We've been using these in my neck of the woods since Obama took office ...
Posted on 07/21/2010 3:08:26 PM PDT by Whenifhow
New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it's not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency.
Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender.
They sound like real money and look like real money. But you can't take them to the bank because they're not made at a government mint. They're made at private mints.
"I sell three or four every single day and then I get one or two back a week," said Dave Gillie, owner of Gillies Coney Island Restaurant in Genesee Township.
Gillie also accepts silver, gold, copper and other precious metals to pay for food.
He says, if he wanted to, he could accept marbles.
"Do people have to accept dollars or money? No, they don't," Gillie said. "They can accept anything they want or they can refuse to accept anything."
He's absolutely right.
The U.S. Treasury Department says the Coinage Act of 1965 says "private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash, unless there is a state law which says otherwise."
That allows gas stations to say they don't accept 50- or $100 bills after a certain time of day in hopes of not getting robbed.
A chiropractic office in Lapeer County's Deerfield Township allows creativity when it comes to payment.
"This establishment accepts any form of silver, gold, chicken, apple pie, if someone works it out with me," said Jeff Kotchounian of Deerfield Chiropractic. "I've taken many things."
Jeff Kotchounian says he's used this Ron Paul half troy ounce of silver to get $25 worth of gas from a local station.
While the government and banks don't accept them, many others do.
So why is there interest in these competing currencies?
Is it just novelty or is there something deeper?
Coming tomorrow on NBC25 news at 6 p.m., you'll see why supporters of competing currencies say their money is worth more and is inflation proof.
http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/story.aspx?id=482130
In part two, Dan goes deeper, discovering why certain businesses say it's better to have private currency than actual U.S. legal tender.
There was a time in America when you could buy four gallons of gas for a dollar.
That dollar came in the form of a coin, around one ounce, made mostly of silver.
In today's market, that same coin is worth about 10 times its face value because of the silver.
Therefore, that same coin in theory, could still buy around four gallons of gas.
Dave Gillie, owner of Gillie's Coney Island Restaurant in Genesee County's Genesee Township, says "silver has always pretty much worth the same thing. Even if you go back thousands of years, the amount of products you could buy with an ounce of silver or gold has always been pretty standard."
That can't be said of the U.S. dollar bill or U.S. coins made after 1964 that are no longer made with silver.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, since 1913 until 2001, the U.S. dollar has lost 96% of its purchasing power.
However, supporters of alternative currency say silver remains strong.
Jeff Kotchounian, from Deerfield Chiropractic in Lapeer County, says "The metal, because it's a commodity, it's a precious metal. It's retained and/or increased the value to today's dollar, which has deflated."
Gillie says, "It protects you from inflation that paper money gives you."
The government says the bills themselves are worthless. The U.S. Treasury website says, "The notes have no value for themselves, but for what they will buy."
Supporters of competing currency say they'd like to see the government go back to a gold and silver-backed currency rather than simply printing more money.
Kotchounian says, "If we did that, we could maintain the value of the dollar and we could protect. We wouldn't be in the economic collapse that we are in."
Supporters say, there are 150 alternative currencies in the U.S.
Federal agents raided one of the most popular alternative currency companies in 2007, Liberty Dollar.
A lawsuit is still pending about the company's future and possibility of making more currency.
>>Supporters of competing currency say they’d like to see the government go back to a gold and silver-backed currency rather than simply printing more money. <<
What these folks don’t understand is that it simply cannot. Even if it wanted to.
There's not enough gold and silver in the entire world even at today's prices to pay the just US government tab for this FY. So what would the remaining world governments and all of the world's business and consumers use?
I will accept services that are equal to my own services any time it’s available as payment. That way, the value stays in my community. I’m a big supporter of the USA, and a proud American, but the communist parasites who have subverted our government/schools/courts can all go F themselves. Better dead than red!
I’m really trying not to be a broken record on this thing, but if you go here, a lot of this will become crystal clear:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/
If the marxists in Washington have their way, we’ll all be bartering with barrels of apples, old rocking chairs, half-empty cans of oil, and old 0bama campaign posters.
(inflation becomes rampant, money worthless)
Warning of an “upcoming war with Iran”, he states unequivocally that this is militarily-driven, as in imperialistic ambitions to control the oil coming from Iran.
No mention of Iranian nukes.
No mention of Iranian belligerence in all it's myriad forms.
Placing the blame squarely on Western and Israeli sabre-rattling in this “crisis”. (He's the one who most likely would use the quotes there.)
We may very well have a war with Iran. Whether or not it's before or after the elections remains to be seen, but most observers stateside and overseas agree that time is running out on this drama, and right now it's even money on whether or not this administration will do anything more than huff and puff.
Quite frankly, this is the first time I've seen these arguments propagated anywhere, and I consider myself fairly well read.
Like I say, we'll see, but I won't be throwing any money this guy's way any time soon.
CA....
For me it is all about Craigslist and garage sales. It is amazing, actually, what I can pick up, and what I can sell. And there are no taxes or government intrusions. I love it!
Actually, I sent you the wrong link. This is what is relevant:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
I’m not impressed with the stuff you were looking at either. But the course in the link above literally changed my life.
On to practical matters, “scrip” currencies are legal, and have common sense ground rules.
1) First of all, they are not legal tender, so participation is fully voluntary. But more so, whoever issues scrip must be trusted by the people who use that scrip, enough to give them dollars or goods for scrip.
2) Usually the federal government is indifferent to scrip, unless you do one of two things: base your scrip on specie, gold and silver; or try to use scrip to evade taxes. If you build up a store of gold and silver, the government will just take it. And if you don’t collect sales taxes, you will be arrested for tax evasion.
3) Scrip can be a very controlled and high security currency, even though it can be printed on plain paper. It achieves this by controlling prices ahead of time, and using an encrypted Data Matrix bar code on the back, to identify individual bills, and who owns them. This code can be scanned with a DM capable scanner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_matrix_(computer)
This means that if you have a bill and lose it, you can just print out another. Nobody else can use your bill, unless they also have your PIN number. Some kinds of scrip lose 2% of their value each month to prevent hoarding, and sales taxes are automatically deducted when the scrip is traded for goods and services.
The bottom line is that scrip keeps the local market and government functioning in times when the dollar is unstable or having other problems.
Thanks, lot's of good information!
Hey, just to clarify, I was specifically talking about the Crash Course video on the left hand side of the page. It will really open your eyes. For me, it is the most amazing and relevant non-Christian information I have seen. It completely changed my world view.
Yep, heard about using booze, tobacco, coffee, sugar, flour and rice as well. If you could store it, gas would be pretty good too.
Goldbug ping — use of “alternative currency” has begun here and there (and in a Jimmy Carter Rose Garden moment, ABC News upgrades copper to “precious metal” status).
NB: “Gillie also accepts silver, gold, copper and other precious metals to pay for food.”
Mail me to get on or off the Free Republic Goldbug Ping List.
He doesn't have any good answer/way out in the end and that's probably because there isn't going to be one. Looks like the best we can do is prepare for the worst...
Thanks again!
>>He doesn’t have any good answer/way out in the end and that’s probably because there isn’t going to be one.<<
Yeah, he’s like the scientists in “When Worlds Collide” that tell us another planet is about to smash into the earth.
However, as in that movie, there is a facet that he does not even discuss. That is, a world after the catastropy.
And that is actually discussed quite a bit in Biblical prophesy. If a student of biblical prophesy watches that video, it is actually quite exciting - in an “it’s gotta get worse before it gets better” sort of way.
It really does make it appear that the Lords return is imminent when one looks at the apparent rendesvues with destiny the entire world’s population is on.
BTW, If one is an atheist, there is actually a very real solution to this: Exterminate roughly 90% of the human race.
The author of the videos also completely ignores the elephant in the room: This stuff leads to major wars.
I think that's what left me with the unnerving feeling about our future. I'm rethinking preparations.
I follow you on Biblical prophesy and it's more likely than not that we're seeing a part being fulfilled in our lifetime. I have little hope anything we do will alter the overall outcome foretold.
The best we could probably hope for or plan for is to find ourselves in a corner of the world least affected by coming turmoil. But there is also plenty of other steps one can take if the above isn't possible.
Time is short, I think the water in the stadium analogy is starting to inundate the first row of bleachers.
It goes without saying what the primary goal in all of this should be. ;)
>>Time is short, I think the water in the stadium analogy is starting to inundate the first row of bleachers.<<
Which means, following the analogy, we are two minutes away from drowning at the top of the cheap seats.
If you haven’t seen it, go to 29thday.org.
If you haven't read "Lights Out" or "One Second After", they're both pretty good books concerning the aftermath of a EMP detonation above America.
Thanks. I’d love to read a well thought out synopsis of what would happen afterward.
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