Submitted by cpowell on Mon, 2012-08-13 15:21.

By U.S. Rep. Ron Paul

Monday, August 13, 2012

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2003&Ite...

I recently held a hearing in my congressional subcommittee on the subject of competing currencies. This is an issue of enormous importance, but unfortunately few Americans understand how the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department impose a strict monopoly on money in America.

This monopoly is maintained using federal counterfeiting laws, which is a bit of a stretch. If any organization is guilty of counterfeiting dollars, it is the Federal Reserve. But those who dare to challenge federal legal tender laws by circulating competing currencies -- at least physical currencies -- risk going to prison.

Like all government-created monopolies, the federal monopoly on money results in substandard product in the form of our ever-depreciating dollars.

Yet governments have always sought to monopolize the issuance of money, either directly or through the creation of central banks. The expanding role of the Federal Reserve in the 20th century enabled our federal government to grow wildly larger than would have been possible otherwise.

Our Fed, like all central banks, encourages deficits by effectively monetizing Treasury debt. But the price we pay is the terrible and ongoing debasement of our money.

Allowing individuals and business to use alternate currencies, especially currencies backed by gold and silver, would expose the whole rotten system because the marketplace would prefer such alternate currencies unless and until the Fed suddenly imposed radical discipline on its dollar inflation.

... Dispatch continues below ...

ADVERTISEMENT Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization

at Blackdome in British Columbia -- 13.6g over 1.5 Meters

From a Company Press Release

November 22, 2011

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling.

"We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company."

Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered.

For the company's complete press release, please visit:

http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf



Sadly, Americans are far less free than many others around the world when it comes to protecting themselves against the rapidly depreciating US dollar.

Mexican workers can set up accounts denominated in ounces of silver and take tax-free delivery of that silver whenever they want.

In Singapore and other Asian countries, individuals can set up bank accounts denominated in gold and silver.

Debit cards can be linked to gold and silver accounts so that customers can use gold and silver to make point of sale transactions, a service available only to non-Americans.

The obvious solution is to legalize monetary freedom and allow the circulation of parallel and competing currencies. There is no reason why Americans should not be able to transact, save, and invest using the currency of their choosing. They should be free to use gold, silver, or other currencies with no legal restrictions or punitive taxation standing in the way. Restoring the monetary system envisioned by the Constitution is the only way to ensure the economic security of the American people.

After all, if our monetary system is fundamentally sound -- and if the Federal Reserve indeed stabilizes the dollar as its apologists claim -- then why fear competition? Why do we accept that centralized, monopoly control over our money is compatible with a supposedly free-market economy?

In a free market, the government's fiat dollar should compete with alternate currencies for the benefit of American consumers, savers, and investors.

As the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises explained, sound money is an instrument that protects our civil liberties against despotic government. Our current monetary system is indeed despotic, and the surest way to correct things simply is to legalize competing currencies.



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ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Announces Wellgreen Preliminary Economic Assessment:

38% Pre-Tax IRR, $3.0 Billion NPV, and a 37-Year Mine Life

Company Press Release

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) reports the results of an independent NI 43-101-compliant preliminary economic assessment for its fully owned Wellgreen nickel-copper-platinum group metals project in the Yukon Territory.

The independent assessment, prepared by Tetra Tech, evaluated a base case of an open-pit mine (with a mining rate of 111,500 tonnes per day), an on-site concentrator (with a milling rate of 32,000 tonnes per day), and an initial capital cost of $863 million. The project is expected to produce (in concentrate) 1.959 billion pounds of nickel, 2.058 billion pounds of copper, and 7.119 million ounces of platinum, palladium, and gold during a mine life of 37 years with an average strip ratio of 2.57.

The financial highlights of the preliminary economic assessment, shown in U.S. dollars, are as follows:

Payback period: 3.55 years

Initial capital investment: $863 million

IRR pre-tax (100% equity): 38 percent

NPV pre-tax (8% discount): $3 billion

Mine life: 37 years

Total mill feed: 405.3 million tonnes

Mill throughput: 32,000 tonnes per day

Prophecy Chairman John Lee says: "We are pleased with the preliminary economic assessment results. The numbers indicate that Wellgreen is one of most exciting mineral projects in the Yukon. The company is drilling to upgrade and expand the resource base. The infrastructure is excellent as the project is only 1,400 meters in altitude and 14 kilometers from the paved Alaska Highway, which leads to the Haines deep seaport. Discussions are under way with support from local stakeholders regarding permitting and logistics."

For the complete press release, please visit:

http://prophecyplat.com/news_2012_june18_prophecy_platinum_announces_res...

