When libertarian and investment guru Harry Browne wrote, HOW I FOUND FREEDOM IN AN UNFREE WORLD , the prospects for a global monetary dictatorship was an imminent nightmare. Since his passing in 2006, that dreadful prospect has accelerated from a creeping likelihood into a horrific reality. The counterweight to the bankster’s suppression of individual liberty and economic independence may best be characterized as how to provide an alternative money system to the enslavement of debt created monetary, fractional reserve banking. Is it possible to develop a counter currency in the Global Gulag that now subjugates billions of serfs, under the financial tyranny of the international community? On the surface, the answer is you have to be kidding. Let’s look at the latest rage that some view as a gimmick. Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network. Their YouTube video explains in detail. One of Harry Browne’s contemporaries, Doug Casey offers up this evaluation in an interview by Louis James, Editor, of the International Speculator . L: Do they have value in themselves? Doug: There’s the rub; I don’t see that they do. Bitcoins are just an electronic abstraction. They can’t be used for anything else, nor are they made of something that can be used for anything else. They are like one of those knots in a string that disappear if you pull hard enough on the ends of the string. They are not backed by anything at all. Like government fiat currencies, they are a con game, functioning only as long as people have confidence in them, regardless of whether that confidence is well placed or not. I’ve always said that the dollar is an "I owe you nothing," and that the euro is a "Who owes you nothing." With Bitcoins – which no individual can be held accountable for and which have no value in themselves – I’d have to say they are a "No one owes you anything." It was inevitable, therefore, that the scheme would collapse… at least in its present form. Money is the most important force on the planet to keep people in line. The lack of money makes you dependent. The lust for money makes you a co-conspirator, when you use the banking system to defraud the wealth from vulnerable consumers. The perpetrators of the fiat counterfeit currency scheme are the ultimate crooks in the supreme criminal syndicate of the world. Since money is the definitive necessity to conduct commerce, the financial police impose and enforce legal tender laws and sanctions to maintain the money monopoly. Only a debauch government would punish Bernard von NotHaus as a counterfeiter. “The leader of a group that marketed a fake currency called Liberty Dollars in the Asheville area and elsewhere has been found guilty by a federal jury of conspiracy against the government in a case of “domestic terrorism.” Also arrested is William Kevin Innes because he “marketed the “barter” currency in Western North Carolina and recruited merchants willing to accept it and give it as change for products bought with real money, according to an indictment unsealed this week.” A video of Mr. von NotHaus with Glenn Beck provides useful background. So is gold or silver money? Sure, it was and could be again, so it comes as no surprise that there is a move to squeeze out the public. Zero Hedge reports, "Last week it was Forex.com, now it is Oanda. As a reminder "Forex.com, a large retail foreign-exchange operation, on Friday told clients it will discontinue its gold and silver over-the-counter products marketed to retail investors who are U.S. residents. It asked investors to close their positions by July 15." "Trading gold and silver over the counter -- bypassing a futures exchange -- offered investors a chance to enter a highly speculative, leveraged market that also left many investors at risk of fraud, according to one trade group. "In order to trade, it needs to be done in an exchange, or it can’t be done at all," said Dan Driscoll, a vice president with the National Futures Association. The industry group asked Congress for such changes, due to numerous cases of fraud in such contracts. Doing business with a futures exchange offers retail investors more protections and transparency, he said." There you go: it's the extensive fraud that did it. And just as we predicted, this is only the beginning to heard all PM investors into the waiting clutches of the CME's margin demands." about Chinese practices. "While the Anglo American Empire is limiting it’s cattle from investing in precious metals like Domestic Terrorist von Nothaus , FOREX restrictions, and "conflict gold", China is encouraging it’s citizens to buy metals. You can walk into any bank in China and buy gold and silver. (If you walked into our banks looking for gold or silver, they would look at you cross-eyed and then drool.)" Contrast this development with an item from Silver Shield With all the confusion in this unfree world, author David Redick presents a sober and coherent analysis of two key reasons for using a commodity as money in, Why Use Gold As Money ? A. Limit excess expansion of the money supply (inflation; loss of value) by the government (you can’t trust them). B. Provide a market-based store of value. The commodity could be wheat, iron, diamonds, or pearls, but the market (users of money) usually chooses gold because it works best. To achieve broad use, commodity coins must be made of, or contain, a material that is: 1) Rare, with a low amount in existence now and limited new supply. 2) Malleable, so can be made into coins. 3) Stable physically and chemically; doesn't break, rust, or rot (can be stored; lasts through much handling). 4) Easy to identify (recognize), and determine purity and amount. 5) Difficult or impossible to counterfeit. 6) Homogeneous in content (a melted chunk is the same throughout). 7) Divisible into pieces (diamonds and pearls aren’t). 8) High value per ounce (not bulky to handle or store). 9) Acceptable to most sellers (familiar and recognizable) Mr. Redick in his excellent book Monetary Revolution – USA offers a six-step plan to convert to gold money. Step 1. Repeal: a. All legal tender laws so private firms (mints) can issue new money, b. Laws that tax increase in market value (then to be known as ‘purchasing power’) of precious-metal coins (formerly considered numismatic), and c. Any other laws that prevent, inhibit, or tax the new money. The only government role would be to prevent fraud, and to verify by physical inspection that reserves are as advertised. (but with no reserves ‘requirements’). Step 2. Private firms (mints) could be created without government permission or license. An optional ‘license’ process could be created if demanded by the market. The mints would introduce new gold money labeled by the weight of gold coin contains, or that tokens or paper certificates represent. Some might offer ‘Digital Gold Currency’. All ‘mints’ would be required by law to; 1. Publicize the amount of gold they have as a reserve for redeeming paper or digital money, and the value of money issued, 2. Allow unscheduled physical inspections to confirm that the gold is in their possession. The same would apply to base-metal coins. Step 3. Require the Federal Reserve banks, the U.S. Treasury (Ft. Knox), the Exchange Stabilization Fund, and any other part of the United States government, to promptly submit to, and conduct, a private audit of the amount and quality of gold that own and its title status (leased?), reveal the results to the public, and then give it all to a ‘Redeem Trust’ owned by the U.S. Treasury, to be used to redeem existing coin or paper currency on demand, based on a certain weight per Dollar, in accordance with the plan below. (read the book for details; basically the metric weight of gold we own would be divided by M3, yielding 'grams per dollar') Step 4. Abolish the unconstitutional GSEs such as Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie, and Sallie Mae, FHA, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC), FDIC, all TARP-Like projects, ‘special’ bankruptcies, corporate-takeovers, Recovery-Stimulant Acts, the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), the Export-Import Bank, etc., etc. Step 5. Terminate US membership in the IMF (and get our gold back), World Bank, BIS, G-20, G-8, United Nations. and others. Step 6. Work to repeal or change other unconstitutional and counterproductive Federal laws, and policies that intervene in our lives, economy and the world. Obviously, this rational approach to establish a sane monetary system will be fought to the last banker. A monetary revolution would require that the current political class be relegated to the bowels of a government black hole, for a constitutional honest money restoration. The Rule of Gold after the Financial Collapse identifies the severity of the current crisis. Before the Redick’s solution is adopted, the likelihood is that we will all join Harry Browne in the only domain out of the reach of the real counterfeiters. Yet the six steps ( buy and read the entire book ) is an objective standard to base a new and sound monetary economy for a sensible society. SARTRE – June 26, 2011 Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum