The Nature of Money and our Monetary System
Johnny Silver Bear

(Editors Note: One of the perks of editing "the Bear" allows me to post my own rants. I originally published The Nature of Money in August, 2004.)

As the editor of the Silver Bear Cafe, I try to focus on the ramifications of world events. I try to understand how what's going on now will affect your pocketbook next week, next month, next year. It is my sole intent to help you consider the possibilities which will, in turn, help you prepare for your financial future.

One of the most important aspects of your financial survival concerns your understanding of the nature of money. If you believe that precious metals do not constitute "money", you may have been misled. If you have been misled, who misled you? Why? And "What's wrong with this picture"?

What is money? The whole point of money is suppose to be the provision of a convenient and liquid medium that can be exchanged for less liquid value. It is a go between. One strives to accumulate money so it can be exchanged for something else.

In our illustrious history, we humans have tried everything from salt to sardines as a medium of exchange, but nothing has seemed to work as well as gold and silver. A person bringing a relatively illiquid item to market could swap it for gold or silver, secure in the knowledge that the metal would retain its value for as long as he chose to hold it and would be accepted as payment for anything he wanted when he chose to spend it.

The condition that your gold and silver will retain its value for as long as you chose to hold it is the most valuable characteristic of the "barbarous relics", and provides the fodder for me to champion the cause of precious metals ownership, and for my ensuing attack on the debasement of the American dollar.

Man has an innate desire to obtain and own gold and silver. That we seek to possess precious metals seems as naturally entrenched in our collective psychic as any other instinct. The possession of wealth, in the form of gold and silver, has always represented power and control. There is nothing wrong or unnatural to desire power and control. The power to control one's destiny through the accumulation of wealth is not only natural, it is healthy. This natural desire is the basis of our capitalistic system. The gold standard, as prescribed by our Constitution, is "the Law" that insures that the "power and control" that is provided by wealth, cannot be abused. Those who would seek to abuse the power of wealth would consequently have to break "the Law." "The Law" has been broken.

In 1792 the U. S. Coinage Act was passed by Congress. It invoked the death penalty for anyone debasing money and provided for a U.S. Mint where silver dollars were coined along with gold coins beginning in 1794. The text of Coinage Act of 1792 states: “The Dollar or Unit shall be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current,” that is, running in the market, “to wit, three hundred and seventy-one and one-quarter grains of silver.”

To repeat, A“dollar” is a silver coin containing three hundred and seventy-one and one-quarter grains of silver — and it cannot be changed by constitutional amendment, definitionally, any more than the term “year” can.

Even at the current suppressed value of silver, ($17.06/troy ounce), a "dollar is worth $14.00. The fact that a currently circulated Federal Reserve Note of a "One Dollar" denomination is not worth $14.00 is evidence that a radical debasing of money has occurred sometime in the past and begs the questions: Who was responsible for the debasement, why did "we the people" allow the debasement to occur, and why weren't those responsible prosecuted?

Fiat money, (money not backed by anything), was something so abhorrent to our Founding Fathers that they didn't even discuss it as an option. The Constitutional gold standard provided that the Country's citizens could not be robbed by means of inflation. An interesting original draft by the Founders would have allowed for "bills of credit", or paper money but that was struck out. It seems that during the Revolutionary War, when paper money had been issued, a promise to back the notes for gold or silver was a "no confidence" disaster, causing counterfeiting by the British and other forms of fraud.

The end result were notes of no value, plummeting to less than a penny per dollar. Sound familiar? This is why the Founding Fathers decided to mint only gold and silver coins as "money." They provided for a U.S. Mint where silver dollars were coined along with gold coins beginning in 1794. The mint was intended to provide a service for "We the People", a facility where we could bring our precious metals, aquired by panning or mining or barter, have the metals assayed, minted and returned to us.

" The people of the states empower the Congress to coin money and regulate the value thereof and also of foreign coins." From Article I.8.5

This provision in the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the Right to produce a national coin, set the weight, fineness, and value. Also, Congress could specify the value of a foreign coin in terms of the national coin of the United States.

" No state shall ...coin money; emit bills of credit; or make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." From Article I.10.1

It is clear from this provision that the State's could not create their own coin nor could they make anything but the gold and silver coins issued by Congress as legal tender for the payments of debt. This is a Constitutionally mandated gold standard.

No further paper money was issued by the U. S. Government for over eighty years.  The Founders did allow, however, private banks to act as depositories for the United States and to collect taxes. People were issued redeemable bank notes which circulated as currency. Alexander Hamilton was initially responsible for the "National Banking System". Unfortunately, he realized his error in promoting this type of banking too late, and by the end of the Civil War there were thousands of banks issuing thousands of different kinds of bank notes.

In 1862, during the "War for Southern Independence", Lincoln radically debased the currency by having millions of "greenbacks" printed so he could pay for the "trappings of combat" needed for his "sacking of the South". (see death penalty above)

In 1872, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field, aware of the rages of inflation, attempted to block an unconstitutional overextension of powers by the Bank of the United States. He wrote:

"The arguments in favor of the constitutionality of legal tender paper currency tend directly to break down the barriers which separate a government of limited powers from a government resting in the unrestrained will of Congress. Those limitations must be preserved, or our government will inevitably drift from the system established by our Fathers into a vast, centralized, and consolidated government.”

Drift, it did, and is now moored on the precipice of the economic abyss.

In 1878, in a rare state of clarity, Congress began to redeem "greenbacks" into gold which put the United States back on the gold standard until 1933.

It was well known amongst intelligent politicians, (who have, apparently, remained in the minority), that the gold standard protected citizens against the controlling tendencies of the government by offering an absolute hedge against the depreciation or devaluation of the currency. Gold provided an agent of maintenance and liquidity within and beyond national borders. Above all, it raised a mighty barrier against authoritarian interferences through the manipulation of the economic markets. Within the constraints imposed by the gold standard, America's economy remained relatively healthy until 1913.

On December 23, 1913, the U.S. Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, placing control of this nation's money into the hands of a private corporation. This corporation was made up entirely of bankers. Calling itself the Federal Reserve, so as to seem official, it replaced the national bank system. Treasury notes were recalled and Federal Reserve notes were issued with a promise to redeem them in gold on demand. The forces behind the Federal Reserve, (American and Western European banking interests), remained tethered by the limits imposed by the gold standard, but this would soon change.

In 1920, the 66th Congress passed the Independent Treasury Act.

In 1921, the United States Congress abolished the U.S. Treasury, and, as a result, all of our country's bullion and all other instruments of value, ( i.e...moneys in trust funds and other special funds that had been kept in U.S. Treasury offices and vaults), were systematically transferred to the coffers of a private corporation!

From 1913, until 1933, under the authority of the U.S. Congress, the Federal Reserve held control of all of our country's gold. They then proceeded to loan us back our gold, at interest. We paid interest for the use of our own gold! What's wrong with this picture? What could have incited our Senators and Representatives to allow that to happen? In order to keep up with the ever rising debt service, we borrowed more of our own gold. We kept borrowing more and more of our own gold to pay more and more interest, until all the gold was gone. At that point, the country went bankrupt. Guess what happened next.

The bankers foreclosed on America. I know what you're thinking. Me too.

On March 9, 1933, the U.S. declared bankruptcy, as expressed in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Executive Orders 6073, 6102, 6111, and 6260.

On April 5th, 1933, one month after his inauguration, President Roosevelt declared a National Emergency that made it unlawful for any citizen of the United States to own gold, (see death penalty above), and "unconstitutionally" ordered all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to be turned into the Federal Reserve banks by May 1st under the threat of imprisonment and fines. This was technically, a national confiscation of  gold and silver. This unlawful precedent set by Roosevelt would eventually lead us to the catastrophic situation we find ourselves in today.

Our bankrupt nation went into receivership and was reorganized in favor of it's creditor and new owners, a private corporation of international bankers. (Since 1933, what is called the "United States Government" has been a privately owned corporation, and the property of the Federal Reserve / International Monetary Fund.)

Without a word of truth to the American people, all our good faith and credit was pledged as the surety for the debt by the same slime ball Congressmen who created the mechanism that allowed it to occur.

Those Congressmen, knew such "De Facto Transitions" were unlawful and unauthorized, but were mysteriously coerced into sanctioning, implementing, and enforcing the complete debauchment of our monetary system, and the resulting changes in all aspects of government, society, and industry in the United States of America.

From the onset of the Federal Reserve, fractional reserve bankers set out to win the war of misinformation. They did this, in part, by attempting to advance the pseudo tenets of Keynesianism, monetarism, and supply-side economics.

John Maynard Keynes, although a great friend of the bankers, was probably the most heinous influence on freedom, liberty, and the free market in the 20th century. He was a Fabian socialist and a Globalist, (is that redundant?), who provided an intellectual cover for inflationism. He is best known for authoring bogus economic theories, undermining Western values and philosophy, and providing a floor plan whereby the banksters could more easily deceive the people. It was Keynes who coined the phrase, “barbarous relic” in reference to gold. It was Keynes who desecrated the U.S. Constitution with almost every breath.

"Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

During the first half of the 20th century, each of four world leaders did the exact same thing within ninety days of their ascension to power. Each made it illegal for the citizens of their respective countries to own gold. Those leaders were: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. All four were acutely aware of the restrictions that a gold standard imposed on their abilities to wage war.

The bankers hate gold as money for the same reason. Gold as money acts as a barrier to the expansion of credit money. By pandering the lure of unlimited credit, the banksters went about recruiting politicians through out the world. The opportunity to wage war on borrowed money turned out to be irresistible to Empire. Wars have always been very important to the banking cartels. They are very expensive. Time and time again, through loans to governments, the cartels have provided the funding for great conflicts. Imagine, being able to go to war with unlimited funds. Better yet, imagine the inability to go to war because of the lack of unlimited funds. The temptation extended to the power mongers was too great. The credit was made available with a single catch. The gist of the pitch went something like this:

"Sure we'll loan you all the money you want, on the condition that you enact laws making all the citizens of your individual countries responsible for the interest payments, through taxation"

One by one the leaders of every government on earth sold out, and agreed to demonetize gold, thereby allowing the continued power grab of the banking cartels through the issuance debt based currency. The result has been the methodical fleecing of the general population through the debasing of the dollar by 97%. (see death penalty above)

On May 22nd, 1933, Congress enacted a law, against Constitutional mandate, declaring all coin and currencies then in circulation to be legal tender, dollar for dollar, as if they were gold. The President was unconstitutionally empowered to reduce the gold content to the dollar up to 50 percent. (see death penalty above)

On June 5th, 1933, Congress stabbed the gold standard out of existence by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112), that all gold clauses in contracts were outlawed and no one could legally demand gold in payment for any obligation due to him. (see death penalty above)

On January 30th, 1934, the Gold Reserve Act was passed, giving the Federal Reserve title to all the gold which had been collected. This act also changed the value/price of gold from $20.67 per ounce to $35 per ounce, which meant that all of the silver certificates the people had recently received for their gold now were worth 40 percent less. (see death penalty above)

On January 31st, 1934, after President Roosevelt fixed the dollar at 15 and 5/21 grains standard to gold. Russia and the central banks of Europe were very excited and began buying up gold in huge quantities. This planned redistribution of our country's wealth was one of the most important objectives of the Globalist's agenda. Thus a dual monetary system began which offered the gold standard for foreigners and Federal Reserve notes for Americans. (see death penalty above)

Between 1934 to 1963 all Federal Reserve notes issued had a promised to pay, or to be redeemed in "lawful money."  Over a short period of time the wording on the Federal Reserve notes began to change until there was no redemption in silver promised. This was done slowly enough that the people didn't see it coming. (see death penalty above)

On November 2nd, 1963, new Federal Reserve notes with no promise to pay in "lawful money" was released. No guarantees, no value. (see death penalty above)

In 1965 silver in coins were reduced to 40 percent by President Lyndon Johnson's authorization. (see death penalty above)

President Lyndon Johnson issued a proclamation on June 24, 1968, that all Federal Reserve Silver Certificates were merely fiat legal tender and could not be redeemed in silver. (see death penalty above)

On December 31, 1970, President Richard Nixon signed into law an amendment to the Bank Holding Company Act, which, among other things, authorized the treasury to totally debase coins to a worthless value in non precious metal. (see death penalty above)

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of  a day.  But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery." - Thomas Jefferson

Since the seventies, the unfettered issuance of debt money has continued to debase our currency more rapidly than ever before. In the last three years, the debasement has accelerated exponentially.

"The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists (government bureaucrats) to use the banking system as an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation... Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the "hidden" confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process." - Alan Greenspan

The world governments continue to babble that tired Keynesian rhetoric insisting that gold and silver have become obsolete, relics of the past. Yet in the 4th Quarter of 2006 global gold and silver demand was the highest on record, and, some of the world's largest investors are presently taking major positions in precious metals.

The cartel wants economic growth, lots of borrowers, and lots of opportunities to lend newly created funny money at interest. You can't blame them for wanting that. If I could print up all the funny money I wanted and could then lend it out at interest, I'd be happy too. That is, I would be happy to lend it if I didn't have a soul. The ravages of inflation have heretofore been thoroughly exposed and the results are blatantly apparent in our inability to successfully engineer our lives without debt. Fractional reserve banking has provided for the theft of the life blood of our nation.

Compounding the problem is the fact that the world is no longer capable of sustaining economic expansion. We are beginning to witness emerging nations, like China and India sucking up natural resources at a rate that is way past rechargeable. We are entering a period of civilization where the keyword is sustainability, not growth.

The debasement of our currency continues with abandon.The purchasing power of the dollar is quickly eroding. It is down 30% in the last three years. Conversely, the value of gold is up 30% in the last three years. Because the dollar is the reserve currency of world, every commodity, from rice to timber, from oil to precious metals, will continue to rise, priced in dollars.

The U.S.A. is currently breaking all records for the longest period of time that a nation's economy has endured after abandoning the gold standard. Our country has been foreclosed on in the past, and its just about to be foreclosed on again. It's just a matter of time. The "endgame" is near.

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies . . . If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." -- Thomas Jefferson -- The Debate Over The Re Charter Of The Bank Bill, (1809)

The last thing that the powers that are engineering the devaluation of the dollar want to happen is for the world to wake up to the fact that precious metals represent un-inflatable money. Both gold and silver are rising in price. This rise is currently fueled mostly by the dollar's demise. When the resulting "demand panic" kicks in, and it will very soon, the value of precious metals will "go ballistic." Oil is already being affected by "demand panic." It's price is rising in all currencies, not just the dollar.

It is my view, (and one that is shared by a great many others), that the failure of our current monetary system is eminent. The purpose of this examination has been to "wake you up", and make you aware of the facts that support my take on things. Hopefully it has increased your respect for the intrinsic value of precious metals. From an economic standpoint, gold and silver will lend heartily to our salvation. Gold and silver will soon regain their positions as the anchors of an honest monetary system. The market will demand it, and the "powers that be" will have no choice but to let the market have its way.

The presence of gold and silver in your portfolio will insure that you will emerge from the abyss with your capital intact. There is still time for you to reallocate a portion of your equity into the commodity sector, including gold and silver bullion, and gold and silver mining stocks. This move could well provide you with an unequaled measure of security. The gold standard is part of our Constitutional legacy. The subjugation of the Constitution is the root of all economic evils. If enough of us get together on this, we might be able to "Right the Republic". Very soon, as early as next year, a lot of people will be glad they held gold and silver.

Its not what you don't know that will screw you up, it's what you know that is wrong

The spin you hear from the mainstream media is intended to mislead you. Open your eyes and face the future. If you leave your head in the sand and ignore it, you are only leaving your butt exposed for the world to kick. This all may sound like gloom and doom, but when you get a handle on what is going to happen, you will have a future filled with opportunity. Fortune favors the Informed.

Kenneth Parsons, aka Johnny Silver Bear, is an IT professional in Texas and the President of Silver Bear Communications, Inc. Mr. Parsons has been involved in the advertising and promotion industry for over twenty-five years. He is the editor of the Silver Bear Cafe and, as such, is responsible for shaping the content of "The Bear". Mr. Parsons has served as CEO for Fiberscape Communications, Inc., a web site development / hosting and streaming multi-media company in Richardson, Texas since 1997. He is a Jeffersonian and a passionate supporter of the U.S. Constitution. He is also an outspoken advocate of gold money and equal tax rates. You can contact Mr. Parsons with questions or comments via email at [email protected]