The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
Moderator: Deep Knight
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- Pirate Captain
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The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
The world is ready for gold to take its position (( ultimate position in the commercial )) in the death of a era of fiat greed; being the enemy, destroying freedom, it may be asked in surprise....Will gold be all things to everyone? Why? Because it must come to pass....time to reveal....take center stage...almost as if it were part of some unchangeable purpose from the beginning, GOLD
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http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/fo ... ead=140931
POOF for FEB 8th - "...what part of they're getting their butts kicked and they can't win, don't they get." (views: 769)
hobie -- Sunday, 8 February 2009, 11:41 p.m
--hobie
: Subject: 9-2-09 Informe críptico.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: B2
: SS
: FF
: Nevertheless, massive funds went on the move on fri, for other
: programs, into position for access this week at some point.
: That would have never happened, unless they had a grip on when
: deliveries would be rolling thru the us.
: It became even clearer when a finite action was mentioned as
: the determining factor. I have to go back to something
: spoken to me a number of weeks ago and just repeated, no
: program, whether it be the mother program, the imf, or the
: countless others coming out, would be accessed thru the fed
: system, but only thru the new global banking system, which
: is metal backed.
: The new us currency has already been printed but it's not the
: amero. Americans aren't ready for all those colors in
: their money yet, how about a new treasury dollar, kind of
: like what we used to have, green man, green.
: Makes sense to me since we are going onto the treasury
: anyhow, can't exactly use fed res notes if the thing is
: dead.
: Dear F,
: Cristal Clear!!!
: Sorry to be repetitive but this is what I have been
: permanently harping about ever since I wrote "Death
: and Resurrection of the US Dollar" back in the
: beginning of 2006: there wil be a NEW Dollar backed by
: "Sacred" Financial Gold (i.e., 9999 proof gold
: with an embedded chip, hologram or otherwise fool-proof
: mechanism which will be quoted at 10, 15 or 20 thousand
: dollars...
: All other gold (jewelry, market gold, etc) will be normal
: "Heathen" gold and will cost say 1 thousand Old
: Dollars or thereabouts...
: It's coming...
: Best regards,
: AS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/fo ... ead=140931
POOF for FEB 8th - "...what part of they're getting their butts kicked and they can't win, don't they get." (views: 769)
hobie -- Sunday, 8 February 2009, 11:41 p.m
--hobie
: Subject: 9-2-09 Informe críptico.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: B2
: SS
: FF
: Nevertheless, massive funds went on the move on fri, for other
: programs, into position for access this week at some point.
: That would have never happened, unless they had a grip on when
: deliveries would be rolling thru the us.
: It became even clearer when a finite action was mentioned as
: the determining factor. I have to go back to something
: spoken to me a number of weeks ago and just repeated, no
: program, whether it be the mother program, the imf, or the
: countless others coming out, would be accessed thru the fed
: system, but only thru the new global banking system, which
: is metal backed.
: The new us currency has already been printed but it's not the
: amero. Americans aren't ready for all those colors in
: their money yet, how about a new treasury dollar, kind of
: like what we used to have, green man, green.
: Makes sense to me since we are going onto the treasury
: anyhow, can't exactly use fed res notes if the thing is
: dead.
: Dear F,
: Cristal Clear!!!
: Sorry to be repetitive but this is what I have been
: permanently harping about ever since I wrote "Death
: and Resurrection of the US Dollar" back in the
: beginning of 2006: there wil be a NEW Dollar backed by
: "Sacred" Financial Gold (i.e., 9999 proof gold
: with an embedded chip, hologram or otherwise fool-proof
: mechanism which will be quoted at 10, 15 or 20 thousand
: dollars...
: All other gold (jewelry, market gold, etc) will be normal
: "Heathen" gold and will cost say 1 thousand Old
: Dollars or thereabouts...
: It's coming...
: Best regards,
: AS
Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
DAMN, I just sold all my gold bars for federal reserve notes to weather the coming depression.
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- Hereditary Margrave of Mooloosia
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
I would be for a silver-backed dollar, pegged at $20 or so. "Dollar" comes from the German "Thaler". Gold backed dollars are not likely. The whole Austrian free market economics, Ron Paul, vonMieses,etc. theory, makes good reading but is impractical.
I understand that F.D.R. sealed all safe deposit boxes in all financial institutions in 1933. The safe deposit boxes could then only be opened in the presence of an agent of the IRS. Maybe someone has knowledge if this actually happened.
I understand that F.D.R. sealed all safe deposit boxes in all financial institutions in 1933. The safe deposit boxes could then only be opened in the presence of an agent of the IRS. Maybe someone has knowledge if this actually happened.
'There are two kinds of injustice: the first is found in those who do an injury, the second in those who fail to protect another from injury when they can.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)
'Choose loss rather than shameful gains.' (Chilon Fr. 10. Diels)
'Choose loss rather than shameful gains.' (Chilon Fr. 10. Diels)
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- Pirate Captain
- Posts: 244
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
http://www.libertyforlife.com/banking/u ... -theft.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberty For Life
THE SOLUTION
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 6102 Requiring Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates to Be Delivered to the Government.
Following the privately held Federal Reserve Bank causing the Great Depression, in 1933, astonishingly FDR literally stole gold from citizens, ordering them to hand their gold to the privately held Federal Reserve Bank in exchange for pieces of paper . In issuing this Executive Order, FDR exceeded jurisdiction and committed high treason by assuming law making power exclusively limited to the legislature and he committee treason by violating the core tenants of legal tender mandated by the U.S. Constitution. During this era the Banksters, whom FDR worked for, took control of the U.S.A., literally implementing Socialism (Social Security), assuming control of media (FCC), control of private corporations and their stock/notes (SEC) and he implemented unconstitutional socialistic taxation through a private mob called the IRS.
Executive Order 6102
April 5th, 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 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or 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 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 Section 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.
This order and these regulations may be modified or revoked at any time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liberty For Life
THE SOLUTION
Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 6102 Requiring Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates to Be Delivered to the Government.
Following the privately held Federal Reserve Bank causing the Great Depression, in 1933, astonishingly FDR literally stole gold from citizens, ordering them to hand their gold to the privately held Federal Reserve Bank in exchange for pieces of paper . In issuing this Executive Order, FDR exceeded jurisdiction and committed high treason by assuming law making power exclusively limited to the legislature and he committee treason by violating the core tenants of legal tender mandated by the U.S. Constitution. During this era the Banksters, whom FDR worked for, took control of the U.S.A., literally implementing Socialism (Social Security), assuming control of media (FCC), control of private corporations and their stock/notes (SEC) and he implemented unconstitutional socialistic taxation through a private mob called the IRS.
Executive Order 6102
April 5th, 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 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve Bank or a branch or agency thereof or 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 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 Section 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.
This order and these regulations may be modified or revoked at any time.
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson154.html
The New Deal and Roosevelt’s Seizure of Gold: A Legacy of Theft and Inflation
by William L. Anderson
DIGG THIS
In a recent discussion on the economy with a faculty colleague, I reminded her of some of the absurdities of New Deal economic policies (many of which have been laid out in previous issues of Freedom Daily and elsewhere). She reminded me that Franklin D. Roosevelt is a “hero” to her and other Democrats, which, translated, means that the New Deal cannot be criticized in any form.
Indeed, in May the New York Times op-ed page paid homage to Roosevelt. Ted Widmer wrote that a book by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who he says “has nurtured a schoolboy crush on F.D.R.,” reflects “on the way that Roosevelt reinvented the presidency during his first hundred days in office, through bold policy innovations, brilliant speeches and broadcasts and a personal connection with the American people that has not been equaled since.”
Democrats today may think of themselves as belonging to a “modern” political party, but Roosevelt still is its central figure and any policy “innovations” that come forth from party intellectuals ultimately must be in line with the New Deal. The shocked Widmer writes that
a recent spate of books from the right, including Jim Powell’s FDR’s Folly and Thomas E. Woods Jr.’s Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, have accused [Roosevelt] of prolonging the Great Depression and generally screwing up America.
Admirers of Roosevelt – including the editorialists at the New York Times – hold such thinking to be nonsense, especially the first part about the New Deal’s prolonging the Great Depression instead of ending it. After all, has not the Times’s favorite economist, Paul Krugman, himself said that capitalism had created conditions in which “inadequate” aggregate demand existed during the 1930s, leading Roosevelt to attempt to increase aggregate demand through government spending?
While most analyses of the New Deal look at the various programs and policies that expanded government bureaucracies, the New Deal as we know it would not have been possible without the issuance of Executive Order 6102 in 1933. With Roosevelt’s signature, gold as legal money disappeared in the United States, paving the way for the government to engage in near-unconstrained debasement of the currency. Historians generally pass by EO 6102, but without it Roosevelt’s economic programs never would have gained traction.
Understanding the New Deal
Most articles, books, and papers that cover the New Deal concentrate on the myriad of programs and policies of the Roosevelt administration, such as the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Wagner Act, and the battles between Roosevelt and the U.S. Supreme Court, which had struck down some key elements of the New Deal in 1935. For the most part – and especially in those writings that are favorable to Roosevelt – authors tend to emphasize the vast unemployment and helplessness that gripped the United States (and much of the world) in 1933.
Certainly the horrifying numbers are there. In February 1933, a month before Roosevelt took office, the nation’s overall rate of unemployment stood at 28.3 percent. Nearly half the banks in the United States had failed, millions of people were homeless, and the country’s manufacturing facilities operated at perhaps two-thirds or less of their capacity. Farming communities were devastated, as commodity prices fell drastically, making it impossible for farmers to pay their debts and crippling the small rural banks that held the mortgages.
To right the economic ship, the Roosevelt administration proposed a set of programs that came to be known as the New Deal. The problem, however, was not with Roosevelt’s desire to halt the Depression but rather in the misjudging of its causes and with implementing policies that ultimately would prolong it. It is not surprising, then, that Roosevelt and his “brain trust” of intellectual advisors (mostly from Columbia University) blamed free-market capitalism for the economic free fall and set about to ensure that government would set the agenda for the economy.
Progressives who dominated the Roosevelt administration held that the principal cause of the economic downturn was falling prices, along with falling wages. Furthermore, they believed that the cause of falling prices was “overproduction,” so the “cure” was to find ways to limit the production of goods. Thus, in the minds of the New Dealers, the government needed to restrict production and force up prices. As prices rose, so would wages, and high wages would bring the country out of the Depression. For inspiration and direction, they used the economic programs of Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, as their model.
If one applies even simple logic to such a plan, it is obvious that restricting output also would mean that less labor would be required, which would translate into more unemployment. Yet that is exactly opposite from what Roosevelt and his “brain trust” claimed: that restricting production somehow would mean that fewer businesses would fail, thus eliminating unemployment.
For example, his vaunted National Industrial Recovery Act attempted to organize the entire U.S. economy into a series of cartels that would restrict production, force up prices, and keep wages high. Ironically, the NIRA was a comprehensive plan of what Herbert Hoover’s administration had tried to do in a piecemeal fashion – with disastrous results.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act, while aimed at keeping crop prices high, did so by ordering the mass destruction of crops, as well as animals such as pigs and chickens. In order to pay for the destruction of crops, the Roosevelt administration had Congress enact a tax on agricultural products. Thus, the economic ethos of the New Deal was that production was bad and nonproduction was good.
While many economists and astute journalists such as H.L. Mencken immediately pointed out the folly of such policies, the New Dealers believed that they had an ace in the hole: inflation. Yes, they reasoned, these are restrictive policies, but if the government could find a way to massively inflate the currency, then somehow people would start buying more goods as their dollars depreciated, and the ensuing spending spree would wipe out unemployment.
The monetary system of the United States at the time of the Depression could not sustain inflation very long because the country was on a gold standard. If people sensed that the government was printing too many paper dollars, by law they could redeem those dollars from the government’s store of gold. Moreover, gold coins circulated along with silver dollars, half-dollars, quarters, and dimes.
If people were exchanging their dollars for gold, then the government’s own gold supply would be diminished. Since the gold standard included requirements that the country’s money supply have at least a 40 percent gold backing, a drain on gold reserves would have forced the government to stop printing so many dollars. Therefore, the plans of the New Dealers ran headlong into the reality of the gold standard and its check on inflation.
Thus, early in his presidency, on April 5, 1933, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which ordered people to turn in their gold to the government at payment of $20.67 per ounce. While there were some exceptions for dental use, jewelry, and artists and others who used gold in their jobs, most people were not covered. (Individuals could hold up to $100 in gold coins, but the government confiscated the rest.) Furthermore, the president’s order nullified all private contracts that called for payment in gold, something that led Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia to declare that the whole thing was “dishonor.”
Roosevelt based his order on the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, which gave the president the power to prevent people from “hoarding gold” during a time of war. Of course, the United States was not at war in 1933, but Roosevelt claimed that it was a “national emergency” and Congress and the courts meekly bowed to the executive.
In earlier times, such an order would have been met with outrage, as freedom-loving Americans would have rebelled against such a confiscatory order from Washington. Certainly, no president before the Progressive Era would have ordered such action for fear of impeachment or being voted out of office at the next election. However, by the time Roosevelt took office in 1933, the courts already had upheld government restrictions on freedom of speech (especially during World War I) and Congress had begun the unconstitutional delegation of some of its lawmaking powers to the executive branch.
Furthermore, given the economic calamity that prevailed when Roosevelt issued EO 6102, many Americans had become convinced that economic and political freedom meant freedom to starve and were willing to give the president whatever he wanted.
Roosevelt attempted to put “teeth” in his order by means of Section 9 of the order, which said that anyone who refused to comply could be fined as much as $10,000 or be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison. (Most Americans did not resist, although some simply hid their gold until the order was repealed 41 years later.) To understand the magnitude of Roosevelt’s actions against individuals, he was threatening serious fines and prison terms against anyone who held on to what historically had been the money of the American people.
Although Roosevelt made it illegal for Americans to redeem their dollars for gold, he also realized that he could not make the same threats against people from other countries. Therefore, representatives of foreign governments still could trade in their dollars for gold, although shortly after issuing his order, Roosevelt increased the price to $35 an ounce. However, given the state of international trade at the time, foreign holdings of dollars were relatively small, something that would not be the case a half century later.
The small burst of inflation generated by Roosevelt’s move did create a bit of an economic boom, as usually occurs in the early stages of inflation, although unemployment remained at about 15 percent. However, Roosevelt’s twin pillars of what historians call the First New Deal were causing havoc among some producers and entrepreneurs, who realized that the NIRA and AAA were stifling entrepreneurship and productivity. In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court declared both the NIRA and AAA unconstitutional, but by then the New Dealers had shifted from endorsing business cartels to promoting labor cartels through the unionization of workers.
When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937 upheld the 1935 Fair Labor Standards Act (or Wagner Act), the inflation-induced “boom” ended soon afterward and the economy tumbled into a recession within a depression, a first for the U.S. economy, as unemployment climbed to nearly 20 percent. But while Roosevelt’s seizure of privately held American gold failed to regenerate the economy, it did lay the foundation for further economic deterioration.
The 1971 collapse of the dollar
Following the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, currencies were fixed against each other and the dollar still could be redeemed by foreign governments at $35 an ounce. For about 20 years after World War II ended, the arrangement seemed to work. However, in order to pay for the vast expansion of government welfare programs associated with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the escalating Vietnam War, the Federal Reserve System aggressively expanded the supply of money, which not only depreciated the currency at home but also flooded the rest of the world with dollars.
France’s government, under Charles de Gaulle, recognized the situation at hand and began to redeem its dollars in U.S. gold, which was stuck at its 1933 price. While U.S. representatives at first denied there was a problem, by mid-1971 U.S. gold reserves were disappearing quickly, leading Richard Nixon to close the gold window and impose wage and price controls. While some price controls were lifted within the year, oil and gasoline controls remained through the decade, causing untold havoc in the economy.
Conclusion
The presidency of Franklin Roosevelt was characterized by arrogance and outright fraud. Unfortunately, much of the Roosevelt legacy stands. Many historians and economists continue to insist that his economic programs “saved capitalism” when, in fact, they were based on confiscation of property and on the false notion that inflation is the source of prosperity.
Today, the U.S. monetary system is adrift in inflated dollars. Gold prices at this writing are nearly $650 an ounce and the dollar has been falling against other international currencies. The only constraints on the Federal Reserve System’s determination to continue this inflation are political, and the vast majority of politicians and Americans have come to believe that the Fed creates prosperity when it creates new dollars.
Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 campaigned on a platform of restrained government spending and sound money. His legacy, however, is one of runaway spending, government intrusion into peaceful economic exchange, and the utter debasement of U.S. money. To this day, his successors in the executive branch have only extended the worst aspects of the New Deal presidency. Historians might regard his 1933 seizure of gold as a minor point in history, but in many ways it was every bit as significant as all the other New Deal measures put together.
December 9, 2006
William L. Anderson, Ph.D. [send him mail], teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Copyright © 2006 Future of Freedom Foundation
William Anderson Archives
The New Deal and Roosevelt’s Seizure of Gold: A Legacy of Theft and Inflation
by William L. Anderson
DIGG THIS
In a recent discussion on the economy with a faculty colleague, I reminded her of some of the absurdities of New Deal economic policies (many of which have been laid out in previous issues of Freedom Daily and elsewhere). She reminded me that Franklin D. Roosevelt is a “hero” to her and other Democrats, which, translated, means that the New Deal cannot be criticized in any form.
Indeed, in May the New York Times op-ed page paid homage to Roosevelt. Ted Widmer wrote that a book by Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, who he says “has nurtured a schoolboy crush on F.D.R.,” reflects “on the way that Roosevelt reinvented the presidency during his first hundred days in office, through bold policy innovations, brilliant speeches and broadcasts and a personal connection with the American people that has not been equaled since.”
Democrats today may think of themselves as belonging to a “modern” political party, but Roosevelt still is its central figure and any policy “innovations” that come forth from party intellectuals ultimately must be in line with the New Deal. The shocked Widmer writes that
a recent spate of books from the right, including Jim Powell’s FDR’s Folly and Thomas E. Woods Jr.’s Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, have accused [Roosevelt] of prolonging the Great Depression and generally screwing up America.
Admirers of Roosevelt – including the editorialists at the New York Times – hold such thinking to be nonsense, especially the first part about the New Deal’s prolonging the Great Depression instead of ending it. After all, has not the Times’s favorite economist, Paul Krugman, himself said that capitalism had created conditions in which “inadequate” aggregate demand existed during the 1930s, leading Roosevelt to attempt to increase aggregate demand through government spending?
While most analyses of the New Deal look at the various programs and policies that expanded government bureaucracies, the New Deal as we know it would not have been possible without the issuance of Executive Order 6102 in 1933. With Roosevelt’s signature, gold as legal money disappeared in the United States, paving the way for the government to engage in near-unconstrained debasement of the currency. Historians generally pass by EO 6102, but without it Roosevelt’s economic programs never would have gained traction.
Understanding the New Deal
Most articles, books, and papers that cover the New Deal concentrate on the myriad of programs and policies of the Roosevelt administration, such as the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the Wagner Act, and the battles between Roosevelt and the U.S. Supreme Court, which had struck down some key elements of the New Deal in 1935. For the most part – and especially in those writings that are favorable to Roosevelt – authors tend to emphasize the vast unemployment and helplessness that gripped the United States (and much of the world) in 1933.
Certainly the horrifying numbers are there. In February 1933, a month before Roosevelt took office, the nation’s overall rate of unemployment stood at 28.3 percent. Nearly half the banks in the United States had failed, millions of people were homeless, and the country’s manufacturing facilities operated at perhaps two-thirds or less of their capacity. Farming communities were devastated, as commodity prices fell drastically, making it impossible for farmers to pay their debts and crippling the small rural banks that held the mortgages.
To right the economic ship, the Roosevelt administration proposed a set of programs that came to be known as the New Deal. The problem, however, was not with Roosevelt’s desire to halt the Depression but rather in the misjudging of its causes and with implementing policies that ultimately would prolong it. It is not surprising, then, that Roosevelt and his “brain trust” of intellectual advisors (mostly from Columbia University) blamed free-market capitalism for the economic free fall and set about to ensure that government would set the agenda for the economy.
Progressives who dominated the Roosevelt administration held that the principal cause of the economic downturn was falling prices, along with falling wages. Furthermore, they believed that the cause of falling prices was “overproduction,” so the “cure” was to find ways to limit the production of goods. Thus, in the minds of the New Dealers, the government needed to restrict production and force up prices. As prices rose, so would wages, and high wages would bring the country out of the Depression. For inspiration and direction, they used the economic programs of Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, as their model.
If one applies even simple logic to such a plan, it is obvious that restricting output also would mean that less labor would be required, which would translate into more unemployment. Yet that is exactly opposite from what Roosevelt and his “brain trust” claimed: that restricting production somehow would mean that fewer businesses would fail, thus eliminating unemployment.
For example, his vaunted National Industrial Recovery Act attempted to organize the entire U.S. economy into a series of cartels that would restrict production, force up prices, and keep wages high. Ironically, the NIRA was a comprehensive plan of what Herbert Hoover’s administration had tried to do in a piecemeal fashion – with disastrous results.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act, while aimed at keeping crop prices high, did so by ordering the mass destruction of crops, as well as animals such as pigs and chickens. In order to pay for the destruction of crops, the Roosevelt administration had Congress enact a tax on agricultural products. Thus, the economic ethos of the New Deal was that production was bad and nonproduction was good.
While many economists and astute journalists such as H.L. Mencken immediately pointed out the folly of such policies, the New Dealers believed that they had an ace in the hole: inflation. Yes, they reasoned, these are restrictive policies, but if the government could find a way to massively inflate the currency, then somehow people would start buying more goods as their dollars depreciated, and the ensuing spending spree would wipe out unemployment.
The monetary system of the United States at the time of the Depression could not sustain inflation very long because the country was on a gold standard. If people sensed that the government was printing too many paper dollars, by law they could redeem those dollars from the government’s store of gold. Moreover, gold coins circulated along with silver dollars, half-dollars, quarters, and dimes.
If people were exchanging their dollars for gold, then the government’s own gold supply would be diminished. Since the gold standard included requirements that the country’s money supply have at least a 40 percent gold backing, a drain on gold reserves would have forced the government to stop printing so many dollars. Therefore, the plans of the New Dealers ran headlong into the reality of the gold standard and its check on inflation.
Thus, early in his presidency, on April 5, 1933, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, which ordered people to turn in their gold to the government at payment of $20.67 per ounce. While there were some exceptions for dental use, jewelry, and artists and others who used gold in their jobs, most people were not covered. (Individuals could hold up to $100 in gold coins, but the government confiscated the rest.) Furthermore, the president’s order nullified all private contracts that called for payment in gold, something that led Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia to declare that the whole thing was “dishonor.”
Roosevelt based his order on the 1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, which gave the president the power to prevent people from “hoarding gold” during a time of war. Of course, the United States was not at war in 1933, but Roosevelt claimed that it was a “national emergency” and Congress and the courts meekly bowed to the executive.
In earlier times, such an order would have been met with outrage, as freedom-loving Americans would have rebelled against such a confiscatory order from Washington. Certainly, no president before the Progressive Era would have ordered such action for fear of impeachment or being voted out of office at the next election. However, by the time Roosevelt took office in 1933, the courts already had upheld government restrictions on freedom of speech (especially during World War I) and Congress had begun the unconstitutional delegation of some of its lawmaking powers to the executive branch.
Furthermore, given the economic calamity that prevailed when Roosevelt issued EO 6102, many Americans had become convinced that economic and political freedom meant freedom to starve and were willing to give the president whatever he wanted.
Roosevelt attempted to put “teeth” in his order by means of Section 9 of the order, which said that anyone who refused to comply could be fined as much as $10,000 or be sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison. (Most Americans did not resist, although some simply hid their gold until the order was repealed 41 years later.) To understand the magnitude of Roosevelt’s actions against individuals, he was threatening serious fines and prison terms against anyone who held on to what historically had been the money of the American people.
Although Roosevelt made it illegal for Americans to redeem their dollars for gold, he also realized that he could not make the same threats against people from other countries. Therefore, representatives of foreign governments still could trade in their dollars for gold, although shortly after issuing his order, Roosevelt increased the price to $35 an ounce. However, given the state of international trade at the time, foreign holdings of dollars were relatively small, something that would not be the case a half century later.
The small burst of inflation generated by Roosevelt’s move did create a bit of an economic boom, as usually occurs in the early stages of inflation, although unemployment remained at about 15 percent. However, Roosevelt’s twin pillars of what historians call the First New Deal were causing havoc among some producers and entrepreneurs, who realized that the NIRA and AAA were stifling entrepreneurship and productivity. In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court declared both the NIRA and AAA unconstitutional, but by then the New Dealers had shifted from endorsing business cartels to promoting labor cartels through the unionization of workers.
When the U.S. Supreme Court in 1937 upheld the 1935 Fair Labor Standards Act (or Wagner Act), the inflation-induced “boom” ended soon afterward and the economy tumbled into a recession within a depression, a first for the U.S. economy, as unemployment climbed to nearly 20 percent. But while Roosevelt’s seizure of privately held American gold failed to regenerate the economy, it did lay the foundation for further economic deterioration.
The 1971 collapse of the dollar
Following the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, currencies were fixed against each other and the dollar still could be redeemed by foreign governments at $35 an ounce. For about 20 years after World War II ended, the arrangement seemed to work. However, in order to pay for the vast expansion of government welfare programs associated with Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the escalating Vietnam War, the Federal Reserve System aggressively expanded the supply of money, which not only depreciated the currency at home but also flooded the rest of the world with dollars.
France’s government, under Charles de Gaulle, recognized the situation at hand and began to redeem its dollars in U.S. gold, which was stuck at its 1933 price. While U.S. representatives at first denied there was a problem, by mid-1971 U.S. gold reserves were disappearing quickly, leading Richard Nixon to close the gold window and impose wage and price controls. While some price controls were lifted within the year, oil and gasoline controls remained through the decade, causing untold havoc in the economy.
Conclusion
The presidency of Franklin Roosevelt was characterized by arrogance and outright fraud. Unfortunately, much of the Roosevelt legacy stands. Many historians and economists continue to insist that his economic programs “saved capitalism” when, in fact, they were based on confiscation of property and on the false notion that inflation is the source of prosperity.
Today, the U.S. monetary system is adrift in inflated dollars. Gold prices at this writing are nearly $650 an ounce and the dollar has been falling against other international currencies. The only constraints on the Federal Reserve System’s determination to continue this inflation are political, and the vast majority of politicians and Americans have come to believe that the Fed creates prosperity when it creates new dollars.
Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 campaigned on a platform of restrained government spending and sound money. His legacy, however, is one of runaway spending, government intrusion into peaceful economic exchange, and the utter debasement of U.S. money. To this day, his successors in the executive branch have only extended the worst aspects of the New Deal presidency. Historians might regard his 1933 seizure of gold as a minor point in history, but in many ways it was every bit as significant as all the other New Deal measures put together.
December 9, 2006
William L. Anderson, Ph.D. [send him mail], teaches economics at Frostburg State University in Maryland, and is an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
Copyright © 2006 Future of Freedom Foundation
William Anderson Archives
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
FDR, Thief of America's Gold
http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/ ... reff1.html
by Patrick Chkoreff
As Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as president on March 4, 1933, Americans were in a state of panic. Banks were failing every day, and people clamoured by the thousands to withdraw their money. Ordinarily they might have accepted paper money in the form of gold certificates, but people feared that the government might simply resort to printing worthless money to meet the massive withdrawal requests. They didn't want paper. They wanted gold. Furthermore, people who had gold certificates rushed to redeem them for real gold.
In 1933, the U.S. dollar had a very precise definition. The government defined the dollar as 23.22 grains of gold. Since there are 480 grains to a troy ounce, this works out to about $20.67 per troy ounce.
This meant that if you had a $20 gold certificate, you could redeem it for roughly 1 troy ounce of gold. Each certificate bore this solemn statement: "This certifies that there have been deposited in the Treasury of the United States Twenty Dollars in Gold Coin payable to the bearer on demand." There are two promises here. First, the gold is there waiting for you. Second, you'll get the gold when you demand it.
So in March 1933, thousands of people decided to make the government honour its promise. They quickly found out that the government was lying.
Just two days after his inauguration, Roosevelt ordered a "bank holiday" closing all the banks in the country from Monday March 6 through Thursday March 9. He proclaimed that there was a "national emergency" caused by "heavy and unwarranted withdrawals of gold and currency" for the purpose of "hoarding." Of course, "hoarding" simply means people holding on to their own money. Roosevelt called it "hoarding" to make it seem like evil or immature behaviour. It was the typical politician's ploy of blaming the government's woes on the people's vices.
On March 9, the Senate passed the Emergency Banking Act after very little debate. This gave the Secretary of the Treasury the power to compel every person and business in the country to relinquish their gold and accept paper currency in exchange.
The next day, Friday March 10, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6073, forbidding people from sending gold overseas and forbidding banks from paying out gold.
Pretty good for his first week in office. But wait, there's more.
On April 5, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6102. This was the order to confiscate everybody's gold. It commanded everybody to deliver their gold and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve bank, where they would be paid in paper money. You could keep up to $100.00 in gold, but anything above that was illegal. Gold had become a controlled substance. Possession was punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Now the only people with a claim to gold in the Treasury were foreigners holding dollars. Since he was on such a roll, Roosevelt decided to rip them off too. On January 31, 1934, Roosevelt issued another Executive Order. Here he declared that the dollar was now only 59.06% of its former gold quantum of 23.22 grains. Now the dollar was only worth 13.71 grains of gold.
Look at it from the point of view of one of these hapless foreigners. It used to cost you only $20.67 to get a troy ounce of gold. Now it cost you $35.00. The U.S. government, under the dictatorship of Roosevelt, had just stolen 40% of your money.
By burglarizing the rest of the world, Roosevelt made the Great Depression even Greater. It was more Global because he had impoverished millions of foreigners, and it was more Persistent because he had ruined the good credit of the United States.
Not bad for his first year in office.
Some have suggested that FDR had no choice because if he had allowed the "run" to continue, soon there would be no more gold in the U.S. Treasury to back the gold certificates.
But how could that be? Each gold certificate certified that there was a certain amount of gold in the Treasury payable to the bearer on demand. The law decreed that $20.67 would get you one troy ounce of gold, which was just sitting there in the vault waiting for you to "demand" it.
In his excellent 1935 book Monetary Mischief, George Robinson claims that these gold reserves really did exist. Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, FDR was not honouring the redemption promise. The U.S. was now running a con game, having printed "gold certificates" that in fact could not be redeemed for gold at all.
Imagine if e-gold or GoldMoney suddenly began issuing new digital gold grams without having the real gold grams to match them. That would be theft and counterfeiting. Certainly creating even more fictional gold grams would not be the solution to this problem.
FDR engaged in theft and counterfeiting as a solution to a problem caused by theft and counterfeiting. A more honest solution would have been to make good on as many gold redemptions as possible, and then begin a massive liquidation of government assets to purchase gold on the open market until all redemptions were made. To avoid the pricing problems of sudden mass liquidations and mass gold purchases, the government might have offered gold bonds to those who would accept them. These bonds would be payable with interest in gold after a fixed time period. To people immediately demanding their gold, the government would have to tell them to wait, and then proceed quickly to round up enough gold to satisfy the request. I'm sure the people would have preferred to hear "hold on, we're getting your money" than "screw you, we're stealing your money."
The sale of government assets would include office buildings, vehicles, huge tracts of land, etc. In other words, my solution would be: take every action to make good on all the gold redemptions. Do not steal the gold.
Some have said that FDR's actions were necessary because a default on the redemption of paper currency would bankrupt the country, and not just the government, but all private debts as well.
But that's just it--the government DID default on the redemption of paper currency, and it did bankrupt the country by deepening the depression and spreading it worldwide. Sadly, it did not bankrupt the government, only the indentured servants we like to call "citizens." (Brother, can you spare a dime?)
I must emphasize that when the government devalued the dollar and confiscated gold, they WERE defaulting on their redemption obligations. They didn't magically skirt the underlying hard reality just because some politicians signed some pieces of paper.
Some have said that FDR was faced with a dire national emergency, and did the only thing he knew how to do with the powers that had been granted to his new office.
To that I say: FDR was not granted these powers. He had no more legal authority to do what he did than my immigrant grandfather had. But that never stopped a president from doing anything to consolidate and maintain power. As a betrayer of the Constitution, FDR ranks right up there with Lincoln, LBJ and Nixon.
--------------
References:
1. Monetary Mischief [George Robinson, 1935]
2. How Americans Lost Their Right to Own Gold and Became Criminals in the Process [at http://www.enteract.com/~mgfree/Economi ... story.html ]
3. Photos of the Series 1922 $100 gold certificate [at http://www.money.org/paper/gc100ser8752.html]
4. Pictures of various gold certificates [at http://www.money.org/paper/usgold.html]
5. Units Conversion Calculator [at http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistr ... ts_en.html]
6. http://www.goldmoney.com
7. http://e-gold.com
http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/ ... reff1.html
by Patrick Chkoreff
As Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as president on March 4, 1933, Americans were in a state of panic. Banks were failing every day, and people clamoured by the thousands to withdraw their money. Ordinarily they might have accepted paper money in the form of gold certificates, but people feared that the government might simply resort to printing worthless money to meet the massive withdrawal requests. They didn't want paper. They wanted gold. Furthermore, people who had gold certificates rushed to redeem them for real gold.
In 1933, the U.S. dollar had a very precise definition. The government defined the dollar as 23.22 grains of gold. Since there are 480 grains to a troy ounce, this works out to about $20.67 per troy ounce.
This meant that if you had a $20 gold certificate, you could redeem it for roughly 1 troy ounce of gold. Each certificate bore this solemn statement: "This certifies that there have been deposited in the Treasury of the United States Twenty Dollars in Gold Coin payable to the bearer on demand." There are two promises here. First, the gold is there waiting for you. Second, you'll get the gold when you demand it.
So in March 1933, thousands of people decided to make the government honour its promise. They quickly found out that the government was lying.
Just two days after his inauguration, Roosevelt ordered a "bank holiday" closing all the banks in the country from Monday March 6 through Thursday March 9. He proclaimed that there was a "national emergency" caused by "heavy and unwarranted withdrawals of gold and currency" for the purpose of "hoarding." Of course, "hoarding" simply means people holding on to their own money. Roosevelt called it "hoarding" to make it seem like evil or immature behaviour. It was the typical politician's ploy of blaming the government's woes on the people's vices.
On March 9, the Senate passed the Emergency Banking Act after very little debate. This gave the Secretary of the Treasury the power to compel every person and business in the country to relinquish their gold and accept paper currency in exchange.
The next day, Friday March 10, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6073, forbidding people from sending gold overseas and forbidding banks from paying out gold.
Pretty good for his first week in office. But wait, there's more.
On April 5, Roosevelt issued Executive Order No. 6102. This was the order to confiscate everybody's gold. It commanded everybody to deliver their gold and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve bank, where they would be paid in paper money. You could keep up to $100.00 in gold, but anything above that was illegal. Gold had become a controlled substance. Possession was punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Now the only people with a claim to gold in the Treasury were foreigners holding dollars. Since he was on such a roll, Roosevelt decided to rip them off too. On January 31, 1934, Roosevelt issued another Executive Order. Here he declared that the dollar was now only 59.06% of its former gold quantum of 23.22 grains. Now the dollar was only worth 13.71 grains of gold.
Look at it from the point of view of one of these hapless foreigners. It used to cost you only $20.67 to get a troy ounce of gold. Now it cost you $35.00. The U.S. government, under the dictatorship of Roosevelt, had just stolen 40% of your money.
By burglarizing the rest of the world, Roosevelt made the Great Depression even Greater. It was more Global because he had impoverished millions of foreigners, and it was more Persistent because he had ruined the good credit of the United States.
Not bad for his first year in office.
Some have suggested that FDR had no choice because if he had allowed the "run" to continue, soon there would be no more gold in the U.S. Treasury to back the gold certificates.
But how could that be? Each gold certificate certified that there was a certain amount of gold in the Treasury payable to the bearer on demand. The law decreed that $20.67 would get you one troy ounce of gold, which was just sitting there in the vault waiting for you to "demand" it.
In his excellent 1935 book Monetary Mischief, George Robinson claims that these gold reserves really did exist. Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, FDR was not honouring the redemption promise. The U.S. was now running a con game, having printed "gold certificates" that in fact could not be redeemed for gold at all.
Imagine if e-gold or GoldMoney suddenly began issuing new digital gold grams without having the real gold grams to match them. That would be theft and counterfeiting. Certainly creating even more fictional gold grams would not be the solution to this problem.
FDR engaged in theft and counterfeiting as a solution to a problem caused by theft and counterfeiting. A more honest solution would have been to make good on as many gold redemptions as possible, and then begin a massive liquidation of government assets to purchase gold on the open market until all redemptions were made. To avoid the pricing problems of sudden mass liquidations and mass gold purchases, the government might have offered gold bonds to those who would accept them. These bonds would be payable with interest in gold after a fixed time period. To people immediately demanding their gold, the government would have to tell them to wait, and then proceed quickly to round up enough gold to satisfy the request. I'm sure the people would have preferred to hear "hold on, we're getting your money" than "screw you, we're stealing your money."
The sale of government assets would include office buildings, vehicles, huge tracts of land, etc. In other words, my solution would be: take every action to make good on all the gold redemptions. Do not steal the gold.
Some have said that FDR's actions were necessary because a default on the redemption of paper currency would bankrupt the country, and not just the government, but all private debts as well.
But that's just it--the government DID default on the redemption of paper currency, and it did bankrupt the country by deepening the depression and spreading it worldwide. Sadly, it did not bankrupt the government, only the indentured servants we like to call "citizens." (Brother, can you spare a dime?)
I must emphasize that when the government devalued the dollar and confiscated gold, they WERE defaulting on their redemption obligations. They didn't magically skirt the underlying hard reality just because some politicians signed some pieces of paper.
Some have said that FDR was faced with a dire national emergency, and did the only thing he knew how to do with the powers that had been granted to his new office.
To that I say: FDR was not granted these powers. He had no more legal authority to do what he did than my immigrant grandfather had. But that never stopped a president from doing anything to consolidate and maintain power. As a betrayer of the Constitution, FDR ranks right up there with Lincoln, LBJ and Nixon.
--------------
References:
1. Monetary Mischief [George Robinson, 1935]
2. How Americans Lost Their Right to Own Gold and Became Criminals in the Process [at http://www.enteract.com/~mgfree/Economi ... story.html ]
3. Photos of the Series 1922 $100 gold certificate [at http://www.money.org/paper/gc100ser8752.html]
4. Pictures of various gold certificates [at http://www.money.org/paper/usgold.html]
5. Units Conversion Calculator [at http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistr ... ts_en.html]
6. http://www.goldmoney.com
7. http://e-gold.com
-
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
Guest Essay:
The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: A trillion-dollar bailout. ‘Demonizing’ private enterprise. Is President Obama destined to follow in the footsteps of FDR and the New Deal? Or is there still time to turn it around? Lew Rockwell explores...
OBAMA’S WEALTH DESTRUCTION
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
President Obama is under the impression that history owes him $1 trillion right now to spend on whatever he wants. His language is strident and full of irritation that anyone would question his right to live out his personal dream of being Franklin Roosevelt to George Bush’s Hoover. This, he says, is what the election was all about.
The arrogance reminds me of George Bush after 9-11, who similarly believed that history owed him a gargantuan war in the tradition of FDR. And look how that arrogance led to disgrace and loss, as he unwittingly presided over the destruction of American prosperity while searching for bugbears abroad.
It just goes to show you that the presidency is something like a drug. It makes people lose all connection to reality. Part of the reality that Obama needs to recognize is that the New Deal was a calamity far worse than the initial market downturn that began it. He needs to stop basing his policies on dumbed-down civics texts versions of events and consider the economic logic.
With his rhetoric and policies, he has decided to demonize private enterprise, just as FDR did, as a way to present government as the great savior. Now, think about this. If there is a way out of the recession, it will have to be provided by private enterprise. It will come by new businesses, business expansions, entrepreneurship, new technology, and this will be the source of lasting jobs and prosperity.
You cannot make a country rich by looting taxpayers and paying people to pound nails into siding at public schools! These activities amount to capital consumption. They are not sources of investment. You can say that they are stupid tasks or wonderful tasks, but it is not a matter of ideology as to whether such public projects will make us all wealthier. They will not. They drain the sources of wealth from society. They represent a cost, not a blessing.
That was also true of Bush’s dumb stimulus program. He was only bailing out his friends at our expense. The effect was to give a little longer life to institutions that were failing anyway. It’s pathetic that the Republicans ever went along with it. You will notice that the scheme didn’t actually work.
Well, Obama is doing the same thing, though rewarding a different set of friends. This is not wealth production. This is wealth consumption. Do enough of this nonsense and you can destroy the livelihoods of an entire generation.
Americans are proud of their system of government, but consider what it has given us this time around. We had an outgoing president who thought it was his right to grab as much as he could while leaving. Now we have a new president who thinks that the election entitled him to grab as much as he can, right from the beginning. We get looted by the state coming and going. It all amounts to one massive war on prosperity and freedom.
Particularly culpable here are the official historians who have for generations heralded FDR as the great savior. It is a case study in how a civic lie can appear and fester for decades. The fact is that the New Deal did not work. It prolonged what might have been a troubling two-year downturn into a horrifying blow to world prosperity that ended up in a war that killed countless millions. It was one of the greatest acts of wreckage in world history.
And Obama is inspired by this? He wants to repeat it?
I’m not so cynical about human affairs that I believe that errors must be endlessly repeated. Obama can put a stop to his madness. He needs to know – someone must tell him frankly and openly – that his current path is going to lead not to recovery, but to an extension of suffering, and untold amounts of it.
The biggest threat facing the American economy right now is rarely even discussed. It is the massive buildup of paper bank reserves in the last quarter of 2008. This was Bush’s doing. He ordered the Fed to print like mad. Fortunately for us, the banks are still holding on to these reserves. When they start lending again, the result could be hyperinflation of Confederate-dollar proportions.
Hence the priority of the Obama administration should be to first do no evil, and second to find some means for withdrawing those reserves from the banking system before they wash through the economic structure and destroy the dollar. There is still time. He must act. Yes, that will lead to bank failures. That’s good! It will lead to business failures. That’s good and essential too.
There simply is no choice. If he acts now, he could find that recovery will come before his second term. This is precisely what happened with Reagan. He was fortunate to have advisers who insisted that he let the liquidation happen rather than attempt to fix the recession of 1981–82 with huge new government spending programs.
In any case, the hardest work to do here is intellectual. Obama’s head is filled with myths and lies, not only about FDR and the New Deal but also about the government’s power to repair the existing economic problems. With this model in his head, he can only do evil. This must change.
Nothing is inevitable. He can turn on a dime. The main message: do not repeat the actions of FDR, lest you destroy what is left of American liberty and prosperity
Regards,
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
for The Daily Reckoning
The Daily Reckoning PRESENTS: A trillion-dollar bailout. ‘Demonizing’ private enterprise. Is President Obama destined to follow in the footsteps of FDR and the New Deal? Or is there still time to turn it around? Lew Rockwell explores...
OBAMA’S WEALTH DESTRUCTION
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
President Obama is under the impression that history owes him $1 trillion right now to spend on whatever he wants. His language is strident and full of irritation that anyone would question his right to live out his personal dream of being Franklin Roosevelt to George Bush’s Hoover. This, he says, is what the election was all about.
The arrogance reminds me of George Bush after 9-11, who similarly believed that history owed him a gargantuan war in the tradition of FDR. And look how that arrogance led to disgrace and loss, as he unwittingly presided over the destruction of American prosperity while searching for bugbears abroad.
It just goes to show you that the presidency is something like a drug. It makes people lose all connection to reality. Part of the reality that Obama needs to recognize is that the New Deal was a calamity far worse than the initial market downturn that began it. He needs to stop basing his policies on dumbed-down civics texts versions of events and consider the economic logic.
With his rhetoric and policies, he has decided to demonize private enterprise, just as FDR did, as a way to present government as the great savior. Now, think about this. If there is a way out of the recession, it will have to be provided by private enterprise. It will come by new businesses, business expansions, entrepreneurship, new technology, and this will be the source of lasting jobs and prosperity.
You cannot make a country rich by looting taxpayers and paying people to pound nails into siding at public schools! These activities amount to capital consumption. They are not sources of investment. You can say that they are stupid tasks or wonderful tasks, but it is not a matter of ideology as to whether such public projects will make us all wealthier. They will not. They drain the sources of wealth from society. They represent a cost, not a blessing.
That was also true of Bush’s dumb stimulus program. He was only bailing out his friends at our expense. The effect was to give a little longer life to institutions that were failing anyway. It’s pathetic that the Republicans ever went along with it. You will notice that the scheme didn’t actually work.
Well, Obama is doing the same thing, though rewarding a different set of friends. This is not wealth production. This is wealth consumption. Do enough of this nonsense and you can destroy the livelihoods of an entire generation.
Americans are proud of their system of government, but consider what it has given us this time around. We had an outgoing president who thought it was his right to grab as much as he could while leaving. Now we have a new president who thinks that the election entitled him to grab as much as he can, right from the beginning. We get looted by the state coming and going. It all amounts to one massive war on prosperity and freedom.
Particularly culpable here are the official historians who have for generations heralded FDR as the great savior. It is a case study in how a civic lie can appear and fester for decades. The fact is that the New Deal did not work. It prolonged what might have been a troubling two-year downturn into a horrifying blow to world prosperity that ended up in a war that killed countless millions. It was one of the greatest acts of wreckage in world history.
And Obama is inspired by this? He wants to repeat it?
I’m not so cynical about human affairs that I believe that errors must be endlessly repeated. Obama can put a stop to his madness. He needs to know – someone must tell him frankly and openly – that his current path is going to lead not to recovery, but to an extension of suffering, and untold amounts of it.
The biggest threat facing the American economy right now is rarely even discussed. It is the massive buildup of paper bank reserves in the last quarter of 2008. This was Bush’s doing. He ordered the Fed to print like mad. Fortunately for us, the banks are still holding on to these reserves. When they start lending again, the result could be hyperinflation of Confederate-dollar proportions.
Hence the priority of the Obama administration should be to first do no evil, and second to find some means for withdrawing those reserves from the banking system before they wash through the economic structure and destroy the dollar. There is still time. He must act. Yes, that will lead to bank failures. That’s good! It will lead to business failures. That’s good and essential too.
There simply is no choice. If he acts now, he could find that recovery will come before his second term. This is precisely what happened with Reagan. He was fortunate to have advisers who insisted that he let the liquidation happen rather than attempt to fix the recession of 1981–82 with huge new government spending programs.
In any case, the hardest work to do here is intellectual. Obama’s head is filled with myths and lies, not only about FDR and the New Deal but also about the government’s power to repair the existing economic problems. With this model in his head, he can only do evil. This must change.
Nothing is inevitable. He can turn on a dime. The main message: do not repeat the actions of FDR, lest you destroy what is left of American liberty and prosperity
Regards,
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
for The Daily Reckoning
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
: Subject: 12-2-09 Informe críptico.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF
: BS
: QED
I am reminded of some idiots on talk radio trying to convince people that buying gold was better than storing food for their "inevitable social collapse" because even if people are starving they'll trade food for gold.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF
: BS
: QED
I am reminded of some idiots on talk radio trying to convince people that buying gold was better than storing food for their "inevitable social collapse" because even if people are starving they'll trade food for gold.
"Follow the Money"
Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
That amazed me, as well - if society and government collapsed, by what standard would we determine gold's value? (And sorry - if I were starving, I could care less about pretty metal!)Deep Knight wrote:I am reminded of some idiots on talk radio trying to convince people that buying gold was better than storing food for their "inevitable social collapse" because even if people are starving they'll trade food for gold.[/color]
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- Scalawag
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
What is the old saying?
"In the worst of times, the optimists buy guns, gold, and cigars."
"In the worst of times, the optimists buy guns, gold, and cigars."
The mongoose of a disciplined mind and will is more than a match for the cobra of desire and emotion. - Professor Dallas Willard, USC
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Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
Re: The reign of the fiat dollar ends, GOLD begins?
by Deep Knight on Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:46 pm
: Subject: 12-2-09 Informe críptico.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF
: BS
: QED
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF.
.. into the night as my mind turns all of this over looking for reasons ..... and perhaps its as simple as; encoded bs from poof?? hmmmm....
could the point be that past era of plans have just gone away?
Or was it channeled propaganda...?
by Deep Knight on Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:46 pm
: Subject: 12-2-09 Informe críptico.
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF
: BS
: QED
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: For your uncoding, if you can.
: POOF.
.. into the night as my mind turns all of this over looking for reasons ..... and perhaps its as simple as; encoded bs from poof?? hmmmm....
could the point be that past era of plans have just gone away?
Or was it channeled propaganda...?