Posted on 03/05/2016 12:44:49 PM PST by marktwain
When I graduated high school, in 1969, a $20 bill had about as much value as a $100 bill today. Inflation has taken a toll. In 1969, $500 and $1,000 bills were still in reasonably common circulation. They had been issued up until 1945. With the turn toward ever increasing government snooping and tracking of financial transactions, the bills were taken out of circulation with an executive order by President Richard Nixon.
It is long past due to bring the $500 bill back into common use. The European Union issues 500 Euro bills. Cash is useful for preserving privacy and transportation of value to those who wish to avoid the electronic trail that follows digital transactions everywhere. All it took to remove the bills from circulation was a simple executive order.
That is all it would take to bring them back.
But more should be done. The insane tracking of every one's financial transactions should be scaled back. The forfeiture laws that allow legal theft of property need to be revised or repealed. Stealing cash amounts under $50,000 does nothing to hinder the drug trade or terrorists. But it harms a lot of innocent people who want to pay cash for a car, who do not trust the banks, or who consider Cypress when thinking about contingencies.
The reforms could look like this. Raise the reporting amount for banks to $50,000 from the effective $5,000 that it is today. Raise the amount to be declared when travelling overseas to $50,000. If repeal of the forfeiture laws proves too high a goal, reform them to make forfeiture of anything of less value than $50,000 a crime.
It doesn't matter if a President Trump or a President Cruz accomplishes this much needed reform. It will be a highly visible signal to the people that the government no longer views them as a threat, and a refreshing return of some small measure of liberty.
Of course, a new run of $500 bills would be needed at some point. May I suggest that they have the picture of President Ronald Reagan on them?
The issue of $500 bills is a small but powerfully symbolic action that appears to be within a President's executive power.
©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Link to Gun Watch
They won't call it 'negative interest', but 'transaction fees' or some such. "Negative Interest" would cause riots and runs on the bank.
Now missing from the FRN, which is a promissory note from a bank, not lawful money.
Patriots need work with their state lawmakers to either get rid of FDRs unconstitutional paper money, or amend the Constitution to make paper money constitutional.
Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts [emphasis added]; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
This is a good first step. I believe that it should also be accompanied by a return of gold and silver as one means of paying in legal tender. The denominations of the various pieces will need to be changed from the present amount stamped on them, of course, but it is just the passage of a simple law away from being a reality. We could make not only a one ounce silver eagle but a 1/2 ounce silver eagle as well, neither of which could possibly be confused with the other coins in circulation due to their significantly larger size. They could have a denomination of $100 and $50, respectively. Gold would be minted in 1/10, 1/4, 1/2 and 1 ounce sizes (as they are now), with the denominations being $400, $1,000, $2,000 and $4,000. This will send the message that the United States is serious about the soundness of its currency. It will also give the Treasury some profit on the minting and metal costs and, at the same time, give us a little time to wring inflation from our system, so that these coins will not be removed from circulation due to having more value as metal than money. Most importantly, it would send an additional signal that the government was not interested in interfering with the private affairs of the citizenry. That attitude is sorely lacking at all levels of government, and has been for at least a generation.
I would say two generations.
Yup. Have Cruze push for a Gold backed $500!
What’choo need big bills for vato?
$1,000 bill: George Washington
$500 bill: James Madison
$100 bill: Benjamin Franklin
$50 bill: John Jay
$20 bill: John Adams
$10 bill: Alexander Hamilton
$5 bill: Thomas Jefferson
$2 coin: Abraham Lincoln
$1 coin: Jefferson Davis
Get rid of the Federal Reserve. 1000 other economic and social problems will then begin to right themselves. Money is the intermediary in, and measure of, nearly all social interactions. A fake, controlled or corrupted money leads to a fake and corrupted society.
Exactly why the elites want to get rid of all cash.
Brilliant and fantastic idea!
The control freaks will go bonkerz.
I suspect Donald Trump Ted Cruz and/or staffers read FR. If they do not, they should.
Negative interest does not make sense from a business perspective, unless I want to drain a bank of every last piece of hard currency when people pull out. I would think that to a large segment of depositors, I can find a variety of ways to keep my cash safe and more readily available if *earning* interest is no longer available as an incentive.
And if we have any reason to believe “negative interest” on deposit accounts will become common, now might be a good time to start converting some cash into precious metals.
And yet they are happening:
"...This is partly due to banks reluctance to pass negative rates through to retail depositors, with the exception of Switzerland, where some lenders actually increased mortgage rates to mitigate some of the costs incurred at the central bank..."
Ahhh, I see. That they (so far) are not fully passing it on to depositors is telling. Once they do that, there's the trigger for the stampede.
Then again, there's the old saying, "Those who do not understand interest, pay interest. Those who do understand interest, earn interest." I'll bet they are hoping their depositors are mostly the former.
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