Utah Approves Gold! (as legal tender)

Libertarian Republicsn ^ | April 6, 2011 | Eric Dondero

[FreeKeys]

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Utah Approves Gold!

“The gold standard would keep you from printing money and destroying the middle class,” said Republican Congressman Ron Paul

From Eric Dondero:

Utah Governor Gary Herbert has just officially signed a Bill to completely legalize gold and silver as legal tender in the State. The Bill was originally proposed by libertarian Republican state legislator Rep. Brad Galvez.

From FutureofCapitalism blog:

Utah has become the first state to pass a law exempting gold and silver coins from the state's capital gains tax and requiring the state to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender, the Deseret News reports. The governor signed the bill into law on March 25. The text of the bill is here. It also orders a study of "the possibility of establishing an alternative form of legal tender for the payment of debts, public charges, taxes, and dues within the state."

Further, American Principles Project reports that similar bills are currently pending in other states:

"Utah is the first state to move toward recognizing gold and silver as money. Ten other states have proposed similar bills, but none have been voted out of committee."

Photo h/t usagold.com

[FreeKeys]

Interestingly enough, Atlas Shrugged is being made into a series of 3 movies.  The first part of the 3-part trilogy is set to be released on tax day, a week from Friday.    Last year, in 2010, ATLAS SHRUGGED sold about 500,000 copies, more than in any year since it was first published in 1957.  This is ten times as many copies as Hillary's and Obama's books sold last year combined.

[FreeKeys]

click this:

[expat_panama]

There isn't enough gold in the world to cover the debt of the US.

Total Federal Debt held by the Public: $9.6T

Total Debt owed by Americans:  $13.9T

There's about a half trillion tons of gold on the earth's surface, so at today's gold price: $1,455.60/oz that's about $8,500,000T.

All the gold that's ever been mined is 'only' about $6T, but that doubles every 40 years or so.

[Windflier]

Last year, in 2010, ATLAS SHRUGGED sold about 500,000 copies, more than in any year since it was first published in 1957.

That is incredible. Just shows you which direction the American people are headed. The 'revolution' has obviously already begun.

Geeez.... I was just four years old the day that book first came out. Why, oh why didn't my mom and dad read it back then? Would have saved me decades of confusion and ignorance, if they had.

[OneWingedShark]

>Actually, that was my belief a while back, as well, that states could not coin money.

Art I, Section. 10.
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; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

>The actual prohibition, however, is only on fiat currency like the fedgov issues. PM coins are allowed, constitutionally.

Amendment X, however would seem to indicate that the people could mint coinage, so long as it does not ‘counterfeit’ of the US Coinage.

[Publius]

Francisco's Root of Money Speech

And now a shameless plug for the FReeper Book Club.

FReeper Book Club: Introduction to Atlas Shrugged
Part I, Chapter I: The Theme
Part I, Chapter II: The Chain
Part I, Chapter III: The Top and the Bottom
Part I, Chapter IV: The Immovable Movers
Part I, Chapter V: The Climax of the d’Anconias
Part I, Chapter VI: The Non-Commercial
Part I, Chapter VII: The Exploiters and the Exploited
Part I, Chapter VIII: The John Galt Line
Part I, Chapter IX: The Sacred and the Profane
Part I, Chapter X: Wyatt’s Torch
Part II, Chapter I: The Man Who Belonged on Earth
Part II, Chapter II: The Aristocracy of Pull
Part II, Chapter III: White Blackmail
Part II, Chapter IV: The Sanction of the Victim
Part II, Chapter V: Account Overdrawn
Part II, Chapter VI: Miracle Metal
Part II, Chapter VII: The Moratorium on Brains
Part II, Chapter VIII: By Our Love
Part II, Chapter IX: The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt
Part II, Chapter X: The Sign of the Dollar
Part III, Chapter I: Atlantis
Part III, Chapter II: The Utopia of Greed
Part III, Chapter III: Anti-Greed
Part III, Chapter IV: Anti-Life
Part III, Chapter V: Their Brothers’ Keepers
Part III, Chapter VI: The Concerto of Deliverance
Part III, Chapter VII: “This is John Galt Speaking”
Part III, Chapter VIII: The Egoist
Part III, Chapter IX: The Generator
Part III, Chapter X: In the Name of the Best Within Us
Coda: Ten Years After
Afterword and Suggested Reading

[Noumenon]

By all means pass it on - it's from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Pick up the book. You won't see things quite the same after you've read it.

[Windflier]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Pick up the book. You won't see things quite the same after you've read it.

I'm sure that reading it may tweak my viewpoint a bit, but I've been hanging around Jim Rob's farm for so long now, that I've probably already absorbed most of it.

I do need to read it, though. Thanks.

[Windflier]

Good lord. There’s a separate thread for every chapter of that book? Wow. I’m bookmarking your post for further reading.

Thanks.

[jongaltsr]

When the government again tries to confiscate gold and silver, spend your gold and silver on lead. You are going to need it.

[Noumenon]

There is no doubt that this regime is going to on a confiscatory rampage sooner or later. I have no illusions about what must be done.

[ctdonath2]

Look it up. Could be very informative to the issue at hand.

[ctdonath2]

Makes me wonder if you could declarer losses on purchase of US gold coin. Spend $1400 on a one ounce coin, and ...gee, it’s only worth $20 as legal tender. How can the Feds consider legal tender as worth anything other than face value?

[Rearden]

the Feds will never let them get away with it

[gogogodzilla]

I’d immediately redeem the $10 gold certificate. As it will only return the amount of gold equal to $10... at that point in time.

If the Fed is determined to devalue the dollar, then the longer you wait to redeem it, the smaller the amount of gold you will eventually have.

[count-your-change]

Until 1934 you would've rec'd about a half ounce of gold since the official price was $20.67/oz. After that, of course, nothing unless you're a collector.
People accepted the certificates in lieu of the metal because the official price was stable and there was metal to back the paper.

Then under Roosevelt (The Great Grabsey) the price went to about $35/oz. turning a nice profit for the feds, and remained there until 1971.

So when you mention devaluing the dollar, look at what a dollar is worth now compared to pre-1934 based on gold.

[Redmen4ever]

Under the Constitution, states are prohibited from coining money and from making anything other than gold or silver a legal tender. The Congress is given the power to coin money, and to regulate the value of coin (which would include foreign and potentially privately-issued coins).

The Supreme Court, in a series of decisions, gave Congress the power not only to coin money but to emit unbacked bills of credit, on the basis that it was a power exercised by all civilized nations not prohibited to the Congress. This, in my view, upsets the 9th and 10th Amendments, which state that the federal government is restricted to its enumerated powers. But, this is not the only nor the worst erosion of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court also decided that the Congress has the power to regulate or outright prohibit any other form of money. Thank you, Franklin Damn Roosevelt.

But, even if the Supreme Court had not completely emasculated the Constitution in favor of the Almighty State, the Constitution says that the Congress shall regulate the value of coins. Now, this power is not explicitly denied to the states. But, it would seem to me, that this would be implied or else the states could undermine legal tender by saying that an ounce of silver had a legal tender value of extraordinary amount, enabling debtors to discharge their debts at a fraction of the originally-agreed upon amount.

Bottom line: Utah cannot coin money nor can Utah declare a legal tender value to coined money.

Having said all this. Utah is not currently prohibited by the Congress to denominating debts in any currency, or commodity, or index thereof. The state of Utah can, for example, offer its civil servants retirement benefits that are indexed to the cost of living. It can issue tokens and certificates denominated in ounces of gold. It can establish depositories in which the gold or silver backing certificates are kept. But, the coins and certificates should avoid representations of money such as the word “dollar” or the symbol “$”.

These tokens and certificates might, then, pass hand to hand at whatever exchange rate to the unbacked POS emitted by the Federal Reserve Board of International Banksters known as the U.S> Dollar..

The Congress would then have to consider whether it should act to prevent the fact from being admitted that the emperor has no clothes.

[DannyTN]

"I don't mean to snipe you.........but isn't that kinda where we are at now? "

Not really, that's why China was upset when the FED started to print money and started talking about the need for a different reserve currency. Not that they really have anywhere to go. It's not like they can't invest in a basket of currencies now. It's just they don't want to. The U.S. is still safer. The talk is just to try to influence the FED.

"Anyhow, since the inception of the greenback our money has inflated something near 95%....I would think deflation would most certainly happen?"

Yeah and when you chart it over 90 years it makes a really scary looking chart. But it's really not important, except to those that were hoping to store currency in their mattress for 100 years.

What's important are the year to year changes, not the ability of a currency to hold value over 100 years. The Federal Reserve has a much better record on minimizing those year to year changes than the gold standard does. We saw some 20-25% year to year swings in the CPI while on the gold standard.

The FED intentionally targets a small amount of inflation each year because that is believed to be the best for the economy.

Deflation is tied to Depressions. When deflation is occurring, you can increase your purchasing power just by holding cash. That means you have an incentive to hold cash instead of invest in the economy or spend. Deflation is considered very bad for the economy. It's something we want to avoid.

[expat_panama]

1oz silver always equals x% of 1oz gold

Over the past 40 years free people foolishly traded as little as 20 oz. of silver for an ounce of gold, and just a couple decades later paid 90.  Now with markets controlled by the State our planned economy will tell people what to pay and we'll have a worker's paradise.

No thanks

[expat_panama]

Before you advocate money like it was in the '20's, remember that this was printed paper money from a supply based on fractional reserve banking overseen by the Fed.

The Fed printed money created out of thin air.