Category Archives: Money

Counterfeiting Money Is a Crime — Whether Done by the Fed or A Private Individual, by Patrick Barron

Posted on April 15, 2019 | Leave a comment

The Federal Reserve probably counterfeits more money than anyone else. From Patrick Barron at mises.org:

A few years ago, shortly after the 2008 subprime lending disaster, the Fed sent a public relations team around the country to conduct supposedly “educational sessions” about how the Fed works and the wonderful things it does. The public was invited, and there was a question and answer session at the end of the presentation. One such session was held in Des Moines, Iowa. At the time I was teaching a course in Austrian economics at the University of Iowa, so I lusted at the prospect of hearing complete nonsense and having a shot at asking a question. I was not disappointed.

The educational part of the session lasted about an hour, and it became clear to me that the panel of four knew almost nothing about monetary theory. They may even have been hired especially for this grand tour, because all were relatively young, well scrubbed, and very personable–let’s face it, not your typical Fed monetary policy wonks or bank examiners! The panelists discussed only one of the Fed’s two remits–its remit to promote the economic advancement of the nation. Its other remit is to safeguard the monetary system. However, the panelists did touched upon the Fed’s control of interest rates and ensuring that money continued to flow to housing and other high profile areas of the economy.

Finally, at the end of the presentation, those with questions were asked to form a queue and advance one at a time to a microphone. I was last in a line of about a dozen. Here’s my recollection of what followed:

Me: You say that you (the Fed) have the power to increase the money supply. Is that right?

Fed: Yes.

Me: And you have indeed increased the money supply. Is that right?

Fed: Yes.

Me: And the money that you create was generated out of thin air. It wasn’t there before, but it’s there now. Is that right?

Fed (Getting nervous): Yes.

Me: And you say that creating this money out of thin air is beneficial to the economy. Is that right?

Fed (Now nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof): Yes.

Me: Then why do you prosecute counterfeiters?

(The audience, after a few seconds’ delay,: Yeah, why DO you prosecute counterfeiters?)

Fed: This meeting is closed.

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The Federal Reserve: A Failure of the Rule of Law, by Alexander W. Salter

Posted on March 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

Most of the Federal Reserve’s powers did not come from its statutory authorization—the law. From Alexander W. Salter at aier.org:

“Money is power.” We’ve all heard this aphorism many times before. Too often it’s a lazy shorthand dismissal of the finding of mainstream economics, which show that the pursuit and possession of money often entails innocuous or even beneficial consequences for society. Dr. Johnson was right after all: “There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.”

But there are some contexts in which the saying is apt. An obvious case is the Federal Reserve. The Fed has a monopoly on the creation of base money, the fundamental asset underlying the banking and financial system. And over decades, with each instance of financial turbulence, the Fed has become less constrained in how, when, and why it creates base money. Since the Great Recession, the Fed has been able to bestow purchasing power, liquidity, and solvency on just about any financial organization it pleases. If that isn’t power, there’s no such thing.

The Federal Reserve System was created in 1913. It was intended to be a formalization of the interbank clearing system that then existed in the National Banking System. It was not intended to be a central bank. Even in the early 20th century, economists and politicians had some idea of what central banks did and how they behaved, and the existence of such an institution was widely regarded as inherently un-American, in the sense that it could not be reconciled with a self-governing society. That’s why so many proponents of the Federal Reserve System bent over backward to insist they were not advocating the creation of a central bank. And at the time, their repudiations were reasonable; there was no reason the Federal Reserve System had to acquire the powers it did.

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Fake Money’s Face Value Deceit, by MN Gordon

Posted on March 10, 2019 | 1 comment

The Federal Reserve has destroy about 96 percent of the value of the dollars since it was entrusted with preserving the value of the dollar back in 1913. From MN Gordon at economicprism.com:

hane Anthony Mele stumbled off the straight and narrow path many years ago.  One bad decision here.  Another there.  And he was neck deep in the smelly stuff.

These missteps compounded over the years and also magnified his natural shortcomings.  Namely, that he’s a thief and – to be polite – a moron.  Recently the confluence of these two failings came together like a sewage spill to a river draining through the center of town.

Mele made a dishonest mistake.  He failed to recognize that he’s not the only dishonest soul operating in a dishonest world.  That is, he failed to comprehend the difference between face value and real value.

So it was, with dishonest intentions, that he burgled a rare coin collection with no clue what it was that he’d taken.  To his soft and greedy mind all he saw was a hoard of coins with a face value of One Dollar.  Thus, he redeemed them for cash.  Zero Hedge offers the details:

“After stealing a rare coin collection from an elderly and disabled retiree, Shane Anthony Mele, dumped what their owner said was at least $33,000 worth of collectible coins down a Coin Star machine at a Florida supermarket and collected their face value, receiving about $30 – enough for a couple of 12 packs.”

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The Return To A Gold Exchange Standard, by Alasdair Macleod

Posted on February 24, 2019 | Leave a comment

Unbacked currencies will sooner or later go up in flames, as they always have. The general solution, then, will be obvious: some sort of gold-based monetary system. From Alasdair Macleod at goldmoney.com:

This article makes the obvious point that a return to a gold standard is the only way nations can contain the interest cost of servicing debt, given the alternative is inflationist policies that can only lead to far higher interest rates and currency destruction. The topic is timely, given the self-harm of American economic and geopolitical policies, which are already leading America into a cyclical slump. Meanwhile, American fears of Asian domination of global economic, monetary and political outcomes have come true. The upcoming credit crisis is likely to kill off the welfare state model in the West by destroying their unbacked paper currencies, while China, Russia and their Asian allies have the means to prosper.

The fragility of state finances

In my last Goldmoney article I explained why the monetary policies of inflationist economists and policy makers would end up destroying fiat currencies. The destruction will come from ordinary people, who are forced by law to use the state’s money for settling their day-to-day transactions. Ordinary people, each one a trinity of production, consumption and saving, will eventually wake up to the fraud of monetary inflation and discard their government’s medium of exchange as intrinsically worthless.

They always have, eventually. This has been proved by experience and should be uncontroversial. For the issuer of a currency, the risk of this happening heightens when credit markets become destabilised and confidence in the full faith and credit, which is the only backing a fiat currency has, begins to be questioned either by its users or foreigners or both. And when it does, a currency starts to rapidly lose purchasing power and the whole interest rate structure moves higher.

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Guess how much Britain’s richest man saves on taxes by moving to Monaco? by Simon Black

Posted on February 24, 2019 | Leave a comment

Governments will propose new and higher taxes, people with large incomes and abundant wealth will dispose, voting with their feet for other jurisdictions. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

Bill Gates and I don’t agree on taxes.

He says that he should pay more. And I consider it my moral duty to pay as little tax as possible. I don’t want to fund the government’s destruction, corruption and waste.

But in an interview with Fareed Zakaria, Bill Gates did echo my Universal Law of Prosperity: produce more than you consume.

Bill noted that the government “only collect[s] about 20% of GDP and we spend like 24% of GDP, so you can’t let that deficit grow faster than the economy.”

The US has over $22 trillion in debt, and is adding $1+ trillion of red ink every year. And this is in good times.

Then Bill Gates checked off another Sovereign Man theme: “the promises the government has made like taking care of healthcare and pensions, those will become more expensive, a higher percentage of GDP.”

He’s putting it lightly… Worldwide, pensions are short $70 TRILLION. State, federal and local pensions in the US are $7 trillion short, not counting $50 trillion of unfunded Social Security liabilities. And so far the only solution politicians can think of is more debt.

But as much as Bill would love to see the rich taxed more, he recognizes that you have to be careful.

He understands the rich are the most adept at avoiding taxes. Even when taxes in the US were 70%, the actual collection was only around 40% thanks to deferrals and other maneuvers.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Governments, Money, Morality, Taxes

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Crossing Borders with Gold and Silver Coins, by Doug Casey

Posted on January 27, 2019 | Leave a comment

There are some very good reasons to own gold and silver coins. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:

It’s well-known that you have to make a declaration if you physically transport $10,000 or more in cash or monetary instruments in or out of the US, or almost any other country; governments collude on these things, often informally.

Gold has always been in something of a twilight zone in that regard. It’s no longer officially considered money. So it’s usually regarded as just a commodity, like copper, lead, or zinc, for these purposes. The one-ounce Canadian Maple Leaf and US Eagle both say they’re worth $50 of currency.

But I’ve had some disturbing experiences over the past couple of years crossing borders with coins. Of course, crossing any national border is potentially disturbing at any time. You might find yourself interrogated, strip searched, or detained for any reason or no reason. But I suspect what happened to me crossing a few borders in recent times could be a straw in the wind.

I’ve gradually accumulated about a dozen one-ounce silver rounds in my briefcase, some souvenirs issued by mining companies, plus others from Canada, Australia, China, and the US. But when I left Chile not long ago, the person monitoring the X-ray machine stopped me and insisted I take them out and show them to her. This had never happened before, but I wrote it off to chance. Then, when I was leaving Argentina a few weeks later, the same thing happened. What was really unusual was that the inspector looked at them, took them back to his supervisor, and then asked if I had any gold coins. I didn’t, he smiled, and I went on.

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The Unprofitably Incompetent, by Robert Gore

Posted on January 25, 2019 | 55 comments

Those who can’t do, demand.

Profit propels civilization. When a producer can make an item or provide a service at a cost lower than a customer values that item or service, and the customer has the means and the freedom to buy, the difference between what’s paid over cost is profit. That profit is the producer’s incentive to produce, and in turn funds the producer’s consumption, savings, and investment, which creates other producers’ profits. Profit is the necessary prerequisite for consumption, savings, investment, and consequently, progress.

Many of us profit every day. We offer services and provide goods, supporting ourselves at a cost that is lower than what we’re paid. We’re profitably competent, engaging in honest production and peaceful, voluntary exchange. The only alternatives to profitable competence are living off of someone else’s profitable competency via inheritance or charity, or criminality—theft via fraud or violence.

Criminals cloak their thefts in all sorts of justifications, some of which, like socialism, become full-blown political doctrines. Ironically, a larcenous litany of demands and rationalizations are efflorescing at a time when whatever is left of the overall profit pool has been drained. It has been mortgaged multiple times, just as hordes of the unprofitably incompetent, who had no hand in producing it, clamor for their “fair share.” They’ll insist the profitably competent figure out how to pay for it, but the fair share of nothing is nothing, political promises to the contrary notwithstanding.

“Your means, my ends; I wish, you fulfill,” is the foundational fantasy of modern governance. The favored groups shelter in their safe spaces—government and its rackets, crony corporations, academia, the media, and Hollywood—living on the delusion that there will always be someone who will produce, without question or protest, for their benefit. Upon that foundation they’ve constructed a phantasmagorical edifice of illusory constructs and passages to nowhere.

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Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Cronyism, Economy, Education, Government, Horseshit, Insurrection, Media, Money, Morality, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Taxes

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