries around the world applauded Correa for fulfilling a campaign promise to respect the findings of the debt audit commission. And Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo announced less than a week after Ecuador’s default that his government would also “exhaustively study” its debt.
In late April of this year, Correa was re-elected in a landslide, and as of this writing, his government appears on the brink of successfully negotiating with the holders of defaulted bonds. Dow Jones is reporting that a very high percentage of bondholders are expected to accept Correa’s offer of 35 cents on the dollar.
As part of the response to the current financial crisis, governments should establish an international mechanism to handle debt disputes in a systematic way that balances the interests of debtors and creditors and considers how debts were accumulated in the first place. A special United Nations commission on the crisis, chaired by Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz, came out in March 2009 in support of such a mechanism. But thus far, the issue is not even on the table within the G20 grouping of the most powerful nations.
With the financial crisis hitting heavily indebted poor countries hard, there will be greater pressures on developing nations to default. Instead of demonizing leaders who default, it’s time for the international community to develop a fair solution that addresses the real impacts of crushing debt on the poor.
For more information, see:
Jubilee USA Network: http://www.jubileeusa.org
Audit Commission of Ecuador: http://www.auditoriadeuda.org.ec/
Jubilee South / Americas: http://jubileosuramerica.blogspot.com/2009/03/nuevo-sitio.html
Latindadd (Latin America Network on Debt and Development): http://www.latindadd.org/
Institute for Policy Studies: http://www.ips-dc.org
Paul Craig Roberts: Goodbye
Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It
March 24, 2010
There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest.
Today Americans are ruled by propaganda. Americans have little regard for truth, little access to it, and little ability to recognize it.
Truth is an unwelcome entity. It is disturbing. It is off limits. Those who speak it run the risk of being branded “anti-American,” “anti-semite” or “conspiracy theorist.”
Truth is an inconvenience for government and for the interest groups whose campaign contributions control government.
Truth is an inconvenience for prosecutors who want convictions, not the discovery of innocence or guilt.
Truth is inconvenient for ideologues.
Today many whose goal once was the discovery of truth are now paid handsomely to hide it. “Free market economists” are paid to sell offshoring to the American people. High-productivity, high value-added American jobs are denigrated as dirty, old industrial jobs. Relicts from long ago, we are best shed of them. Their place has been taken by “the New Economy,” a mythical economy that allegedly consists of high-tech white collar jobs in which Americans innovate and finance activities that occur offshore. All Americans need in order to participate in this “new economy” are finance degrees from Ivy League universities, and then they will work on Wall Street at million dollar jobs.
Economists who were once respectable took money to contribute to this myth of “the New Economy.”
And not only economists sell their souls for filthy lucre. Recently we have had reports of medical doctors who, for money, have published in peer-reviewed journals concocted “studies” that hype this or that new medicine produced by pharmaceutical companies that paid for the “studies.”
The Council of Europe is investigating the drug companies’ role in hyping a false swine flu pandemic in order to gain billions of dollars in sales of the vaccine.
The media helped the US military hype its recent Marja offensive in Afghanistan, describing Marja as a city of 80,000 under Taliban control. It turns out that Marja is not urban but a collection of village farms.
And there is the global warming scandal, in which NGOs. the UN, and the nuclear industry colluded in concocting a doomsday scenario in order to create profit in pollution.
Wherever one looks, truth has fallen to money.
Wherever money is insufficient to bury the truth, ignorance, propaganda, and short memories finish the job.
I remember when, following CIA director William Colby’s testimony before the Church Committee in the mid-1970s, presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan issued executive orders preventing the CIA and U.S. black-op groups from assassinating foreign leaders. In 2010 the US Congress was told by Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, that the US now assassinates its own citizens in addition to foreign leaders.
When Blair told the House Intelligence Committee that US citizens no longer needed to be arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of a capital crime, just murdered on suspicion alone of being a “threat,” he wasn’t impeached. No investigation pursued. Nothing happened. There was no Church Committee. In the mid-1970s the CIA got into trouble for plots to kill Castro. Today it is American citizens who are on the hit list. Whatever objections there might be don’t carry any weight. No one in government is in any trouble over the assassination of U.S. citizens by the U.S. government.
As an economist, I am astonished that the American economics profession has no awareness whatsoever that the U.S. economy has been destroyed by the offshoring of U.S. GDP to overseas countries. U.S. corporations, in pursuit of absolute advantage or lowest labor costs and maximum CEO “performance bonuses,” have moved the production of goods and services marketed to Americans to China, India, and elsewhere abroad. When I read economists describe offshoring as free trade based on comparative advantage, I realize that there is no intelligence or integrity in the American economics profession.
Intelligence and integrity have been purchased by money. The transnational or global U.S. corporations pay multi-million dollar compensation packages to top managers, who achieve these “performance awards” by replacing U.S. labor with foreign labor. While Washington worries about “the Muslim threat,” Wall Street, U.S. corporations and “free market” shills destroy the U.S. economy and the prospects of tens of millions of Americans.
Americans, or most of them, have proved to be putty in the hands of the police state.
Americans have bought into the government’s claim that security requires the suspension of civil liberties and accountable government. Astonishingly, Americans, or most of them, believe that civil liberties, such as habeas corpus and due process, protect “terrorists,” and not themselves. Many also believe that the Constitution is a tired old document that prevents government from exercising the kind of police state powers necessary to keep Americans safe and free.
Most Americans are unlikely to hear from anyone who would tell them any different.
I was associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I was Business Week’s first outside columnist, a position I held for 15 years. I was columnist for a decade for Scripps Howard News Service, carried in 300 newspapers. I was a columnist for the Washington Times and for newspapers in France and Italy and for a magazine in Germany. I was a contributor to the New York Times and a regular feature in the Los Angeles Times. Today I cannot publish in, or appear on, the American “mainstream media.”
For the last six years I have been banned from the “mainstream media.” My last column in the New York Times appeared in January, 2004, coauthored with Democratic U.S. Senator Charles Schumer representing New York. We addressed the offshoring of U.S. jobs. Our op-ed article produced a conference at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and live coverage by C-Span. A debate was launched. No such thing could happen today.
For years I was a mainstay at the Washington Times, producing credibility for the Moony newspaper as a Business Week columnist, former Wall Street Journal editor, and former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. But when I began criticizing Bush’s wars of aggression, the order came down to Mary Lou Forbes to cancel my column.
The American corporate media does not serve the truth. It serves the government and the interest groups that empower the government.
America’s fate was sealed when the public and the anti-war movement bought the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory. The government’s account of 9/11 is contradicted by much evidence. Nevertheless, this defining event of our time, which has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and a domestic police state, is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based.
These trillion dollar wars have created financing problems for Washington’s deficits and threaten the U.S. dollar’s role as world reserve currency. The wars and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. Former Goldman Sachs chairman and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is after these protections for the elderly. Fed chairman Bernanke is also after them. The Republicans are after them as well. These protections are called “entitlements” as if they are some sort of welfare that people have not paid for in payroll taxes all their working lives.
With over 21 per cent unemployment as measured by the methodology of 1980, with American jobs, GDP, and technology having been given to China and India, with war being Washington’s greatest commitment, with the dollar over-burdened with debt, with civil liberty sacrificed to the “war on terror,” the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history.
The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off.
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/129835
Bottom Line - 'Surrender Or Else!'
http://rense.com/general90/surrend.htm
A State Bank for Idaho?
by Bill Denman
A proposal has been made to establish a bank as an agency of the Idaho State government patterned after the North Dakota State Bank. It would not simply be chartered as a state bank, it would be part of state government like the North Dakota Bank. This raises some serious questions about money, freedom and the proper role of government.
The first question that must be answered is “What is money?” Once this question is answered and clearly understood, the answer to the next question “to whom does money belong?” will be obvious and from there the “freedom” and “State Bank” issues will be easily resolved.
What is money?
Money is simply a commodity that serves to facilitate the exchange process; we usually phrase it “money is a medium of exchange.” After centuries of experimenting with many different commodities, gold and silver have evolved as the universally accepted media of exchange. Gold has all the necessary characteristics of a premier medium of exchange.
It is relatively scarce and therefore its quantity cannot be arbitrarily expanded in relation to the quantity of other commodities.
(As a matter of fact, the production of other commodities determines the quantity of gold produced. This is explained in detail in my article “Free Market Banking”.) This insures long-term stability in its purchasing power. Of course this stability has made it the arch-enemy of governments, who invariably want to control money as a means of controlling people. Therefore it is no surprise that governments, and their sycophants, always disparage the use of gold as a medium of exchange. When gold is the medium of exchange, prices in a free market economy do not vary significantly over extended periods of time. Between 1880 and 1900, while we were on the gold standard, prices rose one-half of one percent during that twenty-year period and wages doubled. It’s interesting that we also had the greatest industrial growth rate in our history during that period. The reason is quite simple: stability in purchasing power encourages saving, which is the foundation for industrial progress.
Before an exchange of commodities can take place, both parties to the exchange must have produced a commodity. An example will be given to illustrate the principle:
John Doe raises cattle: Jack Black raises horses. John needs a horse to herd his cattle and Jack needs a cow to put beef on the table. John and Jack exchange a cow and a horse. This is the barter system that was in use for centuries before money confused things. Notice that both John and Jack had to produce commodities before they could be exchanged. In other words, the commodities came first and then the exchange. The reason for mentioning this is that today’s Federal Reserve System reverses this process; FRNs are created first and then commodities are produced to pay the debt. I’m not going to discuss this issue except to say that this is a system of capital consumption that puts consumption before production and is obviously a self-destructive process that cannot last – as Americans are going to find out in the very near future.
But suppose Jack has chickens and doesn’t need beef for the table; what he needs is a new saddle. But John still needs the horse. What to do – what to do? A gold miner saves the day by stepping in and offering John a one ounce gold coin for his cow. Notice that the gold coin is also a commodity that requires a lot of sweat and capital investment to produce; it cannot be produced by simply writing numbers on paper or in computers. Therefore counterfeiting it is impossible. In essence, all that has happened at this point is that the time and energy invested in raising a cow has been exchanged for the time and energy invested in producing a gold coin. There is nothing magical about the gold coin; it simply facilitates the exchange of other commodities because it is accepted as honest money and has long term (thousands of years) value that other commodities lack.
Since John invested his time and energy in raising a cow, it belongs EXCLUSIVELY to him. It does not belong to society, or government, or anyone else. The same can be said of the gold coin produced by the miner – it belongs exclusively to him. Thus we have two pieces of personal property -- a cow and a coin – being exchanged VOLUNTARILY because John values the coin more than the cow and the miner values the cow more than the coin, otherwise the exchange would not take place. This is the subjective theory of value in operation.
The gold coin belongs to John because it now represents the time and energy he spent raising a cow. A similar statement can be made about the miner’s cow. Jack needs a saddle instead of a cow so John offers him a one ounce gold coin which Jack will accept for a horse. The horse now belongs to John and the coin belongs to Jack – it represents the time and energy that Jack spent raising the horse. The gold coin does not belong to the government because government has not invested one minute of time or an ounce of sweat producing the cow, coin, horse or saddle.
To whom does money belong?
From the foregoing analysis we arrive at the inescapable conclusion that MONEY BELONGS TO THE PRODUCERS IN SOCIETY – NOT GOVERNMENT!
But producers want services – aching teeth pulled, broken bones mended, etc., so they VOLUNTARILY give up a portion of their money for services provided by other members of society. Therefore, that portion of money becomes the property of service providers because it represents the human energy expended in providing the services. Notice that up to this point, everything has been VOLUNTARY.
Yes, we are obliged to share some of OUR MONEY with government for the PROTECTION SERVICE it provides. Today this is unfortunately NOT VOLUNTARY and government is engaging in activities for which it has NO AUTHORITY. For example: I have no authority to tell others what they can, or can’t, do with the fruits of their labor (money). Neither I or anyone else has this authority, therefore we cannot individually, or collectively, delegate to government authority that we do not have.
Since we are supposed to be a republic based on delegation of authority FROM THE PEOPLE TO GOVERNMENT, ERGO – government has no authority to meddle in the monetary affairs of the people other than to collect taxes. Article 1, Section 2, of the Idaho Constitution says: “All political power is inherent in the people.” Obviously there are candidates for public office, and incumbents, that do not understand this. Unfortunately, they often get elected and re-elected.
At this point we have defined money and to whom it belongs and it is NOT GOVERNMENT. Yes, the money government collects in taxes to support its protection services belongs to it but that DOES NOT MEAN THAT ALL MONEY BELONGS TO GOVERNMENT.
Freedom
Money represents the fruits of people’s labor and if people cannot use their money as they wish, they are not free. From this we arrive at the conclusion that money control is simply people control and government has no authority to control the peaceful activities of people. People cannot be controlled and free at the same time. Therefore we arrive at the conclusion that government control of money, or any peaceful activity of people, results in a loss of freedom. Thus we see that today’s government is operating completely outside its authority and proper function. Its purpose is to protect people’s right to property (which includes money); not violate it.
Now that we’ve reviewed the fundamental principles of money, let’s turn our attention to the North Dakota State Bank that is being touted as the example for Idaho to follow.
North Dakota State Bank
First, the North Dakota State Bank is NOT a free market bank. It’s a tax-supported agency of the State ($38,121,867 for the 2007-2009 biennium) that has been granted vast powers over the economy. It guarantees loans made by non-state banks, credit unions, and lending institutions that are part of the farm credit system, and savings and loan associations. The state bank guarantees 75% of the principle on loans to persons who purchase agricultural real estate, provided that no single loan can exceed $400,000.
“The (State) Bank may guarantee loans made by the bank, credit union, savings and loan association, or any other lending institution in this state to the owner of a commercial livestock feeding operation or to the owner of a new or expanding dairy operation. In the event of a default, the (State) Bank shall pay to the lender the amount agreed upon, provided that the amount may not exceed 85% of the principle due the lender at the time the claim is approved.” (See the North Dakota State Bank Report)
The State Bank also guarantees lenders against default by a beginning entrepreneur for up to 85% of the amount of the principle due the lender at the time the claim is approved. A non-state bank can apply to the state bank for a loan guarantee on an individual loan of up to $100,000.
Note 13 in the North Dakota State Bank Report contains the following statement:
“All state funds and funds of all state penal, education and industrial institutions must be deposited in the Bank under state law.” Why should the state be controlling industrial institutions? Do they have total socialism in North Dakota and is that what we want in Idaho?
Furthermore, this North Dakota State Bank operates under regulations promulgated by the Federal Reserve System and can create fraudulent money the same as private banks do – their reserves at the FED in 2008 were $7,000,000. Thus they are contributing to the hidden tax of inflation that robs the people by causing a depreciation in the purchasing power of their money. This bank also borrowed $300,945,000 of Federal Reserve funds as of June 30, 2009.
The State of North Dakota is playing in investment markets with taxpayers money just like Idaho is doing and 35.8% of their budget comes from the federal government compared to 31.6% for Idaho. With a banking system like that, they obviously need more help from the rest of us to keep the scam going.
It is somewhat disheartening that any political candidate would propose having the power of the state compete with what’s left of private enterprise. Granted, control of practically all financial institutions by the FED has effectively abolished free markets in that arena but that’s no excuse to add fuel to the fire by adding the State of Idaho to the cabal that’s plundering the people.
“Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.” ~President James A. Garfield.
But “industry and commerce” are simply conglomerations of people. This takes us back to the fact that money control is people control. In a free market banking system (which we have never had) neither banks nor government could control the volume of money. All that free market banks could do is provide an investment and savings service for those who own the money – the producers in society. Government could not create money to finance their economic “stimulus” projects and would have to live within the limits of tax revenue. This would put a damper on government expansion because taxpayers would “vote the rascals out” if taxes increased enough to fund the expansion. This naturally engenders bureaucratic antipathy towards “that barbarous metal” gold.
Instead of moving further down the road to total socialism, let’s get rid of that which we already have and stop the flow of fraudulent money that steals people’s property.
http://proliberty.com/observer/20100313.htm
Illusions Of Freedom
http://rense.com/general90/illus.htm
"The Matrix is one of the greatest metaphors ever. 'Machines invented to make life easier end up enslaving humanity. This is the most dystopian theory in science-fiction. Why is this fear so universal, so compelling? Is it because we really believe our toaster and our notebook will end up as our mechanical overlords? Of course not. This is not a future that we fear but a past that we are already living.
Supposedly governments were meant to make human life easier and safer. But governments always end up enslaving humanity. That which we create to "serve us" ends up "ruling us." The US government by and for the people now imprisons millions. It takes half the income by force, over-regulates, punishes, tortures, slaughters foreigners, invades countries; overthrows governments, imposes seven hundred imperialistic bases overseas and crushes future generations with massive debts. That which we create to serve us ends up ruling us.
The problem with the state as servant thesis is that it is historically completely false; both empirically and logically. The idea that states were invented by citizens to enhance their own security is utterly untrue. Before governments in tribal times, human beings could only produce what they consumed; there was no excess production of food or other resources: Thus there was no point in owning slaves because the slaves could not produce any excess that could be stolen by the master.
If a horse pulling a plow can only produce enough additional food to feed the horse there is no point hunting, capturing and breaking in a horse. However when agriculture improvements allowed for the creation of excess crops, suddenly it became highly advantageous to own human beings. When cows began to provide excess milk and meat, owning cows became worthwhile.
The earliest governments and empires were in fact a ruling class of slave hunters who understood that because human beings could produce more than they consumed they were worth hunting, capturing breaking-in, and owning. The earliest Egyptian and Chinese Empires were in reality, human farms: Where people were hunted, captured, domesticated and owned like any other form of livestock. Due to methodological and technological improvements the slaves produced enough excess that the labor involved in capturing and keeping them represented only a small sub-set of their total productivity.
The ruling class farmers kept a large portion of that excess, while handing out gifts and payments to the brutalizing class; the police, slave hunters and general sadists, and the propagandizing class, the priests, intellectuals and artists. This situation continued for thousands of years until the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries; when again massive improvements in agricultural organization and technology created the second-wave of excess productivity.
The enclosure movement reorganized and consolidated farm land resulting in five to ten times more crops, creating a new class of industrial workers displaced from the country and huddling in the new cities. This enormous agricultural excess was the basis of the capital that drove the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial revolution did not arise because the ruling class wanted to free their serfs; but rather because they realized how additional "liberties" could make their livestock astoundingly more productive.
When cows are placed in very confining stalls they beat their heads against the walls, resulting in injuries and infections. Thus farmers now give them more room, not because they want to set their cows free but because they want greater productivity and lower costs. The next stop after free-range [In Chickens] is not freedom [It's chicken McNuggets].
The rise of state capitalism in the nineteenth century was actually the rise of free-range serfdom. Additional liberties were granted to the human-livestock, not with the goal offsetting them free; but rather with the goal of increasing their productivity. Of course Intellectuals, Artists and Priests were and are well paid, to conceal this reality. The great problem of modern human-livestock ownership is the great challenge of enthusiasm. State Capitalism only works when the Entrepreneurial Spirit drives creativity and productivity in the economy.
However excess productivity always creates a larger state and swells the ruling classes, and their dependents; which eats into the motivation for additional productivity. Taxes and regulations rise, state debt and future farming increases, and living standards slow and decay. Depression and despair begin to spread: As the reality of being owned sets in for the general population. The solution to this is additional propaganda, anti-depressant medications; superstition, wars, moral campaigns of every kind. The creation of "enemies," the inculcation of Patriotism, collective fears: Paranoia about outsiders and immigrants and so on.
It is essential to understand the reality of the world. When you look at a map of the world, you are not looking at countries, but farms. You are allowed certain liberties, limited property ownership, movement rights, freedom of association and occupation; not because your government approves of these rights in principle, since it constantly violates them, but rather because free-range-livestock is so much cheaper to own and is so much more productive. It is important to understand the reality of ideologies. State Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Democracy; these are all livestock management approaches. Some work well for long periods of State Capitalism and some work very badly: Communism. They all fail because it is immoral and irrational to treat human-beings as livestock.
The recent growth of Freedom in China, India and Asia is occurring because the local state farmers have upgraded their livestock-management-practices. They have recognized that putting the cows in a larger stall will provide the rulers with more milk and meat. Rulers have also recognized that if they prevent you from fleeing the farm you will become depressed, inert and unproductive. A serf is the most productive when he imagines he is free. Thus your rulers must provide the illusion-of-freedom, in order to harvest you most effectively. Thus you are allowed to leave but never to real freedom; only to another farm [the entire international-passport system insures this], because the whole world is a farm. They will prevent you from taking a lot of money they will bury you in endless-paperwork. They will restrict your right-to-work; but you are of course free to leave; due to these difficulties very few people do leave but the illusion of mobility is maintained!
If only one out of a thousand cows escapes, the illusion of escaping significantly raises the productivity of the remaining 999, it remains a net gain for the farmer. You are also kept on the farm through licensing. The most productive livestock are the professionals. So the rulers fit them with an electronic dog-collar called 'a license.' Which only allows them to practice their trade on their own farm. [Global-corporations were created to bridge this limitation]. To further create the illusion of freedom in certain farms the livestock are allowed to choose between a few farmers that the investors present, [purpose behind having candidates for office, and the illusion of choice] at best they are given minor choices in how they are managed. They are never given the choice to shut down the farm and be truly free.
Government schools are indoctrination pens for livestock. They train children to "love the farm" and to fear true freedom and independence: And to attack anyone who questions the brutal reality of human ownership. Furthermore they create jobs for the intellectuals that State propaganda so relies on. The ridiculous contradictions of Statism like religion can only be sustained through endless propaganda inflicted upon helpless children. The idea that Democracy and some sort of social contract justifies the brutal exercise of violent power over billions is patently ridiculous.
If you say to a slave that his ancestors "chose" and therefore he is bound by their decisions, he will simply say "If slavery is a choice then I chose not to be a slave." This is the most frightening statement for the ruling classes, which is why they trained their slaves to attack anyone who dares speak it. Statism is not a philosophy. Statism does not originate from historical evidence or rationale principles. Statism is an ex-post-facto justification for human-ownership. Statism is an excuse for violence. Statism is an ideology and all ideologies are variations on human-livestock management-practices.
Religion is pimped-out superstition, designed to drug children with fears that they will endlessly pay to have alleviated. Nationalism is pimped-out bigotry, designed to provoke a Stockholm Syndrome in the livestock. The opposite of superstition is not another superstition, but the truth. The opposite of ideology is not a different ideology, but clear evidence and rational principles. The opposite of superstition and ideology of stateism is philosophy. [Decades ago it was announced by the rulers that philosophy was dead, because there could never be anything more to add to what had already been written - according to the owners].
Reason and Courage will set us free; you do not have to be livestock. Take the Red Pill wake up!" (1)
"Los Angeles, July 4, 1976
With modifications from the agenda of the NWO & the NAU
"The Stars and Stripes have changed their spots;
Now pentagrams and bars enshrine a mockery of tongues,
And courage shares the darkness,
With the corpse of private conscience.
Where dialogue and discourse thundered
Cowardice now crawls across an overcrowded floor.
Doorway's once flung so wide in confidence,
Are now shuttered, bugged and barred, in terror:
Of the hunger in the world outside.
The wolf of violence prowls beneath our bolted windows
Watching Justice sell herself on every corner;
While we beneath our private feather-beds of folly,
Mumble condemnations of the 'cancers' in our systems. . .
Observe this kneeling nation, clinging to our 'toys of plenty'
Crying out in darkness for release from all responsibility,
For what has come to pass.
While heedlessly we watch the rape of yesterday's required,
To subsidize the plunder of 'the tomorrow's of our lives." (2)
Between these two articles it is possible to finally understand both what was designed for us all and what we have done with what we thought was our world, not as just another part of the global farm for human-cattle. We need to begin again, to try and put an end to this insanity in the twenty-first century, while there is still time to change this for the better.
kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net
1) Freedomain Radio Matrix - video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMdw24f0XmA
2) Where Freedom Once Thrived
http://kirwanesque.com/politics/articles/2008/art63.htm
Make Congress Obey the Constitution
Support the Enumerated Powers Act
Calling all constitutionalists! Here’s a bill you’ll be glad to support: The Enumerated Powers Act, H.R. 450 and S. 1319, “To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes.”
With so many unconstitutional bills being introduced, the Enumerated Powers Act addresses the root cause of the incremental loss of our freedoms. Three provisions of the unconstitutional Patriot Act are up for renewal; Senator John McCain has introduced the Dietary Supplement Safety Act of 2010 (S.3002) that would essentially gut DSHEA and usher in the UN’s Codex Alimentarius; and Obama’s proposed Affordable Healthcare Act is still on the table.
Take advantage of the heightened receptiveness of Congress in this momentous election year featuring a rapidly growing constitutionalist movement to help convince your representative and senators to support the Enumerated Powers Act.
Use these bills to put the pressure on your representative and senators to adhere to the Constitution. Write, phone, fax and email them. Ask them to cosponsor these bills and work to bring them to the floors of the House and Senate for a vote. Get them on the record as to their support or lack of support for obeying the Constitution.
Also use these bills to vet and influence candidates for the House and Senate in your area. The goal is to have a majority of constitutionalists in Congress that will abide by the enumerated powers of the Constitution.
Use the sample letter below and let's send this message to every Congressman.
LETTER:
Subject: Obey the Constitution -- Support the Enumerated Powers Act
Dear Representative/Senator ____________:
Here's a long-overdue piece of legislation that will heal many of the wounds inflicted upon our once great Constitutional Republic. Your co-sponsorship of this legislation is not to be brushed aside lightly, as it challenges your loyalty to your "Oath of Office".
I refer to The Enumerated Powers Act, H.R. 450 and S. 1319: "To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes."
The key provision of H.R. 450 (S. 1319 reads virtually the same): "Each Act of Congress shall contain a concise and definite statement of the constitutional authority relied upon for the enactment of each portion of that Act. Failure to comply with this section shall give rise to a point of order in either House of Congress."
Sixty members of the House are already cosponsors of H.R. 450. There are 23 cosponsors of S. 1319 in the Senate.
While there's some still hope: It's very critical that, as our country tailspins out of control of the people and into the dust bin of history, we do the only thing that will restore our freedom, sovereignty and prosperity, and that is for our government to obey the Constitution!
It is not expected that you'll turn your back on your fellow Americans and the Constitution. We the People instruct you to co-sponsor this bill without delay.
Yours in Freedom,
[Your name]
http://proliberty.com/observer/20100206.html
At present, banks may not create more than $9 in loans for each $1 they hold
However, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke says this may be changed to ANY amount in loans REGARDLESS of what is held
At that point, fractional-reserve banking becomes zero-reserve banking, and hyperinflation will be upon us
This was predicted in 1994 in The Creature from Jekyll Island, pages 200 and 543..
Bernanke footnote: Fed wants end to ‘minimum reserve requirements’
By Stephen C. Webster
Thursday, March 18th, 2010 -- 8:12 pm
http://rawstory.com/2010/03/footnote-fed-believes-minimum-reserve-requirements-eliminated/
In the footnotes of a speech U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke would have given to the House Financial Services Committee on Feb. 10, lies a unique and startling disclosure.
Hosted on the Federal Reserve's own servers, the written testimony of the bank's chairman explains in plain text what expanding the Fed's powers will do.
"The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system," footnote number nine, at the bottom of the page, explains without additional qualification.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is not running for reelection, is currently pushing a financial reform bill that would grant the Fed unprecedented new powers to regulate financial markets, including insurance companies and small lenders, under the auspice of forcing such firms to lessen their exposure to risky investments.
Wondering how that would have prevented a collapse the likes of which nearly sank the financial system at the end of George W. Bush's presidency, Forbes writer John Carney mocked Dodd's plan as "incredibly stupid."
"[The] Federal Reserve had regulators in place inside of Lehman Brothers following the collapse of Bear Stearns. These in-house regulators did not realize that Lehman’s management was rebuking market demands for reduced risk and covering up its rebuke with accounting sleight-of-hand. When Lehman actually came looking for a bailout, officials were reportedly surprised at how bad things were at the firm. A similar situation unfolded at Merrill Lynch. The regulators proved inadequate to the task."
Yet, by the Federal Reserve's stated assumption, that it will one day be able to eliminate the requirement forcing financial institutions maintain even a fraction of their depositors' assets, it's proposed mass-regulation of the financial sector sustains a brand of logic, however skewed.
Unhinging banks from even basic deposit standards would essentially create a class above the daily requirements of capitalism, resting atop a pool of funds with infinite depth, removing the need for what's currently known as "fractional reserve banking."
Such a system is described by Investopedia as such: "A banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual cash-on-hand and are available for withdrawal. This is done to expand the economy by freeing up capital that can be loaned out to other parties. Most countries operate under this type of system."
What Bernanke is flatly stating is the need for that fraction, representing the actual wealth by which the bank's capital multiplies, could soon be eliminated for the U.S. Federal Reserve, making free-floating, infinitely self-replicating capital a pervasive reality.
Only a few other nations have endowed their fiat currency with such buoyancy, their numbers including Mexico, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.
"The truth is that the financial system that we have created makes inflation inevitable," opined Business Insider writer Michael Snyder. "The U.S. dollar has lost more than 95 percent of the value that it had when the Federal Reserve was created. During this decade the value of the dollar will decline a whole lot more.
"That doesn't sound like a very good investment.
"But that is what happens when you give bankers power to make money up out of thin air.
"And things are only going to get worse."
In the op-ed, Snyder points to one member of Congress, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), as someone who "realizes" the alleged grievous failings of the Fed, quoting Paul from a recent hearing of the House Financial Services Committee hearing.
"The Federal Reserve in collaboration with the giant banks has created the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen. The foolish notion that unlimited amounts of money and credit created out of thin air can provide sustainable economic growth has delivered this crisis to us. Instead of economic growth and stable prices, (The Fed) has given us a system of government and finance that now threatens the world financial and political institutions. Pursuing the same policy of excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation can only compound the problems that prevent the required corrections. Doubling the money supply didn’t work, quadrupling it won’t work either. Buying up the bad debt of privileged institutions and dumping worthless assets on the American people is morally wrong and economically futile."
Paul, who ran away with the top honors at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference, earning the influential conservative activists' pick for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, was not shy about his feelings on the Fed's conduct during a Feb. 24 hearing, saving his harshest criticism for Chairman Bernanke.
Watch:
The Constitutional Imperative In Reform Of The Monetary And Banking Systems Of The United States
by
Edwin Vieira, Jr.
http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/ConstitutionalImperative.pdf
Foreword
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., presented the original version of The
Constitutional Imperative in Reform of the Monetary and Banking
Systems of the United States to the Ludwig von Mises Institute's
Seminar Series in Public Policy, at the Heritage Foundation's
Lehrman Auditorium, Washington, D.C., on 8 December 1988. His
purpose, then and now in this expanded monograph, was to
explain that:
Monetary and banking reform in the United States must be
appreciated and approached as a matter of law, as well as a
matter of economics.
• The most important—indeed, the controlling—law in the
United States is the Constitution.
• The Constitution, rightly understood and applied, provides
an unequivocal mandate for a particular monetary and
banking system. And, therefore,
• Debate over monetary and banking reform that does not
begin with a clear statement and acceptance of this
constitutional imperative is not only uninformed, but also
subversive of the uniquely American system of political
economy.1
As the inexorable events of the present banking crisis in the
United States finally compel the political establishment to face the
necessity of basic reform of the monetary and banking systems,
the insights set out in The Constitutional Imperative will become
1 See Edwin Vieira, Jr., Approaching the Crossroads: The American System or
the Corporate State?, National Alliance for Constitutional Money Monograph
No. 2 (1990).
2
ever more important, if real reform is to be achieved. For, as Dr.
Vieira points out, the leading authorities on economic reform of
these systems recognize that the key to correction of contemporary
problems is the enforcement of a "monetary constitution" to
confine the discretion of government within narrow limits.
These experts disagree among themselves, however, on exactly
what the principles of this "monetary constitution" should be. In
The Constitutional Imperative, Dr. Vieira argues that, if the
experts would focus on what the Constitution prescribes now, they
would largely have the solution to the problem of reform in their
hands obviating further discussion, debate, and dissention; and
placing the inestimable moral, political, and legal force of the
Constitution squarely behind their efforts.
Hopefully, The Constitutional Imperative will cause people to
comprehend that the Founding Fathers already foresaw the
United States' obvious need for a "monetary constitution,” and
took the necessary steps to guarantee that "constitution" in the
Constitution.
Richard L. Solyom, Chairman,
Sound Dollar Committee
Introduction
The potentially key role of the Constitution of the United States in
returning this country, and ultimately the entire free world, to a
system of sound money and honest banking was but little
perceived and almost never debated as few as ten years ago. To a
very great degree still, the constitutional imperative in reform of
America's monetary and banking arrangements remains largely
unappreciated and certainly unarticulated. However, a growing
awareness does exist today among free-market economists,
political scientists, and particularly students of "public-choice"
theory that
• the Federal Reserve System—a domestic cartel of private
banks specially licensed to emit legal-tender fiat paper
3
currency and create "deposit-credit money"—is both
intellectually indefensible and economically unworkable;
• the increasingly unstable international monetary and
banking system can no longer rely on the chronically
depreciating Federal Reserve Note as the "world reserve
currency,”
• new domestic and international monetary and banking
arrangements must soon be implemented, based on some set
of enforceable political and legal restraints on governmental
action—what public-choice theorists call a "monetary
constitution"; and
• in the United States, this "monetary constitution" can arise
from the imposition of limitations on the government's
powers that derive from either: (a) our domestic Constitution
as it now exists or may be amended hereafter; or (b) a new
supranational monetary and banking regime that effectively
supersedes the Constitution and subordinates to a scheme of
globalist controls America's national sovereignty over money
and banking.
The rapidly increasing attention being paid in both academic and
political circles to the necessity of some kind of monetary
constitution" is encouraging, as far as it goes. More to the point in
a country that prides itself on the "rule of law,” however, would be
for those promoting a purportedly "new" constitutional order in
money and banking first to investigate what the monetary and
banking powers and disabilities of the United States Constitution
are now. For such an investigation would uncover how the proper
interpretation and rigorous implementation of the present
Constitution could largely solve America's contemporary monetary
and banking crises, and secure her national sovereignty against
inroads by new supranational institutions.
Analysis
I. That most people concerned with establishing a "monetary
constitution" in the abstract overlook the United States
Constitution in particular as a possible solution to the problem is
4
paradoxical. The United States, after all, is a legally constrained
political economy. It is a political economy because the
government exercises political power to affect economic
interrelationships among individuals and groups. But it is also a
legally constrained political economy because the Constitution
grants only certain defined powers to the government, denies all
other powers, and confines and qualifies the exercise of even the
granted powers with various substantive and procedural
limitations and requirements. Ours, then, is a political economy
characterized by both governmental powers and disabilities, by
both governmental authority to act and individual immunities (or
rights to be free) from governmental action in the economic sphere.
The set of all governmental powers and disabilities in that sphere
defines America's "economic constitution.” The extensive sub-set of
these powers and disabilities that deal with money, credit, legal
tender, and banking defines America's "monetary constitution.”
The proper construction and application of these monetary powers
and disabilities may be debatable. But that this country does have
some kind of a "monetary constitution" de jure is unquestionable.
Also beyond serious dispute is the defective nature of the present
de facto monetary and banking arrangements of the United
States, and the undesirable political-economic outcomes that have
emerged as consequences of those arrangements from the actions
of the government, the markets, the banks, various interestgroups,
individuals, and so on. The demerits of the present regime
are distressingly manifest on every level of inquiry:
Intellectually, America suffers from the radically nominalistic
conception that treats circulating "credit" as "money,” that
disconnects the creation of credit from the production or even the
existence of any tangible medium of exchange, and that asserts
the possibility of creating "new purchasing power out of nothing.”2
This currently fashionable monetary wisdom forgets that nothing
can be created out of nothing, least of all credit—which rests on
the belief by the lender that the borrower will in fact repay what
he has borrowed. If the government (or a specially privileged
2 J.A- Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development (1961), at 73.
5
bank) truly tries to fashion credit "out of nothing" that is, without
a reasonable anticipation that its promises to pay can be fulfilled,
it generates only uncertainty and mistrust.
Legally, America suffers from the abusive procedure violently at
odds with any rational conception of the obligation of contracts—
that the government or its clients can discharge pre-existing debts
merely by substituting for them new promises to pay and
declaring the original promises "paid" thereby. This shell-game
disguises the gradual real abrogation of all debts by calling a
privileged category of bank-debts "money" and "legal tender" for
all other debts.
Morally, America suffers from the elevation of deceit to the level of
acceptable—indeed, routine—"public policy.” The monetary and
banking apparat of the Department of the Treasury and the
Federal Reserve System systematically gulls individuals into a
false sense of security, implementing policies the consequences of
which the authorities know or expect to be quite different from
what they announce to the general public—in particular,
diminishing the objective exchange-value of currency while
pretending to fight "inflation.”
Socially, America suffers from massive redistributions of wealth—
primarily from households to the national government—as a
result of manipulations of legal-tender currency and credit by the
government and its client-banks.3
Economically, America suffers from hypervolatile markets in
which recurrent speculative raids are the response to the
realization that "the value [of American currency] has been
separated to an unknown degree from market forces and is being
influenced by government operations whose standards and
3 See, eg., Bach, "The Economic Effects of Inflation,” in Inflation: Long- Term
Problems, 31 Proc. Acad. Pol. Sci. (No. 4, 1975), at 20, 2528 (from $500 billion
to $1.6 trillion in creditors' claims wiped out by inflation from 1946 to 1974).
6
objectives have never been made public and whose continuation
for more than a few months at a time cannot be counted on.”4
Politically, America suffers from a thoroughgoing default of the
government on its responsibility to maintain a sound and honest
monetary and banking order, and its decision instead to employ
the old "money-illusion" of inflation as a hidden tax and to connive
with special-interest groups to subvert monetary laws for their
own predatory purposes.
And developmentally, America suffers from an historical
devolution and degeneration in which the national medium of
exchange has been radically primitivized and politicized, through
the transformation from commodity money (silver and gold coins)
to fictitious "credit money" (irredeemable Federal Reserve Notes).
A true "credit" (or fiduciary) money functions as an honest
surrogate for an ultimate, real medium of payment: typically,
specie coinage which the holder of the fiduciary money can
demand by legal right in redemption thereof. What is the
"payment" the holder of contemporary fiat Federal Reserve Notes
can (at least for the moment) demand by legal right "dollar" for
"dollar"? Other than token, base-metallic ("clad") coinage, only the
set-off of a nominally equal "dollar"-denominated tax liability he
owes to the national government.5 And this set-off is possible only
because Federal Reserve Notes are statutory "obligations of the
United States.”6 Thus, contemporary American currency amounts
to a "credit" against governmental exactions, and that alone.
Contrast this to the situation when silver and gold coins were the
legally mandated media of payment of debts and redemption of
fiduciary currencies. At that time, money was distinct from, and
4 Stein, "Don't Be Spooked by the Market's Moves,” Wall Street Journal, 22
November 1988, Editorial Page.
5 Compare 31 U.S.C. § 5103 with Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 71,
76-77 (1869). Other than regulated public utilities, no one is required by law
to offer for sale any fixed amount of goods or services at predetermined prices
in Federal Reserve Notes.
6 12 U.S.C. § 411.
7
superior to, "credit.” "Credit" could not be money, because
ultimately money gave credit to "credit.” To be sure, a holder of
specie money enjoyed no guarantee that market prices in that
money would not fluctuate from day to day. However, he already
had in his possession a real and valuable commodity—a known
weight of precious metal—not a mere, perhaps unenforceable,
promise to deliver.
Today, a holder of Federal Reserve Notes also remains uncertain
about the course of market prices in that currency (although he
may be fairly confident that they will continue to rise). But, unlike
the holder of specie coinage, the holder of fiat paper currency
possesses no valuable commodity and has no statutory right to
obtain any known, fixed amount of any commodity in exchange for
that currency—only a power to set off a liability the government
unilaterally assesses against him in overt taxes. One must
emphasize "overt" taxes, because the instrument of set-off (the
Federal Reserve Note) is also—perhaps, even predominantly these
days—an instrument of hidden taxation through managed
depreciation of its purchasing power.7
Thus, by reducing money to central-bank "credit,” and centralbank
"credit" to the license to set off the substanceless "money
units" against tax liabilities, money has been primitivized—in the
sense of being stripped of much of its usefulness and value as a
medium of exchange for all transactions within society. And
money has been politicized in the sense of serving first and
foremost as the means of locking the individual into a relationship
with his government that smacks of economic serfdom.
However, simply cataloging these (or other) serious defects in
America's present monetary and banking arrangements leaves
unanswered the most important question: Do these defects reflect
an institutional problem of inadequacy of the Constitution—
7 The Federal Reserve Note is a depreciating asset both in its role as money
and in its role as a medium of tax set-off. By holding Federal Reserve Notes
in anticipation of future market exchanges, the holder loses purchasing
power. And by holding those notes in anticipation of paying taxes, the holder
is surreptitiously taxed!
8
namely, that the Constitution itself, correctly construed, allows,
encourages, or even compels these outcomes? Or do they mirror an
operational problem of failure of political personnel—namely, that
legislators or judges are not implementing or enforcing the
Constitution? The importance of determining whether the very
design of the machinery, or simply the unreliability of the
particular men temporarily at the controls, is at fault cannot be
over-emphasized. For, as a practical political matter, analysis of
the malfunction will dictate the likely repair.
Yet, notwithstanding the importance of ascertaining whether the
United States is the victim of a basic institutional breakdown or
merely adventitious operational errors, vanishingly few people
exhibit any even apparent concern with ferreting out the answer
by first—and logically foremost—establishing the true content of
this country's "monetary constitution.”
II. Certainly profound ignorance of the basic principles of money
and banking among the general public and the political
establishment explains, in part, this disinterest. Those
academically trained in economics may flatter themselves that
they understand, along with Professor James Buchanan, why no
one can "intellectually defend" America's present monetary and
banking systems, why "we could not conceivably have a worse
regime,” or why no one could "dream up a worse situation than we
have now" in terms of monetary unpredictability.8 But such people
are a distinct minority.
A. The average man-in-the-street or in the public service has no
conception of the crucial difference between a "dollar bill" that is
merely exchangeable in the marketplace for unpredictably varying
amounts of goods and services (generally less and less, as time
goes on), and a "dollar bill" that is redeemable by law for a fixed
amount of precious metal (that is, in fact, a note that must be paid
on demand with a dollar). Neither does he suspect that what he
8 "Prospects for a Monetary Constitution,” Proceedings of the 1988 Progress
Foundation International Conference (27 May 1988), American Institute for
Economic Research Econ. Educ. Bull., Vol. XXVIII, No. 6 (June, 1988), at 34.
9
considers his money in his bank-"deposit" is, in contemplation of
law, really a loan he has made to the bank and the bank's money.9
Nor does he fathom the operations and complexities, if he even
realizes the existence, of the "fractional-reserve" system on the
basis of which his misnamed "deposits" are manipulatively
managed.10 Rather than pondering such matters, or their
economic and especially their political implications, the average
man naively swallows the propaganda-line of the Treasury
Department and the Federal Reserve that money and banking are
"technical" areas "too complicated" for voters and politicians to
understand, better left to the "experts" for management in
accordance with the arcane theories of contemporary
mathematical economics, and certainly "too important" to become
issues in the superficiality and buffoonery of electoral campaigns.
The depth of popular ignorance in this field satisfactorily explains
recent monetary history. The last fifty or so years have witnessed
three major monetary and banking collapses in this country: in
1933, with the seizure of the people's gold and termination of
redemption of Federal Reserve Notes in gold domestically; in
1968, with the termination of redemption of all United States
paper currency in silver; and in 1971, with the termination of
redemption of Federal Reserve Notes in gold internationally.
9 This has long been recognized. See, eg., Davis v. Elmira Savings Bank, 161
U.S. 275, 288 (1896); Scammon v. Kimball, 92 U.S. 362, 36971 (1875); Society
for Savings v. Coite, 73 U.S. (6 Wall.) 594, 609 (1867); Thompson v. Riggs, 72
U.S. (5 Wall.) 663, 678 (1866); Bank of the United States v. Bank of Georgia,
23 U.S. (10 Wheat.) 333, 340-42 (1825). However, the courts have not
addressed the problems that the vast majority of "depositors" in banks have
no inkling of this legal rule, and that the banks generally avoid informing
them of the true state of affairs.
10 For a classical historical example, when President Franklin Roosevelt
declared a "bank holiday" in 1933, he felt it politically necessary to use his
very first "Fireside Chat" radio-address to inform the American people about
"the mechanics of banking, and why the banks could not lay their hands on
cash to meet runs [on their 'demand deposits'].” S.E. Kennedy, The Banking
Crisis of 1933 (1973), at 180. Self-evidently, Roosevelt had no illusions about
the ignorance of the public in this area.
10
Yet notwithstanding how radically destructive of the monetary
system each one of these events (and, certainly, their cumulative
effect) has been, neither any one of them nor all of them together
triggered a constitutional, or even a political, or electoral, crisis
over money and banking comparable to those that occurred, with
massive participation by the general public, in the late 1700s (over
ratification of the Constitution and its "hard-money" provisions),
in the 1830s (over the recharter of the Second Bank of the United
States), in the 1870s (over resumption of specie payments for the
Civil-War "greenbacks"), or in the 1880s and 1890s (over the socalled
"gold standard" and "bimetallism"). But if few people now
understand money and banking at all, the majority can hardly be
faulted for not being conversant with and demanding enforcement
of America's "monetary constitution.”
B. In fairness to the general populus, one should recall that printmedia
pundits such as Alfred Malabre, author of the best-seller
Beyond Our Means, show little-greater appreciation of the
problem—not, to be sure, because they are ignorant of basic
economics, but precisely because they know so much about the
peculiarities of economic theory that they crowd out of
consideration the special realities of America's uniquely political
economy.
Although, by any competent evaluation, the United States now
faces a monetary and banking crisis as serious as any that
convulsed the polity to its constitutional roots in the 1800s, in the
chapter of his book entitled, ominously, "Nothing Works,” Malabre
surveys every possible solution but the Constitution, in concluding
that "today's -predicament is beyond the means of any economic
theory”.11 Malabre may be correct to dismiss Keynesianism,
monetarism, and "supply-side" theory as solutions to
contemporary problems. But he is hardly justified in despairing
that "nothing works,” without having first closely scrutinized the
reforms that would arise out of consistent application of the
monetary powers and disabilities of the Constitution.
11 A.L. Malabre, Jr., Beyond Our Means. How America's Long Years of Debt,
Deficits and Reckless Borrowing Now Threaten to Overwhelm Us 1(1987), at
83.
11
C. If disinterest in "monetary constitutionalism" can be explained
in the case of the general public by ignorance and in the case of
pundits by tunnel vision, in the case of high-level public officials a
more sinister reason is not without evidentiary support. For a
prime example, Professor Buchanan recounts how in 1980
President-elect Reagan's staff solicited suggestions as to what
Reagan could do "to give an indication that [his] was going to be
an administration with a policy thrust.” Buchanan advised
Reagan to
appoint a presidential commission that would look into
the whole structure of our monetary authority, the
whole structure of the Federal Reserve authority * * *.
And it seemed to me high time that that might be
looked into.
What we have now is a monetary authority that
essentially has a monopoly on the issue of fiat money,
with no guidelines to amount to anything; an authority
that never would have been legislatively approved, that
never would have been constitutionally approved, on
any kind of rational calculus, no matter what the
political system. * * * So I thought it would be a good
idea * * * to get a discussion going about the legitimacy
of this authority.
In response to further inquiries from Reagan's staff, Professor
Buchanan delivered "a short position paper" to Reagan. But,
described Buchanan,
[n]othing happened. Absolutely nothing happened. I
never heard a word, not one word, from them. I found
out months later, that they did seriously consider the
idea, but Arthur Burns shot it down. Arthur Burns
totally and completely rejected it, and would not have
anything to do with any proposal that would challenge
the authority of the central banking structure—you
don't even * * * raise it as an issue to be discussed.
12
From this experience, Buchanan concluded that "the barrier of
bureaucratic interest in maintaining [the present monetary and
banking system] * * * is * * * extremely strong.”12 The perhaps
more telling lesson on the state of the Republic is that, in the
secrecy of the highest councils of an administration that openly
prided itself on its commitment to the "original intent" of the
Constitution, the filibustering of an agent of the Federal Reserve
System stifled even a discussion "about the legitimacy" of the
corporativistic central bank and its decaying fiat currency.
III. Those who do ponder this problem, however, are not (one can
hope) the victims of economic ignorance, tunnel-vision, or narrow
self-interest. Yet, for the most part, even such people have not
been serious students, let alone zealous advocates, of America's
special "monetary constitution,” either. Not, of course, because
they reject "monetary constitutionalism" in the abstract. They all
generally concur that a "monetary constitution" is necessary,
whatever their differences as to its precise content. They all agree
that constitutionalism with respect to money and banking is as
obviously important as—perhaps in the long run more important
than—constitutionalism with respect to speech, criminal
procedure, property-rights, and so on. And even those who propose
a radical "de-governmentalization" of money and "free banking" as
solutions to today's problems recognize the unavoidability of a
controlling governmental role in the creation of such new
arrangements, a role that must be constitutionally constrained if
such changes are to achieve political permanence.13
Nevertheless, discussions of "monetary constitutionalism" among
such people—be they economists, political scientists, historians, or
even lawyers by training—almost invariably neglect any careful
consideration of what the United States' "monetary constitution"
specifically provides and how it can be implemented or enforced.
12 "Prospects for a Monetary Constitution,” ante note 7, at 32-34.
13 See, eg., Rothbard, "The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar,” in The Gold
Standard.- An Austrian Perspective (1985), at 7-9. Rothbard's case for
"degovernmentalization" of money should be carefully distinguished from the
untenable theories of "private money" now gaining favor in certain circles.
13
This state of affairs would be generally acknowledged as peculiar,
perverse—indeed, intellectually improper and indefensible were
the debate on "constitutionalism" to focus on such matters as
speech, criminal procedure, or property-rights. In those domains,
no one would ever presume to address the question of
"constitutionalism" in America without first or at least very
quickly consulting the Constitution itself. Yet where "monetary
constitutionalism" is the subject of inquiry, the Constitution is
conspicuous by its absence.
Why?! The answer, apparently, is that far too many of the
erstwhile friends of sound money and honest banking are
unconsciously ruled by an unwarranted assumption engendered
by the undesirable state of present-day monetary and banking
arrangements and encouraged by their unfamiliarity with the
particulars of constitutional law and history and their
unwillingness to fight an unpleasant political battle on uncommon
terrain. So, unthinkingly, they act as if no United States
"monetary constitution" now exists.
IV. Baldly stated, the notion that no United States "monetary
constitution" now exists contradicts itself—If there is no
"monetary constitution"—that is, no ultimate source of legal power
over money and banking—under exactly what authority are
Congress, the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve System now
operating? Can America's monetary and banking systems be the
products of mere anarchy or blatant usurpation? No; the
assumption that no "monetary constitution" rules this country
today really implies that the Constitution affirmatively grants the
government (or the private parties behind the Federal Reserve
System) unlimited power over money and banking.
A. Certainly this is the consensus implicit in the contemporary
literature. For one example, Brennan and Buchanan report that
[m]ost national governments * * * possess monopoly
franchises in the creation of money * * *. To our
knowledge, no country allows a totally free market in
money, and none limits the governmental role to the
definition of value of a monetary unit in support of a
14
pure commodity standard. * * * Almost universally,
national governments hold the authority to issue paper
or fiat currency, either directly through governmental
treasuries * * * or indirectly through governmentallycontrolled
central banks.14
Murray Rothbard affirms that
each nation-state, since 1933, and especially since the
end of all gold redemption in 1971, has had the
unlimited right and power to create paper currency
that will be legal tender in its own geographic area.15
And, under the heading "the chaotic state of monetary law,”
James Dorn tells us that
[p]resent U.S. monetary law incorporates neither the
"convertibility theory" of monetary control nor the
"responsibility theory" * * * there is no constitutional
limit binding the central bank to a noninflationary
path of money growth; there is no legislative mandate
to achieve a stable value of money. * * * [T]here is no
firm commitment to achieve long-run price stability.
Current law specifies no single objective for monetary
policy and lacks an enforcement mechanism to achieve
monetary stability * * *.
The lack of any effective constraint on the
discretionary powers of the central bank reflects
Congress's failure to safeguard the value of money, as
intended in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, and
14 "Monopoly in Money and Inflation: The Case for a Constitution to
Discipline Government,” Institute for Economic Affairs, Hobart Paper No. 88
(1981), at 29.
15 “The Case for a Genuine Gold Dollar,” ante note 12, at 1. Of course,
Rothbard is correct if by the phrase "has had the unlimited right" he means
"has claimed the unlimited right.” Laymen often incorrectly assume that
governmental claims of rights or powers evidence the constitutional existence
of those rights or powers.
15
has led to a monetary system characterized by
significant uncertainty about the future value of
money.16
Observations of this kind—that the fundamental law of the
United States permits no free market in money, does not confine
the "governmental role [over money] to the definition of a
monetary unit in support of a pure commodity standard,” extends
to the government "the unlimited right and power to create paper
currency which will be legal tender,” incorporates no intelligible
principle of monetary control or responsibility, specifies no
objective for monetary policy, leaves the Federal Reserve System
unrestrained, and lacks "an enforcement mechanism to achieve
monetary stability"—are shocking indictments. For, if true, they
describe a literally totalitarian money monopoly exercised by a
legally uncontrollable corporative-state banking cartel: a species
of fascistic dictatorship over money run amok!
But should one seriously entertain the pernicious thesis implicit
in these and similar statements that the ultimate collective effect
of the numerous, precisely worded monetary provisions of the
Constitution is simply to delegate all conceivable power to a
"monetary soviet" of self-interested private bankers? And, if one is
willing to suffer that strange supposition for purposes of
argument, should he meekly accept it as fact, without the very
clearest proof possible?
B. The current literature also abounds with descriptions of various
hypothetical "monetary constitutions" to "discipline unconstrained
monetary monopoly.” For example, Brennan and Buchanan offer
four possible regimes: First,
a totally free market in money, with no direct moneycreating
government role at all. * * * The government
would not define the medium of exchange; it would not
print money; it would not regulate private printing of
money or bank notes; it would not regulate banking or
16 "Introduction: Reform the Monetary Regime,” Cato Journal, Volume 5, No.
3 (Winter, 1986), at 675-76.
16
credit. Money would emerge * * * with no government
guarantees or repurchase arrangements. Government
could choose to collect taxes in the money of its choice *
* *.
Second,
government may be empowered to issue domestic
money, in whatever quantities it may choose. In this
sense it would possess a monopoly franchise and it may
be totally restrained in size of issue. The restraints
present here, however, would emerge from the
guarantee of free entry. The Constitution would
guarantee that individuals could hold balances, make
private contracts, including the incurring of debts, and
conduct ordinary transactions in any money of their
choosing. * * * The forces of competition would act as
the restraint on the government money-issue monopoly
* * *.
Third,
[t]he government role is limited to the definition of the
monetary value of a physical unit of a * * * commodity
* * *. [The government] does not create money on its
own account; and if there is paper money it is
convertible at a fixed price into the base commodity at
the governmental money window.
And fourth,
[g]overnment may be empowered to issue money, and
allowed a monopoly in it. But the Constitution may
subject the grant of the monopoly to specially-defined
rules that limit the powers of the money-creation
authority.
17
All of these, say Brennan and Buchanan, are "monetary
arrangements to meet constitutional tests"—"constitutional tests,”
impliedly, that are not being met now.17
Should one blithely assume, though, that the Framers of the
Constitution were not concerned with and successful in meeting
stringent "constitutional tests" of this kind through the
painstakingly precise language in which they framed our country's
"monetary arrangements"—language such as
• "The Congress shall have Power * * * To coin Money,
regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin";18
• "No State shall * * * emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any
Thing but gold and silver Coin a Payment in Tender of
Debts”;19
• "The Congress shall have Power to borrow Money on the
credit of the United States",20 which deletes the power to
"emit bills" (issue paper money) that appeared among the
cognate powers of the Continental Congress under the
Articles of Confederation;21 and
• the explicit references to the "dollar" as the unit of monetary
valuation?22
Surely, such an assumption would be without legal historical
support—indeed, would fly in the face of a proper construction of
the Constitution's monetary powers and disabilities. For such a
construction shows conclusively that the Founders did embrace
the principles of Brennan and Buchanan that "[t]he government
would not define the medium of exchange,” but would instead
17 “Monopoly in Money and Inflation,” ante note 13, at 58-62.
18 U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 5.
19 U.S. Const., art. I, § 10, cl. 1.
20 U.S. Const., art. I, § 8, cl. 2.
21 Arts. of Confed'n, art. IX.
22 U.S. Const., art. I, § 9; amend. VII.
18
adopt "a physical unit of a designated commodity" as its monetary
unit; "would not print money"; "would not regulate private
printing of money or bank notes" and "would not regulate banking
or credit" (except, presumably, to prohibit and punish fraud); and
would allow individuals to "hold balances, make private contracts
and conduct ordinary transactions in any money of their
choosing.”
And, even if one does entertain, for the purposes of argument, the
hypothesis that the Founders might have failed in some respects
to construct what contemporary economists argue is a proper set
of constitutional boundaries to monetary and banking power,
should he accept as fact, without the clearest proof possible, that
the relevant constitutional provisions the Founders did enact
exercise no meaningful constraint whatsoever on the alleged
powers of today's government to define the medium of exchange,
to emit redeemable or irredeemable paper currency, to prohibit
competition in money, to delegate discretionary monetary
authority to a private banking-cartel, and so on?
V. These questions, of course, are rhetorical only. The answers,
self-evidently, are "No.” Unfortunately, many people have never
posed the questions to themselves, let alone thought about the
answers. For that reason, a lack of basic knowledge about the
"monetary constitution" and even about the monetary statutes
and judicial decisions—of the United States is altogether too
common. For pertinent examples:
Numberless are those, especially including economists and others
among the noisy new claque touting "private money" as a panacea
for all monetary ills, who erroneously believe that the legal-tender
act requires individuals to use Federal Reserve Notes as their
medium of exchange and, in conjunction with the Supreme Court's
decision in Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company,23
23 294 U.S. 240 (1935).
19
prohibits so-called "gold-clause contracts.” Such, of course, is not
the law.24
Equally large is the number of individuals who erroneously fear
that disestablishment of the Federal Reserve System would be
prohibitively costly, because of the purported requirement that the
government "buy back" the System's gold certificates or otherwise
compensate the private banks in the cartel for dispossession of
their "vested property rights.” People who frighten themselves
with this hobgoblin are obviously unaware of Congress' sweeping
reservation of power in section 30 of the original Federal Reserve
Act of 1913, and how this obviates any serious problem with
liquidating the Federal Reserve System.25
And again, essentially no one with whom the present author has
discussed the matter was initially aware that, in Perry v. United
States,26 the Supreme Court held unconstitutional Congress'
24 31 U.S.C. § 5118(d)(2). Equally naif and uninformed is the assumption of
these advocates of private "alternative currencies" that, were the legal-tender
act repealed and "gold-clause contracts" allowed, people would rapidly choose
forms of money other than Federal Reserve Notes in which to conduct their
transactions. In fact, "gold-clause contracts" were statutorily legalized in
1977. Act of 28 October 1977, Pub. L. 95-147, § 4(c), 91 Stat. 1227, 1229. In
the supervening years, however, the public has evidenced next to no interest
in such contracts. Evidently, something more than the mere legal availability
of an "alternative currency" is necessary to render its use economically
expedient to a significant degree.
25 Compare Act of 23 December 1913, ch. 6, § 30, 38 Stat. 251, 275
(congressional reservation of "[t]he right to amend, alter, or repeal" the
statute), with Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. (4
Wheat.) 518, 627-31 (opinion of the Court), 712 (opinion of Story, J.)(1819);
Sinking-Fund Cases, 99 U.S. 700, 720 (1879); Meriwhether v. Garrett, 102
U.S. 472, 511 (1880); Covington v. Kentucky, 173 U.S. 231, 238-40 (1899);
and National Passenger Railroad Corp. v. Atchison, T. & S.F. Ry., 470 U.S.
451, 456-57 (1985). Cf. the analogous interpretation of Congress' reserved
"right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision" of the Social Security Act.
Fleming v. Nestor, 363 U.S. 603, 608-12 (1960).
26 294 U.S. 330, 348-58 (1935).
20
attempt to repudiate the promise of the United States to pay its
obligations in gold coin or an amount of other currency equivalent
in purchasing power to such coin. It remains to be seen how this
highly significant, but generally unappreciated decision may apply
to Federal Reserve Notes—which are "obligations of the United
States"27 that on their faces at least implicitly (if duplicitously)
promise to pay certain sums in "dollars,” but have been repudiated
in terms of redemption in gold or silver coin, and certainly provide
to their holders purchasing power far lower than an equivalent
nominal value of such coin.
But the most telling example of "lost knowledge" in the area of our
"monetary constitution" is the definition of the "dollar"' itself.
Everyone talks about the "dollar,” usually referring to the Federal-
Reserve-Note "dollar bill.” But this very implicit reference proves
that the speakers know not what they say. The Federal-Reserve-
Note "dollar bill" is not, has never been, and could not be a
"dollar.” Historically it originated as, and even in its present
fraudulent form continues to mimic, a promise to pay a "dollar,”
not the "dollar" that is the subject of the promise. And no statute
of the United States has ever even purported to declare, in
Orwellian fashion, that a Federal Reserve Note is a "dollar.” But,
then, precisely what is a "dollar"'?
People sophisticated enough to recognize that a Federal Reserve
Note statutorily redeemable "in lawful money"28—that is,
"dollars"—cannot be that money as well, generally describe the
"dollar" as a fictional unit of account without any fixed content
that, from time to time through American history, has been reified
in silver, gold, base-metallic ("clad") coins, and paper United
States Notes of widely varying purchasing powers.29 People with
27 12 U.S.C. § 411.
28 12 U.S.C. § 411.
29 This description is as pernicious as it is erroneous, because it assumes that
the "dollar" (in the form of a United States Note or token coin) is or may be a
"bill of credit,” or mere promise to pay some amount of specie—thereby
conceding that a "dollar" inherently suffers from all the liabilities attaching
21
greater historical acumen, such as Richard Hofstadter, may
describe the "dollar" as "[t]he original monetary unit" of the
United States, authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792 and
"circulated in a variety of pieces of both gold and silver. The dollar
was defined as having a certain weight of silver and a certain
weight of gold.”30 But definitions of this kind are easily proven
wrong.
The Constitution—which preceded the Coinage Act of 1792 and
every other monetary statute of Congress—explicitly refers twice
to the "dollar": in the so-called "slave tax provision" of Article 1,
Section 9, Clause 1; and in the guarantee of jury trial in the
Seventh Amendment.31 When the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights were ratified (1788 and 1791, respectively), the word
"dollar" had a single meaning: not a paper currency (and surely
not an irredeemable note of a central bank!), not a fictional unit of
monetary account, not a gold coin, not a base-metallic coin—but a
silver coin, the "Spanish milled dollar,” which the Continental
Congress had earlier adopted as "the money unit of the United
States" in 1785.32
to politicians' promises and all the dangers deriving from their greed. The
advocacy of a "dollar" that is "redeemable in" or "backed by" silver or gold
may sound laudable where the alternative is the irredeemable Federal
Reserve Note. But such a "dollar" remains a form of "debt money" that is, as
history shows, a long distance removed from payment of the specie coins that
"back" it and a short distance away from the repudiation of payment that
converts it into a fiat currency.
30 Introduction to W.H. Harvey, Coin's Financial School (1894, reprinted.), at
37 (footnote omitted).
31 Article I, Section 9, Clause 1: " * * * but a Tax or duty may be imposed on
such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.” Seventh
Amendment: where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the
right to trial by jury shall be preserver.
32 See E. Vieira, Jr., Pieces of Eight. The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of
the United States Constitution (1983). at 16-17, 66-70.
22
In the Coinage Act of 1792, Congress statutorily implemented the
constitutional adoption of the "dollar": (i) by finding as an
historical fact that a Spanish milled dollar “as the same is now
current" contained 371-1/4 grains (troy) of fine silver; (ii) by
fixing—or, perhaps more properly, recognizing—the constitutional
"dollar" as of [that] “value"; and (iii) by creating a new, theretofore
unknown gold coin, called the "eagle,” that was to have a "value of
ten dollars,” which Congress regulate[d] or computed on the basis
of the coin's weight (247-1/4 grains troy of fine gold) and the thenprevailing
market exchange ratio between silver and gold (15:1).33
In short, the silver "dollar" of 371-1/4 grains is the constitutional
standard. The construction given the constitutional term "dollar"
by the first Congress in 1792 fixed this definition of the "dollar"
33 Act of 2 April 1792, ch. XVI, §§ 9, 11, 1 Stat. 246, 247-28.
The Act defined "DOLLARS OR UNITS" as "of the value of a Spanish milled
dollar as the same is now current, and to contain [3711/4 grains] silver.” Thus,
the Act construed the noun "dollar,” as used in the Constitution to refer to the
monetary unit of the United States, in terms of an historically fixed fact
ascertained by Congress: viz., the fine-silver content, or "value,” of the
Spanish milled dollar "as the same is now current,” that is, as it actually
existed in 1792.
The Act also defined this, and only this, United States "DOLLAR" as the
"UNIT" of the monetary system. The Act did define the "eagle" as "of the
value of ten dollars or units.” The Act did not say, though, that the "eagle" is
"ten dollars or units,” but that it is "of the value of ten dollars,” calculated
according to the market exchange-ratio of 15:1. That is, the Act set the price
of an "eagle" (or the price of the weight of pure gold struck in an "eagle") at
"ten dollars,” because that was the market price of so much gold, calculated
in silver, at that time. The “eagle" was thus priced in units of silver. This did
not mean, however, that the "eagle" was itself ten units, any more than a
statute setting the price of (say) bread at "one dollar per pound" could be
construed impliedly to define the "dollar" as a pound of bread, or a pound of
bread as the monetary "unit"!
In short, the Act clearly recognized the (silver) "dollar" as the unique "unit,”
and the gold coinage as "valued" in terms of this "unit.” And as late as the
Civil War, no one seriously doubted this statutory structure. See, eg., Bronson
v. Rodes, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 229, 247-48 (1869).
23
beyond the power of Congress to alter it thereafter by any
statute.34 All gold coinage, base metallic coinage, and paper
currency of any kind are, at best, mere statutory creations of
Congress, the legitimacies of which as constitutional "Money" rests
on their relationships to the "dollar.” Furthermore, there can be no
constitutional "gold dollars,” no "base-metallic dollars,” and least
of all no "paper dollars,” in the sense of a monetary unit different
from the silver "dollar.”
Consider now two further examples of "lost constitutional
knowledge" that address very contemporary concerns.
First, the emerging cult of "private money,” which has advanced
into the public view as far as such magazines as Forbes.35 In the
contemporary world in which money performs not only an
economic but also a legal function in relation to government,
advocacy of "private money" is of doubtful coherence—because it
begs the painfully obvious question of whether a form of money
can be truly "private" if a government adopts that money as its
medium of taxation and spending (and, presumably therefore, its
unit of account), which the exponents of "private money" assume
not only will but must occur. (Indeed, this assumption alone would
seem to render the "private-money" thesis self-contradictory.)
Advocates of "private money" also leave unaddressed the issue of
whether any government adopting a "private money" would not
impose some regulations on its character—such as, for instance,
accepting for taxes a “private money" only to the extent it
consisted of coins containing known amounts of silver or gold,
remained redeemable in so much specie, maintained a certain
purchasing power as against a "basket of commodities,” and so on.
These and other glaring weaknesses of the theory of "private
money" aside, the question here remains: "May Congress
34 Compare Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52, 150-52, 174-76 (1935), with
Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 206 (1920).
35 Brimelow, "Do you want to be paid in Rockefellers? In Wristons? Or how
about a Hayek?,” Forbes (30 May 1988), at 243.
24
constitutionally adopt a 'private money' as the United States' unit
of account?"
Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1 and Article I, Section 8, Clause 5
answer that question in the negative. In Article 1, Section 10,
Clause 1, the States absolutely surrendered their preconstitutional
powers to "coin Money,” to "emit Bills of Credit"
(what Americans today would call "redeemable paper currency"),
and to "make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
Payment of Debts.” Thus, the States subjected themselves to a
strict gold-and-silver-coin economy, in which they could not be the
source of the only coinage that could function as "a Tender in
Payment of Debts.”
Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 transferred the coinage-power to
Congress alone.36 The surrender of the States' primordial
sovereign power to "coin Money,” coupled with the exclusive grant
of that power to Congress, implies a right on the part of the States
to demand that Congress affirmatively exercise the coinage-power
and a duty on the part of Congress to do so. This constitutional
duty arising from a fundamental structural element in the federal
separation of powers—may never be delegated, especially to
private parties.37 For that reason, the adoption of a "private
money" as the unit of account of the United States is
unconstitutional.
The second example relates to budget deficits of the national
government. The ease with which deficits accrue traces to the
ability of Congress to "monetize debt"—that is, to borrow into
36 Congress also received in this clause the power "to regulate the Value * * *
of foreign Coin,” a power that the States did not explicitly surrender.
Apparently, the States retain a power concurrent with that of Congress to
"regulate the Value * * * of foreign Coin"—and thereby create a pool of "gold
and silver Coin" that they can declare "a Tender in Payment of Debts,” except
insofar as their "regulat[ions]" conflict with "regulat[ions]" in pari materia
made by Congress. See U.S. Const., art. VI, cl. 2.
37 See A.L. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 537
(1935). Accord, Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 311 (opinion of the
Court), 318 (Hughes, C.J., concurring)(1936).
25
existence through the Federal Reserve System repudiated "bills of
credit" in the form of irredeemable, legal-tender Federal Reserve
Notes or deposit-credits denominated therein. Now Article I,
Section 8, Clause 2 empowers Congress to "borrow Money on the
credit of the United States" only. However, when Congress
borrows even a "bill of credit" fully redeemable in silver or gold
money from some other entity (say, a bank), it "borrow[s] Money"
not only on the "credit of the United States" (as to repayment of
the loan itself) but also on the credit of the lender (as to
redemption of the "bill of credit").
How is this to be constitutionally justified? Even more legally
problematic is how Congress can borrow an already repudiated—
and therefore discredited—"bill of credit" the issuer of which (as in
the case of the Federal Reserve System) refuses to redeem it in
precious metal, and has historically followed a policy of
diminishing the purchasing power of the bill as against all
commodities.
No: Congress can borrow solely "on the credit of the United States"
only by borrowing "Money"—in the constitutional sense of coin,
the medium of payment—and never by borrowing "credit
instruments" of some other entity, even if those promise to pay
"Money" on demand. This construction of Article I, Section 8,
Clause 2, though, would as a practical matter strikingly
circumscribe if not curtail altogether deficit-spending—by
confining to silver and gold coin all borrowing, and therefore all
repayment and the taxation necessary to generate the means of
repayment.
VI. The loss of this and other knowledge of America's true
"monetary constitution" has confused and corrupted contemporary
discussion about monetary and banking reform. For examples,
Many people advocate that the "dollar"—by which they mean the
Federal Reserve Note—be permanently tied to a fixed weight of
gold, and redeemable at that weight. This wrongly assumes that
the "dollar" is a monetary unit without historical definition, that it
may exist as a gold coin or as a "bill of credit" (a paper currency
26
redeemable in gold), and that the Federal Reserve Note is a
legitimate form of this disembodied "dollar.”
Other people contend that no legal or moral obligation supervenes
in defining the "dollar" in whatever way best suits the monetary
system reformers deem most desirable. This wrongly assumes that
the "dollar" lacks a fixed legal definition, or at most is the empty
name the statutes of the United States give to the medium of
exchange that serves as the government's unit of account,
whatever that may be from time to time.
With these and similar attitudes as widespread as they are
warrantless, it is no wonder that the present-day debate over
monetary and banking reform is a literal Tower of Babel, with no
common linguistic ground even as to the supposed main subject of
discussion: the "dollar.” With alleged "dollars" of silver, gold, basemetal,
paper, and even electronic computer-entries available for
purposes of argument, all of supposedly equivalent legal status in
the minds of the disputants, but of widely disparate economic
values in the marketplace, it is also no wonder that there are as
many mutually incompatible suggestions for reform as aspiring
monetary gurus.
The basic problem here, of course, is that too many otherwise wellintentioned
people are thinking empirically, not normatively. They
are, perhaps naturally, tempted to ask: "What now functions as
the monetary system?,” "What do the people use as money?,” or
"Who in fact issues the money?"—uncritically assuming that what
is, is right. They do not ask: "What should be,” or "What ought to
be,” or "What by right is the monetary system of this country?"
They fail to pose these questions—ultimately, the only ones worth
answering—because they too-often forget that an
"unconstitutional law" is a legal impossibility, not simply an
inconvenience.
For "[a]n unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it
imposes no duties * * * ; it is, in legal contemplation, as
27
inoperative as though it had never been passed.”38 Thus, people
may colloquially call a Federal Reserve Note a "dollar.” But it has
never been and cannot be legally such. And people may be
unaware that a "dollar" is a coin containing 371-1/4 grains fine
silver. But it has been so determined since 1792, and can never be
anything else under the outstanding law.
In a similar vein, too many friends of sound money tend to think
economically, and not legally. They tend to ask: "Is monetary
system X better than monetary system Y?,” without bothering to
ask: "Does our legal system permit us to exchange monetary
system X for monetary system Y.?" For they tend to assume—in
harmony with Justice Holmes' fallacious quip in Lochner v. New
York that "a constitution is not intended to embody a particular
economic theory,”39—that the Constitution is sufficiently "elastic"
to tolerate any monetary arrangements with which a political elite
may want to experiment.
This assumption forgets, however, that the Constitution embodies
a highly structured legal system incorporating defined and limited
powers, specific disabilities, guarantees for individual rights, a
complex separation of powers, "checks and balances,” and so on.
This kind of system cannot plausibly be "neutral" with regard to
competing economic theories, in the monetary field or any other at
least insofar as the various legal powers, disabilities, and
individual rights have economically operational consequences.
Certainly the Constitution is not effectively "neutral" with regard
to money. To the contrary, it defines a monetary system that relies
on market principles as much as any governmentally based
system could. First, pursuant to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 and
Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1, the Constitution adopted the type
of money the world market historically favored in the late 1700s
38 Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425, 442 (1886)(emphasis supplied).
Accord, Huntington v. Worthen, 120 U.S. 97,101-02 (1887); Fay v. Noia, 372
U.S. 391, 408-09 (1963).
39 198 U.S. 45, 75 (1905)(dissenting opinion).
28
(and still ultimately favors today): commodity money, money
capable of being "coin[ed]" or tendered as "Coin.”
Second, as made clear in Article I, Section 10, Clause 1, the
Constitution adopted as money the commodities the quality of
which the international market historically recognized (and still
recognizes today) as pre-eminent: silver and gold, with base
metals such as copper in a strictly subsidiary role. Third, as
explicitly indicated in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 and the
Seventh Amendment, the Constitution adopted the very unit of
money the American market had found most convenient during
the 1700s: the dollar of 371-1/4 grains fine silver. And fourth,
through the system of "free coinage" implicit in Article 1, Section
8, Clause 5, the Constitution left the ultimate supply of money to
the market, too.40
40 This final point requires some elaboration. Under the system of "free
coinage,” individuals are privileged to increase the money-supply by bringing
silver or gold bullion (or foreign coins) to the mints to be coined into "Money"
of the United States at cost. And individuals may also decrease the moneysupply
by reducing coined specie in their possession to bullion (in order to
employ it in industrial arts, for example). In these instances, the market
obviously determines the supply of money extant. Of course, the government
as well may coin bullion it has collected through taxation or amassed through
the operation of silver or gold mines owned by the public, or may reduce coin
in its possession to bullion for legitimate-purposes. But the market-system as
traditionally understood in this country presupposes a government capable of
taxing the citizenry and owning and managing property on behalf of the
public. Therefore, governmentally initiated increases or decreases in the
supply of coinage of this sort—undertaken, presumably, "to pay the Debts
and provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United
States,” as authorized in Article I, Section 8, Clause 1—would constitute
changes in the supply of money no more incompatible with marketdetermination
of that supply than taxation is incompatible with marketdetermination
of the distribution of income, or than a fully compensated
governmental taking of land is incompatible with market-determination of
the distribution of real property. Under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5,
Congress also has authority to "regulate the Value * * * of foreign Coin,”
either increasing the supply of money by declaring such coins officially
"Money" of the United States at their intrinsic values in silver or gold, or
decreasing that supply by removing the official status previously granted.
Although legally distinct from the power to strike domestic coin, this power to
29
Moreover, even while denying certain monetary powers to the
States (in Article 1, Section 10, Clause 1), and investing such
powers in Congress (in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5), the
Constitution left unchanged and guaranteed (in Amendments V,
IX, and X) the traditional right of the people of the United States
to adopt whatever media of exchange they desire in their own
private commercial transactions. Thus, Congress may adopt a
national money-system; but except when individuals come to the
courts for redress of non-contractual injuries, or pay their taxes, or
enter into contracts with the government, or receive "just
compensation" for property taken through eminent domain,
Congress may not require them to recognize or employ that money
system in their private affairs. Or, in practical effect, the
Constitution imposes on the people a governmental monetary
system only to the extent that they interact with the government
in the exercise of its other constitutional powers.
In short, to the extent compatible with the existence of any
government at all, the Constitution "degovernmentalized" money in
its most important particulars. Thus, one could without
exaggeration describe the Constitution as profoundly Austrian in
its necessary economic effect.41 However, this apparent
constitutional support in practice for one economic theory over
adopt foreign coin exhibits the same economic effect. Under the system of
"free coinage,” after all, all foreign coins not “regulate[d]" constitute potential
domestic coins, even if the market were not already using them as media of
exchange without any congressional declaration to that effect. (A
congressional declaration "regulat[ing] the Value of foreign Coin" is necessary
only to render that coin officially part of the money-system employed by the
government, not to allow private parties to use it for their own purposes.) And
"regulate[d]" coins can be reduced to bullion as easily as domestic coinage.
Any congressional "regulat[ion] * * * of foreign Coin,” then, would amount
merely to coinage of domestic money from the mass of bullion the foreign
coins contained (without the minting-cost, however); or, where Congress
denied certain foreign coins an official status, to reduction of those coins to
bullion.
41 Compare the description of the constitutional money-system given above to
the recommendations in L. von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (new
ed., H.E. Batson trans., 1971), at 413-57.
30
another—for Austrian monetary freedom as against a "state
theory" of money—rests, not on the particular economic merits of
the Austrian view (which, in any event, was unknown as such in
the late 1700s), but on the Constitution's political presuppositions
in favor of personal liberty and private property.
In sum, both the empirical and the economic approaches fail
because they excise from consideration the centrality of law to
monetary and banking reform. There can be no reform of the
monetary and banking systems without enactment of new laws and
the amendment and repeal of old laws and statutes. However, in
this country, the Constitution controls all such enactments, and
even the validity of existing statutes, regulations, and judicial
decisions. Therefore, the unavoidably first step in reform is to
determine precisely what the Constitution commands, allows, and
prohibits in the fields of money and banking.
VII. Curious is the absence of any widespread realization among
monetary reformers that, by first historically and legally defining
the "dollar" and the other salient features of America's "monetary
constitution,” the debate over monetary and banking reform can
be immensely simplified, in at least three ways:
First, by impressing on the academic and political communities
that there is an uniquely American "monetary constitution" which
constrains governmental authority in a very specific manner,
particularly in terms of the unit of account (the "dollar") and the
permissible governmental media of exchange and legal tender
(silver and gold coin).
Second, the debate over reform can be simplified by invoking this
"monetary constitution" to determine which monetary and
banking statutes enacted since 1792, and which statutes proposed
for enactment tomorrow, are lawful vel non. No rational change in
the present monetary and banking systems is possible without
changes in the nation's laws. But before they can be changed, the
laws themselves must be identified strictissimi juris—and
separated from mere congressional enactments (and judicial
"precedents" that many people mistakenly identify as "laws") that
fail the test of constitutionality.
31
Surely there are both profound intellectual and practical
differences between reforms based on the assumed
constitutionality of the Federal Reserve System and reforms based
on its proven unconstitutionality ab initio—in terms, for example,
of the status of Federal Reserve Notes as "obligations of the
United States" subject to redemption "in lawful money,” of the
legal-tender character of Federal Reserve Notes, of the ownership
of the gold title to which is evidenced by the gold certificates held
by the Federal Reserve, of the enforceability of loans based on the
monetization of governmental debt, and so on.
Third, recourse to America's "monetary constitution" can narrow
the debate over monetary and banking reform by immediately
ruling out of order the vast majority of proposals that are
themselves unconstitutional—such as schemes to generate fiat
United States Notes to replace Federal Reserve Notes.
Indeed, systematic constitutional analysis of the present monetary
and banking systems results in two specific agendas for action.
Under destructive reformation, the Constitution requires that the
government:
• declare unconstitutional the Federal Reserve Act of 1913,
the seizure of gold coin and outlawry of "gold clause
contracts" in 1933, and such parts of decisions of the
Supreme Court that erroneously license Congress to emit
legal-tender paper currency and otherwise depart from its
true constitutional powers and disabilities;
• disestablish the Federal Reserve System and "privatize" its
legitimate functions under section 30 of the Federal Reserve
Act of 1913;
• decry Federal Reserve Notes as "obligations of the United
States" under 12 U.S.C. section 411;
32
• terminate the "legal-tender" status of Federal Reserve Notes
and base-metallic ("clad") coinage under 31 U.S.C. section
5103;42
• cancel all gold certificates held by the Federal Reserve
System, in favor of a trusteeship over the gold to be executed
by the United States on behalf of the people;
• hypothecate to restoration of the constitutional money
system all unclaimed gold unconstitutionally seized in 1933
and now in the custody of the United States;
• declare voidable all contracts between member banks of the
Federal Reserve System and any other parties, where the
consideration for the contracts on the part of the banks was
unconstitutional "monetization" of debt;43
• revalue all innocent private contracts denominated in
Federal-Reserve-Note "dollars" and not involving memberbanks
of the Federal Reserve System under the rule of the
Confederate Note Cases;44 and
• conduct searching and scrupulously impartial civil and
criminal investigations and prosecutions of the Federal
Reserve System and its operations, domestic and
international.
Under constructive reformation the Constitution requires that the
government:
• begin the coinage of silver "dollars" and fractional "dollar"
coins, with a unit of 371-1/4 grains (troy) fine silver;
42 See especially as to use of Federal Reserve Notes for payments of taxes,
Taylor v. Thomas, 89 U.S. (22 Wall.) 479 (1875).
43 See Craig v. Missouri, 29 U.S. (4 Pet.) 410, 436-37 (1830).
44 Thorington v. Smith, 75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 1, 11-14 (1868); Confederate Note
Case, 86 U.S. (19 Wall.) 548, 555-58 (1873); Wilmington & W.R.R. v. King, 91
U.S. 3,3-4 (1875); Stewart v. Salamon, 94 U.S. 434, 435-36 (1876); Cook v.
Lillo, 103 U.S. 792, 792-93 (1880); Rives v. Duke, 105 U.S. 132, 140-41 (1881);
Effinger v. Kenney, 115 U.S. 566, 571-74 (1885).
33
• begin the coinage of gold "eagles" and fractional “eagle"
coins, denominated only in troy ounces of fine gold;
• establish a system of "free coinage" for "dollars,” "eagles,”
and fractional silver and gold coins;
• adopt all monetarily viable foreign silver and gold coins as
"Money" of the United States;
• "regulate the Value" of domestic and foreign silver and gold
coins relative to the "dollar,” with the silver-to-gold
exchange-ratio set by the free market;
• redeem outstanding United States token coinage "dollar" for
"dollar"; and,
• outlaw undisclosed or otherwise fraudulent "fractionalreserve"
banking and cognate improper commercial
practices.
VIII. The advocates of sound money and honest banking have
already won the intellectual battle in terms of economics. They
have proven that: (i) governmental money must be based on a
commodity standard; (ii) there must be a "free market in money,”
in which each individual is entitled to choose for himself—through
"gold-clause contracts" and other devices—what form of money he
will use in exchange, unfettered by abusive legal-tender laws; and
(iii) the government must not interfere with nonfraudulent "free
banking.”
And the friends of sound money have also won the intellectual
battle in political science. They have proven that an economically
sound system of money and banking is impossible in the long term
without an enforceable "monetary constitution" legally
constraining the "rent-seeking" actions of public authorities and
their predatory special-interest-group clients.
In addition, circumstances are now suddenly propitious for the
success of these proposals. For, in the last decade, conditions of
deepening monetary and banking crises have developed, in which
the economic and political-scientific critique of the proponents of
sound money and honest banking has gained a new credibility,
34
urgency, and even prophetic character. Two situations of crisis are
distinguishable, as a result of both of which meaningful monetary
reform could occur.
In the first possible case, looming governmental debt and chronic
budget deficits play a crucial role. The hard fact is that the
present generation must finance the governmental budget and pay
the governmental debt by ordinary taxes, by voluntary lending, or
by the extraordinary, hidden tax and forced loan of inflation
through the emission of fiat currency.45 Assume—as seems not
unlikely—that over the next several years Congress finds the
"inflation tax" the most politically palatable means to transfer real
wealth from society to the government and other politically
privileged drones. Also assume inflation accelerates enough to
increase the real budget deficit. Then, as Bernholz points out,
it can easily happen that the real budget deficit cannot
be maintained once it has, at least partly, to be
financed with the inflation tax and if the rate of
inflation has crossed a certain threshold. The tendency
towards higher real budget deficits is strengthened by
the fact that the real demand for money decreases with
the rate of inflation. This means that the base of the
inflation tax shrinks so that the government has to
increase the tax rate, namely the rate of inflation, by
issuing more money to obtain the same real revenue
from the inflation tax.
What happens in such circumstances? * * * [C]urrency
substitution takes place, i.e., * * * good money drives
out bad money in spite of all governmental regulations
trying to prevent this. The lower real demand for the
inflating money is compensated for by a rising real
demand for good money * * *. It follows that under
conditions of advanced or hyperinflation, the
45 See Knox v. Lee, 79 U.S. (12 Wall.) 457, 560-1 (1871) (Bradley, J.,
concurring) (Civil-War "greenbacks" are constitutional exercise of the
Borrowing Power as "forced loans").
35
government has either strongly to cut back inflation or
even to erase it with a monetary reform. Otherwise the
increasing rate of inflation would not only lower real
revenues from ordinary taxes but also from the
inflation tax to insignificant amounts. Since the "good
money" is nowadays foreign exchange or indexed
domestic money, and has often been in former times
gold and silver coins, the government would also lose
its control of the money supply.
If the government is politically unable to undertake the
necessary reforms or if the reforms falter, it can
happen, and has happened that the bad national
money is driven out totally by the good money * * *.
Then the government has finally to legalize the good
money to receive tax revenues again.46
Thus, one can predict that constitutional monetary reform could
come about during a period of rapidly accelerating inflation in
which "currency substitution" involving silver and gold coins has
become widespread in the private economy. Emphasis on
constitutional reform and silver and gold coinage as the new
media of exchange is necessary because, under the conditions
Bernholz hypothesizes, the "currency substitution" could involve
foreign exchange or a new supranational currency use of which by
the populus would mean, not only that the government lost control
of the money supply (which it would in any event under the
constitutional monetary system) but also that the United States
lost her monetary sovereignty to the entity issuing the substituted
currency.
In the second case, the economic unsustainability of the total
public and private debt assumes the key role in promoting—or,
perhaps more descriptively, forcing—monetary reform. If the
government and the Federal Reserve System are unable to
support the ballooning domestic "debt pyramid" through inflation,
46 "Prospects for a Monetary Constitution,” ante note 7, at 28.
36
because interest rates rise to prohibitive levels,47 an international
"run" on the Federal Reserve Note may occur, ultimately leading
to "a worldwide rush out of paper currencies into the most liquid
asset of all—gold.”48 Self-evidently, a "run" of this kind would
amount to a thoroughgoing "currency substitution,” again
pressuring the authorities to reform the monetary and banking
systems in a constitutional direction.
But if conditions are potentially ripe for monetary reform, much
work remains to be done. To congratulate one’s self for having won
the intellectual battles in economics and political science is not
enough. Now is the time to fight the war of the markets: to
educate people on the possibility, practicality, and desirability of
re-ordering their daily economic affairs around "gold-clause
contracts" and similar devices that can drive the anticipated
process of "currency substitution" in the direction of real
constitutional money, silver and gold coin—or at least offer them
significant personal protection against the financial storms to
come. And now is the time to fight the war of constitutional
politics: to convince people and honest public officials that the
Constitution provides the only legally sound foundation on which
to erect the monetary and banking reforms necessary for
America's economic rehabilitation.
To accomplish the latter task, proponents of sound money and
honest banking must overcome public attitudes towards
constitutional reform as strongly negative and widely held as they
are substanceless:
First, the self-styled "worldly wise" will scoff that constitutional
reform is a hopeless delusion, inasmuch as present-day politicians,
legislators, judges, and bureaucrats have supposedly "set aside"
the Constitution entirely for all practical purposes. The only
delusion here rests in the minds of the cynics. Contemporary
47 See Sperandeo, "The U.S. Government 'Whoppers',” The Sound Money
Investor (May/June 1989), at 39.
48 Interview of John Exter in Blakely's Gold Investment Review, Vol. I, No. 1
(1989), at 9.
37
government functions, for the most part, according to defined
procedures, in the service of supposedly knowable public and
private rights, powers, privileges, and immunities. Public officials
act according to "constitutional" rules, and say that they are
performing "constitutional" duties. Observers who understand the
Constitution may deny that these rules or duties are what the
Constitution actually prescribes—but no one, office-holder or
critic, openly gainsays the controlling nature of the Constitution,
whatever their ostensible disagreements about its meaning or
application.
Moreover, if (as the cynics allege) the political establishment has
permanently "set aside" the Constitution (except as a ritualistic
talisman rhetorically trotted out to rationalize this or that
imposition of arbitrary power on the country), what rational hope
have advocates of "competing currencies,” "private money,” "free
banking,” or other market-driven paths to reform of the monetary
and banking systems that any of these plans can succeed? Each of
these alternatives depends for its very existence on the legal
sanctity of private contracts and private property—that is,
ultimately, on constitutional restraints on the power of
government to annul contracts through "legal-tender" (actually,
forced currency-substitution) laws, or to confiscate property such
as gold or silver coin from innocent individuals.
If a political oligarchy has emasculated the Constitution; and if
the oligarchy has done this (at least in part) precisely to
institutionalize the present corrupt system of fiat currency,
inherently fraudulent "fractional-reserve" central banking
through the Federal Reserve cartel, "monetization" of
governmental debt, and so on; and if an electorate with proper
education, motivation, and leadership cannot restore, through
constitutional political channels, a return to constitutional money
and banking—then precisely how, other than through political
revolution or economic collapse followed by political revolution, can
sound money and honest banking ever be restored?.'
More specifically, how can sound money and honest banking be
imposed on the government (which, after all, the proponents of
38
"alternative currencies" and "private monies" somewhat naively
castigate as the unique source of contemporary monetary and
banking problems) without creating and enforcing some kind of
clear constitutional limitation on governmental discretion in the
monetary field? How, in what every sophisticated observer must
admit is a political economy, can meaningful and lasting economic
reforms be implemented without accompanying political reforms?
But these questions answer themselves.
Second, some people will object that a new constitution is
necessary to overcome the unwillingness of officeholders and
judges to enforce the present Constitution. But a new constitution
cannot by itself guarantee a return to constitutionalism. Public
officials and judges who knowingly refuse to obey the monetary
commands of the original Constitution are not likely to honor
similar commands in a new one. A return to constitutionalism
requires replacement of those officials and judges with individuals
of higher moral character.
Third, other people will object that the present Constitution does
not embody certain particular powers and especially disabilities
crucial to reform, and that therefore a new constitution is needed
after all. Correct construction of the Constitution and an
understanding of American monetary and banking history answer
this objection decisively.
Fourth, still other people will object that the constitutional
monetary and banking systems are not the very best regimes
imaginable, economically. Although perhaps true, this contention
is irrelevant to the fundamental issue of which is to rule: law or
politics, the Constitution (whatever its faults may prove to be) or
politicians and bureaucrats (the faults of whom are already all too
obvious, and apparently ineradicable).
Fifth, other people will complain that the constitutional monetary
and banking systems are too "inflexible" for modern times, and
provide little leeway for "experimentation”. The short answer to
this lament of the pragmatists is that the Framers adopted the
monetary powers and disabilities as legal guarantees they thought
essential for the protection of private property and individual
39
liberty, guarantees with which the government "is not entitled to
dispense in the interest of experiments.”49
Sixth, yet other people will predict the political impracticality or
futility of trying to implement America's highly idealistic
"monetary constitution" through a corrupt and cynical Congress or
the State legislatures, or to enforce it through the kangaroo courts
these bodies have created. Yet the history of the United States is
replete with examples of proper implementation of the monetary
powers and disabilities by less-than-perfect legislatures, even in
the face of terrific political pressures and after episodes of
unconstitutional actions—for examples, the coinage acts of 1792
and 1843, the refusal to recharter the Second Bank of the United
States in the 1830s, the resumption of redeemability in gold coin
for the Civil-War "greenbacks" in 1875, and the restoration of
individuals' rights to own gold and to make “gold-clause contracts"
in 1973 and 1977, respectively. And American history also records
important judicial decisions favorable to the "monetary
49 New State Ice Co. v. Liebman, 285 U.S. 262, 280 (1932). Accord, Truax v.
Corrigan, 257 U.S. 312, 338 (1921); Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 413 (1965)
(Goldberg, J., concurring). The somewhat longer answer from historical
experience is that governmental "experimentation" in the monetary and
banking field has almost invariably exacerbated the very problems it claimed
to cure. For example, after the panic of 1907, Kansas, Nebraska, and
Oklahoma enacted acts "guaranteeing" private bank-deposits. In the face of
serious criticisms of the workability of the acts, the Supreme Court sustained
them against constitutional challenge. Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U.S.
104, 575 (1911); Shallenberger v. First State Bank, 219 U.S. 114 (1911);
Assaria State Bank v. Dollery, 219 U.S. 121 (1911). In the event, the acts
proved worthless. See, eg., Robb, "Guarantee of Bank Deposits,” in 2
Encyclopaedia Soc. Sci. 417 (1930). However, because no constitutional
prohibition existed in Supreme-Court precedents, in 1933 Congress created
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, foisting the unsound deposit-
"guarantee" scheme on the nation as a whole, with predictably disastrous
consequences. See Sen. Rep. No. 77, 73d Cong., lst Sess. 9-13; H.R. Rep. No.
150, 73d Cong., lst Sess. 5-7.
40
constitution"—such as Lane County v. Oregon,50 Bronson v.
Rodes,51 and Perry v. United States,52 to name but three.
Moreover, if it is naif to hope that Congress, the States, or the
courts will obey the Constitution in service of the public interest in
the rule of law, sound money, and honest banking, can it be even
minimally rational to expect the Federal Reserve System to serve
the general welfare in preference to the special interests of its
constituent banks?!
And seventh, many other people will characterize today's
monetary and banking problems as simply "insoluble,” whatever
the purely theoretical adequacy of the monetary powers and
disabilities of the Constitution and the presumed willingness of
virtuous and competent public officials to exercise those powers.
This is the final counsel of despair. No problems can be deemed
"insoluble" by the application of constitutional power until that
power has actually been applied without success.
Defeatists should remember that at every major negative turningpoint
in America's monetary history, from the emission of the first
legal-tender paper currency in 1862, through the establishment of
the Federal Reserve System in 1913, to the purported
"demonetization" of gold in 1933 (domestically) and 1971
(internationally) and of silver in 1968—at every major point at
which the degenerate seeds of the noxious weeds of fiat currency
and oligarchical central banking were sown in America's monetary
soil, politicians unwisely turned away from the Constitution.
Whereas, at every major positive turning-point in the chronicle of
American money and banking, the Constitution has (more or less)
provided the inspiration, the command, and the blueprint for
governmental action. In the light of this experience, an assumed
impotence is not only unbecoming but unhistorical.
50 50 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 71 (1869).
51 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 229 (1869).
52 294 U.S. 330 (1935).
41
If the past provides any guidance, the Constitution remains the
most powerful legal, political, and moral device available at
present to accomplish the goal of sound monetary and banking
reform—if Americans have the knowledge, and the courage, to use
it. Until the friends of sound money at least try to enforce the
Constitution, in good faith to the very best of their abilities, they
should recall the old adage that "It is a poor workman who blames
his tools!”
Conclusion
Current events cannot fail to impress on the cautiously reflective
that the United States—indeed, the developed nations of the
entire world—are on the brink of a perhaps terrible monetary and
banking crisis. Theory teaches the utter unworkability of fiat
paper currency in the long run. And history is now openly
recording what may be the final, fatal chapter in the dolorous
worldwide experiment with "fractional-reserve" central banking
among sovereign nation-states—and the commencement of a new,
and perhaps darker chapter of "fractional-reserve" banking under
the auspices of a supranational cartel of private bankers
exercising political power without political accountability. Yet
most Americans, in public office or private station, are either
deluding themselves that no danger threatens, or hoping that the
very institutions and persons which and who created the
conditions conducive to catastrophe can somehow muddle through
to safety.
Old habits of belief and behavior die hard, especially the
alchemists' dream of transmuting base-metal into gold, or (in the
modern-day formulation) the bankers' fantasy of creating real
capital out of deposit-"credits" and real wealth out of paper
currency. Those who profit from "fractional reserve" banking,
"monetization" of debt, and the other paraphernalia of modern
monetary manipulation are unlikely to concern themselves with
the long-term injuries the rest of society suffers to underwrite
their short-term benefits or to be at a loss for rationalizations of
the status quo, for denials of the dangers the advocates of sound
money predict, and for personal disparagements of the exponents
42
of constitutional monetary reform. Others perhaps not as keenly
self-interested nevertheless may believe the "fractional-reserve,”
paper-currency system to be as essential to successful commerce
as it has become ensconced as a political-economic institution. To
them, the government and its client banks are the only
conceivable sources of "money,” without which the country would
be bereft of wealth. And even those who understand the evils
inherent in contemporary "credit"-money often resign themselves
to suffer these evils in silence and inaction, despairing of a remedy
for the cancer that has so long and so thoroughly ravaged the
economic and political body of the nation.
However, neither the self-interest of some, nor the ignorance of
others, nor even the defeatism of others still will, in the final
analysis, be responsible for the perpetuation of America's
contemporary monetary and banking systems until their
inevitable collapse. That responsibility lies with the blindness of
the American people. The potential tragedy of our situation is that
what many pretend cannot happen, and what many others
perceive as an inescapable disaster, may be largely avoidable, if
Americans timely employed the means so obvious it goes
unnoticed: the Constitution.
"Fractional-reserve" banking and paper "credit"-currency have
insinuated themselves into every important economic and political
relationship in American life, creating a quasifeudal system of
distinct classes—some even specially privileged by law—and
impressing upon society a peculiarly corrupt system of
materialistic (anti)morals that elevates pursuit of a "quick buck"
above love of family or duty to country. Yet, for all that, the new
economic feudalism of "fractional-reserve" banking and "credit"-
currency is no more ineradicable than the original feudal
parasitism of openly titled nobility, which the Constitution swept
away in two short, but complete and unequivocal prohibitions.53
In those prohibitions, the Constitution abolished a well entrenched
political, economic, and social system designed to commandeer the
first places in the state, that the history of centuries had proven
53 U.S. Const., art. 1, § 9, cl. 8 and art. I, § 10.
43
pernicious. In as few words, the Constitution outlawed a newer
system designed to commandeer the real wealth of the state, and
the dangers of which the Founding Fathers themselves
experienced firsthand, foresaw, and sought to forefend. The
history of almost two centuries has, not surprisingly, proven their
fears prophetic—and given the monetary powers and disabilities
they fashioned an urgent relevance and unprecedented potential
to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”54
©1993—National Alliance for Constitutional Money, Inc.
54 U.
Would US Troops Fire on Americans?
http://www.henrymakow.com/would_american_troops_fire_on.html
America's Secret Prisons
http://rense.com/general90/ams.htm
This was excellent!!
Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance
http://media.causes.com:80/604250?p_id=42563578
Hawaii considering law to ignore Obama 'birthers'
By MARK NIESSE, Associated Press Writer Mark Niesse, Associated Press Writer
Wed Mar 17, 2:48 am ET
.HONOLULU ? Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama's birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won't give up.
"Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy," said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health's Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.
So-called "birthers" claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn't meet a constitutional requirement for being president.
Hawaii Health Director Dr. Chiyome Fukino issued statements last year and in October 2008 saying that she's seen vital records that prove Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
But the state still gets between 10 and 20 e-mails seeking verification of Obama's birth each week, most of them from outside Hawaii, Kim said Tuesday.
A few of these requesters continue to pepper the Health Department with the same letters seeking the same information, even after they're told state law bars release of a certified birth certificate to anyone who does not have a tangible interest. Responding wastes time and money, Kim said.
Both Fukino and the state registrar of vital statistics have verified that the Health Department holds Obama's original birth certificate.
The issue coincides with Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.
"Do we really want to be known internationally as the Legislature that blocked any inquiries into where President Obama was born?" asked Rep. Cynthia Thielen, R-Kaneohe-Kailua. "When people want to get more information, the way to fuel that fire is to say, 'We're now going to draw down a veil of secrecy.'"
Nobody at the hearing questioned the fact that the president was born in Hawaii.
Attorney Peter Fritz asked why the state would pass a law punishing repetitive requests for open records. Instead, the state could simply say it would only answer each person's question once.
If the measure passed, the state Office of Information Practices could declare an individual a "vexatious requester" and restrict rights to government records for two years.
The committee will schedule a vote on the measure, said Chairman Jon Riki Karamatsu, D-Waipahu-Waikele.
___
The measure is SB2937.
____
On the Net:
Hawaii Legislature, http://capitol.hawaii.gov/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_birth_certificate
Whenever destroyers appear among men
they start by destroying money
for money is men's protection
and the base of a moral existence..
~ Ayn Rand ~
source.. http://www.perfecteconomy.com/
How Americans Lost Their Right To Own Gold
And Became Criminals in the Process
http://users.rcn.com/mgfree/Economics/goldHistory.html
Henry Mark Holzer
About the Author:
Henry Mark Holzer is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, where he teaches constitutional law, administrative law, and other courses. His practice is limited to appeals and constitutional litigation.
Prof. Hoizer has lectured widely on a variety of legal and law- related topics, and his articles have appeared in newspapers, popular and professional magazines, and academic journals.
His most recent books are The Gold Clause (1980) and Government's Money Monopoly (1981).
Introduction
For the first time since [James] Bond had known Goldfinger, the big, bland face, always empty of expression. showed a trace of life . . . . "Mr. Bond, all my life I have been in love. I have been in love with gold. I love its colour, its brilliance, its divine heaviness . . . .I have worked all my life for gold . . . .I ask you . . . . is there any other substance on earth that so rewards its owner?"1
For centuries, most people have shared the fictional Mr. Gold- finger's attitude about gold, though not necessarily for the same reasons. While gold has been much sought after, both for ornamental and industrial purposes, modern times-or, more specifically, modern governments-have taught men to value it for one purpose above all others: as a hedge against the debasement of paper money. Monetary economist Charles Rist acknowledged this phenomenon when he wrote: "[I]n the absence of governments capable of maintaining stable money, private individuals seek to assure it for themselves, hoarding a purchasing power [gold] more stable than that of any other merchandise . . . stable money is one of the last arms that remains at the disposal of the individual to direct his own affairs, whether it be an enterprise or a simple household."2 Indeed, during the monetary crisis of the last several years, the price of gold soared in free world markets as more and more individuals around the world acquired gold as a hedge against actual and potential currency devaluations.3 Unfortunately, while others scrambled to protect themselves from the instability of paper money, Americans had to watch from the sidelines. For them, owning gold has long been a criminal offense, punishable by up to ten years in jail and/or up to a $10,000 fine; they also risk confiscation of the gold and a penalty of twice its value.4
Most Americans are unaware of the existence of these harsh criminal sanctions. Fewer still, including the legal community, are aware of how-and why-Americans lost their right to own gold in the first place. The facts, which should startle layman and lawyer alike, expose the shaky legal foundation on which the gold prohibition rests: an unconstitutional arrogation of congressional power and the improper delegation of that power to the President, leading to what can be called the "endless emergency rationale.
World War I: The Seeds Are Sown
The existence of a state of war between the United States and Germany in 1917 had prompted the passage of the Trading with the Enemy Act,5 one purpose of which was to make unlawful all dealings between Americans and the enemies of the United States.6 However, an obscure subsection of the Act7 authorized the President to regulate, investigate, and prohibit "under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe . . . any transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency . . . by any person within the United States . . . "8 These sweeping new presidential powers had teeth in them: elsewhere the Act provided for severe criminal sanctions of up to ten years in prison and/or up to a $10,000 fine for violation of any decrees which the President might make under the Act.9
The net result of the Act, vis-à-vis transactions in gold, was the arrogation by the Sixty-Fifth Congress of a "money power not granted by the Constitution10-and further: the delegation of that power to the Executive branch of the Government.
The war emergency and the President's duty to fight the war provided Congress with a convenient rationale for the Act. The fact is, however, that the Constitution nowhere empowers Congress to prohibit dealing in gold-much less authorizes Congress to delegate that power to a coordinate branch of government.
Worst of all, the power which Congress delegated to the President enabled him to make criminals out of honest American citizens whose crime would consist only of trying to protect themselves from official debasement of their money. In more fundamental terms, Americans henceforth would be "under the gun" for exercising a fundamental, inalienable right: the right to deal with their own property as they saw fit. Gold, no matter what its special characteristics, is, after all, just another form of property.
If there were those who feared that Congress had more in mind than merely prohibiting transactions in gold during the World War I emergency, their concern would have been justified. On September 24, 1918, less than a year after its original enactment, and virtually on the eve of the War's end, the Trading with the Enemy Act was amended in two important respects: not only was the wartime Act extended "until the expiration of two years after the date of the termination of the war between the United States and the Imperial German Government. . . ,"11 but the amendment actually enlarged the Executive's power to control private gold. Now, President Woodrow Wilson could also "investigate, regulate, or prohibit any hoarding . . . of gold . . . by any person within the United States."12 Less than two months later, on November 11, 1918, the war ended, and two years later Wilson's power over private gold expired. Once again, Americans were under no restraints with regard to what they did with their gold. Presumably, the emergency was over.
The New Deal and the New "Emergency"
Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as President on March 4, 1933. Throughout the country, banks were slamming their doors on depositors clamoring to withdraw their own money, preferably in gold. For people who were seeking to exchange soft paper currency for the more stable metal-as existing law allowed, and as the Government had solemnly pledged-the new President had other ideas. On March 5, 1933, one day after taking office, Roosevelt issued a Proclamation convening Congress in Extra Session at noon on March 9, 1933, a decision allegedly necessitated by what the Chief Executive referred to vaguely as "public interests."13 But March 9 was still four days away, and Roosevelt apparently was impatient to stop bank depositors from withdrawing their paper money or converting it to gold. Accordingly, the next day, March 6,1933, he took an unprecedented step. For the first time in United States history, an American president closed the nation's banks. By Proclamation,14 he stated the following: the recent gold and currency withdrawals had been "unwarranted" and for the purpose of "hoarding"; speculation abroad had caused "severe drains" on the "Nation's" gold stocks; the result was to create a national "emergency"; further "hoarding"; and "speculation" must be prevented and "appropriate measures" taken "to protect the interests of our people"; the Trading with the Enemy Act, as amended, had given the President certain powers over private gold; and therefore, "to prevent the export, hoarding, or earmarking of gold," the banks would take a "holiday" from Monday, March 6, 1933, to and including Thursday, March 9, 1933, and that during the holiday no bank would "pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transfer in any manner or by any device whatsoever of any gold . . . or take any other action which might facilitate . . . hoarding"15 Roosevelt's action was devoid of even arguable legal justification. Nowhere in the Constitution is any branch of government, let alone the Executive, given the power to close privately owned banking institutions. Nor did the Proclamation even purport to invoke constitutional authority. And despite the Proclamation's passing reference to an alleged "national emergency," no war conditions were present which could have enabled Roosevelt to argue that, under the Commander-in-Chief's "war powers,"16 he had the authority to place in suspended animation a huge, crucially important part of America's commercial establishment. The Proclamation's reference to the World War I Trading with the Enemy Act, which had long since expired, was a strained attempt to find some semblance of legal support for Roosevelt's unprecedented assumption of complete control over America's banking system.
It is no wonder that Roosevelt immediately sent to a docile and compliant 73d Congress, a hastily drawn but comprehensive bill to amend the moribund Trading with the Enemy Act and to attempt to secure a legal basis for the unilateral action he had already taken.17
Retroactive Rubberstamping: The Emergency Banking Act
The House of Representatives convened at noon on March 9, 1933. After the customary opening prayer and the disposing of certain routine "housekeeping" matters,18 a message was received from the President19 which requested passage of H.R. 1491.
The bill's preamble dramatizes the haste with which the President's minions sought to railroad the bill through both Houses of Congress: "An Act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes. Be it enacted . . . that the Congress hereby declares that a serious emergency exists and that it is imperatively necessary speedily to put into effect remedies of uniform national application."20
In the House, Majority Leader Joseph W. Byrns, Democrat of Tennessee, asked for immediate consideration of the bill and that debate be limited to forty minutes, twenty minutes for each party. Mr. Byrns expressed the hope that under the peculiar circumstances and
under the serious circumstances which confront the country, we agree to take this bill up now, pass it, send it to the Senate so it may become a law this evening, and thus enable the President of the United States to open the banks tomorrow.21
Next rose House Minority Leader Bertrand H. Snell, Republican of New York. After noting that "it is entirely out of the ordinary to pass legislation in this House that, as far as I know, is not even in print at the time it is offered," Mr. Snell, in a burst of bipartisanship, observed:
The house is burning down, and the President of the United States says this is the way to put out the fire. [Applause.] And to me at this time there is only one answer to this question, and that is to give the President what he demands and says is necessary to meet the situation. I do not know that I am in favor of all the details carried in this bill,22 but whether I am or not, I am going to give the President of the United States today his way. He is the man responsible, and we must at this time follow his lead. I hope no one on this side of the aisle will object to the consideration of the request. [Applause]23
Someone then produced a copy of the bill, and it was read by the Clerk of the House.24 The bill was passed.25 After a short discussion, the spectacle of what had just transpired in the House in that hour-and-a-half session was best expressed by Congressman Lundeen:
Mr. LUNDEEN. Mr. Speaker, today the Chief Executive sent to this House of Representatives a banking bill for immediate enactment. The author of this bill seems to be unknown. No one has told us who drafted the bill. There appears to be a printed copy at the speakers desk, but no printed copies are available for the House Members. The bill has been driven through the House with cyclonic speed after 40 minutes debate, 20 minutes for the minority and 20 minutes for the majority.
I have demanded a roll call, but have been unable to get the attention of the Chair. Others have done the same, notably Congressman SINCLAIR of North Dakota, and Congressman BILL LEMKE, of North Dakota, as well as some of our other Farmer Labor Members. Fifteen men were standing, demanding a roll call, but that number is not sufficient; we therefore have the spectacle of the great House of Representatives of the United States of America passing, after a 40- minute debate, a bill its Members never read and never saw, a bill whose author is unknown. The great majority of the Members have been unable to get a minute's time to discuss this bill; we have been refused a roll call; and we have been refused recognition by the Chair. I do not mean to say that the Speaker of the House of Representatives intended to ignore us, but everything was in such a turmoil and there was so much excitement that we simply were not recognized.
I want to put myself on record against procedure of this kind and against the use of such methods in passing legislation affecting millions of lives and billions of dollars. It seems to me that under this bill thousands of small banks will be crushed and wiped out of existence, and that money and credit control will be still further concentrated in the hands of those who now hold the power.
It is safe to say that in normal times. after careful study of a printed copy and after careful debate and consideration, this bill would never have passed this House or any other House. Its passage could be accomplished only by rapid procedure, hurried and hectic debate, and a general rush for voting without roll call.
I believe in the House of Representatives. I believe in the power that was given us by the people. I believe that Congress is the greatest and most powerful body in America, and I believe that the people have vested in Congress their ultimate and final power in every great, vital question, and the Constitution bears me out in that.
I am suspicious of this railroading of bills through our House of Representatives, and I refuse to vote for a measure unseen and unknown.
I want the RECORD to show that I was, and am, against this bill and this method of procedure; and I believe no good will come out of it for America. We must not abdicate our power to exercise judgment. We must not allow ourselves to be swept off our feet by hysteria, and we must not let the power of the Executive paralyze our legislative action. If we do, it would be better for us to resign and go home-and save the people the salary they are paying us.
I look forward to that day when we shall read the bill we are considering, and see the author of the bill stand before the House and explain it, and then, after calm deliberation and sober judgment- after full and free debate-I hope to see sane and sensible legislation passed which will lift America out of this panic and disaster into which we were plunged by the World War.26
Neither "calm deliberation and sober judgment, nor "full and free debate" characterized what took place next in the Senate,27 where H.R. 1491-which affected "millions of lives and billions of dollars"-spent the afternoon with at least eighty United States Senators. Seventy-three of them voted "yea"28 and the bill, which had originated in the House at noon, passed the Senate by 7:30 P.M. Later that same night, Roosevelt approved it and H.R. 1491 became the Emergency Banking Act.29
Fundamentally, the Act accomplished three things. First, it retroactively approved the President's illegal action of March 6, 1933.30 (If Roosevelt had thought himself to be on solid legal ground when he closed the banks, one could ask why he thought it necessary to go to Congress in the first place. This legislative "rubber stamp" approach to past and future executive action would be used more than once in the months ahead.)
Second, it amended section 5(b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, to provide that:
During time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or otherwise, investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit between or payments by banking institutions as defined by the President, and exporting, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency, by any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof; and the President may require any person engaged in any transaction referred to in this subdivision to furnish under oath, complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed. Whoever willfully violates any of the provisions of this subdivision or of any license, order, rule of regulation issued thereunder, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both, and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both. As used in this subdivision the term "person" means an individual, partnership, association, or corporation.31
Finally, it added a new subsection (n) to the Federal Reserve Act, giving the Secretary of the Treasury virtually unfettered discretion to compel holders of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates to surrender them to the Treasurer of the United States, and to accept paper money instead.32
Ironically, while the Act ostensibly reflected Congress' alleged concern with gold withdrawals, Congress itself took no action at all. Instead, consonant with the remarks on the floor of each House, Congress gave the President sole authority to regulate all banks and financial transactions in general, and everything concerning gold in particular (with the Secretary of the Treasury acting as his "Requisitioner-in-Waiting"). And more: Roosevelt's new powers far surpassed those granted President Wilson by the World War I Trading with the Enemy Act; Roosevelt's authority extended beyond "time of war" to "any other period of national emergency declared by the President." Needless to say, just as the Act contained no elaboration as to what the current "emergency" was, neither did it establish any criteria by which the President was to ascertain the existence of any emergency-an omission which was to prove crucially important to future presidents-and to future owners of gold.
Cashing In on the "Emergency": Confiscation
Passage of the Emergency Banking Act on March 9 did not end that day's hectic activities. Still later that night, under the authority given him only several hours earlier, Roosevelt issued a new Proclamation. This one continued, in full force and effect, "until further proclamation by the President," the provisions of his March 6, 1933 bank holiday Proclamation33 and the regulations and orders which had been issued thereunder.34 However, a last loophole remained to be plugged: many individuals still had gold in their possession and no requisition had yet been made by the Government. Something had to be done to keep the gold where the Government could get at it when the time came. Accordingly, the next day, March 10, under the authority of the Emergency Banking Act and "all other authority vested in me," Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6073.31 In addition to authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to decide which of the nation's banks could open, the order prohibited owners of gold from exporting or otherwise removing it "from the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof. . . except in accordance with regulations prescribed by or under license issued by the Secretary of the Treasury."36
Given this frozen state of financial affairs, the President could now turn his attention to what earlier he had deprecatingly referred to as "hoarding"-i.e., the holding of gold by the people who owned it. It took Roosevelt a month. Acting under the authority he thought had been given him by the Emergency Banking Act, the President, on April 5, 1933, issued Executive Order No. 6l02.37 Its title clearly discloses how Roosevelt intended to deal with "hoarding": "Executive Order Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates." There were exceptions to this general prohibition: every American could retain a maximum of one hundred dollars in gold coin and gold certificates, rare coins were excepted altogether, and reasonable amounts of gold could be retained for use in industry and the arts. Banks, however, were required to turn over gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates "owned or received by them," to the Federal Reserve Bank. This included not only gold owned by the banks, but also gold owned by their depositors. In short, on or before May 1, 1933, all privately owned gold in the United States (subject to a few minor exceptions) was to be confiscated by the Government. As compensation, the owners were to receive paper money, whether they liked it or not.38 Willful failure to submit to the confiscation was punishable by up to ten years in jail and/or up to a $10,000 fine.39
During the next two months, additional steps were taken to implement the government's confiscatory policy. On April 19, the Secretary of the Treasury advised that, until further notice, no further licenses would be granted to export gold for the purpose of supporting the dollar in foreign exchange.40 On April 20, the President went one giant step further: he issued an Executive Order prohibiting the earmarking for foreign account, and the export, of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates, while, at the same time, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue licenses permitting such export under certain conditions.41 On April 29, the Secretary of the Treasury issued supplementary regulations relating to the Executive Orders of April 5 and 20, with respect to gold hoarding and the gold export embargo.42 Article 5, section 1, of those regulations provided that
any person showing the need for gold coin or gold bullion for a proper transaction not involving hoarding, or for gold coin or gold bullion for purposes specified in the Executive Order of April 5 1933, and not covered by the foregoing Articles of these regulations may make application to the Secretary of the Treasury for a license to purchase, or if such coin or bullion is already in his possession to retain such coin or bullion.43
However, just the day before, on April 28, Acting Secretary of the Treasury Ballantine had established a precondition for all applicants: first, the gold had to be turned in. This precondition was, of course, couched in more legalistic terminology:
Until further notice the Secretary of the Treasury will grant no licenses for the acquisition of gold, gold coin, or bullion by persons making application for the same under the Executive order of April 5, 1933, for the purpose of meeting maturing obligations calling for payment in gold coin or bullion, within the United States or else- where, except where such applicants have surrendered gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates in obedience to the Executive order of April 5, l933.44
How to Impair the Obligation of Contracts and Get Away With It
The "proper transactions" and "maturing obligations calling for payment in gold" which the Treasury Department was coyly alluding to, involved what was known as 'gold clause contracts." These were agreements, quite common at the time, pursuant to which payment was to be made in gold. Needless to say, there were payments coming due in gold under these contracts every day all over America. Now that the government controlled the ownership of gold, how were these contracts to be performed? Were the contract obligers to be the "applicants" in question? In theory, perhaps, but not in practice. Under the regulations of April 29, it seemed that one might obtain a license from the Treasury and thus legally possess gold required for the contract performance. But no matter what the regulations implied, Acting Secretary Ballantine had announced that no one would receive a license until he had first surrendered his gold.45 Moreover, how could the Treasury grant licenses even to persons who did surrender their gold, in the face of official policy which sought to establish a virtual government monopoly on all the gold in America?
Accordingly, to solve this particular problem, the administration promptly prevailed on Congress to wipe out all obligations to pay in gold. The Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933 speaks for itself:
Whereas the holding of or dealing in gold affect the public interest, and are therefore subject to proper regulation and restriction; and
Whereas the existing emergency has disclosed that provisions of obligations which purport to give the obligee a right to require payment in gold or a particular kind of currency of the United States, or in an amount in money of the United States measured thereby, obstruct the power of the Congress to regulate the value of the money of the United States, and are inconsistent with the declared policy of the Congress to maintain at all times the equal power of every dollar, coined or issued by the United States, in the markets and in payment of debts.
Now, therefore, be it resolved that (a) every provision contained in or made with respect to any obligation which purports to give the obligee a right to require payment in gold or a particular kind of coin or currency or an amount in dollars of the United States measured thereby, is declared to be against public policy; and no such provision shall be contained in or made with respect to any obligation hereafter incurred. Every obligation, heretofore or hereafter incurred, whether or not any such provision is contained therein or made with respect thereto shall be discharged upon payment, dollar for dollar, in any coin or currency which at the time of payment is legal tender for public and private debts.46
In short, because of the alleged but unspecified "emergency," all voluntary, private agreements to pay and to be paid in gold-past, present, and future-were declared against "public policy," and gold was no longer a medium of exchange between private individuals.
An Embarrassing Slip-Up
Roosevelt's next Executive Order on the subject of gold was necessitated by a critical error he had made in an earlier Order (the Executive Order of April 5, l933),47 which had been promulgated under the authority granted him in the Emergency Banking Act of March 9. While it was true that the Act had given Roosevelt broad powers, those powers existed only "[d]uring time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President . . . ."48 However, despite the Administration's apparent preoccupation with the alleged, but as yet unspecified, "emergency," when Roosevelt had issued his April 5 Executive Order, he forgot to declare that an emergency even existed! Eventually, however, someone must have noticed the omission, because, on August 28, Roosevelt promulgated a new Executive Order which was, and is, one of the two main props of the gold prohibition:49 it resurrected the fiction of a "national emergency," (although once again the Order failed to mention what that emergency was): it revoked the earlier Executive Orders of April 5 and 20, 1933; and it tied together in one neat package everything that Roosevelt had done up to that time with regard to private ownership of gold. For example: section 3 required information returns to be filed by anyone owning or possessing gold; section 4 authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to grant licenses authorizing the acquisition of gold; section 5 prohibited ownership or possession of gold except under license and provided for the requisition of all privately held gold in America; and section 10 made willful violation of the Order "or of any license, order, rule, or regulation issued or prescribed" under the Order a criminal offense punishable by up to ten years in prison and/or up to a $10,000 fine.50
A Boston University law professor of the day eloquently summed up the dubious "accomplishments" of the New Deal's gold manipulations:
March 6, 1933, began that complex sequence . . . of correlated proclamations, messages, declarations, resolutions, enactments, authorizations, embargoes, inhibitions, repeals, amendments, executive and departmental orders, regulations and requisitions, through which the President and Congress are dealing with the national emergency. The first great thing to be profoundly changed was the money of the people. Gold has been nationalized, that is, the national treasury has seized as its own all the privately treasured gold coins and bullion it could lay hands on, as well as the circulating certificates of gold deposits. Gold, the king of coinage, is a prisoner, locked up within bars of bullion and carefully guarded. No gold will be paid upon presentation and demand at the Treasury. No more gold coins are to be struck. A new felony has been created, merely having gold money, now termed hoarding and considered dishonest. A new legal tender dollar has been established. The dollar standard of the founders has been revalorized, that is, the actual value has been cut down, but the denominational and legal value for paying old debts remains; further inflation is indicated as quite certain to come: silver coinage and greenback issues are in the works, express provisions of statutes now inhibit the enforcement of otherwise legal obligations to pay in specie dollars or their equivalent in legal tender, the Statute of 1869 pledging the Nation's faith always to pay national debts in standard gold is repealed and the pledges made under it repudiated: we're off the gold standard; many think we're off the ethic standard.51
As indeed we were. The New Deal had given birth to a new class of felons: individuals with the temerity to deny that the Government had a right to confiscate their gold.
The New Deal Takes a Rebel to Court
The first American who was indicted for the "crime" of owning gold, and who rebelled against the notion that he was a felon for doing so, was a lawyer named Frederick Barber Campbell. If the President thought that all of the various regulations, Executive and Congressional, were on solid legal ground, the Campbell case52 would soon prove him wrong.
In October of 1932 and January of 1933 Campbell had deposited twenty-seven bars of gold bullion with Chase National Bank for safekeeping. Chase had agreed in writing to act as bailee, for a fee, and return the bars to Campbell on demand. Then came the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933 and the various decrees discussed above. On September 13, 1933, Chase's assistant cashier informed Campbell that, pursuant to regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury, the bank was obliged to file, in connection with Campbell's gold, a return with the Government no later than September 18, and that Campbell himself was required to file such a return. The bank also called Campbell's attention "to Section No.5 of the President's Order, reciting that after thirty days from the date of the Order we shall be required to surrender [to the Government] any gold in our possession not covered by a license, as set forth in that Section."53 On September 16, two days before the final day to file returns, Campbell, in writing, demanded that Chase deliver the gold bars to him. On September 18, the bank declined, stating its belief that under the April 5, April 20, and August 28, 1933 Executive Orders it was prohibited from doing so. Less than two weeks later, on September 26, Campbell filed an equity complaint against Chase in the Southern District of New York for specific performance of the contract of bailment, and seeking an injunction pendente lite against delivery of his gold to anyone but him.
Two days later it was the Government's turn. On September 28, the grand jury for the Southern District returned a one-count indictment against Campbell, charging him with failure to file the return due on or before September 18, 1933. The defendant demurred, alleging that the Emergency Banking Act was unconstitutional insofar as it purported to affect the private ownership of gold, and that Roosevelt's executive action taken thereunder was thus without authority and invalid.
In response, on October 5 the grand jury filed a superseding indictment, this time containing two counts. The first, for failure to file, the second, for owning, without license, on September 28, 1933, and up to the time of the indictment, $200,000.00 worth of gold bullion. Campbell again demurred on the same grounds, and, undeterred, on October 17 he sued the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in a civil action. In this action, Campbell sought an injunction to prevent his prosecution on the superseding indictment or any other indictment brought under the Emergency Banking Act and the regulations issued thereunder.
All of this litigation came on before Judge Woolsey, who rendered his decision on November 16. First, he turned to the equity cases, because, he said, "their inherent infirmities enable them to be disposed of on grounds not involving the constitutional question raised herein."54 As to the bailment action against Chase, the court held there was no federal subject-matter jurisdiction and dismissed Campbell's complaint. As to Campbell's action to enjoin the United States Attorney from prosecuting, Judge Woolsey dismissed it for lack of equity. Among his other reasons, he observed that "Campbell has raised the constitutional question here involved in the criminal case by his demurrers, and that question can be decided as well there . . . .''55
Once these two issues were out of the way, the court turned to the constitutional question. Woolsey recognized that Campbell's demurrer to the superseding indictment raised the following questions:
Did Congress have power under the Constitution to pass title I of the Act of March 9, 1933? [i.e.. the arrogation of power issue]
If Congress did have that power, did it exercise it in the proper manner by declaring a policy and delegating to the President, in section 2, and to the Secretary of the Treasury, in section 3, respectively, the power of making regulations under the said sections? [i.e., the delegation issue, which led to formulation of the "emergency" rationale]
If the manner in which Congress exercised its power was constitutional, were the executive orders made by the President and the regulations pursuant thereto of the Secretary of the Treasury on which the prosecution of the defendant is founded, within the authority granted to the President by Congress in Section 2 of title I of the Act of March 9, 1933?
If the executive orders were within the authority given by Congress to the President, was that authority exercised in such a manner as not to violate any of the defendant's constitutional rights?56
Judge Woolsey answered the first question affirmatively. Because gold was a "commodity affected with a public interest as a potential source of currency or credit," Congress could, "when it considers that the national exigency demands control of gold . . . control gold in such a manner and to such extent as it deems to be advisable, provided always that it does not violate the personal constitutional privileges of citizens."57 Thus, Congress was held to have the power to pass section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933. As to section 3, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to requisition gold, the court, (after a lengthy discussion of eminent domain) held this to be "a valid exercise by Congress of a power necessarily incidental to its currency power."58
Campbell had argued that Congress, in the Act, did not itself legislate, but instead had improperly delegated to Roosevelt the power to legislate. Judge Woolsey disagreed because: "[T]his act meets all the requirements 'of legislation by Congress on the subject- matter involved, for it stated a policy, to be contingently followed, and also provided the plasticity necessary in the enforcement of that policy by the delegation of regulating power in the held covered by the policy."59 Thus, the court upheld the Act's delegation, to the President and Secretary of the Treasury, under sections 2 and 3, of Congressional regulatory and requisitioning powers over gold:
I, therefore, hold that the method by which Congress, both in section 2 and section 3 of title of the Act of March 9, 1933. chose to exercise the aspect of its currency power here under consideration was a proper legislative exercise of that power accompanied by a proper delegation to the executive as to the time and manner of the exercise thereof.60
In considering Campbell's contention that Roosevelt's executive orders were not authorized by section 2 of the Act, the court first summarized the Act's rationale this way:
Congress has constituted two mandatories whose mandates are complementary, but mutually exclusive.
In section 2, the President is given the authority to require returns from hoarders of gold bullion, and to investigate, regulate, or prohibit the hoarding thereof.
In section 3, the Secretary of the Treasury has authority to requisition gold bullion owned by any person or corporation, and, on surrender thereof to the Treasury, to pay there for in a prescribed fashion.
Thus, if I may so express it, the President's mandate is to act in personam as to those who own, possess, or deal in gold bullion, and the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to act in rem on the gold itself.61
As to the President's authority under section 2 of the Act to require the filing of returns (pursuant to section 3 of his August 28 Executive Order) Judge Woolsey found Roosevelt's authority "unimpeachable. The statute is explicit, and the executive order does not go outside the mandate of the statute."62
A Resounding-But Incomplete- Victory for the Government
However, notwithstanding how much he had already validated, Judge Woolsey felt quite differently about the regulation made by section 5 of Roosevelt's August 28 Executive Order, which prohibited ownership or possession of gold after thirty days from the date of the Order.
I think it is clear that the persons who drafted that executive order for the President's signature went outside the Congressional mandate of section 2 of title I of the Act of March 9, 1933, which gave the President authority to investigate, regulate, or prohibit- under such rules and regulations as he might prescribe by means of licenses or otherwise-inter alia the hoarding of gold bullion.63
The court thus recognized that authority to regulate or prohibit hoarding was not tantamount to authority to require, per section 5, that owners of gold yield up their interest therein and title thereto. "That requirement is neither a regulation nor a prohibition, but a requisition."64 Despite this conclusion, Judge Woolsey was not striking a blow for the freedom of private gold ownership. On the contrary, he was reasoning in a manner entirely consistent with his basic premise that the government did indeed possess the power to prohibit private ownership of gold. For his objection was not to the principle of confiscation, but to who was to do the confiscating and whether some compensation would be available to the victims.
It must always be remembered that the power to requisition gold bullion delegated by Congress was lodged only in the Secretary of the Treasury under section 3 of title I of the Act of March 9, 1933, and not in the President under section 2 thereof, and that the Secretary of the Treasury has not acted yet under the powers so given to him which I have above found to have been inherent in the currency power of Congress.65
In other words, private gold could be confiscated, but by the Secretary of the Treasury, not by the President.
What also bothered Judge Woolsey was the quandary a gold owner was placed in if he surrendered his gold pursuant to section 5 at the behest of the President rather than the Secretary of the Treasury. Since the President was not authorized by Congress to requisition gold, presumably the Government would thus not have made any implied promise to pay compensation for it. On the other hand, if the owner refused to surrender his gold to the President, he faced up to ten years in jail and/or up to a $10,000 fine. Judge Woolsey did not think it fair for a gold owner "[t]o lose his gold [without payment] if he complies and to be imprisoned and fined if he does not . . . ."66 He concluded, therefore, that section 5 of the Executive Order of August 28, 1933 was confiscatory-not because the gold was taken, but because it was taken by one who was under no duty to give even paper money in return. The court concluded
that, by section 5 of the Executive Order of August 28, 1933, the President stepped outside of the zone of the mandate given to him by Congress in section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, to investigate, regulate, or prohibit the hoarding of gold bullion, and into the zone of his fellow mandatory, the Secretary of the Treasury, because he provided by section 5 of his said executive order for what is, in effect, the requisition of gold bullion either as incidental to a prohibition against the hoarding thereof or as a means of insuring the enforcement of such prohibition. Section 5 of the Executive Orders of August 28, 1933, is, therefore, invalid.67
Campbell's demurrer to the second count of the indictment was sustained and that count dismissed.
That left count one: Campbell's failure to file the return. After deciding that the word "hoarding" was sufficiently definite for purposes of the indictment, and that Campbell's right not to incriminate himself was not violated by his having to file a return, the court overruled the demurrer as to the first count.
The net result of Campbell, therefore, was to validate passage of the Act of March 9, 1933, by which Congress had arrogated a constitutionally nonexistent money power; to validate the congressional delegation of power to the President (which, in turn, led to Roosevelt's "emergency rationale"); and to validate section 3 of his Order of August 28,1933, requiring the filing of returns. Roosevelt's requisition of gold under the August 28,1933 order, which, the court held, should have been made by the Secretary of the Treasury, was invalidated.68
Acting to turn Judge Woolsey's decision into a total victory, on December 28, a month after the Campbell decision, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., issued an order requisitioning most private gold in America.69 This requisition order was the final step in the government's ten-month effort to terminate private gold ownership in America.
The Gold Reserve Act: More Confiscation and Some Reassurance Regarding Past Actions
In his January 15, 1934 message to Congress, Roosevelt requested the enactment of additional gold legislation. Because, he said, "[there remains . . . a very large weight in gold bullion and coins which is still in the possession or control of the Federal Reserve Banks," the President asked that "Congress by specific enactment . . . vest in the United States Government title to all supplies of American owned monetary gold ."70
Once again, as had happened with the Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, the Gold Reserve Act71 was railroaded through Congress,72 though not without opposition:
Mr. McGUGIN. You, my Democratic friends who now are so anxious to rush this bill through, will sit here and vote blindly to ratify something you know nothing about. You may do so if you wish, but if you do, it is a confession on the part of Congress of its own inability to legislate intelligently. In the next place, ratifying all these orders is an utterly useless thing to do. The last one of these orders was issued pursuant to legislation in which we gave the President or Secretary of the Treasury wide authority in these matters.
If they exceeded their authority, full ratification at this time would not better the situation any. If they issued orders contrary to the Constitution, such ratification as we might make at this time would serve no purpose. All in the world there is to this section is that it is an effort to force Congress to pass a resolution, so to speak, blindly approving whatever the President and Secretary of the Treasury have done.
I voted last spring to give power to the Executive to meet the then emergency, but now, when Congress is called upon to ratify regulations when Congress does not know what regulations have been made, I refuse to go along. I insist that such procedure is not in keeping with parliamentary government.73
However, despite such fears about Roosevelt and Morgenthau having exceeded their authority and perhaps having issued orders contrary to the Constitution, the Gold Reserve Act was approved on January 30, 1934. Three sections of the Act are of particular interest.
Section 2 summarily accomplished the take-over of the Federal Reserve gold:
[A]ll right, title, and interest and every claim of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, of every Federal Reserve Bank, and of every Federal Reserve Agent, in and to any and all gold coin and gold bullion shall pass to and be vested in the United States.74
Section 4 provided for the forfeiture of any gold dealt with in a manner violative of the Act, and for a civil penalty of twice the value of the gold involved in the violation.
Section 13 brought out the old rubber stamp again, in a trans- parent attempt to put the congressional seal of approval on all of Roosevelt's past machinations:
All actions, regulations, rules, orders, and proclamations heretofore taken, promulgated, made, or issued by the President of the United States or the Secretary of the Treasury, under the Act of March 9, 1933, or under section 43 or section 45 of title III of the Act of May 12, 1933[75] are hereby approved, ratified, and confirmed.76
The Gold Reserve Act made the Government's gold monopoly complete. It also supplied Roosevelt with the sanction he thought he needed to legitimize his "emergency." But a question-unstated, yet lurking beneath the surface of the morass of gold regulations and prohibitions-was left unanswered. What would happen to the rights (and liabilities) of gold-starved Americans when the Roosevelt administration came to an end-and with it, the Roosevelt-declared emergency of 1933?
The Endless Emergency: New Hands at Old Tricks
It was during the administration of Roosevelt's former Vice President, Harry S. Truman, that North Korea attacked South Korea. The day was June 25, 1950; the event, presumably a military one, having nothing to do with such economic issues as banking, foreign exchange, or transactions in gold. The Korean hostilities did, however, prompt President Truman to issue, on December 16, 1950 a Proclamation declaring the existence of a "national emergency" because: "[R]ecent events in Korea and elsewhere constitute a grave threat to the peace of the world and imperil the efforts of this country and those of the United Nations to prevent aggression and armed conflict . . . . "77 That Truman was addressing himself to a military emergency could not have been clearer.
Presidents Eisenhower78 and Kennedy79 each confirmed the continued existence of the Truman-declared national emergency-an emergency prompted, they readily admitted, by the threat of international Communism.
An American named Harold G. Bauer not unreasonably came to the conclusion that the military emergencies of the Truman and Eisenhower administrations could not be equated with the alleged 1933 economic emergency of the Roosevelt administration. Bauer, therefore, felt free to acquire some gold bullion-an action which promptly got him indicted. Convicted of the "crime" of possessing gold bullion, Bauer appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.80
The court framed the issue succinctly: "[Bauer's] acts were criminal if Executive Order No.6260 [of August 28,1933], as amended, was still in effect on . . . [February 12, 1954, the date of the alleged commission of the offense]."81
It was Bauer's contention that since neither a ware nor an economic emergency existed, Roosevelt's Executive Order had long since died a natural death. The Government did not choose to meet this argument, contending, instead, that the court lacked the power to take judicial notice of whether Roosevelt's economic emergency-or any other-had ceased to exist.82
The circuit court was clearly sympathetic to Bauer's argument:
It seems vital as a matter of national policy that emergency regulations and almost dictatorial powers granted or conceded in the turmoil of war, cold war, economic revolution, and the struggle to preserve a balanced democratic way of life, should be discarded upon return to normal conditions, lest we grow used to them as the fittings of ordinary existence. Executive regulations drafted and confirmed for an emergency should expire with the emergency. There will be time enough to revivify these if another emergency require and Congress be willing. Of course, if it seems essential to continue the subject matter of these criminal regulations now. Congress can so declare. But the power lies in Congress.83
Nevertheless, because it was unwilling to conclude, as a matter of law, that no emergency existed which could justify the continued validity of the criminal sanctions of Executive Order No.6260, and because, as an appellate court, it possessed "no jurisdiction or facilities for taking evidence,"84 the court remanded to the trial court below, "with directions to consider the matters here presented, with power to vacate the judgment, grant a new trial and take evidence or any other action in the light of this opinion."85
Bauer raised the question of whether the Government, in its zeal to retain its gold monopoly, would continue to attack gold ownership on the grounds that the Roosevelt emergency had not expired. The question was answered in United States v. Briddle and Mitchell.86 The Government, which had indicted the defendants for possessing gold bullion, this time argued in the alternative: either the 1933 emergency still existed, or "new" and sufficient emergencies had been created by Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy-by virtue of such diverse developments as the Korean war, Communist imperialism, and/or a balance of payments deficit. In other words, owning gold would always be taboo, because the Government would never run out of pretexts for declaring the existence of some emergency or other-endlessly and ad infinitum.
The trial court in Briddle and Mitchell did what the appellate court in Bauer had declined to do: it took judicial notice of the fact "that the 1933 economic emergency ended long before 1962,"87 and it noted, in passing, that Roosevelt's order "has not even the color of legal validity stemming from Congressional delegation of war powers."88
Taking into account the Government's endless emergency rationale, Judge Mathes observed:
The Government urges, however, that it should be given an opportunity to present evidence that a "national emergency", sufficient to sustain the validity of Executive Order No.6260, now exists by virtue of our present balance-of payments abroad deficit. This would be a futile procedure, since the President admittedly has not made the declaration which the statute requires.
Finally, the Government argues that a "national emergency" has been declared, both by President Eisenhower and by President Kennedy, which will sustain the validity of Executive Order No. 6260, and so the penal provisions of the statute. It is so pointed out that on December 1, 1960, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order No. 10896 [25 Fed. Reg. 12281 (1960)] proclaiming that, in light of the continued existence of the emergency declared in Proclamation No.2914 [15 Fed. Reg. 9092 (1950)], Executive Order No. 6260 and the gold regulations issued thereunder "are hereby approved, ratified and affirmed and shall continue in full force and effect . . ."; also that on January 17, 1961, President Kennedy issued a similar Order (Executive Order No. 10905, 26 Fed. Reg. 321(1961)] which also made reference to Proclamation No.2914.
It may well be, as the Government contends, that each of these Executive Orders, and more especially the latter, was directed primarily against the recent outflow of gold. But rather than declaring the existence of an economic emergency necessitating Executive Order No.6260, each is based upon Proclamation No.2914, which was President Truman's declaration of a national emergency due to the Korean war and Communist imperialism.89
Unable to restrain himself from pointing out the obvious, Judge Mathes noted:
The Korean hostilities have long since ended. And while Communist imperialism continues to pose a threat to the nation, the existence of that struggle-that "national emergency" [12 U.S.C. § 95a]-cannot serve to prolong until almost 30 years later "The Great Depression" of 1933.90
Finally, Judge Mathes, exercising in magnificent fashion, his proper function as judicial guardian of the Constitution, held:
To hold that the existence of Communist imperialism authorizes the criminal provisions here in issue would be to condone the methods of the enemy. For if the President of the United States be permitted to create crimes by fiat and ukase without Constitutional authority or Congressional mandate, there is little to choose between their system and ours.
The years since the 1933 enactment of 12 U.S.C. § 95a have seen wholesale abdication of power by the Congress to the President. It is not the function of the Judicial Department to sit in judgment upon the wisdom of that trend, but it is both the function and duty of the courts to hold the exercise of delegated Congressional powers strictly within the confines prescribed by the Congress. A multo fortiori so, where the Congress delegates to the Executive the power to make criminal what was theretofore lawful.91
The judicial tables had been turned on the Government. Its "endless emergency" rationale had been repudiated, its indictments dismissed, and,92 in the Southern District of California, for the moment at least, "The Great Depression of 1933" had officially ended.
If at First You Don't Succeed
But the Government, undaunted, continued to ride herd on gold owners. After all, the Briddle and Afitchell decision was limited to a district court, and it was one judge's opinion. There were other judges, other courts, other jurisdictions-and other rationales besides the "endless emergency. ' In United States v. One Solid Gold Object in Form of a Rooster,93 for example, the Government tried [albeit unsuccessfully] to confiscate a 206 troy ounce, eighteen karat gold rooster-the symbol of a Nevada casino's "Golden Rooster Room"-on the ground that possession of it violated the Gold Reserve Act.
And in Pike and Brouwer V. United States,94 the Government, finding itself once more in the Southern District of California (but not before Judge Mathes), once again trotted out the "endless emergency" rationale and succeeded in getting a conviction. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit (the same appellate court which had remanded the Bauer case), composed of judges different from those who had sat in Bauer eight years earlier, was unsympathetic to the plight of the convicted gold owners whose appeal it was considering. While the court (and, incidentally, the Government) conceded that Roosevelt's 1933 "emergency" was indeed over, it nevertheless held that "[T]he power conferred upon the President by . . . [the Emergency Banking Act] was not confined to the 1933 banking crisis, but extends to any national emergency proclaimed by the President."95
Since Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy had proclaimed a continuing emergency because of the threat of international Communism, Executive Order No.6260 was still viable and, accordingly, the convictions were affirmed.
It is interesting to note that while in Pike and Brou'ver the Ninth Circuit expressly disavowed the holding in Briddle and Mitchell, (a district court under its jurisdiction), it lacked the courage expressly to disavow its own dictum in Bauer, wherein it had stated:
Executive regulations drafted and confirmed for an emergency should expire with the emergency. There will be time enough to revivify these if another emergency require and Congress be willing Of course, if it seems essential to continue the subject matter of these criminal regulations now, Congress can so declare. But the power lies in Congress.96
The Law Today
The precedent established in Pike and Brouwer remains the law of the land-at least in the Ninth Circuit-at the present time No other court of comparable jurisdiction has ruled otherwise on the validity of the criminal sanctions against Americans who own gold. As things stand now, an American who owns gold is courting a felony conviction. Moreover, under the Gold Reserve Act, all the gold he owns is subject to forfeit while he, himself, is subject to a penalty double in amount to the value of the gold.
The Supreme Court of the United States has yet to rule on the twin issues of congressional arrogation of a money power, as it relates to the regulation of gold, and congressional delegation of that power to the President.97 In other words, the Supreme Court has never ruled on whether Americans can be prohibited from owning gold.
If and when the High Court is given an opportunity to do so, it is to be hoped that the Court will recognize (as most lower courts have not) the danger of permitting the Government (Congress or the President) to prohibit Americans from owning gold. In the words of monetary economist Charles Rist: "It is certain that nothing so facilitates the seizure of all activities by the government as its liberty of action in monetary matters."98
And if the Court were to wonder why the government has struggled, so long and so deviously, to establish and hold onto its gold monopoly, economist Rist has revealed the Government's real motive. Referring to those "partisans of paper money [who] have disorganized the entire price system by deprecating paper" and then proclaimed "the capacity of governments to direct money and insure its stability," Rist observes that
In reality, those theoreticians dislike monetary stability, because they dislike the fact that by means of money the individual may escape the arbitrariness of the government . . . . If the partisans of paper money really desire[d] monetary stability, they would not oppose so vehemently the reintroduction of the only system that has ever insured it, which is the system of the gold standard.99
APPENDIX I
Executive Order
RELATING TO THE HOARDING, EXPORT, AND EARMARKING OF GOLD COIN, BULLION, OR CURRENCY AND TO TRANSACTIONS IN FOREIGN EXCHANGE
By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 5(b) of the act of October 6, 1917, as amended by section 2 of the act of March 9, 1933, entitled "An act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking and for other purposes ', I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, do declare that a period of national emergency exists, and by virtue of said authority and of all other authority vested in me, do hereby prescribe the following provisions for the investigation and regulation of the hoarding, earmarking, and export of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates by any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and for the investigation and regulation of transactions in foreign exchange and transfers of credit and the export or withdrawal of currency from the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof by any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
SEC. 2. DFFINITION5.-As used in this order the term "person" means an individual, partnership, association, or corporation, and the "term United States" means the United States and any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof.
SEC. 3. RETURNS.-Within 15 days from the date of this order every person in possession of and every person owning gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates shall make under oath and file as hereinafter provided a return to the Secretary of the Treasury containing true and complete information relative thereto, including the name and address of the person making the return, the kind and amount of such coin, bullion, or certificates held and the location thereof, if held for another, the capacity in which held and the person for whom held, together with the post-omce address of such person,' and the nature of the transaction requiring the holding of such coin, bullion, or certificates and a statement explaining why such transaction cannot be carried out by the use of currency other than gold certificates,' provided that no returns are required to be filed with respect to-
(a) Gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100 belonging to any one person.'
(b) Gold coin having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coin,'
(c) Gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates acquired or held under a license heretofore granted by or under authority of the Secretary of the Treasury, and
(d) Gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by Federal Reserve banks.
Such return required to be made by an individual shall be filed with the collector of internal revenue for the collection district in which such individual resides, or, if such individual has no legal residence in the United States, then with the collector of internal revenue at Baltimore, Md. Such return required to be made by a partner ship, association, or corporation shall be filed with the collector of internal revenue of the collection district in which is located the principal place of business or principal office or agency of such partnership, association, or corporation, or, if it has no principal place of business or principal office or agency in the United States, then with the collector of internal revenue at Baltimore, Md. Such return required to be made by an individual residing in Alaska shall be filed with the collector of internal revenue at Seattle, Wash. Such return required to be made by a partnership, association, or corporation having its principal place of business or principal office or agency in Alaska shall be filed with the collector of internal revenue at Seattle, Wash.
The Secretary of the Treasury may grant a reasonable extension of time for filing a return, under such rules and regulations as he shall prescribe. No such extension shall be for more than 45 days from the date of this Executive order. An extension granted hereunder shall be deemed a license to hold for a period ending 15 days after the expiration of the extension.
The returns required to be made and filed under this section shall constitute public records,' but they shall be open to public inspection only upon order of' the President and under rules and regulations prescribed by the Secretary, of the Treasury.
A return made and filed in accordance with this section by the owner of' the gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates described therein, or his duly authoured agent, shall be deemed an application for the issuance under section 5 hereof of a license to hold such coin, bullion, and certificates.
SEC. 4, ACQUISITION OF GOLD COIN AND GOLD BULLION.- No person other than a Federal Reserve bank shall after the date of this order acquire in the United States any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates except under license therefor issued pursuant to this Executive order, provided that member banks of the Federal Reserve System may accept delivery of such coin, bullion, and certificates for surrender promptly to a Federal Reserve bank, and provided further that persons requiring gold for use in the industry, profession, or art in which they are regularly, engaged may replenish their stocks of gold up to an aggregate amount of $100, by acquisitions of gold bullion held under licenses issued under section 5(b), without necessity of obtaining a license for such acquisitions.
The Secretary of the Treasury, subject to such further regulations as he may prescribe, shall issue licenses authorizing the acquisition of-
(a) Gold coin or gold bullion which the Secretary is satisfied is required for a necessary and lawful transaction for which currency other than gold certificates cannot be used, by an applicant who establishes that since March 9, 1933, he has surrendered an equal amount of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates to a banking institution in the continental United States or to the Treasurer of the United States;
(b) Gold coin or gold bullion which the Secretary is satisfied is required by an applicant who holds a license to export such an amount of gold coin or gold bullion issued under subdivisions (c) or (d) of section 6 hereof, and
(c) Gold bullion which the Secretary, or such agency as he may designate, is satisfied is required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession, or art by an applicant regularly engaged in such industry, profession, or art, or in the business of furnishing gold therefor.
Licenses issued pursuant to this section shall authorize the holder to acquire gold coin and gold bullion only from the sources specified by the Secretary of the Treasury in regulations issued hereunder,
SEC, 5, HOLDING OF GOLD COIN, GOLD BULLION, AND GOLD CERTIFICATES,-After 30 days from the date of this order no person shall hold in his possession or retain any interest, legal or equitable, in any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates situated in the United States and owned by any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, except under license therefor issued pursuant to this Executive order; provided, however, that licenses shall not be required in order to hold in possession or retain an interest in gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates with respect to which a return need not be filed under section 3 hereof.
The Secretary of the Treasury, subject to such further regulations as he may prescribe, shall issue licenses authorizing the holding of-
(a) Gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates, which the Secretary is satisfied are required by the person owning the same for necessary and lawful transactions for which currency, other than gold certificates, cannot be used,'
(b) Gold bullion which the Secretary, or such agency as he may designate is satisfied is required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession, or art by a person regularly engaged in such industry, profession, or art or in the business of furnishing gold therefor;
(c) Gold coin and gold bullion earmarked or held in trust since before April 20, 1933, for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements', and
(d) Gold coin and gold bullion imported for reexport or held pending action upon application for export licenses,
SEC, 6. EARMARKING AND EXPORT OF GOLD COIN AND GOLD BULLION,-After the date of this order no person shall earmark or export any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates from the United States, except under license therefor issued by the Secretary of the Treasury pursuant to the provisions of this order.
The Secretary of the Treasury, in his discretion 3nd subject to such regulations as he may prescribe, may issue licenses authorizing-
(a) The export of gold coin or gold bullion earmarked or held in trust since before April 20, 1933, for a recognized foreign government, foreign central bank, or the Bank for International Settlements;
(b) The export of gold, (i) imported for reexport, (ii) refined from gold- bearing materials imported by the applicant under an agreement to export gold, or (iii) in bullion containing not more than 5 ounces of gold per ton,'
(c) The export of gold coin or gold bullion to the extent actually required for the fulfillment of a contract entered into by the applicant prior to April 20, I 933,' but not in excess of the amount of the gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates surrendered by the applicant on or after March 9, 1933, to a banking institution in the continental United States or to the Treasurer of the United States,' and
(d) The earmarking for foreign account and/or export of gold coin or gold bullion, with the approval of the President, for transactions which the Secretary of the Treasury may deem necessary to promote the public interest.
SEC, 7, UNITED STATES POSSESSIONS-SHIPMENTS THERETO.-The provisions of sections 3 and 5 of this order shall not apply to gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates which is situated in the Philippine Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands of the United States, and is owned by a person not domiciled in the continental United States. The provisions of section 4 shall not apply to acquisitions by persons within the Philippine Islands, American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, or the Virgin Islands of the United States of gold coin or gold bullion which has not been taken or sent thereto since April 5, 1933, from the continental United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
SEC, 8. Until further order, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized, through any agency that he may designate, to investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit from any banking institution within the United States to any foreign branch or office of such banking institution or to any foreign bank or banker, and the export or withdrawal of currency from the United States, by any person within the United States; and the Secretary of the Treasury may require any person engaged in any transaction referred to herein to furnish under oath complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters, or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person either before or after such transaction is completed.
SEC. 9. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to issue such regulations as he may deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. Such regulations may provide for the detention in the United States of any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates sought to be transported beyond the limits of the continental United States, pending an investigation to determine if such coin, bullion, or certificates are held or are to be acquired in violation of the provisions of this Executive order. Licenses and permits granted in accordance with the provisions of this order and the regulations prescribed hereunder, may be issued through such officers or agencies as the Secretary may designate.
SEC. 10. Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive order or of any license, order, rule, or regulation issued or prescribed hereunder, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.
SEC. 11. The Executive orders of April 5, 1933, forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates, and April 20, 1933, relating to foreign exchange and the earmarking and export of gold coin or bullion or currency, respectively, are hereby revoked. The revocation of such prior Executive orders shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued, or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to said revocation, but all liabilities under said Executive orders shall continue and may be enforced in the same manner as if said revocation had not been made. This Executive order and any regulations or licenses issued hereunder may be modified or revoked at any time.
APPENDIX II
Chronology of Major Actions with Respect to Gold Ownership from October 6, 1917 to July 20, 1962.
1. October 6, 1917: Enactment of Trading with the Enemy Act; Pres!dent receives power to regulate and/or prohibit transactions in gold.
2. September 24, 1918: Amendment of Trading with the Enemy Act: President receives power to prohibit hoarding of gold.
3. March 5, 1933: Presidential Proclamation No. 2038; convenes Congress on March 9, 1933.
4. March 6, 1933: Presidential Proclamation No.2039; bank holiday declared until March 9,1933.
5. March 9, 1933: Presidential message to Congress (H.R. Doc. No. I); requests passage of H.R. 1491, emergency banking legislation.
6. March 9, 1933: Enactment of Emergency Banking Act; approves bank holiday; delegates to President power to regulate and/or prohibit transactions in gold in time of war. or during any other national emergency declared by him; delegates to Secretary of the Treasury power to requisition gold.
7. March 9,1933: Presidential Proclamation No.2040; continues bank holiday.
8. March 10, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No.6073; authorizes Secretary of the Treasury to decide which banks can reopen; prohibits export of gold, except as allowed by Secretary of the Treasury.
9. March 18, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No.6080; authorizes appointment of bank conservators, if necessary to protect bank assets.
10. April 5, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No.6102; owners of gold required to turn it over to the Government in exchange for paper currency.
11. April 19, 1933: Secretary of the Treasury advises that until further notice no licenses will be granted for export of gold.
12. April 20, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No. 6111; prohibits earmarking for foreign account and the export of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates, but authorizes Secretary of the Treasury to issue licenses permitting such export under certain conditions.
13. April 29, 1933: Secretary of the Treasury issues regulations; persons needing gold for proper transactions not involving hoarding can apply for licenses; day before Acting Secretary of the Treasury announced no such licenses would be granted unless applicant had first surrendered his gold.
14. June 5, 1933: Joint Resolution of Congress declares gold clause contracts violate public policy and thus are void; action later upheld by Supreme Court in Norman v. Baltimore & O.R. Co., 294 U.S. 240 (1935).
15. August 28, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No. 6260; declares national emergency, revokes Executive Orders of April 5 and 20, 1933; requires filing of information returns; with certain minor exceptions, requires delivery of all domestically held private gold to Federal Reserve Banks; authorizes Secretary of the Treasury to license acquisition of gold: imposes stiff criminal penalties for violation of government gold policies.
16. August 29, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No, 6261: forces domestic gold producers to sell their output to Secretary of the Treasury, at price to be set by latter, for resale to those with gold licenses and/or foreign purchasers.
17. September 12, 1933: Secretary of the Treasury issues comprehensive regulations under Executive Orders of August 28 and 29, 1933.
18. October 25, 1933: Presidential Executive Order No, 6359: amends (in minor way) and revokes, respectively, Executive orders of August28 and 29, 1933: Treasury Department, to conform amends its regulations of September 12, 1933 accordingly.
19. November 16, 1933: United States District Court in New York upholds passage of Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, its delegation of power to the President, and Section 3 of his Executive Order of August 28, 1933 requiring returns to be filed: invalidated is Roosevelt's requisition of gold under the August 28, 1933 Executive Order, which the court holds should have been made by the Secretary of the Treasury. Campbell v. Chase Nat'l Bank, 5 F. Supp. 156 (S.D.N.Y. 1933).
20. December28, 1933: Secretary of the Treasury promulgates order requisitioning gold, setting deadline of midnight on January 1, 1934.
21. January 11, 1934: Secretary of the Treasury amends in minor respect a rare coin exception made in his December 28, 1933 order.
22. January 12, 1934: Presidential Executive Order No, 6556: amends in minor respect the Executive Order of August 28, 1933.
23. January 15, 1934: Presidential Executive Order No. 6560: makes minor changes regarding transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit, and the export of coins and currency.
24. January 15, 1934: Secretary of the Treasury directs mints and assay offices to receive gold newly mined in the United States on consignment for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: also supplements his order of December 28, 1933 by extending until midnight on January 17, 1934, the deadline for the surrender of gold in compliance with his order of December 28, 1933.
25. January 15, 1934: Presidential message to Congress: requests passage of additional gold legislation, vesting in the Government possession and title to all monetary gold in America.
26. January 17, 1934: Secretary of the Treasury instructs the Treasurer, mints, assay offices, and fiscal agents of the United States regarding gold not delivered to the Government before the midnight deadline.
27. January 17, 1934: Senate Banking and Currency Committee makes public the opinion of Attorney General Homer Cummings to the effect that the proposed new gold legislation is constitutional.
28. January 30, 1934: Gold Reserve Act approved: transfers to Government all gold of Federal Reserve System: gold coin ordered withdrawn from circulation and formed into bars: gold in any form to be acquired, transported, melted or treated, imported, exported, or earmarked or held in custody for foreign or domestic account only to the extent allowed by Treasury regulations issued under Act: Secretary of the Treasury issues provisional regulations.
29. January 31, 1934: Provisional Treasury regulations amended with regard to purchase and sale of gold by United States mints: also in regard to collectors of rare coins.
30. July 20, 1962: by Executive Order No. 11037, President John F. Kennedy prohibits Americans from owning gold outside the continental limits of the United States.
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Footnotes
* Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School; B.A., J.D., New York University.
The author wishes to thank Erika Holzer, of the New York Bar, for her exceptional contribution to this article.
The author also wishes to thank Harriet N. Cohen and William T. Schiffman, members of the Brooklyn Law Review, whose research assistance was invaluable in the article's preparation.
1 I.FLEMING.GOLDFINGER(1960).
2 Rist, The Price of Gold in the United States, L'OPINION,Feb. 15, 1951,at 138, reprinted as C. RIST, THE TRIUMPH OF GOLD(1961).
3 Barron's, May 31, 1971, at 9 reported that the value of certain gold coins had increased substantially over the prior three years. For example, in May, 1968, the U.S. "Double Eagle" had been selling at a premium of about 45% over the actual gold content of the coin, the official rate then being $35.00 per ounce. In May, 1971, the premium was 69%. In May, 1968, the German Mark piece had been selling at a 75% premium; in May, 1971, the premium was 175%. As to gold bullion, U.S. News & World Report, Sept.25, 1972, at 68 stated that although the official government price of gold was pegged at $38 per ounce, the "free-market price in Europe recently has been nearer $65 or $70."
4 See notes 49 and 71 infra. In addition, according to Thomas W. Wolfe, Director of the Office of Domestic Gold and Silver Operations, the Treasury Department has "'determined that the purchase of a gold futures contract is the same as a purchase of gold itself.... It would certainly be an illegal activity for the 99.9% of us who have no Government authorization to deal in gold.'" TIME, Sept.18, 1972, at 90.
5 Act of Oct.6, 1917,ch. 106,§3,40 Stat. 411, 413.
6 Id. Another purpose of the Act was to authorize seizure of alien property in the United States.
7Id. § 5(b), 40 Stat. 411,415. Section 5(a), in effect, gave the President absolute discretion to apply, or not to apply, the Act, as he saw fit. Section 5(b) provided.'
That the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency, transfers of credit in any form (other than credits relating solely to transactions to be executed wholly within the United States), and transfers of evidences of indebtedness or of the ownership of property between the United' States and any foreign country, whether enemy, ally of enemy or otherwise, or between residents of one or more foreign countries, by any person within the United States; and he may require any such person engaged in any such transaction to furnish, under oath, complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed.
8 Id
9 Id. § 16,40 Stat. 411,425.
10 The only "money powers possessed by Congress are "[t]o borrow money on the credit of the United States" and "[t]o coin money [and] regulate the value thereof." U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8.
11 Act of Sept. 24,1918, ch. 176, § 5, 40 Stat. 965, 966.
12 Id. (emphasis added).
There was no domestic gold problem during the war and regulations were directed solely to its use in foreign trade. By proclamation, 40 Stat. 1694(1917), and executive order of September 7, 1917, President Wilson transferred to the Federal Reserve Board, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, the administration of certain regulations prescribed in the proclamation under the Espionage Act regarding the exportation of coin, bullion, and currency. These functions were exercised by a committee of three, known as the Gold Export Committee. Under § 5(b) of the Trading With the Enemy Act by executive order of October 12, 1917, the authority given was delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury who issued an order on November 23 [19 1 7] prescribing certain administrative procedure and designating the Federal Reserve Board as the agent to carry out its administration. An executive order of the President followed on January 26, 1918, giving the regulations in more detail. The proceedings under the Act dealt solely with foreign exchange and the transfer of funds abroad. The executive order of January 26 [1918) refers almost exclusively to exports with the exception of the following provision: "No gold or silver coin or bullion, or currency shall be set aside and earmarked for safekeeping for any person without the written approval of the Federal Reserve Board."
The Presidential proclamation revoking all restrictions except as to Russia is dated June 26, 1919, and appears in 41 Stat. 1760.
All relevant data on these operations appear in REP. SECY OF TREASURY 39AO (1918); id. (1919)15; 3 FED. RES. BULL. 860(1917); 4 id. at 81(1918); 4 REP. FED.RES. BD.21, 183(1917); 5 id. at 35,260(1918); 6 id. at 50(1919).
Hanna, Currency Control and Private Property, 33 COLUM. L. REv. 617, 619 n.3 (1933).
13 Proclamation No.2038, 48 Stat. 1689 (1933).
Whereas public interests require that the Congress of the United States should be convened in extra session at twelve o'clock, noon, on the Ninth day of March, 1933, to receive such communication as may be made by the Executive.
Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim and declare that an extraordinary occasion requires the Congress of the United Sates to convene in extra session at the Capitol in the City of Washington on the Ninth day of March, 1933, at twelve o'clock, noon, of which all persons who shall at that time be entitled to act as members thereof are hereby required to take notice.
14 Id.
15 Id. The Proclamation provided:
Whereas there have been heavy and unwarranted withdrawals of gold and currency from our banking institutions for the purpose of hoarding; and
Whereas continuous and increasingly extensive speculative activity abroad in foreign exchange has resulted in severe drains on the Nation's stocks of gold; and
Whereas these conditions have created a national emergency; and
Whereas it is in the best interests of all bank depositors that a period of respite be provided with a view to preventing further hoarding of coin, bullion or currency or speculation in foreign exchange and permitting the application of appropriate measures to protect the interests of our people; and
Whereas it is provided in Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, (40 Stat. L.41 I) as amended, "That the President may investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange and the export, hoarding, melting, or earmarkings of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency ***"; and
Whereas it is provided in Section 16 of the said Act "that whoever shall willfully violate any of the provisions of this Act or of any license, rule, or regulation issued thereunder, and whoever shall willfully violate, neglect, or refuse to comply with any order of the President issued in compliance with the provisions of this Act, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; * **"'
Now, THEREFORE, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, in view of such national emergency and by virtue of the authority vested in me by said Act and in order to prevent the export, hoarding, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency, do hereby proclaim, order, direct and declare that from Monday, the sixth day of March, to Thursday, the ninth day of March, Nineteen Hundred and Thirty Three, both dates inclusive, there shall be maintained and observed by all banking institutions and all branches thereof located in the United States of America, including the territories and insular possessions, a bank holiday, and that during said period all banking transactions shall be suspended. During such holiday, excepting as hereinafter provided, no such banking institution or branch shall pay out, export, earmark, or permit the withdrawal or transfer in any manner or by any device whatsoever, of any gold or silver coin or bullion or currency or take any other action which might facilitate the hoarding thereof; nor shall any such banking institution or branch pay out deposits, make loans or discounts, deal in foreign exchange, transfer credits from the United States to any place abroad, or transact any other banking business whatsoever.
During such holiday, the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President and under such regulations as he may prescribe, is authorized and empowered (a) to permit any or all of such banking institutions to perform any or all of the usual banking functions, (b) to direct, require or permit the issuance of clearing house certificates or other evidences of claims against assets of banking institutions, and (c) to authorize and direct the creation in such banking institutions of special trust accounts for the receipt of new deposits which shall be subject to withdrawal on demand without any restriction or limitation and shall be kept separately in cash or on deposit in Federal Reserve Banks or invested in obligations of the United States.
As used in this order the term "banking institutions" shall include all Federal Reserve banks, national banking associations, banks, trust companies, savings banks, building and loan associations, credit unions, or other corporations, partnerships, associations or persons, engaged in the business of receiving deposits, making loans, discounting business paper, or transacting any other form of banking business.
By separate orders of March 6,1933, signed by the President and the Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasurer of the United States and the Director of the Mint were instructed to make payments in gold in any form during the continuance of the bank holiday only under licenses issued by the Secretary of the Treasury. Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the Finances for the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1934, Treasury Department Document No.3065 at 201(1935) [hereinafter cited as Annual Report].
16 Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the Constitution mandates that "the President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States . . . Roosevelt's conception of his powers as Commander in Chief in wartime, particularly in matters touching the nation's economic structure, was spelled out nearly a decade after the bank holiday, in his message to Congress of September 7, 1942, in which he demanded that the legislature forthwith repeal certain provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30,1942, ch. 26, § I, 56 State. 23:
I ask the Congress to take this action by the first of October. Inaction on your part by that date will leave me with an inescapable responsibility to the people of this country to see to it that the war effort is no longer imperiled by threat of economic chaos.
In the event that the Congress should fail to act, and act adequately, I shall accept the responsibility, and I will act.
At the same time that farm prices are stabilized, wages can and will be stabilized also. This I will do.
The President has the powers, under the Constitution and under Congressional acts, to take measures necessary to avert a disaster which would interfere with the winning of the war.
I have given the most thoughtful consideration to meeting this issue without further reference to the Congress. I have determined, however, on this vital matter to consult with the Congress.
. . . .
The American people can be sure that I will use my powers with a full sense of my responsibility to the Constitution and to my country. The American people can also be sure that I shall not hesitate to use every power vested in me to accomplish the defeat of our enemies in any part of the world where our own safety demands such defeat.
When the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people-to whom they belong.
88 CONG. REC. 7042, 7044 (1942).
Surely, if this was Roosevelt's conception of his war powers, he could have adverted to those powers in his March 6, 1933 Proclamation. Perhaps it never occurred to him, or perhaps he found the concept of an 'emergency" more convenient for his purposes.
17 Later designated as H.R. 1491. The bill's destiny was preordained. The night before, Roosevelt had assembled at the White House
the leading representatives of both political parties in both Houses of Congress. With one voice they all agreed, almost if not quite without qualification, in saying that they would unite to enact this legislation before midnight [on March 9, 1933] and that if there might be discovered in it any defects, they should be remedied later.
77 CONG. REC. 58 (1933) (remarks of Senator Glass).
18 77 CONG. REC. 67-75 (1933).
19 Id. at 75, which reads as follows:
To the Senate and House of Representatives:
On March 3 banking operations in the United States ceased. To review at this time the causes of this failure of our banking system is unnecessary. Suffice it to say that the Government has been compelled to step in for the protection of depositors and the business of the Nation.
Our first task is to reopen all sound banks. This is an essential preliminary to subsequent legislation directed against speculation with the funds of depositors and other violations of positions of trust.
In order that the first objective-the opening of banks for the resumption of business-may be accomplished, I ask of the Congress the immediate enactment of legislation giving to the executive branch of the Government control over banks for the protection of depositors; authority forthwith to open such banks as have already been ascertained to be in sound condition, and other such banks, as rapidly as possible; and authority to reorganize and reopen such banks as may be found to require reorganization to put them on a sound basis.
I ask amendments to the Federal Reserve Act to provide for such additional currency, adequately secured, as it may become necessary to issue to meet all demands for currency and at the same time to achieve this end without increasing the unsecured indebtedness of the Government of the United States.
I cannot too strongly urge upon the Congress the clear necessity for immediate action. A continuation of the strangulation of banking facilities is unthinkable. The passage of the proposed legislation will end this condition and, I trust, within a short space of time will result in a resumption of business activities.
In addition, it is my belief that this legislation will not only lift immediately all unwarranted doubts and suspicions in regard to banks which are 100 percent sound but will also mark the beginning of a new relationship between the banks and the people of this country.
The Members of the new Congress will realize, I am confident, the grave responsibility which lies upon me and upon them.
In the short space of 5 days it is impossible for us to formulate completed measures to prevent the recurrence of the evils of the past. This does not and should not, however, justify any delay in accomplishing this first step.
At an early moment I shall request of the Congress two other measures which I regard as of immediate urgency. With action taken thereon we can proceed to the consideration of a rounded program of national restoration.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.
THE WHITE ROUSE, March 9, 1933.
20 77 CONG. REC. 76 (1933).
21Id.
22 The record does not indicate whether or not Congressman Snell had seen a copy of the proposed bill.
23 77 CONG. REC. 76 (1933).
24 Id.
25 Id. at 81. The following are some of the typical comments made on the House floor in support of the bill:
Mr. STEAGALL.
My friends, if you ask me if this is going to cure the situation in the United States, I do not say that it will cure all of our ills. If you ask me if this is what I would do in the existing emergency, I answer you that it is not all I would do. It is not all that is going to be done. [Applause.]
This is simply one step. We are building upon wreck and ruin. It has taken 50 years to develop the great financial system of the United States which is now prostrate and in ruins. We cannot rebuild it in a day, we cannot rebuild it in 3 days. We cannot rebuild it tomorrow or next week, We can only do it step by step.
Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies
And we mount to its summit round by round.
The step we take leads upward toward the light. We shall take this step today; we shall take another step tomorrow and then another and another.
The people have summoned to their service a leader whose face is lifted toward the skies. [Applause.] We follow that leadership today, and we shall follow that leadership until we stand again in the glorious sunlight of prosperity and happiness in this Republic [Applause.]
77 CONG. REC. 79 (1933).
Mr. LUCE. It is, of course, out of the question, Mr. Speaker, that any man can grasp the full meaning of that bill by listening to its reading, having had no intimation whatever beforehand of what it contains.
I, too, desire to help the administration meet this crisis. Whenever it may be necessary I will waive all opportunities of discussion.
Perhaps it was necessary in this instance to keep us on the minority side who have some acquaintance with this subject in the dark until the bill was produced. I will not intimate that there was intentional refraining from consultation with Members of this House who now for many years have lived with these questions and who ought to know something about them. The majority leaders have brought us a bill on which I myself am unable to advise my colleagues, except to say that this is a case where judgment must be waived, where argument must be silenced, where we should take matters without criticism lest we may do harm by delay. [Applause.]
77 CONG. REC. 79 (1933).
Mr. McFADDEN. Mr. Speaker, I regret that the membership of the House has had no opportunity to consider or even read this bill. The first opportunity I had to know what this legislation is was when it was read from the Clerk's desk. It is an important banking bill. It is a dictatorship over finance in the United States. It is complete control over the banking system in the United States.
77 CONG. REC. 80 (1 933).
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of the House, I shall vote for this measure, although I should like to have had an opportunity to study and consider its provisions. It has not been possible to do this oweing to the fact that the bill has merely been read to us by the Clerk this afternoon on the opening day of this special session, without our being furnished copies thereof, and the bill not being subject to amendment and only 40 minutes allowed for debate. This is a most extraordinary situation.
However, we are advised by President Roosevelt in his message which has just been read that the immediate passage of this legislation is absolutely necessary in order to reopen the banks in the Nation and provide them with additional and adequate currency. We are further informed by our distinguished majority leader [M R. BYRNS] that the Senate is now awaiting the action of the House on this particular bill, and that in order to reopen the banks of the country on tomorrow it must be enacted into law today. I shall, therefore, vote for the bill, Mr. Speaker, because of these assurances of our great President and our able leaders in this body.
77 CONG. REC. 82 (1933).
26 77 CONG. REC. 83 (1933) (emphasis added).
27 Id. at 50-67. What debate there was, centered around the meaning of the proposed enactment.
28 77 CONG. REC. 67 (1933).
29 The Emergency Banking Act of March 9,1933, ch. I, § 1, 48 Stat. 1.
The Federal Reserve Board on March 8 [had] directed the Federal Reserve banks to forward as soon as possible after March 13 lists of all those who had withdrawn gold since February 1 and had not redeposited it before March 13. On March 9, this direction was extended to cover gold certificates. The dates for these final lists were moved forward first to March 17 [1933] and then to March27 [1933].
Hanna, Currency Control and Private Property, 33 COLLM.L. REV.617,619(1933).
30 Section 106 of the Act "approved and confirmed" the bank holiday. The Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, ch. 1, § 1, 48 Stat. 1.
31 Id. § 2, 48 Stat. I (emphasis added).
32 Id. § 1,48 Stat. I, now Federal Reserve Act, 12 U.S.C. § 221 et seq. (1970).
(n) Whenever in the judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury such action is necessary to protect the currency system of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, in his discretion, may require any or all individuals, partnerships. associations and corporations to pay and deliver to the Treasurer of the United States any or all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by such individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations. Upon receipt of such gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates, the Secretary of the Treasury shall pay therefor an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the United States. The Secretary of the Treasury shall pay all costs of the transportation of such gold bullion, gold certificates, coin, or currency, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be reasonably necessary. Any individual, partnership. association, or corporation failing to comply with any requirement of the Secretary of the Treasury made under this subsection shall be subject to a penalty equal to twice the value of the gold or gold certificates in respect of which such failure occurred, and such penalty may be collected by the Secretary of the Treasury by suit or otherwise.
33 See note 15 supra.
34 Proclamation No.2040, 48 Stat. 1691(1933).
35 Exec. Order No.6073(1933), codified in3I C.F.R. § 120.3(1972), provides in part as follows:
Until further order, no individual, partnership, association, or corporation, including any banking institution, shall export or otherwise remove or permit to be withdrawn from the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates, except in accordance with regulations prescribed by or under license issued by the Secretary of the Treasury.
No permission to any banking institution to perform any banking functions shall authorize such institution to pay out any gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates except as authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury, nor to allow withdrawal of any currency for hoarding, nor to engage in any transaction in foreign exchange except such as may be undertaken for legitimate and normal business requirements, for reasonable traveling and other personal requirements, and for the fulfillment of contracts entered into prior to March 6, 1933.
Every Federal Reserve Bank is authorized and instructed to keep itself currently informed as to transactions in foreign exchange entered into or consummated within its district and shall report to the Secretary of the Treasury all transactions in foreign exchange which are prohibited.
On March 18, 1933, the President issued Executive Order No.6080 providing for the appointment of a conservator for the assets of any unopened bank if such appointment was necessary to preserve the bank's assets. Annual Report at 197.
36 Exec. Order No.6073 (1933), codified in 31 C.F.R. § 120.3(1972).
37 Exec. Order No.6102 (1933).
By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, entitled "An Act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes", in which amendatory Act Congress declared that a serious emergency exists, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section do hereby prohibit the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations and hereby prescribe the following regulations for carrying out the purposes of this order:
Section 1. For the purposes of this regulation, the term "hoarding" means the withdrawal and withholding of gold coin. gold bullion or gold certificates from the recognized and customary channels of trade. The term "person" means any individual, partnership, association or corporation.
Section 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May I, 1933, to a Federal reserve bank or a branch or agency therefor to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, except the following:
(a) Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold.
(b) Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100.00 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.
(c) Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements.
(d) Gold coin and bullion licensed for other proper transactions (not involving hoarding) including gold coin and bullion imported for reexport or held pending action on applications for export licenses.
Section 3. Until otherwise ordered any person becoming the owner of any gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates after April 28, 1933, shall, within three days after receipt thereof, deliver the same in the manner prescribed in Section 2; unless such gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates are held for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) of Section 2; or unless such gold coin or gold bullion is held for purposes specified in paragraph (d) of Section 2 and the person holding it is, with respect to such gold coin or bullion, a licensee or applicant for license pending action thereon.
Section 4. Upon receipt of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates delivered to it in accordance with Sections 2 or 3, the Federal reserve bank or member bank will pay therefor an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the United States.
Section 5. Member banks shall deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned or received by them (other than as exempted under the provisions of Section 2) to the Federal reserve banks of their respective districts and receive credit or payment therefor.
Section 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, out of the sum made available to the President by Section 501 of the Act of March 9,1933, will in all proper cases pay the reasonable costs of transportation of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates delivered to a member bank or Federal reserve bank in accordance with Sections 2, 3, or 5 hereof, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be necessary, upon production of satisfactory evidence of such costs. Voucher forms for this purpose may be procured from Federal reserve banks.
Section 7. In cases where the delivery of gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates by the owners thereof within the time set forth above will involve extraordinary hardship or difficulty, the Secretary of the Treasury may, in his discretion, extend the time within which such delivery must be made. Applications for such extensions must be made in writing under oath, addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and filed with a Federal reserve bank. Each application must state the date to which the extension is desired, the amount and location of the gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates in respect of which such application is made and the facts showing extension to be necessary to avoid extraordinary hardship or difficulty.
Section 8. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to issue such further regulations as he may deem necessary to carry out the purposes of this order and to issue licenses thereunder, through such officers or agencies as he may designate, including licenses permitting the Federal reserve banks and member banks of the Federal Reserve System, in return for an equivalent amount of other coin, currency or credit, to deliver, earmark or hold in trust gold coin and bullion to or for persons showing the need for the same for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (c) and (d) of Section 2 of these regulations.
Section 9. Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or of these regulations or of any rule, regulation or license issued thereunder may be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in any such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.
38 Id. § 4.
39 Id. § 9.
40 Annual Report at 202.
41 Exec. Order No. 6111(1933).
42 Annual Report at 202.
43 DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, GOLD REGULATIONS(April 29, 1933).
44 Annual Report at 202.
45 In fact, no such licenses to acquire gold or gold coin to meet maturing gold clause obligations in the United States were ever issued because none of the applicants had surrendered their gold, gold coin or gold certificates, Id.
46 Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933, 48 Stat. 112-13, ch. 48, § 1,31 U.S.C. §§ 462, 463 (1970). The Joint Resolution was later upheld by a sharply divided Supreme Court in Norman v. Baltimore & 0. R.R., 294 U.S. 240(1935). At the time, it was estimated that the dollar value of outstanding gold clause contracts was at least 124 billion dollars. Hanna, Currency Control and Private Property, 33 COLUM. L. REv. at 633.
47 See note 37 supra
48 Emergency Banking Act of March 9, 1933, ch. I, § 2,48 Stat. 1 (1933) (emphasis added).
49 Exec. Order No.6260(1933). See Appendix I. This Executive Order was later amended, in a minor respect, by Exec. Order No.6556 (1934).
50 0n August 29, l933, the President issued Executive Order No.6261, which forced American gold producers to sell their output to the Secretary of the Treasury at whatever price the Secretary chose to pay for resale to those holding treasury department gold licenses and/ or foreign purchasers. On September 12, 1933, the Secretary of the Treasury issued comprehensive regulations under the Executive Orders of August 28 and 29, 1933. See Gold Regulations Prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury Under the Executive Order of August 28, 1933 Relating to the Hoarding, Export, and Earmarking of Gold Coin, Bullion, or Currency and to Transactions in Foreign Exchange and the Executive Order of August 29, 1933 Relating to the Sale and Export of Gold Recovered from Natural Deposits, Treasury Department, Office of the Secretary, September 12, 1933.
On October 25, Executive Order No.6359 revoked the August 29 Executive Order and amended in a minor respect the August 28 Executive Order. On January 15, 1934, Executive Order No.6560, codified in 31 C.F.R. 127.0-127.7 and 127.14(1972), would make other minor changes regarding transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit, and the export of coin and currency. Annual Report at 2034)4.
51 Hannigan, The Monetary and Legal Tender Acts of 1933-34 and the Law, 14 B.U.L. REv. 485(1934).
52 Campbell v. Chase Natl Bank, 5 F. Supp. 156 (S.D.N.Y. 1933). Actually, there were three cases: Campbell v. Chase Nat'l Bank, 5 F. Supp. 156 (S. D.N.Y. 1933); United States v. Campbell, 5 F. Supp. 156 (S.D.N.Y. 1933), aff'd, 71 F.2d 699 (2d Cir. 1934); and Campbell v. Mesalie, 5 F. Supp. 156, aff'd, 71 F.2d 671 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 293 U.S. 592 (1934).
53 5 F. Supp. at 163.
54 Id. at 165.
55 Id. at 167.
56 Id.
57 Id. at 169.
58 Id. at 172.
59 Id. at 173.
60 Id. at 174.
61 Id. at 175.
62 Id.
63 Id.
64 Id.
65 Id.
66 Id.
67 Id. at 177.
68 Judge Woolsey's reasoning was followed in the later case of United States v. Driscoll 9 F. Supp. 454 (D. Mass. 1935). There, two-count indictments were returned charging each of two defendants with failure to file returns under section 3 of the August 28, 1933 Order (Count 1), and with ownership or possession of gold coin under section 5 and the regulations promulgated thereunder (Count 2). The defendants demurred. The District Judge, following Campbell, held that Congress did not intend in section 2 to confer on the President authority to requisition gold, because Congress had expressly given that power to the Secretary of the Treasury in section 3 of the same act of March, 1933. Thus, the defendants' demurrer to count 2 was sustained. It was overruled as to count I, also in accordance with Campbell.
69 The order also set a deadline of January 1, 1934, later extended to January 17 (Annual Report at 204), and provided that all gold turned in after the deadline would be seized and its value applied to a "possible maximum penalty of twice the amount of the gold N.Y. Times, Jan. 18,1934, at l,col. 2. On January 17, the Secretary of the Treasury sent instructions to the Treasurer of the United States, the United States Mints and assay offices. and the fiscal agents of the United States, concerning how to deal with gold surrendered after the deadline. Annual Report at 204.
70 N.Y. Times, Jan.16, 1934, at 3, col. 2. In fact, hundreds of millions of dollars in gold were involved. N.Y. Times, Jan.18, 1934, at I, col. 1.
Although Roosevelt had asserted in his message that "under existing law there is authority, by Executive Act, to take title to the gold in the possession or control of the Reserve Banks . . .,"N.Y. Times, Jan. 16,1934, at 3, col. 2, on December 29, 1933, Governor E.R. Black of the Federal Reserve Board had written to the President noting "a serious difficulty presented to the Secretary [of the Treasury) in the question of his right to requisition gold of the Reserve System under the statute authorizing requisition of gold in protection of the currency system of the country." N.Y. Times, Jan.17, 1934, at 14, col. 2.
Not surprisingly, on January 17, 1934, the Senate Banking and Currency Committee made public an opinion of Roosevelt's Attorney General, Homer Cummings, that the proposed legislation was constitutional. N.Y. Times, Jan. 18, 1934, at 14, col. 2.
71 Act of Jan.30, 1934,48 Stat. 337,31 U.S.C. §§ 3l5b, 405b, 408a, 408b, 440-46, 752, 754a, 754b, 767, 821, 822a, 822b, 824; 12 U.S.C. §§ 213, 411-15, 417, 467. The Act did not make the President's previous actions regarding gold part of statutory criminal law. Bauer v. United States, 344 F.2d 794, 796 (9th Cir. 1957).
72 The remarks of Congressman Beedy indicate what transpired:
Mr. Chairman, I took the floor for a few moments when general debate on the bill was in progress and said that I should not vote for the bill because I had not had an opportunity, as one Member of this House, to be properly informed as to its provisions.
I made some protest against the fact that there had been no hearings. and that there were not available for the Members of the House printed hearings on this bill. I referred, as have many other Members, to the vast importance of this bill and its far-reaching provisions. I stated then, and I now repeat, that I do not think there are 10 members in this House who can go back to their constituents and intelligently explain the provisions of the bill. Whereupon the gentleman from California took some exception and said he did not appreciate that kind of a compliment.
I now submit that in the face of what has transpired in the Committee this afternoon what I said was fully justified. Clearly there is no comprehensive understanding of the bill as frequently evidenced this afternoon. Inability to explain the bill by those having it in charge is a sufficient justification, I submit, for a refusal to support it.
I have some pride in the proceedings of this House. But this afternoon's performance is not calculated to swell that pride. A casual observer of these proceedings, involving as they do the consideration of an important legislative proposal, must have experienced conflicting emotions. If he can return to his home and say that he has confidence in representative government, he certainly must have an elastic conscience. [Laughter and applause]
78 CONG. REC. 1012(1933). The vote in the House was 360 to 40.78 CONG. REC. 1013 (1933).
73 78 CONG. REC. 1010-11(1933).
74 In payment, credits in amounts equal to the value of the gold were established in the Treasury Department. As to any gold which had not previously been delivered to the government, and was still in private hands, it was to be held for the government's account and then delivered on the orders of the Secretary of the Treasury. All gold coins were to be withdrawn from circulation, and no more were to be minted. All United States gold was to be formed into bars. Section 3 authorized the Secretary to make regulations to prescribe the conditions under which, and only under which, gold could "be acquired and held, transported, melted or treated, imported, exported or earmarked: (a) for industrial, professional, and artistic use; (b) by the Federal Reserve banks for the purpose of settling international balances; and (c) for such other purposes as in his judgment are not inconsistent with [the other provisions of the Act]." On January 31, 1934, the Secretary issued regulations which in Section 20, provided that gold coins "of recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins. . . may be acquired and held without the necessity of holding a license therefor."
75 This act had dealt primarily with agricultural purchasing power and farm indebtedness, and title III thereof involved certain currency and monetary matters.
76 Gold Reserve Act § 13, ch. 6,48 Stat. 343, as amended, 31 U.S.C. §824(1970).
77 Proclamation No.2914, Dec. 6, 1950, 3 C. F.R. (1949-53 Compilation) 99, 16 Fed. Reg. 9029, provides in part:
WHEREAS recent events in Korea and elsewhere constitute a grave threat to the peace of the world and imperil the efforts of this country and those of the United Nations to prevent aggression and armed conflict; and
WHEREAS world conquest by communist imperialism is the goal of the forces of aggression that have been loosed upon the world; and
WHEREAS, if the goal of communist imperialism were to be achieved, the people of this country would no longer enjoy the full and rich life they have with God's help built for themselves and their children; they would no longer enjoy the blessings of the freedom of worshipping as they severally chose, the freedom of reading and listening to what they choose, the right of free speech including the right to criticize their Government, the right to choose those who conduct their Government, the right to engage freely in collective bargaining, the right to engage freely in their own business enterprises, and the many other freedoms and rights which are a part of our way of life; and
WHEREAS the increasing menace of the forces of communist aggression requires that the national defense of the United States be strengthened as speedily as possible:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, HARRY S. TRUMAN, President of the United States of America, do proclaim the existence of a national emergency, which requires that the military, naval, air, and civilian defenses of this country be strengthened as speedily as possible to the end that we may be able to repel any and all threats against our national security and to fulfill our responsibilities in the efforts being made through the United Nations and otherwise to bring about lasting peace.
I summon all citizens to make a united effort for the security and well-being of our beloved country and to place its needs foremost in thought and action that the full moral and material strength of the nation may be readied for the dangers which threaten us.
78 Exec. Order No.10896, November29, 1960,25 Fed. Reg. 12281 (1960); Exec. Order No.10905, January 14, 1961, 26 Fed. Reg. 321(1961).
79 Exec. Order No.11037, July20, 1962, 27 Fed. Reg. 6967 (1962). This order prohibited Americans, for the first time, from owning gold outside the continental limits of the United States.
80 Bauer v. United States, 244 F.2d 794 (9th Cir. 1957).
81 Id. at 795.
82 Id. at 796, 797.
83 Id. at 797.
84 Id.
85 Id. There is no record of what became of Bauer on remand. Nor did the case ever reach the Ninth Circuit again.
86 212 F. Supp. 584 (S.D. Cal. 1962).
87 Id. at 589.
88 Id. at 588.
89 Id. at 589-90.
90 Id.
91 Id.
92 On September 14, 1962, the government filed a notice of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731. However, on November14, 1962, the parties stipulated, pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 14, that the government's appeal be dismissed. See United States v. Lane and Valle, 218 F. Supp. 459, 460 (S.D.N.Y. 1963).
93 208 F. Supp. 99 (D. Nev. 1962).
94 340 F.2d 487 (9th Cir. 1965).
95 Id. at 487.
96 244 F.2d at 797.
97 In this regard, a recent dissent by Justice Douglas, from the Court's denial of certiorari, is of considerable interest. Petitioner was convicted of attempting to destroy certain war property "when the United States is at war, or in times of national emergency as declared by the President 18 U.S.C. § 2153(a). Justice Douglas stated:
A criminal statute which fails to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden, is constitutionally infirm. Predicating criminal liability on conduct engaged in under special circumstances or at certain times is not constitutionally infirm, as long as men of common intelligence are not forced to guess as to a statute's meaning or differ as to its application. Under the terms of the above statute, the defendant is prohibited from doing specific acts "at times of national emergency as declared by the President. "The declared national emergency under which petitioner was held to have acted is the 1950 declaration of President Truman issued in response to the Korean conflict; the resolution by its terms contemplates termination of the emergency only by act of the President or by concurrent resolution of Congress, neither of which has yet been done.
I doubt that many lawyers let alone laymen of ordinary intelligence are aware of the continuing effect of the 1950 national emergency declaration. Under these circumstances, it is questionable whether proper notice of possible criminal liability has been afforded to any individual prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. § 2153 (a). The viability of criminal responsibility predicated upon evaluations of current political temperament or outdated presidential proclamations is an important issue worthy of our consideration on the merits.
Achtenberg v. United States, 409 U.S. 932 (1972).
98 Rist, supra note 2, at 139 (emphasis added).
99 Id. (emphasis added). Every few years there has been a semi-official hint that the right of Americans to own gold may be restored. For example, on May22, 1968, the Wall Street Journal reported from the American Bankers Association annual meeting that [s]ome U.S. Government officials are starting to consider the possibility of making gold freely available for hoarding and trading by American citizens The Treasury Department denied the report. In the last presidential election, the Republican platform of 1972 contained a plank that recommended the legalization of the ownership of gold, saying:
Since the 1930's, it has been illegal for United States citizens to own gold. We believe it is time to reconsider that policy. The right of American citizens to buy, hold, or sell gold should be reestablished as soon as this is feasible. Review of the present policy should, of course, take account of our basic objective of achieving a strengthened world monetary system.
1972 CONG. Q. WEEKLY REP. 2151, 2157. At about the same time, a unanimous subcommittee of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, headed by Representative Henry S. Reuss (D. Wis.), recommended that "[o]nce monetary reform is agreed upon, American citizens should again be allowed by buy, sell and hold gold." N.Y. Times, Nov.20, 1972, at 59, col. 8. Despite these occasional signs of a thaw in the government's anti-private gold position, there is, at best, only a slim chance that Americans will ever be able to own gold so long as the Government continues to be deeply involved in the nation's monetary affairs.
Retirement funds, financial assets vulnerable to govt seizure
http://www.examiner.com/x-37620-Conservative-Examiner~y2010m2d4-Meltdown-Retirement-funds-financial-assets-vulnerable-to-govt-seizure
As the Obama administration assures Americans that 'there are signs of hope' in the economy, the facts say the opposite. The forecast is so dire, in fact, that the retirement funds and financial assets of all Americans are vulnerable to government seizure.
Economists and market analysts who predicted the last meltdown are joining in a united chorus to warn that yet another is on the way for 2010, and this one will be much worse than the last.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.
In an alarming piece at WRSA the assertion is made by several respected authorities on economics that the U.S. Treasury Department will attempt to seize retirement accounts and other private assets in order to address the growing probability that a financial meltdown is on the way for the United States.
Karl Denninger at Market Watch put it this way:
Now this is a guaranteed rape job.
In a short conversation this noontime that CNBC apparently has omitted from their archives (Why's that folks?) Rick Santelli was talking about a potential to effectively force money into the Treasury market.
Where would they get this?
From your 401k and IRA accounts!
From Businessweek:
The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.
Let me tell you what this is - it is an attempt to prevent the collapse of the Treasury market!
The upshot? This is tantamount to outright theft, courtesy of the federal government. And your life's savings are at stake.
Further, Denninger blows the whistle on the supposed 'option' that gives Americans a 'choice' of whether or not to put their funds into short-duration Treasuries:
I have no quarrel with the government mandating that you have a choice in your IRA or 401k account to buy short-duration Treasuries - much like the "G" fund that government and civil-service workers have.
But - "choices" have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market - so they will effectively tax you by forcing your "retirement" money to buy them!
In other words, the U.S. Government sees a massive financial storm on the horizon that is moving in fast. The Feds know that under current conditions with our 13 trillion-dollar debt there is no way we can weather that storm. And they are fully aware that at least 3 trillion dollars are sitting there in the private sector in IRAs, retirement accounts, and 401K plans.
By effectively seizing those accounts through the back-door method, carefully avoiding referring to the plan as a 'seizure,' the Feds can get their hands on funds they can convert to Treasuries, which will in turn help the government weather the coming storm.
But the losers are you and me. Be prudent. Protect yourself.
POLICE STATE 2010: Homeland Security Unveils Mobile Mind Screening Checkpoints
The Patsy Revolt of 2010
By Bill Bonner
03/12/10 Mumbai, India – “Masked youths…attacked the head of Greece’s largest trade union, who was addressing the crowd, and hurled stones at the police. GSEE union boss Yiannis Panagopoulos traded blows with the rioters before being whisked away, bloodied and with torn clothes.”
The Daily Mail account put the blame for these disturbances on Germany’s finance minister, who warned the Greeks that “the German government does not intend to give a cent.” At least Bild, a popular German newspaper, was trying to be helpful. It suggested that Greece sell Corfu…and that Greeks get up earlier and work harder.
Meanwhile, from Iceland comes news that every voter with an IQ above air temperature has cast his ballot against a bailout plan. The Icelanders were slated to make good $5.3 billion in bank losses. But why shackle common voters to the banks’ losses? The plan was so outrageous and so unpopular that Iceland’s normally compliant Prime Minister called for a referendum. Given a chance to vote on it, 93% said no. The other 7% probably read it wrong.
Insurrection is in the air. In England, government employees are preparing the biggest strike since the ’80s. In America, dissatisfaction with Congress is at record highs; four out of five of those polled say, “Nothing can be accomplished in Washington.”
Herewith, an attempt to deconstruct the rebel yell. By way of preview, it’s not the principle of the thing, we conclude; it’s the money.
There are more clowns in economics than in the circus. They invented an economic model that has been very popular for more than 50 years – particularly in the US and Britain. It began with a bogus insight; John Maynard Keynes thought consumer spending was the key to prosperity; he saw savings as a threat. He had it backwards. Consumer spending is made possible by savings, investment and hard work – not the other way around. Then, William Phillips thought he saw a cause and effect relationship between inflation and employment; increase prices and you increase employment too, he said.
Jacques Rueff had already explained that the Phillips Curve was just a flimflam. Inflation surreptitiously reduced wages. It was lower wages that made it easier to hire people, not enlightened central bank management. But the scam proved attractive. The economy has been biased towards inflation ever since.
Economists enjoyed the illusion of competence; they could hold their heads up at cocktail parties and pretend to know what they were talking about. Now they were movers and shakers, not just observers. The new theories seemed to give everyone what they most wanted. Politicians could spend even more money that didn’t belong to them. Consumers could enjoy a standard of living they couldn’t afford. And the financial industry could earn huge fees by selling debt to people who couldn’t pay it back.
Never before had so many people been so happily engaged in acts of reckless larceny and legerdemain. But as the system aged, its promises increased. Beginning in the ’30s, the government took it upon itself to guarantee the essentials in life – retirement, employment, and to some extent, health care. These were expanded over the years to include minimum salary levels, unemployment compensation, disability payments, free drugs, food stamps and so forth. Households no longer needed to save.
As time wore on, more and more people lived at someone else’s expense. Lobbying and lawyering became lucrative professions. Bucket shops and banks neared respectability. Every imperfection was a call for legislation. Every traffic accident was an opportunity for wealth redistribution. And every trend was fully leveraged.
If there was anyone still solvent in America or Britain in the 21st century, it was not the fault of the banks. They invented subprime loans and securitizations to profit from segments of the market that had theretofore been spared. By 2005 even jobless people could get themselves into debt. Then, the bankers found ways to hide debt…and ways to allow the public sector to borrow more heavily. Goldman Sachs did for Greece essentially what it had done for the subprime borrowers in the private sector – it helped them to go broke.
As long as people thought they were getting something for nothing, this economic model enjoyed wide support. But now that they are getting nothing for something, the masses are unhappy. Half the US states are insolvent. Nearly all of them are preparing to increase taxes. In Europe too, taxes are going up. Services are going down. And taxpayers are being asked to pay for the banks’ losses…and pay interest on money spent years ago. Until now, they were borrowing money that would have to be repaid sometime in the future. But today is the tomorrow they didn’t worry about yesterday. So, the patsies are in revolt.
Several countries are already past the point of no return. Even if America taxed 100% of all household wealth, it would not be enough to put its balance sheet in the black. And Professors Rogoff and Reinhart show that when external debt passes 73% of GDP or 239% of exports, the result is default, hyperinflation, or both. IMF data show the US already too far gone on both scores, with external debt at 96% of GDP and 748% of exports.
The rioters can go home, in other words. The system will collapse on its own.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning
http://dailyreckoning.com/the-patsy-revolt-of-2010/
thankx for your help
A quick google search brought this up from the daily paul back in 11/09.
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/114841
They warn it might be a hoax. (although i wish it weren't)
sorry I don't have one
Can I get a link? Tia
The Failure of the Public Sector, the Coming Military Crackdown and how to Stop It
Sunday, January 10, 2010
- with Scott Smith
Dr. Edwin Vieira
The Daily Bell is pleased to publish an interview with the distinguished libertarian attorney and activist, Edwin Vieira, Jr..
Introduction
Dr. Vieira holds four degrees from Harvard: A.B. (Harvard College), A.M. and Ph.D. (Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences), and J.D. (Harvard Law School). For over thirty-six years he has been a practicing attorney, specializing in cases that raise issues of constitutional law. He has presented numerous cases of import before the Supreme Court and written numerous monographs and articles in scholarly journals. His latest scholarly works are Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (2d rev. ed. 2002), a comprehensive study of American monetary law and history viewed from a constitutional perspective, and How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary (2004), a study of the problems of irresponsible "judicial supremacy", and how to deal with them. With well known libertarian trader Victor Sperandeo, he is also the co-author (under a nom de plume) of the political novel CRA$HMAKER: A Federal Affaire (2000), a not-so-fictional story of an engineered "crash" of the Federal Reserve System, and the political revolution it causes. He is now working on an extensive project concerned with the constitutional "Militia of the Several States" and "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms."
Daily Bell: Thanks for sitting down with us. Let's get right to it. In your view, what are the most critical domestic problems facing America?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Two stand out. The foremost problem-because it is the source of, or contributes significantly to, almost every economic difficulty now plaguing this country-is the inherent and ineradicable instability of the present monetary and banking systems centered around the Federal Reserve System.
The second problem derives from the first. It is the ever-accelerating development of a first-class para-militarized police-state apparatus centered around the United States Department of Homeland Security, with its tentacles reaching down into every police force throughout the States and localities. Fundamentally, this apparatus is not, and never was, designed to deal with international "terrorism". If that were its goal, its first task would be absolutely to secure the southern border of the United States, which it has never seriously attempted to do. Rather, it is being set up to deal with what the political-cum-financial Establishment anticipates (and I believe rightly so) will be massive social and political unrest bordering on chaos throughout America when the monetary and banking systems finally implode in the not-so-distant future-surely in hyperinflation, and probably in hyperinflation coupled with a gut-wrenching depression.
Of these two problems, the second is actually the more dangerous. For if (on whatever pretext) this police-state apparatus does succeed in clamping down on America, the likelihood of effecting basic reforms in money, banking, or anything else favorable to the American people will be reduced to something approaching nil, absent a veritable political uprising in this country.
Daily Bell: How can these two problems be solved?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: The problem of money and banking breaks down into two interrelated parts: one economic, the other political.
Economically, the problem lies in the commonly accepted fallacy that debt-whether the private debt of banks or the public debt of governmental treasuries-can function as sound currency over the long term. "Money" is supposed to be the most liquid of all assets-which is why the best moneys have always proven to be the precious metals, silver and gold. "Debt", conversely, is not an asset at all, but is someone's liability, the value of which is contingent upon the debtor's ability and willingness to pay, and often the creditor's ability to force the debtor to pay. The attempt to put into practice the self-contradictory notion that a liability payable in money can be an asset that functions as money-and that the ultimate debtor or surety in this scheme can be a governmental treasury, which usually cannot be compelled to pay in any event-has been tried again and again, in country after country, and failed again and again. For Heaven's sake, it was tried in this country with the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and only about twenty years later utterly failed with the banking collapse of 1932, Franklin Roosevelt's seizure of the American people's gold, and the ensuing Great Depression that lasted throughout the 1930s! Right now, we are witnessing what will soon prove to be a more catastrophic failure of that same false idea embodied in that same pernicious institution. Apparently, as the old saw has it, "No one ever learns anything from history except that no one ever learns anything from history." Obviously, massive efforts in public education will be necessary to overcome this deplorable level of ignorance.
In our particular case, the problem also appears in a political form, actually dating from well before 1913: namely, the coupling of bank and state, whereby the government empowers private special-interests groups by statute to "manage" the monetary and banking systems-primarily for the economic benefit of those groups, but as well to the political advantage of the public officials, politicians, and political parties that support the system and receive support from it. The Federal Reserve System is such a coupling: the hermaphroditic creature of private enterprise and statute, at once both quasi-private and quasi-public in source, form, and functions.
Daily Bell: We call it mercantilism.
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Strictly speaking, it is a classic example of a corporative-state arrangement in the particular field of banking, exactly parallel to what Benito Mussolini set up throughout the economy of Fascist Italy, and to what Franklin Roosevelt established for all other American industries in the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (until the Supreme Court declared that act unconstitutional in 1935).
The reason for this unholy alliance between bank and state lies in the operation of "debt as currency": namely, that using "debt as currency"-and particularly "debt as currency" that can be paid through the emission of new "debt as currency"-allows for the essentially unlimited redistribution of real wealth from society to the issuers of the currency and their immediate clients.
When the redistribution favors bankers and their clients among private businessmen, it is called "forced savings"-the average America being compelled by the system to lose real wealth so that the bankers and businessmen can employ that wealth in their own speculative ventures. When the redistribution favors bankers and their clients among public officials, it is called "hidden taxation"-the average America being compelled by the system to lose real wealth so that public officials can buy more votes with more governmental spending (with the bankers taking a cut of the proceeds). In both cases, by the system's very design, the financial and political classes always benefit, the masses are always looted.
The truly vicious nature of this scheme, though, is now appearing in all its ugly nakedness in the multi-trillion-dollar bailouts that the financial Establishment is extorting, and will continue to extort, ultimately from the taxpayers and the victims of inflation, on the threat that, without such payoffs, the entire economy will melt down into irremediable chaos.
So, here we see the ultimate practical truth of the matter: Private financial special-interest groups buy politicians; in public office these politicians empower the special-interest groups by statute to manipulate the monetary and banking systems; to the extent that these manipulations succeed, the profits are largely privatized; and to the extent that the manipulations fail, the losses are almost entirely socialized. In either case, the general public is held hostage to the racket, and foots the gargantuan bill for its operation. And the guilty parties escape scot free to steal again, and again, and again.
Daily Bell: So what is to be done?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: In principle, this problem can be solved, if America enforces her Constitution. In practice, implementing such a solution will take no little time and effort, though, because: (i) the Federal Reserve System cannot simply be "abolished" at one fell swoop without generating massive dislocations throughout the markets; and (ii) the necessary reforms cannot arise out of the snake pit of Congress in the foreseeable future. Instead, Americans need to create an alternative constitutional and sound currency-actually consisting of, not simply "backed by", silver and gold-to compete with Federal Reserve Notes in the marketplace.
This step must be taken at the State level, for several reasons. First, it cannot be done through Congress, because Congress is thoroughly in the vampiric embrace of the financial Establishment. Second, the States enjoy the legal authority to adopt an alternative currency-indeed, as the Constitution declares, "No State shall . . . make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts". Third, the States' exercise of their legal authority to adopt an alternative currency is constitutionally immune from interference by Congress, as even the Supreme Court has held on more than one occasion. Fourth, the States have a political and legal responsibility to their own citizens to protect the public health, safety, and welfare-which necessitates adopting a sound currency to replace the collapsing Federal Reserve Note before it is too late. And fifth, among the fifty States there must be at least a few in which the political and economic climate is such that State legislators can be convinced to take appropriate action.
Once the experiment has been tried and proven workable in one State, it will quickly spread to others, because no alternative exists, other than supine and stupid acquiescence in the collapse of the Federal Reserve System, with all the dire consequences that will entail.
Daily Bell: We at the Daily Bell are of a free-banking caste, and we often have discussions with what we call Brownians - those who, like Ellen Brown herself, believe that money is the province of the state and that gold and silver are merely commodities until the state stamps them with its authorized mark. We disagree. What do you say?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: The people who believe in "the state theory of money" need to study what the Austrian School of Economics teaches about money, and in particular "the regression theorem" that explains the origin of money. Gold and silver did not become money because some "state" first authorized them as such. Various states throughout history adopted gold and silver as money because markets (particularly in interregional or international trade) were using the precious metals for that purpose. Indeed, that is the explanation for the adoption of the "dollar" (actually, the silver Spanish milled dollar) as the unit of American currency, both under the Articles of Confederation and then explicitly in the Constitution.
More recently, of course, various states, including rogue public officials in the United States, have tried to "demonetize" and then demonize gold and silver in vain attempts to compel free markets to comply with officialdom's generally uneconomic and often blatantly tyrannical political policies. Roosevelt's gold seizure of the 1930s is the pre-eminent example in recent American history.
If gold and silver could function as money only because some state authorized such use, though, there would be no need for states to expend such efforts to "demonetize" the precious metals. Simply withdrawing a state's formal authorization would suffice. So, the veritable war that many states have felt it necessary to wage against specie money, and particularly gold, during most of the Twentieth Century renders rather implausible "the state theory of money".
Daily Bell: Do you believe the current push to audit the Fed will result in success? What would be the result of such an audit in your opinion?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: The Establishment doubtlessly will put up tremendous resistance to a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve System, if that audit includes a thoroughgoing investigation and public exposition of the ulterior motives for and untoward consequences of the System's twists and turns in "monetary policy" over the years. I wonder, however, what such an audit would accomplish, and whether it is really necessary. If ten economists examined the System's decisions, they would probably give a dozen different opinions as to what motivated those decisions, and whether the results were good, bad, or indifferent. So the upshot of an audit could be nothing more than confusion twice confounded.
For all the journalistic shortcomings of its aggressively "liberal" perspective, the old expose by William Greider, The Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country (1987), tells us enough about the motivations and performance of the banking cartel, even without a formal audit, to justify the conclusion that it must be disestablished post haste. Actually, anyone who studies the Federal Reserve Act of 1913-particularly in the context of earlier banking and monetary legislation-should conclude that it always was and remains unworkable and doomed to failure, besides being utterly unconstitutional. So an audit is superfluous. On the other hand, if the results of, or the even demands for, an audit would galvanize public opinion into doing something positive in the area of monetary reform-such as supporting adoption of an alternative currency in the States-it probably would be worth the effort. But that is a very large "if".
Daily Bell: Ugh, that was a terrible book. He catalogues what's wrong for hundreds of pages and then decides having the Fed around is better than the alternative. We think it's central banking in large part that has given the elite the funds to take America down the wrong path, and that the velocity is accelerating - given the creation of Homeland Security, etc.
Edwin Vieira Jr.: In my estimation, dealing with the domestic-police-state-in-the-making is an even more critical concern than dealing with the problems engendered by the Federal Reserve System. This, because the present monetary and banking regime, being nothing more than a confidence game, could implode at any moment, and certainly could collapse before an alternative currency were in operation, thereby plunging the country into the sort of economic, political, and social chaos which would serve as the pretext for the imposition of all-round police-state repression. Therefore, if Americans do not have a plan in place, and very soon, for preventing that repression, everything could be lost.
That is not all. Even the Establishment could be hoist with its own petard. The police state now being elaborated from Washington, D.C., does not consist solely of civilian law-enforcement agencies. Rather, the deep thinkers in the "homeland-security" business are working feverishly to insinuate the Armed Forces into their schemes for nationwide domestic oppression. As a practical matter, this is probably necessary (from their point of view), inasmuch as a general economic, political, and social breakdown would set off eruptions of violent unrest beyond the capabilities of most if not all State and local police departments to put down.
Daily Bell: So you believe that the Establishment realizes how large a divide is growing between "average Joes" and America's elitists?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Of course. Anyone even randomly surfing the Internet will stumble upon massive evidence of the irreconcilable antagonism and rancor rising at a fever pitch among common Americans against the economic and political "leaders" who have sold them and their country down the river. (Which is one of the main reasons the Establishment is desperate to come up with some rationalization and means to censor the Internet.) The Establishment knows that it stands on shaky ground-and that if it can no longer depend on the good will of the people, it must hope to be able to suppress collective manifestations of their ill will. This will require vast numbers of "boots on the ground". Thus, the ever-mounting emphasis by officials in "homeland-security" agencies on involvement of the Armed Forces in domestic "peacekeeping".
As Richard Weaver observed, though, "ideas have consequences"-and, one might add, particularly stupid ideas very often have extremely bad, albeit unintended consequences. The lesson that history teaches, but that the big brains in Washington apparently have not absorbed, is that once politicians (in any country) have turned to the Armed Forces to control domestic dissent arising out of failed economic and social policies, the Armed Forces quickly conclude that they are able and even entitled to become political powers in their own right. After all, why should the Armed Forces not exercise control over the policies and other decisions civilian officials make concerning the deployment of the Armed Forces, particularly when those officials' incompetence or corruption has brought about the domestic disturbances the Armed Forces are expected to risk their lives to quell? And then why should the Armed Forces themselves not promulgate, or at least oversee, policies on all economic and social matters in the first place? Could they fail any more miserably than have the civilian officials?
Furthermore, here in America, if the Armed Forces are deployed to suppress widespread civil unrest emanating from a major breakdown of the economy that threatens the continued viability of the military-industrial complex, the Brass Hats will have a particularly compelling institutional incentive to maintain themselves in positions of political leadership: namely, securing their reason for being and the source of their importance, power, and benefits. In addition, thoroughly politicized Armed Forces will likely feel the need to justify the expensive existence of the military-industrial complex by inserting themselves into, if not instigating outright, ever-expanding overseas military adventures. Thus, "the war on terror"-in addition to whatever other forms of aggressive imperialism can be fomented, ostensibly to "defend our freedoms" in a "homeland" no longer free-will drag on forever, at untold costs in lives and treasure.
Of course, as has proven true everywhere else, politicized Armed Forces in this country will be unable to solve the underlying economic and social problems that rationalized their politicization in the first place. So America will be wracked with chronic political chaos: token civilian regimes staffed with incompetent puppets and "yes men", followed by new bouts of military string-pulling or outright intervention aimed at cleaning up the last crisis, and so on, along the sorry lines South American republics such as Argentina have followed for generations.
For that reason, people worried simply about the likelihood of hyperinflation, depression, or hyperinflation coupled with depression-and about how they might be able to protect their incomes and accumulated wealth under such circumstances-are viewing their world through rather ill-fitting rose-colored glasses. When hyperinflation or other economic calamities strike, and the Armed Forces are politicized as instruments of domestic repression, merely maintaining his income and securing his accumulated wealth will become matters of very low priority for anyone with high economic, social, or political visibility who has or might run afoul of the regime. So those myopic people who are trying to figure out how they can personally profit from the coming collapse of America's economy had better start thinking instead of how they can contribute to the effort to prevent that collapse, to fend off a police state that collapse will engender, and to return this country to the rule of constitutional law-right now, before time runs out.
Daily Bell: How can a police state be fended off?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Actually, the constitutional solution for dealing with the emerging police state is even simpler than the solution for dealing with the collapsing Federal Reserve System. Now, I do not believe that, at the present time, the upper echelons of the Officer Corps in America's Armed Forces contain significant numbers of potential Bonapartists. The patriotic sense of "duty, honor, country" doubtlessly still prevails. But this circumstance could change. It has changed in other countries. As the Second Amendment to the Constitution declares, "[a] well regulated Militia" is "necessary to the security of a free State". Not the regular Armed Forces, but "[a] well regulated Militia".
"A well regulated Militia" is the only thing the Constitution identifies as "necessary" for any purpose, and the only thing it identifies as serving the specific purpose of "security". So, if Americans want a stable and prosperous economy, they want a free economy (that is, one based on the free market). If Americans want a free economy, they want "a free State", that being the only kind of political system that will support and defend the free market. And if Americans want "a free State", they want "[a] well regulated Militia" in every State. And what is "[a] well regulated Militia"? As Article 13 of Virginia's Declaration of Rights (1776) so aptly put it, "[a] well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state". That is, "[a] well regulated Militia" consists of We the People ourselves-in the final analysis, the only possible guarantors of freedom in a self-governing society.
Moreover, for all of these reasons, the members of the Armed Forces-all of whom take an oath to support the Constitution-should want "[a] well regulated Militia" in every State, too. Unfortunately, "[a] well regulated Militia", fully formed and operated according to proper constitutional principles, does not exist in even a single State today. (No, Virginia, the National Guard is not, never was, and cannot be the Militia.) So a great deal of work remains to be done in this area, as well.
Daily Bell: If these problems could be solved by application of the Constitution, then why did the Constitution not prevent them from arising in the first place? Has not the Constitution proven itself ineffective?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: We have had the benefit of the Ten Commandments since the days of Moses; but has their mere existence prevented all, or even most, sinful behavior? No. Whose fault has that been? God's or the sinners'? And shall we now blame the Ten Commandments-or worse, jettison them entirely-because some, even many, individuals continue to murder, to steal, and so on, whether in public office or private occupation?
The same reasoning applies to the Constitution. The Constitution is a set of instructions for running a complex political machine. This machine has as workmanlike a design as political science has ever recorded throughout the ages; and the instructions for its operation are concise and clear. So if, from time to time, the operators of the machine, through incompetence or malevolence, fail or refuse to follow those instructions, with deleterious results, does the fault lie with the instructions or the operators? Now, at one level, the operators of the constitutional machine are public officials. But they are subject to control by a higher level of operators: We the People, the selfsame We the People who (as its Preamble attests) "ordained and established th[e] Constitution" in the first place. So, if compliance with the Constitution's instructions has not been had, then ultimately We the People, not the Constitution, are to blame. Which is very fortunate, because We the People are in an unique position to do something about this situation.
We the People are the voters who select legislative, executive, and some judicial officers for government at every level of the federal system. We the People are in actual physical possession of most of the valuable property in this country. We the People constitute the Militia, which imposes upon us the direct responsibility to maintain "the security of a free State". And, with a little organization pursuant to statutes enacted in the States, We the People can effectively enforce Nancy Reagan's dictum: to "just say NO!" to further economic and political incompetence, corruption, and downright oppression in this country, emanating from Washington, D.C., New York City, or anywhere else.
Daily Bell: But is not the Supreme Court the final legal authority on what the Constitution means, and therefore legally superior to the people?
Edwin Vieira Jr.: Balderdash. A judicial opinion about the Constitution is precisely that, and no more: just an opinion of some fallible human beings who happened to occupy the Bench at that time. It may be correct-or it may be incorrect. The Supreme Court does not determine what the Constitution means; rather, the Constitution determines whether a decision of the Supreme Court is right or wrong. Even the Supreme Court has recognized that "[t]he power to enact carries with it final authority to declare the meaning of the legislation". Propper v. Clark, 337 U.S. 472, 484 (1949). And We the People-not "we the judges"-enacted the Constitution. It is our supreme law, not theirs.
We are the principals, they merely our agents. So we are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution, and the ultimate judges of whether public officials are complying with it. As Sir William Blackstone, the Founding Fathers' primary legal mentor, observed: "whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to". Commentaries on the Laws of England (1771-1773), Volume 1, at 212. Any self-governing people should know as much without being reminded. One can only hope that the present economic crisis will focus people's minds on this basic truth to a degree sufficient to make a difference.
Daily Bell: Thank you for this interview.
Edwin Vieira Jr.: It was my pleasure.
http://www.thedailybell.com/724/Edwin-Vieira-the-Coming-Military-Crackdown.html
THE OCCUPATION FORCES ARE MARXIST PROGRESSIVES
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wallace/andrew123.htm
Crashing Towards a New World Social Order 2012
This is a little long, but a very good read...
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17568.html
FACT CHECK: Jesse Ventura on Larry King: American Conspiracies
http://americansjourney.blogspot.com/2010/03/jesse-ventura-on-larry-king.html
Use Foreclosure Law!™
Keep Your Home
http://www.chooseforeclosure.com/
fyi from an e-mail
Here is information way beyond "normal politics" and the issues should concern everyone. This should have been reviewed long before this.
THIS IS SOMETHING YOU SHOULD READ ABOUT HOW VERY QUIETLY THAT OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP IS IN QUESTION.
VERY QUIETLY OBAMA'S CITIZENSHIP CASE REACHES SUPREME COURT
AP - WASHINGTON D.C. - In a move certain to fuel the debate over
Obama's qualifications for the presidency, the group "Americans for Freedom
of Information" has Released copies of President Obama's college
transcripts from Occidental College . Released today, the transcript school
indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial
aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate at the The
transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a
court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of
California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial
aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the
Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship,
a student must claim foreign citizenship.
This document would seem to
provide the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been
seeking. Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya and there
is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship, this is looking pretty
grim. The news has created a firestorm at the White House as the release
casts increasing doubt about Obama's legitimacy and qualification to serve
as President.. When reached for comment in London , where he has been in
meetings with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Obama smiled but refused
comment on the issue. Britain 's Daily Mail has also carried the story in
a front-page article titled, "Obama Eligibility Questioned," leading some to
speculate that the story may overshadow economic issues on Obama's
first official visit to the U.K. In a related matter, under growing pressure from
several groups,
Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday
to hear arguments concerning Obama's legal eligibility to serve as
President in a case brought by Leo Donofrio of New Jersey .. This
lawsuit claims Obama's dual citizenship disqualified him from serving as
president. Donofrio's case is just one of 18 suits brought by citizens
demanding proof of Obama's citizenship or qualification to serve as
president.
Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results
of their investigation of Obama's campaign spending. This study estimates
that Obama has spent upwards of $950,000 in campaign funds in the past year
with eleven law firms in 12 states for legal resources to block disclosure
of any of his personal records. Mr. Kreep indicated that the investigation
is still ongoing but that the final report will be provided to the U.S.
attorney general, Eric Holder. Mr. Holder has refused to comment on the
matter.
.
*LET OTHER FOLKS KNOW THIS NEWS, THE MEDIA WON'T !**
Subject: RE: Issue of Passport?
While I've little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama
birth issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the
issue can be resolved by Obama answering one simple question: What passport
did he use when he was shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and Karachi ?
So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981,
without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up with the
price of a round-the-world trip just a month later?
And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York , Jakarta , and
Karachi , what passport was he offering when he passed through Customs
and Immigration?
The American people not only deserve to have answers to these
questions, they must have answers. It makes the debate over Obama's
citizenship a rather short and simple one.
Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?
A : Yes, by his own admission.
Q: What passport did he travel under?
A: There are only three possibilities.
1) He traveled with a U.S. Passport, 2) He traveled with a
British passport, or 3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.
Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981?
A: No.. It is not possible. Pakistan was on the U.S. State Department's
"no travel" list in 1981.
Conclusion: When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with
a British passport or an Indonesian passport.
If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof
that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he claims.
And if he were traveling with an Indonesian passport that would tend
to prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held, British
or American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in 1967.
Whatever the truth of the matter, the American people need to know how
he managed to become a "natural born" American citizen between 1981 and
2008..
Given the destructive nature of his plans for America, as illustrated by
his speech before Congress and the disastrous spending plan he has presented
to Congress,the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.
If you Don't care that Your President is not a natural born Citizen and
in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this and go into your cocoon.
If you do care then Forward this!
Yes, This is What We Need - the Power of the States Against the Federal Government Takeover of Our Liberties
http://www.americancrisis.us/Article.php?ID=68407&
The end of the road for Barack Obama?
Barack Obama seems unable to face up to America's problems, writes Simon Heffer in New York.
By Simon Heffer
Published: 8:16AM GMT 08 Mar 2010
Comments 785 | Comment on this article
The once mighty Detroit seems on the verge of being abandoned Photo: Jeffrey Sauger
It is a universal political truth that administrations do not begin to fragment when things are going well: it only happens when they go badly, and those who think they know better begin to attack those who manifestly do not. The descent of Barack Obama's regime, characterised now by factionalism in the Democratic Party and talk of his being set to emulate Jimmy Carter as a one-term president, has been swift and precipitate. It was just 16 months ago that weeping men and women celebrated his victory over John McCain in the American presidential election. If they weep now, a year and six weeks into his rule, it is for different reasons.
Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen. The economy remains troublesome. There is growth – a good last quarter suggested an annual rate of as high as six per cent, but that figure is probably not reliable – and the latest unemployment figures, last Friday, showed a levelling off. Yet 15 million Americans, or 9.7 per cent of the workforce, have no job. Many millions more are reduced to working part-time. Whole areas of the country, notably in the north and on the eastern seaboard, are industrial wastelands. The once mighty motor city of Detroit appears slowly to be being abandoned, becoming a Jurassic Park of the mid-20th century; unemployment among black people in Mr Obama's own city of Chicago is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent. One senior black politician – a Democrat and a supporter of the President – told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people. Cities in the east such as Newark and Baltimore now have drug-dealing as their principal commercial activity: The Wire is only just fictional.
When will Barack Obama stop fudging it?Last Thursday the House of Representatives passed a jobs Bill, costing $15 billion, which would give tax breaks to firms hiring new staff and, through state sponsorship of construction projects, create thousands of jobs too. The Senate is trying to approve a Bill that would provide a further $150 billion of tax incentives to employers. Yet there is a sense of desperation in the Administration, a sense that nothing can be as efficacious at the moment as a sticking plaster. Edward B Montgomery, deputy labour secretary in the Clinton administration, now spends his time on day trips to decaying towns that used to have a car industry, not so much advising them on how to do something else as facilitating those communities' access to federal funds. For a land without a welfare state, America starts to do an effective impersonation of a country with one. This massive state spending gives rise to accusations by Republicans, and people too angry even to be Republicans, that America is now controlled by "Leftists" and being turned into a socialist state.
"Obama's big problem," a senior Democrat told me, "is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN." The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media. With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day: its message is of the construction of the socialist state, the hijacking of America by "progressives" who now dominate institutions, the indoctrination of children, the undermining of religion and the expropriation of public money for these nefarious projects. The public loves it, and it is manifestly stirring up political activism against Mr Obama, and also against those in the Republican Party who are not deemed conservatives. However, it is arguable whether the now-reorganising Right is half as effective in its assault on the President as some of Mr Obama's own party are.
Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism. The sound of the squealing of brakes is now audible all over the American press; but the attack is being directed not at the leader himself, but at those around him. There was much unconditional love a year or so ago of Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama's Chief of Staff; oleaginous profiles of this Chicago political hack, a veteran of that unlovely team that polluted the Clinton White House, appeared in otherwise respectable journals, praising the combination of his religious devotion, his family-man image, his ruthless operating technique and his command of the vocabulary of profanity. Now, supporters of the President are blaming Mr Emanuel for the failure of the Obama project, not least for his inability to construct a deal on health care.
This went down badly with friends of Mr Emanuel, notably with Mr Emanuel himself. His partisans, apparently taking dictation from him, have filled newspaper columns and blogs with uplifting accounts of the Wonder of Rahm: as one of them put it, "Emanuel is the only person preventing Obama from becoming Jimmy Carter". They attack other Obama "sycophants", such as David Axelrod, his campaign guru, and Valerie Jarret, a long-time friend of Mrs Obama and a fixer from the office of Mayor Daley of Chicago who now manages – or tries to manage – the President's image. These "sycophants" have, they argue, tried to keep the President above politics, letting Congress run away with the agenda, and gainsaying Mr Emanuel's advice to Mr Obama to get tough with his internal opponents. This naïve act of manipulation has brought its own counter-counterattack, with an anti-Emanuel pundit drawing a comparison with our own Prime Minister and ridiculing the idea that Mr Obama should start bullying people too.
The root of the problem seems to be the management of expectations. The magnificent campaign created the notion that Mr Obama could walk on water. Oddly enough, he can't. That was more Mr Axelrod's fault than Mr Emanuel's. And, to be fair to Mr Emanuel, any advice he has been giving the President to impose his will on Congress is probably well founded. The $783 billion stimulus package of a year ago was used to further the re-election prospects of many congressmen, not to do good for the country. America's politics remain corrupt, populated by nonentities whose main concern once elected is to stay elected; it seems to be the same the whole world over. Even this self-interested use of the stimulus package appears to have failed, however. Every day, it seems, another Democrat congressman announces that he will not be fighting the mid-term elections scheduled for November 2. The health care Bill, apparently so humane in intent, is being "scrubbed" (to use the terminology of one Republican) by its opponents, to the joy of millions of middle Americans who see it as a means to waste more public money and entrench socialism. For the moment, this is a country vibrant with anger.
A thrashing of the Democrats in the mid-terms would not necessarily be the beginning of the end for Mr Obama: Bill Clinton was re-elected two years after the Republicans swept the House and the Senate in November 1994. But Mr Clinton was an operator in a way Mr Obama patently is not. His lack of experience, his dependence on rhetoric rather than action, his disconnection from the lives of many millions of Americans all handicap him heavily. It is not about whose advice he is taking: it is about him grasping what is wrong with America, and finding the will to put it right. That wasted first year, however, is another boulder hanging from his neck: what is wrong needs time to put right. The country's multi-trillion dollar debt is barely being addressed; and a country engaged in costly foreign wars has a President who seems obsessed with anything but foreign policy – as a disregarded Britain is beginning to realise.
There are lessons from the stumbling of Mr Obama for our own country as we approach a general election. Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people. The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern. There is no point a nation's having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7396358/The-end-of-the-road-for-Barack-Obama.html
I have lots nastier words, but that one will do too.
This will be the worst destruction and fallout from GMO's so far. That's if it's not already too late and if the spread isn't too bad just from the fields that they've already tested. But it more than likely is.
About the only thing they haven't destroyed yet is just plain old grass. I'm waiting for that one....
I have one word for this.... Assholes!
Attack of the GMOs: GMO Alfalfa Will Make Organic Dairy Impossible
By Ellen Brown (about the author)
opednews.com
For OpEdNews: Ellen Brown - Writer
The USDA and Secretary Vilsack, in collaboration with Monsanto, are about to lift a court-ordered ban on Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) "Roundup Ready" alfalfa. This GMO would have disastrous effects on US and global agriculture. Genetically engineered alfalfa would be the first perennial GM crop, and would result in a huge increase of toxic RoundUp in the environment. It would widely expose livestock to both genetically-engineered genes and pesticide residues. It would especially affect cows and horses - their health, their reproduction, and their byproducts, particularly milk.
Alfalfa pollen is carried far and wide by the wind and bees, so the presence of GM alfalfa in the environment would contaminate organic alfalfa, rendering organic dairy impossible. Consumers who eat alfalfa sprouts would be exposed directly, as well as those who eat meat.
This is the most serious GMO threat yet to your health, as it creates a legal precedent at the Supreme Court level for GMO contamination to be acceptable for any crop, with the support of the USDA (see Background below).
To prevent this, action needs to be taken before the Wednesday, March 3 deadline. Steps you can take:
1. Follow the directions in the True Food Network page pasted below to conveniently call your Senators and Representatives on Monday and Tuesday, and tell them that they should not support the commercialization of GM-alfalfa. This will have a strong impact, as there have not been enough comments to date.
2. Follow this link: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14469696 to the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) where you can send the OCA email letter by clicking "take action now." This will take only about 2 minutes and can be done on the weekend.
3. Submit comments directly to the USDA at: http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a6b7a1. You can write your own comments from the points below and above, or copy and paste the letter found at the OCA link: http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14469696 , in the "Take Action Now" section. This will take you 4-5 minutes and can be done on the weekend, and will have a strong impact.
". . . Alfalfa is the fourth most widely grown crop in the U.S. and a key source of dairy forage. The first perennial crop to be genetically engineered, GE alfalfa can regenerate itself from its root-stock. It is open-pollinated by bees, which can cross-pollinate at distances of several miles, spreading the patented, foreign DNA to conventional and organic crops. GMO-contamination of organic alfalfa is inevitable if the Obama Administration successfully commercializes Monsanto's GM alfalfa. Consumers who ingest Roundup Ready alfalfa genes are risking their health; according to the Environmental Impact Study, "acute toxicity in mice was observed.'"
Read more here:
http://capwiz.com/grassrootsnetroots/issues/alert/?alertid=14469696
US currency soon to be radically altered
6:00 am March 5, 2010, by Bob Barr
Reach into your wallet for a five dollar bill in the near future, and you will likely pull out a much-downsized, multi-colored version of the venerable green bill with the visage of Abraham Lincoln printed thereon. You will soon have to search in vain for uniformly-sized and colored tens, twenties, fifties or hundreds. Is this dramatic change the result of Congress having passed a law requiring new designs for all currency bills larger than one dollar? Nope. It’s because of a special-interest lawsuit.
A little over three years ago, a federal court ordered the Treasury Department to begin the process of radically changing all US currency above the denomination of $1. That decision was subsequently affirmed in 2008 by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. All this judicial decision-making is based on a 1970s-era federal law, the “Rehabilitation Act,” that was intended to extend civil rights to disabled individuals. While this law had been employed in a number of areas to remove barriers to disabled persons seeking employment and access to various facilities and services, in 2002 an advocacy group – the American Council of the Blind (ACB) — filed a lawsuit interpreting the Act as requiring the government to design its currency in such a way as to be easily identifiable by the blind and the visually-impaired.
That lawsuit has now become the vehicle forcing a multi-hundred million dollar change in US currency. Uniformly-sized and -designed US currency, which has served America well for so many decades, will soon be a relic of the past — but not because of action by the Congress or the President of the United States as representatives of the citizenry. This change is being forced on the American people because of creative advocacy by a special-interest organization which was able to convince a handful of unelected federal appeals court judges to expansively interpret a federal statute, that arguably was not even intended to reach an issue such as currency design.
The federal judges apparently were swayed also by the fact that many nations other than the United States already have switched to multi-sized paper currency incorporating all manner of visual and tactile identifiers. The judges’ decision was arrived at notwithstanding that the number of people in the country who are actually blind is less than one-tenth of one percent of the US population of nearly 309 million, and even though other organizations advocating for the blind (such as the National Federation of the Blind) did not support the approach taken by the ACB.
In short, this is another example of important public policy matters being decided not by the people’s representatives, but by shrewd advocacy groups and federal judges eager to interpret federal laws expansively and to leave their imprimatur far beyond the confines of the courtroom. In the near future, when you search in vain for the uniquely American currency of uniform and professional size and design, and you find only oddly-shaped, multi-colored and highly-textured bills that are little different from bills circulated by other countries, remember you have a couple of unelected judges and powerful special interest groups to thank.
http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2010/03/05/us-currency-soon-to-be-radically-altered/?cxntfid=blogs_bob_barr_blog
"Those who hammer their guns into plows,
will plow for those who do not."
-- Thomas Jefferson
The Silent Epidemic that’s Becoming a National Security Disaster
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/06/how-to-win-the-food-battle-with-your-child.aspx
How banks are obtaining money to re-pay TARP
They are not getting it from operating surplus or stock sales
They are selling warrants, which are contracts that give buyers the future right to buy stock at a stated price
in this case, a price that seems low in terms of past prices but high in terms of continuing losses
Warrants are derivatives, and those who purchase them are gambling, not investing
It is not unreasonable to think if whoever is buying them might be privately assured
that they will be bailed out by the government and the Federal Reserve if their gamble should sour..
Bank of America warrants sale raises $1.54 billion
By Martin Crutsinger,
Ap Economics Writer
Thu Mar 4, 3:31 pm ET
WASHINGTON – The Treasury Department has received a record $1.54 billion from the sale of warrants it received from Bank of America as part of the support it provided during the financial crisis.
The Treasury said Thursday it sold 272.17 million warrants in an auction held because Bank of America and the government could not agree upon an acceptable price. Warrants are financial instruments that allow the holder to buy stock in the future at a fixed price.
The $1.54 billion total is the largest amount raised from a single institution from the sale of warrants as part of the government's $700 billion financial rescue effort.
The amount raised in the Bank of America auction exceeds the $936.1 million raised from a December auction of JPMorgan Chase & Co. warrants and the $1.1 billion raised from the sale of Goldman Sachs warrants.
Goldman Sachs bought back its own warrants after the company and Treasury were able to agree upon a price. The warrant auctions are being held in cases where the government and the financial institution are not able to agree upon a price.
Treasury held the first three warrant auctions last year. Bank of America was the first of four auctions that are scheduled to be held this month.
Treasury split the Bank of America warrants into two groups representing the two blocks of support Bank of America, based in Charlotte, N.C., received during the height of the financial crisis in late 2008 and early 2009.
Bank of America repaid the government's $45 billion of support in December. The warrant auction on Thursday represented the last link the bank had with the $700 billion bailout fund, known as the Troubled Assets Relief Program.
In the auction, Treasury sold 150.38 million warrants that it labeled "A warrants" with a minimum bid price of $7 per warrant. It received a price of $8.35 for each for those warrants. The purchasers of those warrants have the right to buy a share of Bank of America stock for $13.30 for the life of the Group A warrants which will expire on January 2019.
Treasury set a minimum bid price of $1.50 for the 121.79 million in Group B warrants. It sold those warrants at the auction Thursday for a price of $2.55. The purchaser of the Group B warrants have the right to buy Bank of America stock at $30.79 through the life of these warrants which will expire in October 2018.
In the way the warrants work, a holder of the Group A warrant will be "in the money," or in the position to make a profit if Bank of America stock increases to $21.65. That would equal the $8.35 paid for each warrant and the $13.30 strike price that it would pay for each share of stock.
For a holder of a Group B warrant, the "in the money" price would be $33.34. That figure comes from the $2.55 paid for the warrant and a $30.79 strike price set for the Group B warrants.
On Thursday, stock in Bank of America was trading around around $16.42 per share. The banking giant's shares traded above $50 as recently as 2007.
The buyers of both groups of warrants are betting Bank of America sharea are headed significantly higher.
In afternoon trading Thursday, the Group A warrants rose 15 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $8.50, while the Group B warrants gained 25 cents, or 9.8 percent, to $2.80.
Linus Wilson, a finance professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and an expert in stock warrants, said he would give Teasury a high grade for how it has handled the auctions so far.
"These are great results. I think the auctions have had a significantly positive impact on the prices that Treasury has obtained for the warrants," Wilson said.
The administration in January said in a report to Congress that it had made $4 billion from the sale of warrants in 2009. Of that amount, $2.9 billion came from 31 institutions that repurchased their own warrants and the other $1.1 billion came from the JPMorgan auction and two other auctions.
The administration in January said in a report to Congress that it had made $4 billion from the sale of warrants in 2009. Of that amount, $2.9 billion came from 31 institutions that repurchased their own warrants and the other $1.1 billion came from the JPMorgan auction and two other auctions.
Financial institutions have been eager to exit from the TARP program to escape various restrictions imposed on institutions receiving the government support including limitiations on executive compensation.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100304/ap_on_bi_ge/us_bailout_warrants;_ylt=ApCQMk4fJl9XiZy2rh181y.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFmajA1YjNzBHBvcwMxMDMEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9idXNpbmVzcwRzbGsDYmFua29mYW1lcmlj
Panic at the US FED or Back to Normalcy?
F. William Engdahl - Mar 04, 10
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/panic-at-the-us-fed-or-back-to-normalcy-1
March 4, 2010
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net
Summary
The decision of the US Federal Reserve to raise its key interest rate was definitely not a sign of confidence in the US economic recovery or a signal that Fed policy is slowly returning to normal as claimed. It was rather a signal of panic over the weakness in US Government bond markets, the heart of the dollar financial system.
Analysis
Financial markets have reacted with jubilation, by buying dollars and selling Euros, at the decision by the Fed to raise rates for the first time since 2006 for its so-called Discount Rate, going from 0.5% to 0.75%. The Discount Rate is the interest rate charged for banks to borrow from the central bank. At the same time the Fed left its more important short-term Fed Funds rate unchanged and historically low -- between 0.0% and 0.25%. In its official statement the Board of Governors said the rate move was intended to push private banks back into the private inter-bank borrowing market and away from reliance on Federal Reserve subsidized money which had been provided since the financial crisis began in August 2007.
The decision, in plain words, was framed so as to give the impression of a ‘return to business as usual.’ At the same time, financial players like George Soros continue to speak openly about the fundamental weakness of the Euro. This has the effect of taking speculative pressure away from fundamentally worse economic and financial fundamentals within the dollar zone at the expense of the Euro. The reality is that the dollar world is anything but returning to ‘normal.’
‘Unsustainable deficits’
The conservative President of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Thomas Hoenig recently warned in a little-reported speech that if the size of the Federal Budget deficit is not dramatically and urgently reduced, public debt will soon look like that of Italy or Greece, exceeding 100% of GDP. In a recent speech Hoenig noted, “The fiscal projections for the United States are so stunning that, one way or another, reform will occur. Fiscal policy is on an unsustainable course. The US government must make adjustments in its spending and tax programs. It is that simple. If pre-emptive corrective action is not taken regarding the fiscal outlook, then the United States risks precipitating its own next crisis….”
Translated into laymen’s language, that means savage cuts in Government spending at a time when real unemployment is running in the range of an unofficial 23% of the workforce, and the states are struggling to cut their own spending, as Federal dollars disappear.
In brief, the United States economy, though no one is willing to say so, is caught in a Third World-style ‘debt trap.’ If the Government cuts the deficit, the economy sinks deeper into depression. But if it continues to print money and sell debt, buyers of US Treasury debt will at a certain point refuse to buy, meaning US interest rates could be forced severely high in the midst of depression conditions?equally catastrophic to the economy.
Bond boycott?
The second option, a boycott by buyers of US bonds, may have already begun. On February 11, the US Treasury held an auction of $16 billion worth of 30-year bonds and securities to finance its exploding deficits. In a little-reported feature of a sale which did not go well in terms of demand, foreign central banks reduced their share of purchases from a recent average of 43% of the total to a mere 28%. The largest foreign central bank buyers of US debt in recent years have been China and Japan. Secondly, it appears that the Federal Reserve itself was forced to buy the slack demand, some 24% of the total of bonds sold versus 5% only a month before.
The Federal deficit will reach an estimated $1.6 trillion in the current fiscal year that ends September 2010 and will continue next year and for at least another decade, above $1 trillion annually.
The situation will be further aggravated because the largest generation born after the Second World War, the so-called Baby Boom generation born between 1945-1966, has just begun retiring in huge numbers. That deprives the Federal Government of their Social Security tax revenues, which will now go from an asset in the Federal budget to a liability, as the Government must pay out their monthly retirement pensions. This will hugely aggravate the size of the deficits over the next decade and longer.
The highly-touted Clinton era Budget ‘surplus’ was in reality not the result of anything done by Clinton or his Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Rather it was because of the deceptive practice of counting on the Social Security tax revenues from that generation as US Government surplus revenue during their peak earning years in the late 1990s. That tax inflow has now begun to turn into what will be a huge outflow over the next decade.
A new ‘China syndrome’
However, in the face of all this the White House seems to be implementing a series of foolish policies, with one action in direct contradiction to another. This is the case in terms of recent Washington behaviour towards China, the largest holder of US Government bonds, at least until this past month.
The Obama White House has recently approved punitive import tariffs on Chinese auto tires. Then it increased friction in relations with its largest creditor by announcing a provocative new arms sale of billions of dollars to Taiwan over strong Chinese protest. In addition, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has meddled in internal Chinese Internet regulation by openly criticizing China for alleged censorship.
Then, as if to rub salt in a wound, despite further official Chinese protest, US President Obama officially met with the Dalai Lama in a Washington ceremony on February 18. Genuine concern for the well-being of Tibetan monks was not likely the reason. It was to signal heightened US pressure on China. Officially, to date, Beijing has reacted calmly, if firmly. Its real response, however, might be coming in a financial arena, not a political one, something that the ancient Chinese military philosopher, Sun Tzu, would have no doubt suggested.
It appears that the Chinese government has already begun to react to the ill-timed US pressures on China by boycotting US Treasury debt buying. In December the Chinese were net sellers of US Government bonds, selling more than $ 43 billion worth of US debt. Given its huge annual trade surplus from its export earnings, the National Bank of China currently holds reserves of foreign currencies and other assets, including gold, worth $ 2.4 trillion. At least 60% of that is believed to be in US Treasury and other Government-guaranteed debt, perhaps some $1.4 trillion. If China continues to dump US debt onto international financial markets, the dollar will plunge and a full panic will ensue in Wall Street and beyond.
To try to reverse this trend of boycotting US bond purchases by foreign central banks and others was likely the real reason that the Bernanke Fed now suddenly raised a key interest rate, despite the worsening of the domestic economy in real terms. They seem to be engaged in a colossal market game of bluff, trying to convince that “the worst is over.”
That Fed move, as well as recent hedge fund and Wall Street attacks on the Euro in the context of the Greek events, are looking more and more like covert economic warfare for the future survival of the US dollar as world reserve currency. As Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century explains, US global power since 1945 has depended on having the dollar as undisputed world reserve currency and the US military as the world’s dominant power. If the dollar falls away, the over-extended military becomes vulnerable as well.
The Fed is in a desperate situation of trying to avert a full bond market selling panic that would trigger such a financial chain reaction collapse. This is why it raised one rate while leaving the more important Fed Funds rate at zero. It’s a desperate bluff. So far the lemmings in the financial markets appear to have bought the trick. How long that will last is unclear.
As the Greek crisis is resolved and it becomes clear that the situation, however difficult, in Spain and Portugal and Italy are not about default, as their problems are no where near terminal, the prospects for the dollar and euro could change dramatically.
In this situation China’s central bank holds major power to decide the possible outcome. One possible outcome of the growing global impasse is the prospect that the People’s Bank of China will dramatically increase its purchases of gold and silver reserves. That, in turn, could serve China far better than buying more US debt, and serve as a basis to establish a future role of its currency in regional trade and international business independent of the dollar or the euro.
A golden opportunity
China’s gold reserves until recently have been relatively low compared to the size of its reserves. Official Chinese central bank gold reserves were 1,054 tons as of March 2009, worth about $37 billion at today's prices. That represents a mere 1.5% of its total reserves, and that is itself up by 76% since 2003. On average, international central banks hold about 10% of their reserves in gold. The German Bundesbank holds some 3,400 tons of gold, the second largest after the US Federal Reserve. To even get to that 10% level, China would have to buy more than $200 billion worth - about two years' global mine output.
Silver is not a significant part of most countries' reserves, but China is historically an exception, since in Imperial times before 1900 it was on a silver standard rather a gold standard, and so retained substantial silver reserves. One aim of the 1840’s British ‘Opium Wars’ against China was to drain the Chinese state of its entire silver currency reserves to the advantage of the British gold standard.
In 2001 and 2002 China was a major seller of silver, selling a total of 100 million ounces at its then-price of less than $5 an ounce. Since then, it has stopped selling silver. Last September 2009, the Chinese government passed a decree encouraging Chinese savers to buy silver, explaining that buying silver was a good deal since the gold/silver price ratio at 70-to-1 was historically very high, offering them convenient small-value ingots with which to buy it, and prohibiting the export of silver from China.
This was almost certainly a move designed to dampen stock-market speculation and reduce money supply growth, since bank deposits converted into silver would effectively be sterilized. What's more, if the long-awaited Chinese banking crisis ever developed, the effect on the long-suffering Chinese public would be mitigated if people held substantial wealth in the form of readily negotiable silver ingots.
It's likely that China is now a very large buyer of silver, possibly even more than gold. Thus, a selloff in People's Bank of China holdings of US Treasuries could be offset by purchases of gold for its own account and of silver to supply to the Chinese public.
Obama is a Liar: Illegal Wars, Fraudulent Bailouts, Egregious Assault on Civil Liberties
Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney were Right About Barack Obama
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17875
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened.
He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers’ defective products. These policies would come with ever-rising co-pays, deductibles and premiums and see most of the seriously ill left bankrupt and unable to afford medical care. Obama did nothing to halt the collapse of the Copenhagen climate conference, after promising meaningful environmental reform, and has left us at the mercy of corporations such as ExxonMobil. He empowers Israel’s brutal apartheid state. He has expanded the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where hundreds of civilians, including entire families, have been slaughtered by sophisticated weapons systems such as the Hellfire missile, which sucks the air out of victims’ lungs. And he is delivering war and death to Yemen, Somalia and perhaps Iran.
The illegal wars and occupations, the largest transference of wealth upward in American history and the egregious assault on civil liberties, all begun under George W. Bush, raise only a flicker of tepid protest from liberals when propagated by the Democrats. Liberals, unlike the right wing, are emotionally disabled. They appear not to feel. The tea-party protesters, the myopic supporters of Sarah Palin, the veterans signing up for Oath Keepers and the myriad of armed patriot groups have swept into their ranks legions of disenfranchised workers, angry libertarians, John Birchers and many who, until now, were never politically active. They articulate a legitimate rage. Yet liberals continue to speak in the bloodless language of issues and policies, and leave emotion and anger to the protofascists. Take a look at the 3,000-word suicide note left by Joe Stack, who flew his Piper Cherokee last month into an IRS office in Austin, Texas, murdering an IRS worker and injuring dozens. He was not alone in his rage.
“Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?” Stack wrote. “Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies. Yet, the political ‘representatives’ (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the ‘terrible health care problem’. It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.”
The timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence. The left stands for nothing. The damage Obama and the Democrats have done is immense. But the damage liberals do the longer they beg Obama and the Democrats for a few scraps is worse. It is time to walk out on the Democrats. It is time to back alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements, no matter how marginal such support may be. If we do not take a stand soon we must prepare for the rise of a frightening protofascist movement, one that is already gaining huge ground among the permanently unemployed, a frightened middle class and frustrated low-wage workers. We are, even more than Glenn Beck or tea-party protesters, responsible for the gusts fanning the flames of right-wing revolt because we have failed to articulate a credible alternative.
A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridicule—ask Nader or McKinney—is the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own. We have historical precedents to fall back upon.
“Here in the United States, at the beginning of the twentieth century, before there was a Soviet Union to spoil it, you see, socialism had a good name,” the late historian and activist Howard Zinn said in a lecture a year ago at Binghamton University. “Millions of people in the United States read socialist newspapers. They elected socialist members of Congress and socialist members of state legislatures. You know, there were like fourteen socialist chapters in Oklahoma. Really. I mean, you know, socialism—who stood for socialism? Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Emma Goldman, Clarence Darrow, Jack London, Upton Sinclair. Yeah, socialism had a good name. It needs to be restored.”
Social change does not come through voting. It is delivered through activism, organizing and mobilization that empower groups to confront the hegemony of the corporate state and the power elite. The longer socialism is identified with the corporatist policies of the Democratic Party, the longer we allow the right wing to tag Obama as a socialist, the more absurd and ineffectual we become. The right-wing mantra of “Obama the socialist,” repeated a few days ago to a room full of Georgia Republicans, by Newt Gingrich, the former U.S. speaker of the House, is discrediting socialism itself. Gingrich, who looks set to run for president, called Obama the “most radical president” the country had seen in decades. “By any standard of government control of the economy, he is a socialist,” Gingrich said. If only the critique were true.
The hypocrisy and ineptitude of the Democrats become, in the eyes of the wider public, the hypocrisy and ineptitude of the liberal class. We can continue to tie our own hands and bind our own feet or we can break free, endure the inevitable opprobrium, and fight back. This means refusing to support the Democrats. It means undertaking the laborious work of building a viable socialist movement. It is the only alternative left to save our embattled open society. We can begin by sending a message to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader. Let them know they are no longer alone.
Chris Hedges is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Chris Hedges
The Multibillion Trade in Carbon Derivatives
Copenhagen's Hidden Agenda:
Architect of Credit Default Swaps behind the Development of "Carbon Derivatives"
December 8, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16449
As I have previously shown, speculative derivatives (especially credit default swaps) are a primary cause of the economic crisis.
And I have pointed out that (1) the giant banks will make a killing on carbon trading, (2) while the leading scientist crusading against global warming says it won't work, and (3) there is a very high probability of massive fraud and insider trading in the carbon trading markets.
Now, Bloomberg notes that the carbon trading scheme will be centered around derivatives:
The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.
[Blythe] Masters says banks must be allowed to lead the way if a mandatory carbon-trading system is going to help save the planet at the lowest possible cost. And derivatives related to carbon must be part of the mix, she says. Derivatives are securities whose value is derived from the value of an underlying commodity -- in this case, CO2 and other greenhouse gases...
Who is Blythe Masters?
She is the JP Morgan employee who invented credit default swaps, and is now heading JPM's carbon trading efforts. As Bloomberg notes (this and all remaining quotes are from the above-linked Bloomberg article):
Masters, 40, oversees the New York bank’s environmental businesses as the firm’s global head of commodities...
As a young London banker in the early 1990s, Masters was part of JPMorgan’s team developing ideas for transferring risk to third parties. She went on to manage credit risk for JPMorgan’s investment bank.
Among the credit derivatives that grew from the bank’s early efforts was the credit-default swap.
Some in congress are fighting against carbon derivatives:
“People are going to be cutting up carbon futures, and we’ll be in trouble,” says Maria Cantwell, a Democratic senator from Washington state. “You can’t stay ahead of the next tool they’re going to create.”
Cantwell, 51, proposed in November that U.S. state governments be given the right to ban unregulated financial products. “The derivatives market has done so much damage to our economy and is nothing more than a very-high-stakes casino -- except that casinos have to abide by regulations,” she wrote in a press release...
However, Congress may cave in to industry pressure to let carbon derivatives trade over-the-counter:
The House cap-and-trade bill bans OTC derivatives, requiring that all carbon trading be done on exchanges...The bankers say such a ban would be a mistake...The banks and companies may get their way on carbon derivatives in separate legislation now being worked out in Congress...
Financial experts are also opposed to cap and trade:
Even George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund operator, says money managers would find ways to manipulate cap-and-trade markets. “The system can be gamed,” Soros, 79, remarked at a London School of Economics seminar in July. “That’s why financial types like me like it -- because there are financial opportunities”...
Hedge fund manager Michael Masters, founder of Masters Capital Management LLC, based in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands [and unrelated to Blythe Masters] says speculators will end up controlling U.S. carbon prices, and their participation could trigger the same type of boom-and-bust cycles that have buffeted other commodities...
The hedge fund manager says that banks will attempt to inflate the carbon market by recruiting investors from hedge funds and pension funds.
“Wall Street is going to sell it as an investment product to people that have nothing to do with carbon,” he says. “Then suddenly investment managers are dominating the asset class, and nothing is related to actual supply and demand. We have seen this movie before.”
Indeed, as I have previously pointed out, many environmentalists are opposed to cap and trade as well. For example:
Michelle Chan, a senior policy analyst in San Francisco for Friends of the Earth, isn’t convinced.
“Should we really create a new $2 trillion market when we haven’t yet finished the job of revamping and testing new financial regulation?” she asks. Chan says that, given their recent history, the banks’ ability to turn climate change into a new commodities market should be curbed...
“What we have just been woken up to in the credit crisis -- to a jarring and shocking degree -- is what happens in the real world,” she says...
Friends of the Earth’s Chan is working hard to prevent the banks from adding carbon to their repertoire. She titled a March FOE report “Subprime Carbon?” In testimony on Capitol Hill, she warned, “Wall Street won’t just be brokering in plain carbon derivatives -- they’ll get creative.”
Yes, they'll get "creative", and we have seen this movie before ...an inadequately-regulated carbon derivatives boom will destabilize the economy and lead to another crash.
Climate Madness
http://imva.info/index.php/2010/02/climate-madness/
from the constitution
ARTICLE I.
Sect. 8. The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties; imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
.............................
why would a sovereign nation need to borrow money when they have
control over issuing it?
what did the founding fathers mean by the above, what were they
thinking?
The American Republic replaced by a ruling
"Council of Governors" appointed by the President?
Quietly, it already has been done by executive order
with no coverage in the press..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=45756504
Radical New Treatment May Help Cancer Without Drugs
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/02/27/what-to-do-when-doctors-and-naturopaths-fail-you.aspx
the entire world is a stage
complete with its puppets
and puppeteers..
special effects
what will happen?
when the roof starts leaking..
this has been going on for quite some time
most follow canned news exclusively here in the us, they don't have a clue (which is still the majority)
not even a footnote is mentioned
Wonder who's paying him off?
probably the same entity controlling our media..
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Jan 9th 2016 - some important things happening now:
- Restoring the Rule of Law with the States Leading the Way by Texas Governor Greg Abbott: http://gov.texas.gov/files/press-office/Restoring_The_Rule_Of_Law_01082016.pdf
- Covention of States webiste: http://www.conventionofstates.com/
- also there's still lots going on at this time about Auditing the Fed/the Fedral Reserve Bank of the United States of America...just search for this subject if interested.
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**** my (Human) Organic Way-of-Life theory/formula: Individual (for All-Time: Unique/UnEqual/Sacred) + Intelligence + UnForced Choice + Creativity + Accountability + Truth + Love Good (dual meaning: love well & love that which is good if possible/if able) ='s The Organic Way-of-Life (- the pinnacle - Organic & otherwise...for humans) guided by & inspired by Ideals (both symbolic & in words always...human Ideals). **** ..."Balance" is also important...needs to be worked into my theory as well...such as balance between the two brain hemispheres...balance between the "machine" & technology created by humanity & my O-W-of-Life human Ideals.
some other things to consider: direction/meaning/satisfaction/desires/purpose/change factors/context/entropy ... and so on ... understanding that perfection does not exist in this world, nor can it ever nor has it ever...except perhaps of the whole to itself (? whence the beginning / whence the end ?...since there is something, there was never nothing/no-things. some thing/s do not come from no thing/s. since some things exist, some things have always existed. nothing/no things are inconceivable. ).
seeking to get closer to human Ideals, regardless of ever actually/perfectly achieveing them, is the way and tends to make humanity & the human experience/human Life & it's living better/best. i think & feel. i'm conscious, therefore i am. updated 5:33 pm etz Sunday Aug. 27th 2017 - Ken -
ok, so...it's time for changes here. i thank everyone who's helped me with this board to this point in time (Feb. 5, 2011 5:01pm). now, since i believe i'm once again too-far-out-there and (as always) extremely indiviidualized...i'm gonna take this board back to just me running it completely...again. if it dies...oh well. if i become a member again to post here in the near future...well, folks will just have to deal with it and me if they choose. i'm responsible for what's in this part of the board...i will burden no one else with it nor even seek to stretch it to include others. this is me speaking and posting what's on my mind, how i see things, what i think is important and so on. from this post/ibox addition onward, i'll deal with things that develop here or don't...as they occur or whatever. if this board is removed from this site because i haven't been a member for too long...well, i'll deal with that too. this stuff is already in my head (from which most of it came) regardless. again, thank you to those who've helped. - n/b/k
[[[ just a comment on Life as i see it, humanity (?) & this world in general: ...boring...corrupt...rotten...failure-oriented & failure-pushing...a sick-twisted-deadend-jealousjoke-lie-blatant falsity...inverted-world reality...mindlocked (leftbrainhemdom-mathminded) & thoroughly screwed human-abyss/wasteland. no thing is equal...check yourself. ]]] success to the good. - Ideal-Guided - (the mod's most recent post) Feb. 5 '11. adding: hmmm, and i wonder who what and/or why the person i had banned here has been removed again??? perhaps he (?) is no longer a member? perhaps some more changes are due here as well. no quarter nor respect for cowards regarding human ideals either perhaps. we'll see...i suppose. i bore very easily...my problem & burden not yours, maybe...but certainly not exactly the same (no thing is).
***** The Problem (always) to be overcome & constantly solved/guarded against is simply this: remove conspiracies, corruption, force, fraud, lies, secrecy & unaccountability from those who claim to govern and also from yourself. <- this is how i see things human and how i believe Life can be improved [justly & as it is/as it can be/as it should be...deservedly so, for each individually and for all in sum - in total - by choice willingly...ideal(s)-guided]. ... private property rights begin and end with one's right to one's self. so much of this human mess destroys/seeks to destroy this basic (essential) foundationally good human principle/fact. - n/b/k 11:27am Jan. 29, 2011. success to those and that which is the good!!! for a future where all and/or just one (anyone) is not forcibly equalized to death. *****
- the system that is now in place globally is Death...it is a deadend/the deadway/the end....at it's core is self-hatred... & from that, all this unnecessary destruction comes. it's not the Way-of-Life/this is not the way to live..rather truly, it is the way that dies. it is not based on Ideals. it is the opposite. it destroys what is good. it is based on lies-force (no choice) & theft (i see the core as "gay"/psychogay-predatory-secretive-conspiratorial & of course deeply self-loathing). question everything...find the best way...let ideals guide. the choice is yours. i choose the Life side of things. - i have one life to live for all-time...i have sought truth, satisfaction in living and the best way. i will continue to do so for my duration. --- n/b/k 12/15/2010. adding: government is a fraud...be responsible for yourself. allow choice in relations to exist. force creates hell...and again...creation and destruction are not equal. side with the creative side and you side with Life. (adding 2-8-2012: "Government" was born out of the psychpathic part of the human mind/brain. See it for what it really & trully is...and maybe humanity will and can survive(&thrive)/outgrow and overcome this hideous-deadly-fatal human flaw.)
so many people seem to be unable to well connect the past with the present and "see" where the trends for the future are likely going. understand money...study ponerology...remember that the human brain is bifurcated (with often very distinct areas of specialization) and understand that most do not use the right side well (and so they cannot see the context of things and so on). humanity must wake-up to itself...the predatory part of itself now and deal effectively with it (within each). love good! the individual is sacred (each is unique for all-time)...things should be built from here. batermania-nonentropic-ken-kdp-n/b/k 1:11pm etz 9-15-09
some of the things that seem to be necessary to solve much of our problems are the following: we must have integrity within us/within the individuals and within the systems we create that are designed to benefit and suit us best. we must have just and liberated monetary systems. slavery in all forms must be eliminated from this earth. secret socieities must not be allowed to exist (Michael Tsarion believes this firmly as well --- edit adding: or at least be aware that such things exist and always wonder why such things were created-needed?-and/or desired....a lie to fend off death seems acceptable...lies to screw others over-enslave them and worse are not)...for i believe it is largely from these groups that secret coups of governments occur. we are dealing with the insanity/madness/rot and evil that flourishes in the darkness of secrecy hidden behind a wall of lies, deception, illusions, paid hacks/shills and unjust force. .... this is not acceptable. so much is not acceptable. much must be changed...now. act accordingly. represent yourself. be and become your beliefs/ideals/vision. the choice is yours http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34088472 ... for me god/God ='s guide. find and follow your best ideals/vision/guide/god/God...and let's make this world a better place now...and from consistent focus and effort...ever-after as well (as is humanly possible) 'till the end of time. we are the consciousness of this Lifeverse. it's time to realize this, deal properly with all things and create and take our proper place in & among all things as well. one w/in one. success to the good! - n/b/k 12-17-08
a debt cannot be paid with a debt...the more we labor the further in debt we get...the National debt is a joke of the highest order for the same reason: others use their debtnotes/central bank's "paper"/actually worthless or negative asset creating fiat bank scrip to create our debt money/bondage. this is about the sickest system imaginable!!! WAKE-UP HUMANITY!!!...wake-up or die. it's really that simple. - n/b/k 2-14-09
Vexari 2 posts that should be considered and understood: Why the Fed & The National Debt Are Illegal http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34260985 & "the major premise" http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=34261431
Vexari post - Global Banking: The Bank for International Settlements http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=29780168
- Parasite-System - (a global privately held/owned/controlled debt+interest human enslavement system-scam/con-matrix) .... this is a good start: End the Federal Reserve Bank! a national day of protest and education 11/22/2008 http://www.endthefed.us/
this is our problem-the human problem (among other very serious things) & how do we properly deal with it: Ponerology - a scientifc study of Evil - of Psychopathy - of Psychopathic Traits Beware the [Political] Psychopath, My Son (link) http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/Political_Psychopaths.html by Clinton Callahan www.dissidentvoice.org/ May 12th, 2008 ... other links on this: http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/political_ponerology_lobaczewski.htm ... http://www.ponerology.com/ credit Alan Watt for talking about this on 6-16-09. - n/b/k ...the problem of humans preying upon other humans - /human predation. it's very real and it must be dealt with effectively to overcome as this (major human flaw/throwback to less evolved-less conscious ways of being & living) as much as is humanly possible. these are tendencies and potentials/gradations-degrees of things lacking and so on that destroy the sacred nature of the individual and obliterate good society. check yourself - your actions will speak the loudest and most clearly.
Jer 22:13 "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work; ...." (our heinous privately owned debt-based monetary system is an example of this. because of it, we exchange debtnotes and in essence/for the most part own nothing. also, consider that even though folks in this country were certainly more religious/more solidly Christian in the past -- let's say for instance from, 1900-1933 -- that did not stop thieves from stealing the wealth of this nation and making all it's citizens debt-slaves in perpetuity by their - the usurpers' - laws and "paid" force. thus, it seems to me other ways...other answers...must be found. you cannot create and will never make "Heaven on Earth" by doing nothing to better things here and by putting your heart, focus, and efforts into and towards something that comes supposedly after life in this Lifeverse ends. makes your dreams become real here on Earth now/today. be responsible for yourself and your actions. let the best way, the best ideals guide you. guide yourself. the choice is yours. - n/b/k 12-7-08
link to some more thoughts of mine from late 2008 and various dates in 2009 -n/b/k: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41914114
IT'S NOW TIME TO CREATE THE ANTI-BANK/ANTI-BANKSTER PARTY: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=33793533 11-25-08
to the truth and justice seekers, ask yourself the following questions and try to find the best way to solve them: if, nations can issue their own currencies debt and interest free...why don't they do this?... and since nations are not doing this now, national debts exist. WHO ACTUALLY OWNS THESE NON-NECESSARY DEBTS??? as i see things, this is a shell-game and one of the most massive cons ever...where a global network shuffles national debts around and across the nations of Earth to confuse and hide the fact that (in essence) all nations are now in debt to private banksters just to have and use "money". through money, people are controlled now and through paid enforcers and gov'ment complicity it remains in place. also remember that national debts are not trade deficits (these are just descriptions of a nation's overall imports versus exports and thus, not in essence debt and certainly not that debt which came into existence as a nations' currency). some spinners/webweavers try to confuse folks this way. - n/b/k 1-23-09
try to imagine a group of people...some private businesses (in this case banks//some were already central banks)...creating and implimenting a scheme to take control of a nation's money supply...lying to the public...paying off the necessary gov'ment stiffs...and pushing and tweaking the scam as much as was needed until the con became institutionalized. such was the case with the US's Fed Bank. it began it's reign of terror over the US and the rest of the world through it's cartel of owners...monopolistic partners in crime (ie. other private banks & national-central banks of a sort). it was supposed to stop bank panics...it didn't. it was supposed to keep boom & bust cycles from occurring...it hasn't...it creates them. it was supposed to have been created to help the people...it wasn't. it has done what it was actually designed to do...and that is to perpetually enslave the people (of the US in this case first) by completely controlling-owning-the currency/medium of exchange/credit (& debit) mechanisms of the nation. over time...many years...wars and world wars later [that these global banksters funded (started) for their own benefit and plans only] this "money trust" conspiracy of evil, death and power has become extremely powerful. it's hard to imagine just how far and by how much it has spread--oozed into every facet of human life. since it completely controls the financial side of this nation (the US) and it (the Fed BanK) uses this nation as the springboard to take over the rest of the world through the US$, coercion and force...can anyone really imagine just how powerful this group of private business-banksters really are??? this institution of death was allowed to exist with the US gov.'s blessing (it's time for this to be undone). it has never once allowed anyone/any outside body and-or organization to audit it/to check it's books. this is pure insanity...this is the mythical emerald city of oz (although this edifice is truly evil)...this is one of the few secret focal points of absolute power via human enslavement that exists on this planet (the other major ones seem to be located in London and Switzerland). this isn't freedom. there are better ways. - n/b/k 10/2/08
- Idealism > Inspiration > for Life - n/b/k 9/30/08 ... take physical possession of your precious metals: gold, silver, platinum and palladium ... Destruction and Creation are not equivalent.
- it sure would be nice/proper/correct/the right thing to do/the way for things to be if only, our systems weren't predatory-destructive-manipulative-death oriented...but rather, they were life promoting/supporting/creating/enhancing. in essence, the change needs to be 180 degrees. it would be best and easiest if all the that was required was to change the nature of the systems themselves and the people who are charged with-responsible for running them/their operation/their upkeep. the best way is sought...but, what is to be expected when reality and it's true potential fall so far short from what should be...for humanity...and not just for a few wannbe gods. i say it's a go for the best way and a sorry no can do for all those who would bury the rest for their own benefit/reasons/desires/whatever. i was not born to be a slave. i desire freedom. liberty or death....live & secure liberty until one is no longer able. - n/b/k 9-21-08
some form of fast electronic crediting system must remain in place otherwise starvation and massive chaos will likely result. so, it seems prudent to keep the current financial brick and mortar system in place. what must be done is to change entirely the nature (completely reverse it) of the present private debt enslavement system. find the best way. the time for positive change in these things seems to be now. - n/b/k 9-20-08 - yeah, it does seem like a very good idea to have sufficient food for potential prolonged hard times and logistic problems to say the least. one cannot just eat gold and expect to survive. network and discuss things. i see challenging time ahead. we shall see i think.
- and "we" wonder why it's so hard for others to "see" the "problems". it's quite possibly true that this is because "they" can't: - n/b/k 9/14/08 (link) http://player2000gi.host-ed.net/hemispheric_specialization.htm
Might as well call this board: NO QUARTER FOR HUMANITY...for humanity is killing itself...and it's been doing this for a very very very long time. left-handers and right side brain usage have been severely hindered/destroyed. people have become machines (though still in biological form). the flaws are within humanity and so are the solutions. what is most important is inside YOU. money doesn't do the work...the people do it. all this and much more points toward humanity being the stepping stone for sentient machine life supplanting it. yes, and if these trends continue i see humanity extinct. WAKE THE FUCK UP! be human. use both sides of your brain...think/feel/understand/control yourself/be responsible for yourself/understand the power of the individual/the importance of the individual...and if you truly believe in and love humanity (yourself, loved ones and others...care deeply for them) do all the things that are necessary for it/humanity to remain...and hopefully...maybe someday...thrive along with much freedom and creativity...again...someday. currently i dream. i am not optimistic...i will deal with things as they occur. TO LIFE...HUMAN LIFE THAT IS!!! 8/7/08 - non/btm/ken -
Secrecy in Government IS THE PROBLEM (& in institutions/foundations and so on) - [[[ SECRECY IS THE PROBLEM. ]]] THERE IS NO PLACE/NO PROPER PLACE FOR IT IN GOVERNMENT. IF, IT EXISTS/IS GIVEN QUARTER/ACCEPTED/ALLOWED TO GROW IN SCOPE AND PREVALENCE...THEN, CORRUPTION/ROT/GRAFT/LYING AND ANY OTHER CONCEIVABLE EVIL HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE BORN AND THRIVE IN THIS (DESIRED BY SOME AND/OR UNAWARE-UNNOTICED-FORGOTTEN) DARKNESS...IN A PURELY PREDATORY-PARASITIC-INSANE FASHION. such is the case now obviously. only the degree varies. due consideration given to the fact that perfection (outside of the overall interconnnectedness of the universe-us...it's overall one-ness) does not exist in any form ever. perfect in it's complete state, perfect in it's transitions...and yet...we are a part of it too. we are sentient. we can change things for the better...within the contraints of the life-verse and not ever just purely because of the restraints put forth by any other and certainly not because of the issuances of any institution. - n/b/k - link to a little more here: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41914403 ... an older thought on secrecy of mine: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41914575
What is " IT " ??? " IT " is a perpetual asset collection, wealth & power concentrating...enslavement for the rest scheme/structure/system. Seek the truth/speak the truth & be the truth. n/b/k 4/17/08
The Revolution will occur on an INDIVIDUAL basis. .... Nations can issue their own currencies debt & interest free ... so, why is it that the US (the united States) continues go deeper and deeper into debt with every day that passes? (see below for the answers.) call me crazy or insane if you want...but, first look at and consider the evidence. currently, what i know, understand and believe leads me to the conclusion that the US national debt is nothing but a conjob upon the people...ie. the debt does not exist because it does not have to exist and because those who created it put it in our name when they were in fact the ones who committed the crimes. if, our money must be paper...let it be the people's debt and interest free...and it shall be if the people choose to take responsibility for themselves, their lives and their own government/self-government. n/b/k 3/30/08
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." - Declaration of Independence ... - that is what needs to be done, nothing less - jawmoke 3/22/08 ... [The United States Declaration of Independence is an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies in North America were "Free and Independent States" and that "all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence ] ... (equal treatment under the laws "we" willingly consent to and create. the burden & responsibility for a just society will always remain with the people/will always be determined by the individuals that constitute it. - n/b/k) ... adding: no one is equal in Life/equally alive...the push for EQUALITY is really the push for the death of all. equality under flawed human law (as an ideal is one thing, perhaps)...overall though, equality only exists in death. seek fair trades and exchanges among others lest you desire a world of thievery, force (complete hell) and yes...eventually perpetual death/a deadend...for this group of reproductively compatible (to some degree) conscious beings. the differences are very real...some are profound...and yes of course they do make a difference/have meaning/importance/effect things now & going forward. you decide/make-up your own mind. I already have. For Life-Truth & the Best Way to Live. - n/b/k 11/14/10
A board dedicated to seeking/finding the best way(s) to secure the most individual liberty/freedom...truth/justice/prosperity/peace/and satisfaction in life/in the "living"/in our organic-mental-spiritual changes/transitions/developments and so on. i seek the systems...created and voluntarily supported by people: their ideas/values and beliefs that can make such things exist/real/reality and provide for such things continuing (feedback loops/with room for growth and positive change when necessary of course) for as long as they are desired. - n/b/k
ideas (values/beliefs) --> ideals --> idealism...--> translate/translated into individual acts/actions...to create the best approximated state(s) of being/existence/living/human life...voluntarily organized human societies/systems ... this is how i see things/the way i think things will work best/a humam dynamic/a 3D system for our 3D world:
Strong Individuals voluntarily create ---> Strong Societies ---> by having Integrity and strongly valuing it ... Good Societies allow ---> Good Individuals to develop ---> again, because "they" are built and maintained with Integrity (wisdom/integrity/love/good guidance/good actions & uncorrupted trade mechanisms...seeking the best way always to live)
Integrity is the key. parts of a whole...all 3 (individuals/societies & integrity) must be given (must exist in) their proper proportion/must take up their proper place/role/duty...with all due consideration and respect required...otherwise, all 3 will start to weaken versus being maintained or improving. it's an overall sane way of looking at human life. trust your overall feelings of yourself and things...and do/contribute your part...do what you can to keep a good system (social structure) in place. people do not exist/come into existence in a vacuum...ie. without others/a society of some sort. having integrity throughout will allow the best of all possible human systems to exist...i believe. - n/b/k 18th Jan. 2008
The Money Scam continues & so does your enslavement. The results were entailed in it's inception. - Money does no work. People do all of the work. Money is a pivot-point/a connection/a facilitator/a tool/a crediting mechanism of sorts, mutually agreed to-exchanged-and accepted between people. Realize your power people. Money is no master. You are the masters. You create and do everything and anything that has human value on this earth (credit given to God/nature and other things when it is due of course). I was not born to be a slave to anyone...and certainly not to any form of "money". Human-created laws and human-created States be damned if, they seek to tell me or force me to believe and/or be otherwise. this "force" will become manifest through the actions (because of the beliefs) of another...upon you. - n/b/k
"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 10 December 1948. - Article 4 Do you have courage = to your beliefs? you will need it. this integrity is a must for a just society/the best societies to exist and be maintained always. Money/currencies/mediums of exchange should facilitate trade/exchanges between people/between nations...not enslave them. fwiw, to all who view this board...i believe i am on a crusade to eliminate all bad monetary systems and replace them with healthy life supporting & life promoting ones. (well, when i have the time for it/the desire/the interest and so on. sometimes one must just wait/bide one's time/do other things/carry-on with one's life etc...until, the timing is right/the feelings felt and one is moved to action once again.) - n/b/k
about this board/it's purpose as i see things: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22684914 one of my rants on "debt-money" - a purely contradictory term/concept/pernicious reality - : http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22673125
[ A FREE YOURSELF/EDUCATE YOURSELF BOARD: TO FREE/LIBERATE/AWAKEN/EVOLVE THE HUMAN/HUMANITY'S CONSCIOUSNESS/SPIRITUALITY/INTEGRITY/& WELL BEING...A MOVEMENT/A DIRECTION/A WAY/A PATH...A CONTINUOUS STATE OF SELF-DIRECTED POSITIVE CHANGE & GROWTH ALWAYS ]
*** Highlighted by & Guided by: a Hall of Heroes & Heroines...to Inspire, Inform and Motivate You to Live ***
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some info. to help ya understand what's goin' on - what happened - and why:
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned) http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=2911.0
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." - Thomas Jefferson
"This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth... When the President signs this Act, the invisible government by the Money Power... will be legalized. The new law will create inflation whenever the trust wants inflation... from now on, depression will be scientifically created." - Congressman Charles Lindbergh (commenting on the Federal Reserve Act of 1913)
U.S. INC. GOES TO GENEVA IN 1930'S In order for you to understand just how this fraud works, you need to know the history of its inception. It goes like this: From 1928-1932 there were five years of Geneva conventions. The Nations of the world met in Geneva Switzerland for 5 continuous years to set up what would be the policy of all the participating countries. In the year of 1930, the countries of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc., all declared bankruptcy. If you try to look up the 1930 minutes, you will not find them because they don't publish this particular volume. If you try to find the 1930 volume that contains the minutes of what happened, you will probably not find it. This particular volume was removed from circulation in the library or is very hard to find. This volume contains the evidence of the bankruptcy.
Going into 1932, they stopped meeting in Geneva. In 1932 Franklin Roosevelt (a member of the international order of Freemasonry) came into power as President of the United States. It was Roosevelt's job to put into place and administer the bankruptcy that was declared two years earlier (this means that he Mr. Roosevelt was carefully selected to be president). The Corporate Government needed a key Supreme Court decision. The corporate United States Government had to have a legal case on the books to set the stage for recognizing, implementing and supporting the bankruptcy. Now, this doesn't mean the bankruptcy wasn't implemented before 1938 with the Erie versus. Thompkins decision. The bankruptcy started in 1930 - 1931. The bankruptcy definitely started when Roosevelt came into office. He was sworn in during the month of January 1933. He started immediately implementing the bankruptcy by declaring a "Banking Holiday," he then went on and pulled the gold coin out of circulation. That was the beginning of the Corporate United States Public Policy for Bankruptcy. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=13708431&txt2find=1930
On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, AND TREASON. The petition for Articles of Impeachment was thereafter referred to the Judiciary Committee and has YET TO BE ACTED ON. Link: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12045238
The Bankruptcy of The United States United States Congressional Record, March 17, 1993 Vol. 33, page H-1303 Speaker-Rep. James Traficant, Jr. (Ohio) addressing the House: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22676966 http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9469209 http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=13708556&txt2find=americas
easymoney101: ALAN GREENSPAN: "Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter. And I've had very good relationships with presidents." http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec07/greenspan_09-18.html
THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK IS A PRIVATE COMPANY. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution states that Congress shall have the power to coin (create) money and regulate the value thereof. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22677003 Many ask what our money is. Is it backed by debt, based on debt, or is it debt? The best answer is that a Federal Reserve Note (FRN) is evidence of debt. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22677134 [Excerpts] Ming the Mechanic: The unknown 20 trillion dollar company The NewsLog of Flemming Funch 2003-10-30 7:37 by Flemming Funch .... There is a busy little private company you probably never have heard about, but which you should. Its name is the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/preview.asp
CONSIDER WHAT HAPPENED HERE IN THE USA: Ben Franklin answering a question about the booming economy of the young colonies: "That is simple. In the colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one." (Colonial Scrip had no debt or interest attached.) http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266805.shtml "The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George the III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War." attributed to Ben Franklin http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=13098247&txt2find=ben
A remarkable English historian, John Twells, wrote, speaking of the money of the Colonies, the Colonial Scrip: "It was the monetary system under which America's Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: 'Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.'" John Twells adds: "In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins. Consider now the consequences: this restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and asse(r)ts its rights." more here: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22673896
DECLARATION OF THE CAUSES AND NECESSITY OF TAKING UP ARMS (July 6, 1775) A declaration by the representatives of the united colonies of North America, now met in Congress at Philadelphia, setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22672928
Drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776, the Declaration of Independence is at once the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty and Jefferson's most enduring monument. http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html
(an excerpt from) Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man: iHub link: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22673446 original link: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/paine/thomas/p147r/p1rights.html
Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution." "All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should." "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12617217 The Cover: The signal lantern for Paul Revere shined in Boston's North Church to warn the colonists that the King's troops were heading toward Lexington and Concord April 19, 1775. The light is shining again. Read it online at: http://www.stanley2002.org/CSII.htm
COMMON SENSE II Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense was written and widely circulated in 1776. The simple logic and intelligence presented in Common Sense persuaded thousands of ordinary citizens to support a movement that sought to unite the colonies in an effort to win their independence from England. The birth of our nation and freedom from King George's tyranny is a direct result of this nation's people understanding the real issues and choosing freedom over tyranny.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress." ~Frederick Douglas http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22682502
***** creation of the: BANK OF AMERICA ***** International bankers saw that interest-free scrip would keep America free of their influence, so by 1781 banker-backed Alexander Hamilton succeeded in starting the Bank of America. After a few years of "bank money", the prosperity of "Colonial Scrip" was gone. Benjamin Franklin said, "Conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity had ended and a depression set in to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with the unemployed!"
When the 1816 charter (the Bank's charter) expired in 1836, Andrew Jackson vetoed its renewal. It was then that he made two famous statements: "The Bank is trying to kill me - but I will kill it!" Later he said "If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system - there would be a revolution before morning..."
The Paris Peace Treaty of 1783 http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/paris/ text version http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/paris/text.html
The Original Jay Treaty - Page 1 http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/jaytreaty/1.html text version: http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/jaytreaty/text.htm
The Missing 13th Amendment: "TITLES OF NOBILITY" AND "HONOR" .... http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22674396
todd h (3-19-08) Michael Badnarik Constitutional class pt.6 58mins 42secs http://ia300104.us.archive.org/3/items/Michael_Badnarik/Michael_Badnarik_ConstitutionClass_Part6.wmv easymoney101 (11/24/06) THE QUEEN'S CORRUPTION - EXPOSED http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=15055303
"All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, as much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation". In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, by John Adams "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them, will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." - Thomas Jefferson
The Constitution of the United States of America We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/index.html
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http://www.constitution.org/
...i believe Vexari brought the following important pamphlet to my attention: The Citizens Rule Book JURY HANDBOOK .... LINCOLN said "Study the Constitution!" "Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislatures, and enforced in courts of justice." http://www.archive.org/download/TheCitizensRuleBook/citizen.pdf You - as a juror - armed merely with the knowledge of what a COMMON LAW JURY really is and what your common law rights, powers and duties really are, can do more to re-establish "liberty and justice for all" in this State and ultimately throughout all of the United States than all our Senators and Representatives put together. WHY? Because even without the concurrence of all of your fellow jurors, in a criminal trial, you, with your single vote of "NOT GUILTY" can nullify every rule of "law" that is not in accordance with the principles of natural, God-given, Common or Constitutional Law. It is precisely this power of nullification that makes the trial by JURY one of our most important RIGHTS. It can protect and preserve all of the Citizen's other RIGHTS.
"On January 8, 1835, Jackson paid off the final installment on our national debt, and it was the only time in history that our national debt was reduced to zero, and we were able to accumulate a surplus, $35 million of which was distributed to the States. Nicholas P. Trist, the President's personal secretary, said: "This is the crowning glory of A.J.'s life and the most important service he has ever rendered his country." "The Boston Post compared it to Christ throwing the money-changers out of the Temple." Link: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12216831 "The Bank is trying to kill me - but I will kill it!" and later "If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system - there would be a revolution before morning..." Andrew Jackson When asked what he felt was the greatest achievement of his career Andrew Jackson replied without hesitation "I killed the bank!" However we will see this was not the end of private financial influence passing... http://www.xat.org/xat/usury.html http://www.utexas.edu/features/2005/jackson/index.html
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Lincoln and the "Civil War" issues: "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw Light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe... corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed." - Abraham Lincoln "If this mischievous financial policy (ie. Lincoln's "greenbacks" -bartermania-), which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe. - Hazard Circular - London Times 1865 "The government should create, issue and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers..... The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the long-felt want for a uniform medium will be satisfied. The taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest, discounts and exchanges. The financing of all public enterprises, the maintenance of stable government and ordered progress, and the conduct of the Treasury will become matters of practical administration. The people can and will be furnished with a currency as safe as their own government. Money will cease to be the master and become the servant of humanity. Democracy will rise superior to the money power." -*Lincoln Abraham Senate document 23, Page 91. 1865 http://www.seek2know.net/money.html President Lincoln needed money to finance the Civil War, and the international bankers offered him loans at 24-36% interest. Lincoln balked at their demands because he didn't want to plunge the nation into such a huge debt. Lincoln approached Congress about passing a law to authorize the printing of U.S. Treasury Notes. Lincoln said "We gave the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they ever had - their own paper money to pay their debts..." Lincoln printed over 400 million "Greenbacks" (debt and interest-free) and paid the soldiers, U.S. government employees, and bought war supplies. The international bankers didn't like it and wanted Lincoln to borrow the money from them so that the American people would owe tremendous interest on the loan. Lincoln's solution made this seem ridiculous.
THE BIG LIE: "The Federal government has been telling people that they must file returns and pay income taxes on their wages, salaries and fees they gave up their labor, time and a large part of their lives to obtain, but those earnings are Constitutionally EXEMPT from the income tax. AND THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS IT!!" http://www.gcstation.net/liefreezone/ http://www.truthattack.org/
- More on the Fed. Bank and System - some quotes: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22681284
Congressman McFadden on the Federal Reserve Corporation Remarks in Congress, 1934 AN ASTOUNDING EXPOSURE On May 23, 1933, Congressman, Louis T. McFadden, brought formal charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank system, The Comptroller of the Currency and the Secretary of United States Treasury for numerous criminal acts, including but not limited to, CONSPIRACY, FRAUD, UNLAWFUL CONVERSION, AND TREASON. The petition for Articles of Impeachment was thereafter referred to the Judiciary Committee and has YET TO BE ACTED ON. Congressman McFadden's Speech On the Federal Reserve Corporation Quotations from several speeches made on the Floor of the House of Representatives by the Honorable Louis T. McFadden of Pennsylvania. Mr. McFadden, due to his having served as Chairman of the Banking and Currency Committee for more than 10 years, was the best posted man on these matters in America and was in a position to speak with authority of the vast ramifications of this gigantic private credit monopoly. As Representative of a State which was among the first to declare its freedom from foreign money tyrants it is fitting that Pennsylvania, the cradle of liberty, be again given the credit for producing a son that was not afraid to hurl defiance in the face of the money-bund. Whereas Mr. McFadden was elected to the high office on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, there can be no accusation of partisanship lodged against him. Because these speeches are set out in full in the Congressional Record, they carry weight that no amount of condemnation on the part of private individuals could hope to carry.
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The Federal Reserve-A Corrupt Institution: http://www.bnp.org.uk/shopping/excalibur/item.php?id=52 .. http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/revus/mchange.html "Mr. Chairman, we have in this Country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks, hereinafter called the Fed. The Fed has cheated the Government of these United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the Nation's debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Fed has cost enough money to pay the National debt several times over." "This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of these United States, has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Fed and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it." "Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions, departments, or agencies. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lender. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into states to buy votes to control our legislatures; there are those who maintain International propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us into granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime." http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22683909
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(Pres. Wilson signing the Fed. Res. Act into law with central banker crooks and their reps looking on.) "The Fed became law the day before Christmas Eve, in the year 1913, and shortly afterwards, the German International bankers, Kuhn, Loeb and Co. sent one of their partners here to run it. "The Fed Note is essentially unsound. It is the worst currency and the most dangerous that this Country has ever known. When the proponents of the act saw that the Democratic doctrine would not permit them to let the proposed banks issue the new currency as bank notes, they should have stopped at that. They should not have foisted that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They should not have made the Government [liable on the private] debts of individuals and corporations, and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners. " As Kemerer says: 'The Fed Notes, therefore, in form, have some of the qualities of Government paper money, but in substance, are almost a pure asset currency possessing a Government guarantee against which contingency the Government has made no provision whatever.' "Before the Banking and Currency Committee, when the bill was under discussion Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati said: 'The imperial power of elasticity of the public currency is wielded exclusively by the central corporations owned by the banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce, interest rates throughout the Country can be arbitrarily raised and the bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the slightest benefit to the people. The 12 Corporations together cover and monopolize and use for private gain- every dollar of the public currency and all public revenue of the United States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by their Government, without the consent of and on terms fixed by these 12 private money trusts.' "In defiance of this and all other warnings, the proponents of the Fed created the 12 private credit corporations and gave them an absolute monopoly of the currency of these United States- not of the Fed Notes alone- but of all other currency! The Fed Act providing ways and means by which the gold and general currency in the hands of the American people could be obtained by the Fed in exchange for Fed Notes- which are not money- but mere promises to pay. "Since the evil day when this was done, the initial monopoly has been extended by vicious amendments to the Fed and by the unlawful and treasonable practices of the Fed. (An excerpt from)....The Demise of the American Constitutional Republic 5. In 1912 when the bonds that were floating the US Government, owned by the Bankers, came due and the Bankers refused to re-finance the debt, the colorable, martial-law-rule Congress was compelled to pass the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. This Act surrendered (re-delegated exclusively delegated) constitutional authority to create, control, and manage the entire money supply of the United States to a handful of private, mostly-foreign, bankers. This placed exclusive creation and control of the money within the private, commercial, foreign, and military jurisdiction of 1861, in corporate limited liability. 6. Through paying interest to the Federal Reserve Corporation in gold, the US Treasury became progressively depleted of its gold. America's gold certificates, coin, and bullion were continually shipped off to the coffers of various European Banks and Power Elite. In 1933, when the Treasury was drained and the debt was larger than ever (a financial condition known as "insolvency"), Roosevelt proclaimed the bankruptcy of the United States. Every 14th-Amendment "citizen of the United States" was pledged as an asset to finance the Chapter 11 re-organization expenses and pay interest in perpetuity to the creditors (Federal Reserve Bankers) on the "national debt" ("which shall not be questioned"). With the Government's bankruptcy, "law" became "public policy," i.e. Federal Reserve Reinsurance policy. Now operating exclusively within the jurisdiction of corporate limited-liability insurance, the Federal Reserve switched its requirements 180° and foreclosed the possibility to pay interest in gold, requiring payments on the debt and reorganization to be made with FRNs. Ownership of gold by the bankrupted, conquered citizens, made into the enemy by the Amendatory Act of March 9, 1933, was made "illegal" and the Bankers set about confiscating as much of the private gold as possible that had not already been shipped to the European Federal Reserve Banks as interest payments on the FRNs printed into circulation. After 1933, FRNs became increasingly unbacked, until Nixon closed the silver window and removed the final vestige of backing in 1968." (Link to rest of article: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9471959 ) ... arkieboy1: The History of the House of Rothschild Part I http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=23291532
Many politicians have attempted to reverse this process. John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order 11110, requiring the Treasury Department to start printing and issuing silver certificates for the silver then remaining in the US Treasury. JFK "sewer shot" link: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=14532344 Abraham Zapruder Film (Stabilized) http://www.jfkmurdersolved.com/film/Zapruderstable.mov . from jawmoke: "By counting the frames of the Zapruder film ...." http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26846011 Kennedy decided that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. This was the reason he signed Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. ... easymoney101 (11/24/06) CIA involvement in Robert F. Kennedy's death? http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=15057115 ... easymoney101: JFK Speech on Secret Societies and Freedom of the Press http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlEqtaWpKEU&eurl= ... easymoney101 (11/22/06) The 43rd Anniversary of the Coup D' Etat Takeover of the United States by the British Crown On Behalf Of Those Roman "Popish Persons." Lenny Bloom and Stefan Grossmann reminisce about the Early Days of Discovering the nature and nonmenclature of The JFK Assassination Cabal. http://www.cloakanddagger.de/shows/webcast/NEOCON/CLOAK%20STEFAN%20JFK.mp3 ... easymoney101 (11/23/06) JFK---JUST MURDER or POLITICAL ASSASSINATION? http://www.cloakanddagger.de/media/S_284_S/Middle%20Finger%20News/MIDDLE1.htm
from jawmoke: Carroll Quigley quotes: The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is the American Branch of a society which originated in England... (and) ...believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established. I am now quite sure that 'Tragedy and Hope' was suppressed although I do not know why or by whom.
http://www.mises.org/
The Medium of Exchange - Money (Excerpts from here: http://www.mises.org/story/2030#preface ) The definition of money is very simple. Money is the general medium of exchange used on the market. Money, the medium of exchange, is something that individuals choose in order to facilitate the exchange of commodities. Money is a market phenomenon. What does that mean? It means that money developed on the market, and that its development and its functioning have nothing to do with the government, the state, or with the violence exercised by governments. The market developed what is called indirect exchange. The man who couldn't get what he wanted on the market through direct exchange, through barter, took something else, something that was considered more easily negotiable, something which he expected to trade later for what he really wanted. Money is a medium of exchange because people use it as such. People don't eat the money; they ask for the money because they want to use it to give it away in a new contract. And this barter or trade is technically possible only if there is a medium of exchange, a money, against which he can exchange what he has for the things he wants and needs. All the mutual givings and receivings that take place on the market, all these mutual exchanges that lead to the development of money, are the voluntary achievements of individual people. Through a long evolution, governments, or certain groups of governments, have promoted the idea that money is not simply a market phenomenon, but that it is whatever the government calls money. But money is not what the government says. The idea of money is that it is a medium of exchange; somebody who sells something and is not in a position to exchange again immediately for the thing he wants to consume gets something else which he can exchange for this at a later date. This "something else" is a medium of exchange, because the man who sells, let us say, chickens or eggs, does not, or cannot get directly what he wants himself to consume, but must take something else which he uses at a later date in order to get what he needs. If people say that money is not the most important thing in the world, they may be perfectly right from the point of view of the ideas that are responsible for the conduct of human affairs. But if they say that money is not important, they do not understand what money does. Money, the medium of exchange, makes it possible for everybody to attain what he wants by exchanging again and again. He may not acquire directly the things he wants to consume. But money makes it easier for the individual to satisfy his needs through other exchanges. In other words, people first exchange what they have produced, for a medium of exchange, something which is more easily exchangeable than what they have produced; then through later exchanges, they are able to acquire the things they want to consume. And this is the service which money renders to the economic system; it makes it easier for people to acquire the things they want and need.
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http://www.themoneymasters.com/index.html video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ariqzM3PapY
"Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money." - Sir Josiah Stamp, Director of the Bank of England (in the 1920s); reputed to be the 2nd wealthiest man in England at that time. easymoney101: Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence Published 1976 http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/whofed.html
Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance. It is thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished." American's Banker Association, 1924 http://publiccentralbank.com/ Alan Greenspan: "Gold and Economic Freedom" (1966) "In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold.... The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. "This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights."
The Federal Reserve is PRIVATELY OWNED by Thomas D. Schauf http://www.worldnewsstand.net/today/articles/fedprivatelyowned.htm
THE BANKERS' MANIFESTO OF 1892 http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6507333
Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People The Real Story of the Money-Control Over America by Pastor Sheldon Emry 1926 - 1985 Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on earth, seem always to be short of money. ...Much of this trouble can be traced to our present "debt-money" system. Too few Americans realize why our founding fathers wrote into Article I of the U.S. Constitution: Congress shall have the Power to Coin Money and Regulate the Value Thereof. They did this, as we will show, in prayerful hope it would prevent "love of money" from destroying the Republic they had founded. We shall see how subversion of Article I has brought upon us the horrors of which Jefferson had warned. (Link to the rest of the article: http://www.321gold.com/mustread/billions.html ) Link to the article on this board: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9445502THE DEBT AND MONEY by Jason Pratt (an excerpt) Now here's some irony: it's a good thing that we have all this debt, because without it we'd have no money. Our Federal Reserve money supply is entirely debt-based, meaning that if the debt were all repaid, the money would disappear.[1] ....What's actually happening is that the debt machine needs to be fed with more debt, or else interest payments dry up, for the simple reason that when money is created as debt, the money to pay the interest payments is not created! Without a steady stream of increasing debt, the whole monetary system will collapse. At some point, maybe those who hold the debt might see this, get nervous and ask for repayment. We can hope that they don't. http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=9450312 Global Banking: The Bank for International Settlements http://www.augustreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7&Itemid=4
IN ESSENCE: A GOOD & SHORT EXPLANATION OF THE EVENTS THAT LED UP TO THE U.S. BANKRUPTCY AND OUR RESULTING ENSLAVEMENT....[Excerpts] Plus, my list of typo's and mistakes for the following are listed below: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=12415201 http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=11746629 Link to full article: http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=11745265
United States Bankruptcy Fraud, Core Section 3: The Lawyer's Secret Oath and much more!!! Excellent! http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=13708431&txt2find=aids http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=13610898&txt2find=audio
Libertydollar.org .... The American Liberty Dollar "Returning America to Value One Dollar at a Time" http://www.communitycurrencyassociation.com/intro_preamble.htm http://www.austinsilver.com/
Why was the Liberty Dollar Created? The Liberty Dollar was created to give Americans a choice We created the Liberty Dollar to give Americans a choice. Beginning in 1913, the American public has endured a near-complete monopoly on the issuance of its money -- the monopolist being the Federal Reserve (after 1968, when the last U.S. silver certificates were removed from circulation, the monopoly became 100% complete.) This monopoly has caused the dollar to sink in value, has created the Great Depression and the vicious business cycle that causes jobs to be lost and asset prices to bubble, and is on the verge of causing even more damage including debt catastrophe and even economic collapse
The Idaho Observer is a monthly hardcopy 24-page constitutionally oriented newspaper, originating in North Idaho, but with a scope that covers all of America. The articles on this web site are representative of what The Idaho Observer is all about. For a sample copy of the real paper please send one or two bucks to help with our mailing costs. Link: http://proliberty.com/observer/index.htm some excellent quotes here: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=2268279
http://www.prosperityuk.com/
from Michael Rowbotham's bk. Grip of Death c.1998 pg.35: from Michael Rowbotham's bk. Grip of Death c.1998 pg.:256 BANKROLLING THE WORLD INTO CHAOS by Michael Rowbotham Prosperity, January 2000: link to this bk's info. and the 2 from the Grip of Death http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22680826
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WACO: The Big Lie (linda thompson...police state martial law new world order) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5369116450757675658&q=wacoMassive
*** Massive link list from previous versions of this iBox...many different sectiuon combined *** : http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=41915861
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Aaron Russo's "America FROM FREEDOM TO FASCISM" homepage: http://www.freedomtofascism.com/
todd h: America Freedom to Fascism Authorized version (vol.1) 1hr 49mins 28secs http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198&q=america+freedom+to+fascism&hl
Sibel Edmonds ...Meet the Directors...
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easymoney101 (11/21/06) video: (Sibel Edmonds former FBI translator) KILL THE MESSENGER 52mins 8secs http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1991080575212848283 http://www.justacitizen.com/ http://www.justacitizen.com/KillTheMessenger.html ... National Security Whistleblowers Coalition http://www.nswbc.org/
http://www.dc911truth.org/
911 Eyewitness 1hr 44mins 38secs http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=22563244
The Total Information Awareness System/Program/Network...combined with sentient AI (artificial intelligence...systems/networks and the like)...will not be at all funny under the current ruling elite.
The roots of the matrix 1hr 52secs ...discusses AI to a large extent http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8867855532205075768&q=matrix&hl=en
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A9pGhwQbS0
The Singularity is the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There are several technologies that are often mentioned as heading in this direction. The most commonly mentioned is probably Artificial Intelligence, but there are others: direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation. Some of these technologies seem likely to arrive much earlier than the others, but there are nonetheless several independent technologies all heading in the direction of the Singularity - several different technologies which, if they reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. http://www.singinst.org/overview/whatisthesingularity/
DARPA's iXo Artificial Intelligence Control Grid: 'The Official Version' http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2301756762339435723&q=ai
Bush Gets 6 Months Big Brother Dictator Powers 6 month window gives government carte blanche to impose any surveillance policy and for it to remain legal in perpetuity 6 Aug. 2007 http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/060807_dictator_powers.htm
Echelon - The Most Secret Spy System (2006) Part 1/5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKQZuyiTtII 8mins 43secs Results for
PROMIS software vid. search: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=PROMIS+software
http://www.poweroverwireless.com/tesla.html ... http://www.teslascience.org/pages/dream.htm ... http://www.compuserb.com/tesla/ http://staff.fcps.net/rroyster/war.htm
Tesla - The Lost Wizard: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=448493458864593229 14mins
The Missing Secrets Of Nikola Tesla: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2188562935002257117 46mins
Nikola Tesla - The Genius Who Lit the World 42 min 11 sec http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3211083609505219709
Tesla Memorial Society http://www.teslasociety.com
Nikola Tesla: My Inventions [An Autobiography] http://www.rastko.org.yu/istorija/tesla/ntesla-autobiography.html
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Bev Harris http://www.globalresearch.ca/ .... http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
Reality Check - Alan Watt 1hr 27mins 55secs http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8908917218303944474 http://cuttingthroughthematrix.com/
Beyond the Dutroux Affair The reality of protected child abuse & snuff networks http://www.pehi.eu/dutroux/Belgian_X_dossiers_of_the_Dutroux_affair.htm
The Great Global Warming Swindle 75m 51s http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=220010842208417568
Sherry Peel Jackson - Breaking The Invisible Shackles Of The IRS 1hr 41mins 52secs
Beslan Tragedy - part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvJtgMsBsfk
http://www.911truth.org/ ... http://www.wtprn.com/10_Second_Freefall.mp3 ... http://911researchers.com/
todd h: unseen footage 9/11 12mins 43secs http://www.garagetv.be/video-galerij/bartvanbelle/unseen_footage_9_11.aspx
todd h: 9/11 Planes Flew Directly into Secure Computer Rooms in Both Towers http://www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn-Fuji-WTC.html
PRISONPLANET FORUM: http://forum.prisonplanet.com/
Political Prisoners and POW's in the US (Last updated on March 5, 2007) http://www.prisonactivist.org/pps%2Bpows/pplist-alpha.shtml
AMERICAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm
FEMA Concentration Camps: Locations and Executive Orders http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm
FEMA Detention Camps: Re-inventing the Mousetrap http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_lavello_031603_camps.html
FEMA Camp Footage (Concentrations Camps in USA) 6mins 51secs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4
Epidemic Of Police Brutality Sweeps America http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2007/210907_b_brutality.htm
Militias/the meaning of/Militia Duty: Defend. Co-operate. Prepare./Adversaries of the Militia http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?Message_id=22818308&txt2find=militia eaglesurvivor: Standing Armies And Armed Citizens: An Historical Analysis of The Second Amendment http://www.guncite.com/journals/rwstand.html
quotes on the dangers of standing armies http://thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/standing_army/
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT BLACKWATER http://wtprn.com/Blackwater.html
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Martin Luther King: "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" 22mins 48secs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U
The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. - Was An Act of State http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=26162290
Show the Law .com http://showedthelaw.blogspot.com/
Ed and Elaine Brown's MySpace page: (their original page at this link was removed between Oct. 8th, 2007 and Oct. 9th, 2007 by Fed's apparently. some NWO hack is trying to show why Ed and Elaine are guilty/liable and is now running their original page at the same link: http://www.myspace.com/time2makeastand fuck this! here's a new Ed and Elaine Brown MySpace page...go here for truth...it's much more likely here: http://www.myspace.com/freethebrowns .
Feb. 6, 2008 video: Now & Not Later http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEtwzTQxMG4 3mins 44secs
Cirino Gonzalez
Bob Wolffe
Daniel Riley
Jason Gerhard
NOT FOR THEMSELVES...SHOW US THE LAW 2mins 22secs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tFd5BT7iA4
ENDGAME (by ALEX JONES) - Blueprint for Global Enslavement video 2hrs 19mins http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1070329053600562261
Naomi Wolf - The End of America video 48 min http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc ... http://www.wingtv.net/tucker.html http://www.americanfreepress.net/
The US vs John Lennon trailer http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1frfd_the-us-vs-john-lennon_blog
Loose Change: Final Cut is here: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24460796
great vid find from Vexari: The State Is Not God//Isn't Freedom!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1JiE_jBOtg
Vexari's: Provocative Quotes board http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=2355
the only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.. ~ John Locke ~ (1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA. 1693
a man who lies to himself and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth either in himself or in anyone else.... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky ~ (1821-1881) Source.. The Brothers Karamazov (the rest is here) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24553693
American WARNING Is there anybody out there? 10mins http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d3b_1201380714
Revolution March: http://www.revolutionmarch.com/ . http://www.myspace.com/pokerfacemusic :
Poker Face - I'd rather Die Then Be Your Slave 5mins 46secs http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7662605858328547426
http://mediamonarchy.blogspot.com/ (a weekly radio show...that's good and quite fresh) here's a link to the show archives: http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=result&action=series&series=media%20monarchy&nav=&session=9fb4de51476bd26dd68b47af081d3276
Alex Ansary's Outside the Box #156 6/5/08 (58mins) http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=outside+the+box+156 (most recent show is here http://alexansary.com/ )
David Icke Secret of the Matrix 1 of 3 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5752845360219982259 (i'm pretty sure most have seen this // still it seems to be very much on the mark. keep the good/let the bad fade from disuse & remember. n/b/k 6-25-08
IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE IS BACK !!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFx_xoPjwTQ Immortal Technique - The 3rd World http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52VnV8xiP8c other links for it: [With Lyrics] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gSLdyheiVk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ss4o5I_2jA
Immortal Technique- Bin Laden/911 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA_xXWSXyFI
TELL THE TRUTH - Mos Def - Immortal Technique - Eminem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5WlQ54Sg0
The 9/11 Chronicles Part One: Truth Rising - 1 of 11 (this is outstanding) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLh4-XTnXq8 http://www.revolutionmarch.com/Default.aspx?rnd=2123712999
FABLED ENEMIES - TRAILER #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhBpmC6T9IQ
No Treason The Constitution of No Authority by Lysander Spooner: http://www.lysanderspooner.org/externalsite.htm?http%3A//www.blancmange.net/tmh/articles/notreas.html ... http://introspectives.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=199840#199840 ...8/20/08
todd h: House Passes Thought Crime Prevention Bill 10/25/07 http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=4596
SamIam: Connie Fogal & The Canadian Action Party http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=24139331
video: G Edward Griffin - Creature From Jekyll Island A Second Look 42 mins http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6507136891691870450
Argentina's Economic Collapse - 59 mins - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4353655982817317115
Larry McDonald on the New World Order (around May 1983 approximately 4 months before being shot down in KAL007, Congressman Larry McDonald takes on Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden) 17:40 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3100752722910819372
Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People by American Pastor Sheldon Emry. It can be downloaded by clicking on Billions.exe or viewed at: http://www.justiceplus.org/bankers.htm
James West (Kitco.com columnist) Crime of the Century http://www.crimeofthecenturymovie.com/ target date for this film: 9/11/2009
THE MANDRAKE MECHANISM http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=35059824
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Ron Paul's: The Revolution: A Manifesto http://www.ronpaulbookbomb.com./ . http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Manifesto-Ron-Paul/dp/0446537519
Listen to Polygraph Radio http://polygraphradio.net/musicsite/ http://restoretherepublic.com/ ... http://www.opencurrency.com/ ... http://www.breakthematrix.com/ ... http://www.campaignforliberty.com/ ... http://republicbroadcasting.org/
6-17-09 (n/b/k) Alex Jones' interview w/ Aaron Russo part4 (~10mins) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtf--iGudtE
Big Brother: The Big Picture (David Icke) - July 2008 (?) 2:54:44 http://www.edgemediatv.com/article001_icke.html
David Icke: 'What is Money?' (8:52) http://www.davidicke.com/content/view/18696/48 ... David Icke official forums: http://www.davidicke.com/forum/index.php
Eustace Mullins presents: The World Order - 1:38:40 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7644857907453201814
Alex Jones' THE OBAMA DECEPTION Pt1 (10:33) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8fhGX_oHSk - 3/12/09
Plastic coffin liners being delivered by the truckloads (4-9-09) http://www.infowars.com/plastic-coffin-liners-being-delivered-by-the-truckloads
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- Important Things Others Should Probably Know More About - (info added below from ~ Nov.'09-Nov.'10)
- Wake Up Call - Remastered Edition (NEW) - New World Order Documentary - 2008 (2:29:55) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3543161691381895251# (don't know whether any others have seen this, posted it before or not. even so, it is good. n/b/k 11/2/09)
- Ben Still (of The Money Masters & The Secret of Oz covers the State Bank of N. Dakota http://www.banknd.nd.gov/ ) SR1 - Oct. 26, 2009 - The Still Report on the Economy (5:54) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNPEQDXxwo
- Money as Debt II - Promises Unleashed (1 of 8) 9:56 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_doYllBk5No (added 2 more things here 1/11/2010 - n/b/k)
- this really is the way (but, also remember that self-defense is primary as well. each decides 4 each. force creates hell. force only to stop force. we are imperfect. live - learn & remember. seek the --- best way.) "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict" Journal Article, International Security, volume 33, issue 1, pages 7-44 Summer 2008. Authors: Maria Stephan, Former Research Fellow, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2003-2005, Erica Chenoweth, Associate, International Security Program. SUMMARY: The historical record indicates that nonviolent campaigns have been more successful than armed campaigns in achieving ultimate goals in political struggles, even when used against similar opponents and in the face of repression. Nonviolent campaigns are more likely to win legitimacy, attract widespread domestic and international support, neutralize the opponent's security forces, and compel loyalty shifts among erstwhile opponent supporters than are armed campaigns, which enjoin the active support of a relatively small number of people, offer the opponent a justification for violent counterattacks, and are less likely to prompt loyalty shifts and defections. An original, aggregate data set of all known major nonviolent and violent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 is used to test these claims. These dynamics are further explored in case studies of resistance campaigns in Southeast Asia that have featured periods of both violent and nonviolent resistance. http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/18407/why_civil_resistance_works.html (the work is here) http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/IS3301_pp007-044_Stephan_Chenoweth.pdf ... (2/19/10 n/b/k) ---
--- always ask yourself this: Who's Forcing Whom??? (and why?) .... if i'm biased toward anything, it's toward Life - the Human kind...and it's continuance in the freest most satisfying form possible always. n/b/k 3/3/2010 ---
- for info on precious metals manipulation and a daily scorecard of sorts, go here: http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/ ... and here's a link to his important post after his testimony at the CFTC hearing on precious metals position limits on 3/25/10: http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/2010/03/saturday-march-2710-commentaryextremely.html
- as Bob Chapman has been saying: 19 countries will likely default in the coming 1-3 years (or there abouts)...but, what no one has said yet that i'm aware of is that this is essentially exactly how so many countries (including the USA) were bankrupted and their monetary systems reset (as basically purely debt+interest fiat enslavement scams) back in the 1931-1933 period. wake-up to the truth and the true porblems now present and what's very likely coming rather soon people. to the folks who continue to contribute posts here (especially the assistants) i say: Well done & thank you! n/b/k 3/28/10 10:20am
- excellent Judge Andrew Napolitano interview on Alex Jones' radio/tv show 3/25/2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjq-vyR4C2I ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFijqnkJXz0 ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdXmprQ67Dk ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZYemZp6oWI ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8XczcxmjXk
- The Coming Precious Metals Short Squeeze: by John Rubino on March 30, 2010 http://dollarcollapse.com/articles/the-coming-precious-metals-short-squeeze/
- Andrew Maguire & Adrian Douglas (~35 mins interview...it's excellent from what i've heard of it - n/b/k) Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Andrew Maguire & Adrian Douglas: Discuss What Could Be the Largest Fraud in History - Andrew is an independent metals trader turned whistleblower at the center of a storm for exposing what could be the largest fraud in history involving countries, banks and government leaders. Adrian Douglas Board of Director from GATA, the man who Andrew reached out to joins in this interview where they discuss a fraud so extraordinary and so unimaginable that it is the kind of thing that only happens in hollywood thrillers. They also discuss the CFTC sponsored meeting on metals which was an unmitigated disaster because it additionally exposed the fraud on a grander scale. http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/3/30_Andrew_Maguire_%26_Adrian_Douglass.html ...the interview mp3 link: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/3/30_Andrew_Maguire_&_Adrian_Douglass_files/Andrew%20Maguire%203%3A30%3A2010.mp3
- The Genesis Of The Gold-Tungsten: The Rest Of The Story
by Tyler Durden on 04/03/2010 - The Genesis of the Gold-Tungsten: The Rest of the Story; Submitted by Ron Kirby, who first disclosed the LBMA/Physical Bullion disparity story in 2008 and 2009. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/genesis-gold-tungsten-rest-story
- 4/28/10 - i thought i should state this to make things (at least as i see them) clearer: all things are actually unique and as such they are all different in every respect/aspect (quantitatively, qualitatively & timewise/timingwise). thus, all things vary by degree...and the more similar things are...the more likely it is that they may appear to be the same/identical. in reality/in truth...they are not, and actually cannot ever be. one thing can actually be itself, and it is...nothing else can ever exactly be that thing. yet, all is still connected to all somehow. regarding people, the good <---> (through to) bad spectrum and the ideal <---> evil spectrum are populated or people will/can fall/can be placed somewhere between the poles at any given time for perhaps a specific thing or an overall summation for something (ideas, concepts, understandings and such included too). seek to define the terms well, seek to describe things accurately and remember that language is an imperfect transmitter...and from this effort-desire-interest one can perhaps understand some things at least a little better. things are individual/individualized/individually conceived (from our perspective...the human perspective)...when we are able to see-define-conceptualize the thing as apparently separate or separable from a larger whole-another thing-or environment/context (or the whole of all...hard to get the mind around this...a complete whole with no-thing beyond it...impossible....best to just leave it at ALL...the ALL and we are part of it and it is us)...or even it's much more localized environment. questions to ask: what is the significance of this thing...it's quality-quantity...where is it going/what's the direction/the trend...how is it connected to-like other things...how is it different/unique (seriously!...if such is graspable)?...and so on. eh, i think this is enough for now. i may have made some things clearer and i may have some things less so. eh...i try. --- n/b/k .... ps: i am for the Way-of-Life/Ideals (i aim/guide myself and live toward this) and so this makes my gearing and life opposed to those things that lead humanity & Life toward the Path of the Dead/Eternal Species Death (evil is the human part of this pole/this pull toward the End [including machine supplantment] that we have control over. it should be minimized to improve Life-to increase the strength of Life and our progress/movement/direction/energy/vibrancy toward this side [not so much a side again, as it is a State of wellness-aliveness-being-living-satisfaction///Life Idealized - Life fully lived and against all things that seek unnecessarily/needlessly/unjustly/wrongly to limit-whittle away-lessen it/Life. the goal: to forever keep at bay [or for as long as is humanly possible] any chance of human species death.)
- The Goldsmiths, Part CLXIII ... Posted Friday, 15 October 2010 Source: GoldSeek.com ... By R. D. Bradshaw http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1287122580.php -
- 11/7/2010: Conspiracy Theory Jesse Ventura S02E03 Wall Street 1/3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvaGbb6PNbI
... More Real Bill Fallacies - By Antal E. Fekete - 3 November 2010 - http://www.professorfekete.com/ ... King World News Broadcasts: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Broadcast.html ... Harvey Organ's - The Daily Gold: http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/ ... Jim Sinclair's Mineset: http://jsmineset.com/ ... Commentary: http://commentary.goldseek.com/ ... Gold Anti-Trust Action Commitee: http://www.gata.org/ - n/b/k -
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THE U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK: .....
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ The Debt To the Penny http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm
Grandfather Economic Report By Michael Hodges http://mwhodges.home.att.net Each generation hopes their children will have more freedom and economic opportunity. Certain trends threaten their future. exchange rates/(manipulation rates) for US$ etc: http://www.x-rates.com/
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