A ‘Unique’ Form of ‘Terrorism’ -- Currency Debasement

Here is a thought experiment concerning two men who have issued money. One issued gold and silver coins that will today bring more in dollars than he charged for them. The other issued paper notes that are today worth but fraction the gold or silver they were worth at the time they were issued. One man is facing the possibility of years in prison after a federal jury found his issuing of money to have been a crime. The other man is walking around free and being treated by the authorities with great deference.

It turns out that the man walking free is Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve. A one-dollar note that his bank issued used to be worth — as recently as, say, the start of President Bush’s first term — a 265th of an ounce of gold; today it’s value has plunged to less than a 1,400th of an ounce of gold. The man who issued the coins that will fetch more dollars today than when he issued them is Bernard von NotHaus, 67. He called his coins “Liberty Dollars,” minted them with some similarities to government money, and even though they more than held their value it turns out they’re against the law.

Von NotHaus promised a “spectacular trial” when, in 2007, he was interviewed by our Joseph Goldstein.* At the time von NotHaus was expecting to be indicted, as he eventually was, in connection with his minting of coins. His boast to our Mr. Goldstein was that he would “put this country's monetary system on trial.” In the event, the trial of von NotHaus, which took place at Statesville, North Carolina, was over in but eight days. The jury deliberated but two hours before bringing in its verdict of guilty.

Actually, to anyone who isn’t trying to obfuscate the issue, terrorism is pretty well defined, and that definition, or the conotation thereof, will include Islam.

In order to dilute the definition, the minions of the deceiver try to include a bunch of other definitions.

For your reference, see the current use of the term “bullying”. The normal person knows what a bully is, and opposes it. The left is sharply defining and enforcing anti-bullying policies to mean, almost exclusively, anyone who disapproves of homosexual behavior.

For anyone, especially those who respect gold and silver, please instead consider the entirely legal use of ‘scrip’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip

It was used in many places during the Great Depression, and helped local communities stabilize their markets and keep their local government functioning. Scrip is not legal tender, so is entirely voluntary, but has huge advantages over the dollar, which may fluctuate or experience any number of other problems.

Scrip is an entirely controlled currency and market, and it is based on trust. The more businesses and people that use it, the better for all. And it works in *parallel* with the dollar, so it give you a choice of which currency is better for *you*.

In our current economic crisis, the best way to use scrip would be that the States would avoid their constitutional restriction of only issuing currency backed by gold and silver, by setting up a public-private company, that is carefully monitored, directed and audited by the State government, but is not part of the government, or run by it.

This company would both issue scrip and a price list of items available for purchase with scrip. Importantly, the scrip itself could be printed on plain paper, because on its reverse would be an encrypted, public domain, data matrix bar code, that can have up to 1000 characters. Hand scanners for DM bar code are common.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_matrix_%28computer%29

A scrip bill of an *approximate* amount, say a “10 Scrip Note”, would be assigned to you, as a person. When you saw something you wanted to buy with it, a retailer would scan the note, then you would confirm the price, say “8.5 SN”, and enter a PIN to confirm the sale.

8.5 SN would be automatically transferred to the retailer, and your “10 SN” would now only be worth 1.5 SN. You could just note its new value with a pen, right on the scrip.

And, since the scrip is really the bar code, if your scrip was lost, destroyed or stolen, you could just print yourself a new one. Your account with the scrip issuer would be all that mattered.

This means that scrip is pretty useless for the black market.

Other advantages of scrip is that it can be designed to lose 2% of its value each month, to discourage hoarding, sales taxes can be deducted automatically, and it provides a means to buy things when there is a physical currency shortage.

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