Guest Post: The Return Of Precious Metals And Sound Money

Submitted by Giordano Bruno of Neithercorp Press

The Return Of Precious Metals And Sound Money

Well, those devious gold bugs and sound money advocates are at it
again! They had the audacity to produce economic analysis that
consistently outshines and embarrasses mainstream Keynesian pundits.
They had the nerve to expose the seedy underpinnings of the private
Federal Reserve. They even had the gall to bring the long established
short manipulations of metals markets by global banks like JP Morgan and
HSBC into the light of day, where anyone whose head was not buried in
the dark recesses of their own colon could see and say “My god! There
really is an organized cabal against gold and silver!” But if you
thought all that was outrageous, these people, who promote the insane
notion that our currency should actually be backed by tangible wealth
and should be under the control of the voting public instead of some
unaccountable parasitic corporate central bank, have now brought state
legislators into the mix! The return to sound money has begun…

Thirteen states currently have proposed measures which would
reinstitute the long suppressed need for a precious metals standard.
Utah is the furthest ahead in this battle, its House just recently
passing a bill which would make gold and silver officially recognized as
legal tender within its borders. All that remains is a signature from
Utah’s governor:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/04/utah-house-passes-recognizing-gold-silver-legal-tender/

Colorado, Georgia, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire,
Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington all have
similar bills to that of Utah in different stages of development. Why,
after decades of treating gold and silver standards like a cocktail
party joke, have the states suddenly turned friendly towards the idea of
commodities as currency? It makes perfect sense when you examine what
is happening all around us in the world today…

Necessity Is The Mother Of Prevention

The states are broke. Not just broke, but destitute. If California
had a loan shark, its knee caps would have felt the splintery sting of a
Louisville Slugger years ago. Illinois would have turned to
prostitution (and maybe still will). All the clawing of eyes and
gnashing of teeth that went on in Wisconsin this past month over the
rather tame cuts to labor union wage bargaining power is nothing
compared to what many states have to look forward to when they decide to
confiscate employee pensions and cut major funding to basic services
like fire, and police. Some state governments know what is coming, and
they are wisely moving to cushion the fall.

Legislators recognize that if municipal bond investment continues on
its current downward spiral, there will be widespread defaults. These
city and state bankruptcies will almost assuredly be met with offers
from the Federal Reserve of a new bailout; QE3…..or QE20 (does it really
matter anymore?). This bailout would not be “substantial”, it would be
gargantuan! What do you get when states bring in increasingly
diminished revenues while constituents demand more and more money for
welfare and public services because of inflation and the subsequent rise
in poverty? You get a space-time-debt singularity so volatile it
stretches the very fabric of your local economy until it tears wide
open, unleashing a gravity well of capital destruction similar to a
double-ended tornado that snatches your money and hurls it into the
upper stratosphere never to be seen again. The point is, you get yet
another Fanny and Freddy; a self perpetuating never ending bailout
free-for-all that fizzles only when the dollar has been thoroughly
cremated, which shouldn’t be long from now.

Intelligent and fiscally conservative local representatives have seen
the obvious danger to the stability of the dollar in this equation, and
are moving to PREVENT total collapse of their states, rather than wait
until after the fact to initiate solutions. Sound money legislation and
the creation of localized markets and barter networks give states the
ability to function beyond the lifespan of the dollar and to ensure the
continuing personal prosperity of residents. Honestly, why should the
states allow their destinies to be bound forever to the longevity of the
ailing Greenback? If there is anything good to come out of our present
predicament, it is that Americans, from average citizens to elected
officials, are beginning to understand the reality of coming collapse
and are preempting it with measures designed to insulate their
communities from the inevitable firestorm.

Eventually, as this movement escalates, certain states will come out
ahead of the pack, gaining a kind of “safe haven” status, and attracting
liberty minded people from around the country to the protective shelter
of their borders.

The Stagflationary Stranglehold

Stagflation is truly the worst of both possible worlds. A
combination of deflation in employment, wages, and traditionally high
value assets like real estate similar to the Great Depression, combined
with skyrocketing prices in base goods and extreme currency devaluation
common to Weimar-style hyperinflation. I can’t think of anything in the
field of economics more terrifying than this outcome. Unfortunately,
the U.S. is well on its way down the stagflationary path.

As many are probably already aware, the Federal Reserve has become
the largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt in the world, beating out even
China. Most analysts with any sense would agree that our central bank
generating trillions in future tax debt to temporarily stave off the
effects of present national debt is the perfect recipe for dollar
destruction. The problem is that this process of devaluation strikes
the economy from the bottom up, not the top down. Cities and states
will suffer first from inflationary pressures as well as municipal
liabilities because they do not have the capacity to fund their
operations through constant fiat printing. The Federal Government, on
the other hand, has the ability to create dollars unhindered to prop up
its functions. Therefore, as the Fed prints, it weakens state revenues
by destroying consumer buying power (and sales tax support) and
triggering price explosions, while at the same time maintaining
Washington D.C.’s administrative position and funding capability.
Ultimately, unless Congress finds a way to freeze the constant expansion
of the national debt ceiling, the Federal Government will be the last
entity damaged by the overflow of currency they set into motion.
Perhaps that has been the plan all along…

For those whose knowledge of the economy is limited to 30 second
sound bites from MSNBC, the idea of currency overflow and dollar
derailment sounds outlandish. What is a little old-school Keynesian
liquidity to the mighty American economy, right? $700 billion here,
$800 billion there, and presto, jobs fall from the sky and suburbanites
return to their iPod humvee heaven! I sob a little inside when I hear
people still using these mainstream bailout stats as if they mean
something.

The truth is, it is nearly impossible to get an accurate calculation
of the exact amount of dollars created and dumped into our financial
system by the Fed without a full audit. We hear the same TARP numbers
repeated ad nauseam and begin to believe we have a sense of what is
happening. However, if you were ignoring TARP back in July of 2009, and
instead focused on the little know SIGTARP commission’s statistics on
the overall cost of bailouts INCLUDING those debt obligations the
government had established but were yet to pay, you would have
discovered that instead of a few hundred billion stretched out over
years, the U.S. is actually in the red for nearly $24 trillion:

http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports/congress/2009/July2009_Quarterly_Report_to_Congress.pdf

This was two years ago. Not surprisingly, the far more in-depth
SIGTARP numbers on Fed quantitative easing and government costs have
been removed from subsequent reports. Apparently, they were not buried
well enough, and someone felt it would be better to pretend they never
existed instead. Some investment corporations are still keeping tabs,
though, like bond fund giant PIMCO, which has seen fit to dump the
entirety of its U.S. Treasury holdings in preparation for dollar
fallout:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/09/us-pimco-debt-idUSTRE7285M020110309

Yes, Bill Gross is a globalist insider, but beyond that, PIMCO’s
actions are incredibly prudent. It is quite possible we have not only
met the 2009 SIGTARP cost projections, but surpassed them in light of
the Federal Reserve’s new position as the global grand poobah of
T-bonds, as well as Timothy Geithner’s absurd insistence that being
required to go through Congress to raise the debt ceiling is like
“torture”:

http://imarketnews.com/node/26571

Naturally, frustrated little Timmy would prefer if there was no debt
ceiling at all, and the government was given free reign to spend money
that doesn’t really exist, for Treasuries and toxic derivatives that
don’t exist, to support a recovery that doesn’t exist. I don’t know,
these globalist bureaucratic types are so friendly and knowledgeable and
they wear such nice suits. I’m sure they mean well. That said, the
only way the states can avoid any unpleasant consequences in the event
that globalists don’t “mean well” is to allow alternative markets and
currencies to take root, helping them to mature and slowly replace the
feudal establishment system. Only when states prepare to decouple from
the disintegrating mainstream economy will they become safe from the
shockwaves of collapse.

The Shorts Are Ripe For Squeezing

JP Morgan’s fraudulent naked short positions designed to artificially
hold down silver markets have been publicly exposed and well documented
for years by this site among many others. Their issuance of paper
ETF’s representing gold and silver they don’t actually have has also
been fully uncovered. Global bankers have been manipulating precious
metals markets down for decades. This is undeniable. Why would they do
this? To prevent exactly what is happening in Utah and a dozen other
states today; the rebirth of gold and silver as a competing currency
alternative to the fiat dollar.

As long as PM’s were seen as poor market performers or relics of a
bygone era, no state would ever consider them as a viable substitute for
the thoroughly controlled Greenback. Globalization operates on the
principles of centralization, and the purpose of centralization is to
take options away from the citizenry until they have no other choice but
to use your system. Gold and silver represent a powerful option that
cannot be duplicated out of thin air to infinity, and cannot be easily
dominated by a central bank. COMEX manipulation is an inherent
extension of the centralization process. But, as communities and states
begin the acceptance of metals based trade and the issuance of gold and
silver currency, you will see the manipulations by big banks begin to
unravel.

Already, JP Morgan is beginning to take gold as collateral for
certain investment transactions, which means, first, that JP Morgan is
now treating gold not as a commodity, but as a kind of currency, and
second, that JP Morgan is in the process of shoring up its physical
metals position to prevent a “squeeze” on their naked shorts (massive
fraudulent bets that silver or gold will fall, often causing regular
investors to believe there is far more physical metal on the market than
there actually is):

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130192457252596.html

It is highly unlikely, though, that the international banking cartels
will be able to generate enough excess gold and silver stock to meet
the rising demand for physical delivery, considering they have issued
far more paper securities for gold and silver than they could possibly
acquire. As physical metals go into wider use, especially through state
legislation, and spot prices keep increasing despite manipulation,
global banks with large short positions will be crushed by the ever
increasing need to cover their fake bets. This is sometimes called a
“short squeeze”, which results in history making spikes in spot price
over a very compressed period of time.

Signs of a possible short squeeze include shortages of blanks at the U.S. mint due to high demand:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/silver-touches-3490-us-mint-runs-out-bullion-blanks-halts-american-eagle-silver-coin-product

Or, the decoupling of silver or gold from dollar activity, which
signals that metals are being treated as a competing currency. Silver
and gold movements outside of the dollar are now a common weekly
occurrence, and some metals suppliers, like Pan American Silver, are
shifting away from the dollar entirely and trading their supply in other
currencies:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-16/pan-american-silver-shifts-assets-to-canadian-dollars-update1-.html

International demand for gold and silver also puts heavy pressure on
shorts. For instance, gold demand in India was up 66% in 2010:

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/gold-demand-in-india-rises-66-pct-in-2010-wgc/751398/

Gold demand in China was up 70% in 2010:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article26463.html

Couple this kind of demand with consistently falling production
output, and you have the ingredients for a precious metals price
eruption. Gold production in major producing country South Africa was
down 6.4% in 2010, and down 17.4% in Peru:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/42070666

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/03/03/perus-january-gold-silver-zinc-output-falls-copper/#

The sooner regular Americans and state governments invest in precious
metals, the greater their head start will be when chaos unfolds in ETF
markets. There is no doubt that global banks will respond to this event
by refusing to meet physical delivery demands on paper securities they
have already issued, and millions of ETF investors are left with nothing
but worthless stock documents. States with mining operations inside
their borders will be in a prime position to become real suppliers, to
facilitate ample revenue, and to help rebuild the American economy from
the ground up, but only if they prepare now. Otherwise, the banks will
take the stage again, undisputed and ready to offer more “solutions” to
the problems that they themselves created in an incessant cycle of
deceit; the longest running con game in history.

Catastrophe Demands Concrete Solutions

Things are getting real ugly out there. The tension in the air is
dense and sweaty. Everyone feels it, but not enough people proactively
discuss it. The economy has already imploded, and is now reinflated
with volatile hydrogen like fiat, just waiting for the right spark to
bring the whole zeppelin crashing down in flames. Japan’s situation is a
prime example of the incredible sensitivity now present in the so
called global economy. One earthquake has sent world markets reeling,
and the Nikkei index into free fall, losing over 10% in one day.
Imagine the results of a massive earthquake in the U.S., or a nuclear
event like that which is unfolding north of Tokyo. What about an
escalation of Middle East political trauma or American involvement in
another war? Circumstances which could have been absorbed and dealt
with by the U.S. three years ago are now amplified by our financial
frailty.

After dozens of months filled with lost jobs, lost infrastructure,
and lost buying power, even the shock of $100 plus oil is like a sledge
hammer to the solar plexus today when it was a only a moderate nuisance
back in 2008. We cannot continue on our present path, or we WILL suffer
unthinkable cultural digression and social defeat. A declaration of
independence from the faulty structure is in order, and this begins with
individuals as well as states acting to become more self sufficient.
Sound money legislation is an important foundation of such development,
and private trade in commodities will reinforce state action. The
problem must be confronted on the personal level, the local level, and
the state level. This means alternative economies based on stable trade
and tangible currencies have to become a priority for your community
and for legislators equally. Neither one should wait around for the
other to make this happen. I think if anything is quite clear, it is
that there is no more time to guess and second guess the need for
financial flexibility and self-reliance for the states. It is time to
act. The decisive will survive and thrive, the apathetic will take
repeated blunt force fiscal trauma to their collective groins until they
learn their lesson. This is simply the way of things…

Comments

[Smiley]

Ripley: These people are here to protect you. They're soldiers.
Newt: It won't make any difference.

[OldTrooper]

Hudson:  That's just fucking great!  Why don't you put her in charge, man!

[Just Observing]

Well Gollie Gee.....some States are going to reconize gold and silver as legal tender.  Whoope !  They will "let" citizens pay their State taxes in metal.  How fricking kind of them.

BUNCHA political grandstanding if you ask me.

I'll know they are SERIOUS when they START complying with Art1Sec10 of the US Constitution, which REQUIRES that a State may ONLY use gold and silver in payment of STATE DEBTS.   So when they start handing out gold eagles to State employees and welfare recipients, we'll see if this is anymore than political bullshit.

[Pladizow]

Even an avalanche begins as a snow flake.

[bigdumbnugly]

lol, j.o.

i wondered the same thing when i first heard of this.  who in their right mind would pay in metal as opposed to frn's?

i don't know if its grandstanding as much as a way to get a foot in the door of greater monetary reform.  we shall see (maybe).

[masterinchancery]

Anyone who does pay in gold and silver, unless there is a big premium, should be immediately institutionalized.

[Dr. Richard Head]

could i then asked to be paid in terms of silver and gold, but only declare the stamped value with the irs

[Boxed Merlot]

could i then asked to be paid in terms of silver and gold, but only declare the stamped value with the irs...?

Consider this, before the US was blessed with this marvelous institution known as the federal reserve, there was no internal revenue service.  These two institutions are twin sisters and each are needed for the other to survive. 

Now guess why ending the fed is so difficult, these siamese twins depend on each other and the average US citizen cannot bring him or herself to believe this nation could survive without "taxes".

Personally, I don't think we could either, but they should be paid by those companies and organizations we and our government allow the privilege to conduct commerce within our borders.

[Imminent Crucible]

"be paid in terms of silver and gold, but only declare the stamped value"

Sorry, Dick, it's already been done (attempted) with the US silver eagle, which now costs $40 or so but has a face value of $1.  Someone does $400 worth of work, accepts 10 SE's in payment and declares $10 in gross income.

The IRS will not be amused. On the other hand, the United States Mint did value a silver eagle at $1.  Just not when they want to sell them.

[GeneH3]

Political to be sure. If they issued gold coins with a face value equivalent to the USD, the coins would quickly disappear because the USD is worthless. Gresham's Law. Additionally, the US "Justice" Dept would go after the instigators as terrorists, a la Von NotHaus.

[jesse livermoore]

In Utah ,  the money would reflect market values, not stamped with a value.  that is what i read last week anyway.

[Boxed Merlot]

The insidious nature of valuation is the fly in the ointment, to wit: "face", "intrinsic", "numismatic" and as is referred to here, "market" and "stamped".

The US constitution lists the congress as the repository for establishing weights and measures. They are also the legitimate authority for coining money. Perhaps these 13 states currently on board for returning sound governence can have their respective US D.C. representatives convene to establish the unifying unit of measure and instruct their respective mints to strike sound currency.

Once appropriately measured and weighted, (purity) of PM is established, a "face" or "stamped" value is then placed on the coin with a corresponding "date".  This is the guarantee of the issuing governing authority as to the weight and purity at a moment in time assuring a "true" value.

Tying this value to a random frn number is much like putting a big "X" on the side of the boat to show where to cast to catch a fish in a different lake tomorrow.

This isn't rocket science folks.  It's a matter of dusting off our already possessed assets and using them properly.  "Buying" and hoarding PMs in ludicrous.  They are designed for use as currency.

[DoChenRollingBearing]

Re your last point I disagree at least in part.

Buying silver and hoarding it is OK.  Buying silver to use as currency would be GREAT, we agree there.

Gold is a different story.  Its highest and best use is preservation of wealth.  DON´T spend it, give it to your children...

[RockyRacoon]

Just for you DCRB -- here's just a taste of the article:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2011&month=02

"So, the New York Sun asked, why not float the kilogram? After all, when you go into the grocery to buy a pound of hamburger, why should you worry about how much hamburger you get—so long as it’s a pound’s worth? A pound is supposed to be .45359237 of a kilogram. But if Congress can permit Mr. Bernanke to use his judgment in deciding what a dollar is worth, why shouldn’t he—or some other Ph.D. from M.I.T.—be able to decide from day to day what a kilogram is worth?

No doubt some will cavil that the fact that the dollar floats makes it all the more reason for the kilogram to be constant. But what’s so special about the kilogram? If the fiat dollar floats, one has no idea what it will be worth when it comes time to spend it. If the kilogram also floats, it will simply be twice as hard to figure out what something we’re buying will be worth. So what if, when we unwrap our hamburger, the missus has to throw a little more sawdust in the meatloaf?

Or let us consider a compromise. Let’s go to a fiat kilogram—that is, permit the kilogram to float—but apply the new urgency to fixing the dollar at a specified number of grains of gold. To those who say it would be ridiculous to fix the dollar but let the butcher hand you whatever amount of hamburger he wants when you ask for a kilogram, I say, what’s the difference as to whether it’s the measure of money or of weight that floats?

For that matter, one could go all the way and fix the value of both the kilogram and the dollar but float the value of time. You say you want to be paid $100 an hour. That’s fine by your boss. But he—or Chairman Bernanke—gets to decide how many minutes in the hour. Or how long the minute is. You know you’ll get a kilogram of meat for the price a kilogram of meat costs. But you won’t know how long you have to work to earn the money.

There was obviously a satirical element to that Sun editorial. But it’s not satirical to say that we are in a dangerous situation in our country in respect of the dollar, and that property rights are very much bound up in the question of money. After all, consider that kilogram. It is a cylinder. And it’s a cylinder the size of, say, a golf ball. The amount of mass that it is believed to have lost is measured in a few atoms, and yet the institution where they maintain standards is in a complete tizzy about it. The implications are said to be enormous.

The dollar, by contrast, has collapsed from 1/35 of an ounce of gold to less than 1/1,300 of an ounce of gold. If the kilogram had collapsed on that order of magnitude, there would be left only a small shard of that handsome grayish cylinder under the three glass domes at Sevres, France."

[DoChenRollingBearing]

Rocky, THANKS for the very interesting article.  I will read the entire thing later (I just finished a yummy lunch with vino down here in Peru).

They can do whatever they want re the kilo.  My ounces of Au will just sit there.  They won´t even have a word to say...

[DosZap]

That's Cool, what they giving back for change?,

that's the issue, there is not a nano oz available to carry on trade, and recieve like value in return.

I refuse script,frns how bout you.

[yabyum]

Silver is already used as coinage, a pre '64 US silver dime is still coin of the realm. The day the the corner gas station takes that coin at spot for goods and services will be the end of fiat.

[Amish Hacker]

That actually happened during the (first) Arab oil embargo. Quite a few gas stations used it as an attention-getting device: "Premium $.25/gal". Obviously, it had to be a pre-'64 quarter.

[faustian bargain]

That phenomenon has already begun in certain places. Haven't seen it at a gas station, but have at a hot dog stand.

[RockyRacoon]

I can "trade" a silver dime/quarter/half for some nice stuff at my local farmers market.

All ya gotta do is ask.

[KevinB]

I work for a PM depository. One of our biggest movers is bags of 90% silver dimes, quarters, and halves. If/when the SHTF, it'll be a whole lot easier to trade silver quarters for goods than 1-oz gold Eagles.

[DosZap]

The issue is your DIME is worth arpprox $2.90,how can you get $2.90 in  product for a coin marked $0.10?.

Legally.

[Max Cynical]

Perhaps this movement by the States is not about "letting" citizens pay their taxes in Au & Ag, but is about "requiring" citizens to pay in Au & Ag. 

[FeralSerf]

Lincoln required taxes to be paid with specie during the War Between the States.  He also required his subjects to accept his paper shin-plasters and greenbacks as payment for federal debts.

What's sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander.

[Abitdodgie]

I think the states are doing it so that when the dollar does go, its citizenry will know they have still got real money in the state, so trade can continue , otherwise you will probably end up with a mad max scenario . However the people that do not have any gold/silver will have problems . That is when the wealthy people (holders of gold/silver ) can get some great bargains if you are that way inclined.

[CH1]

Mad Max scenarios are for celluloid. In real life, sane people cooperate and criminals die. (Though they sometimes take a few good people with them.) Parasites look for a host, but with no state to host them, they either die or stop being parasites.

[Ben Fleeced]

Fall back positions being taken? Sounds great to me.

GO DOCUMENTS!!

Full disclosure: Long Constitution, trade accordingly

[cranky-old-geezer]

They will "let" citizens pay their State taxes in metal.  How fricking kind of them.

It's a symbolic action mostly, intended to send a message to the Fed. 

States offering to accept gold / silver at current spot price for payment of taxes sends a silent message to the Fed that state governments are fully aware FRNs are losing value rapidly.

[collinar]

Allowing taxes to be paid in gold and silver is just their way of stating that they are legal tender. The upside for the saver is that the bill states tax free conversion from fiat to gold and silver and most importantly, no capital gains tax since now gold and silver are legal tender. These States are actually implementing Freegold. Now do you get it?

[DosZap]

Going to have to deal with Face values, and conversions.

And, the IRS, as you said.

[bigdumbnugly]

"We cannot continue on our present path, or we WILL suffer unthinkable cultural digression and social defeat."

that is probably the eventual and necessary outcome.  unfortunately the greater percentage of the populace just doesn't know or want to know.  and once set in it will escalate quickly.

[LoneStarHog]

Moved...

[The Grip]

Illinois MAY turn to prostitution? Chicago parking meters sold to Gvmt Sax...

[silvertrain]

 Add North Carolina to the list of states that have realized that maybe they should also consider Gold and Silver as money...

 I have tried my best to link the article and I am just to computer stupid to do it..So if I could get One, kind,Zerohedge brother or sister to help me out this morning I would much appreciate it..  You can find it at  www.news-record.com  the hit the search box with gold and silver and the article comes up like 3rd in line..It was in fridays paper...Thanks

[silvertrain]

yep, they done that a few years ago..I read the piece and couldnt believe it..The company that bought them I think are now going up on the parking fee's and there isnt anything , anybody can do about it, crazy I tell you....

[silvertrain]

dbl post, sorry...

[Theta_Burn]

http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/03/17/article/nc_lawmaker_wants_state_to_make_its_own_money

This??? cut/paste link

[silvertrain]

Thats it..Thanks alot..Cut/paste I will learn some of this one day I guess...Thanks again..

[CrockettAlmanac.com]

1. Highlight the appropriate text.

2. Hold down the Ctrl key and then the "c" key on your keyboard.

3. Left mouse click where you want to paste the text.

4. Hold down the Ctrl key and then the "v" key on your keyboard.

[silvertrain]

Thanks brother..I hate asking for help on anything..

[cossack55]

Prostitution would be a step up for Illinois. 

[Creed]

whoredom is business as usual for ILLnoise

[DosZap]

You got it, and it moved to D.C. in '08

The Chi Town Way.

[piceridu]

http://www.news-record.com/content/2011/03/17/article/nc_lawmaker_wants_state_to_make_its_own_money

[f16hoser]

Question: As states pass their own laws of PM's being currency, should this prevent the US Government from confiscating said PM's? Thoughts....

[silvertrain]

 I have thought about that exact thing..My view is still that Silver is more likely to be confiscated than Gold.. Some wrote on here this morning somewhere that those Tomahawk missles that the allied forces have fired already have contained {I forget the amount numbers}  alot of Silver.. That exact thing has had me thinking that it could be declared a national security defense interest along with whatever other RE's they want to include, Palladium etc.. and thus declare confiscation...Just a thought..btw, im almost always wrong..

[f16hoser]

I hope you are this time as well. I think, if Gold/Silver are allowed to price themselves according to free market mechanics, people will always sell at the right price. There is a video over on the Silver Bear Cafe that talks about Gold at 100K Oz would solvea lot of FIAT problems around the world. All are opinions only.

[silvertrain]

 I hope the hell I am also, but I have got to try and think about what the idiots may try to pull and adapt from there..

[Abitdodgie]

I do not agree with the wars so as for taking my silver , well lets play hide and seek .

[CH1]

The only thing that prevents government confiscation is fear of getting shot. All else is propoganda.

[bud-wiser]

"When FDR made paper dollars "legal tender" in 1933, this meant that gold was no longer acceptable as payment for things owed. Ownership of gold was prohibited, and payment in anything other than paper money legal tender was illegal. Orders went out to turn in the gold, and many did. They exchanged the gold double eagles, eagles, half eagles etc, for brand new, crisp legal tender dollars. No one was ever fined, no one ever went to jail, and no one ever had their gold confiscated, but one could no longer use it for trade, payment of bills, or depositing in a bank."

http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest_04/stott111804.html

I wouldn't worry much about being prosecuted or shot for owning gold; apparently, NO ONE was prosecuted after the FDR law. They just had to hold onto the gold, and couldn't use it for legal tender.

On the other hand, history is full of cases where individuals who stockpiled gold coin were able to use that gold to get out of the country and save themselves.

[KickIce]

I think the assholes in charge now want to own every ounce of gold ans silver and every acre of land.

[silvertrain]

 You hit it when you said every acre of land... And if they cant get a hold of it through eminent domain or some other strong arm tactic they just proceed to tell you what you can and cannot do on your acre through massive regulations and laws and permits and the story never ends...

[KickIce]

Bargains galore when you're paying with fiat and have unlimited access to the money printing machine.

[collinar]

Yes, but for only as long as people continue to accept your printed paper currency. When they stop accepting  paper currency, no more bargins.

[KickIce]

Except GSEs own 65+ % of US mortages are owned by GSEs.  If You include the CBs as part of the government that percentage is significantly higher.  Many more layoffs and forecluosures to come.  Our right to property ownership is in danger.

[LawsofPhysics]

Exactly why I have physical silver and gold.  Thanks to the new "price" of  gold,  my acrage and businesses are covered

[DosZap]

One man did, he lost approx 5000+/- $20.00 coins, and was found guilty and nailed by the IRS.I believe the ignorant ass had them in his saftey deposit box.

[Ben Fleeced]

I do love living in Appalachia. Polite society, this.

[Debtless]

And who would be the first sucker to pay a debt with actual physical. That would be absurd. Good money is and will continue to be chased out by bad. It would take an entire collapse first. Then barter. Then an asset-backed currency.

[RobotTrader]

Absolutely nothing of significance is going to happen.

Gold and silver will be used only by fringe groups.  It will never be widely accepted.

The Plutocrats, Thugs and Illuminati will continue push and promote fiatscos at all costs.  And the unlimited use of paper to short the metals will continue, thereby keeping a lid on PM prices.

And naked shorting of PM shares will not and can not be stopped, as long as this activity is Fed-sponsored and TPTB-supported.

Use of "Infinite Fiat" is growing and it will not stop.  Every week, Doug Noland reports these staggering facts.

"Federal Reserve Credit jumped $28.0 billion to a world record $2.547 trillion
(18-wk gain of $266 billion). 

Fed Credit was up $139 billion YTD and $284 billion
from a year ago, or
12.6%. 

Elsewhere, Fed Foreign Holdings of Treasury,
Agency Debt this past week (ended 3/9) rose $12.3 billion to a new world record $3.397 trillion.

"Custody holdings" were up $415 billion from a year ago, or 13.9%. 

Global central bank "international reserve
assets" (excluding
gold) - as tallied by
Bloomberg – were up $1.545 trillion year over year, or 19.8%, to a fresh, new, world record $9.365 trillion.

Infinite Fiat Paper.

Love it, Live it, Learn it.

[bigdumbnugly]

i'm sure you'll get some junks, r.t.    but what you say is true.

need a reset to have it any other way.

[Pladizow]

To: Robot Trader

Were'nt all your comments also true when gold was at $250/oz???

[DoctoRx]

Well said, Plad.

Paper bugs should recall that indeed paper money survived all throughout the modern Brazilian, Argentinian and even Zimbabwe hyperinflations.  So I think Robo may be right in one regard but his possible correctness can be and I think likely is irrelevant in the more important sense.  Got gold?  If not, get it, please, as much as you can afford.

[luk427]

Fiat will always fail. Now they are just speeding up and intensifying the process.  A good history article by Martin Armstrong. http://www.martinarmstrong.org/files/The%20Athenian%20Real%20Estate%20Pa...

[luk427]

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article27004.html

[Careless Whisper]

fake money. fake boobs. that's how robo rolls.

http://thaiintelligentnews.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/money-bank-coin-c...

[Abitdodgie]

The difference is when the dollar goes it will take with it the global banking system so every fiat will collapse at the same time .

[Infinite QE]

RobotTroll is a permafade. One could make a fortune doing an inverse 3x of whatever he does. He's still whining that he sold gold at $1200 because his guru told him too! Fade him and bank serious money. Gold or fiat! LOL!

[bigdumbnugly]

didn't see the attached babe rolling in dough the first time, r.t.

but if you are gonna put it that way maybe i can live with this silly fiat stuff just a little longer.

[silvertrain]

Make it rain bitchez!!!!

[Al Gorerhythm]

make it rain on me first.

[RockyRacoon]

You've won the golden shower contest.

[yabyum]

Robo, She would be even more fetching in a bed of Morgan and peace dollars.

[Imminent Crucible]

RT will be catastrophically wrong in the end.

To say "This has been going on for a very long time" is not the same as saying "This can and will go on forever."

The explosion of worldwide sovereign debt is not a proof that debts can grow forever, but that the exponential function is in the parabolic phase.  As they say in the markets, "Trees don't grow to the sky", or elsewhere, "It's always darkest right before it goes pitch black."

[tmosley]

Right, because no civilization in history has ever abandoned paper money to return to a metal standard.

Retard.

[thedrickster]

No, many have but I can't think of one that did it voluntarily before the reset/collapse/cataclysm.

[Math Man]

More interestingly, PMs have failed as a currency every time they have ever been used.  From Ancient Rome to the United States, the gold standard always goes way in the end.

[Lord Koos]

Everything does go away in the end, because people always cheat, it doesn't matter if it's gold or paper.  It's just the luck of the draw what stage of the cycle you are born into.

[DosZap]

Correctomundo, now pls inform our astute brethren WHY that was/is the case?.

Could it, no, possibly, no, be Debauchery of the coinage?.

Could I interest you in a 1966 Quarter for an example of why they failed.

Sandwich coins were not of course used, but screwing with the content of PM's DID.

[prole]

"...PMs have failed as a currency every time they have ever been used.  From Ancient Rome to the United States, the gold standard always goes way in the end."

Appears true to me. I will update the golden rule to reflect reality: "He who has the guns steals the gold."

[samsara]

Robo

Why don't you officially change your name to Remora?

Wouldn't that be more fitting and accurate?

[Muir]

Robo:

You mean I wont be able to buy a penthouse overlooking Central Park for 20 oz of gold?!!

Ohhhh, the humanity!!!!

-

[H. Perowne]

*sigh*

Things go on forever, until they can't. History is filled with the corpses of those who considered themselves indispensable and indestructible . . . and their tools.

Learn it.

[mark mchugh]

It's already stopped, Robo.

China is saying "No thanks" to the notion of trading rare earths for paper.  Isn't hyperinflation when no amount of fiat will get you what you want.  How's Japan gonna make a Prius without them (75 lbs. of RE per car)?

Right now, you can still get stuff for fiat, just not the most important stuff, and that's how it starts....

[Bay of Pigs]

I'll remember that as gold and silver hit new highs this week.

[ebworthen]

RobotTrader,

It will work until China pulls the plug on the U.S.

Why do you think they are buying up all the gold?

Plenty of business in emerging markets, Europe, and Asia for their factories.

When they crash the dollar, all the other countries will have higher valued currencies to buy their stuff with.

At some point the U.S. was not in any way dependent upon the U.K. for it's well being - we took over.

Handoff to China as world leader coming soon...

[Math Man]

Psst.  Here's a secret.    You see, Chinese has as dollar peg, and it's causing some nasty inflation...  Chinese citizens are buying gold and silver because of their inflation problem.   Inflation is high, rates low - so real rates are negative.  So they have to hold hard assets - apartments and gold.   But China is tightening (3 rate raises since October), so look out - Chinese demand will be declining soon.  And so will the price of precious metals.

[equity_momo]

Robottrader is the perfect example of an individual suffering from NORMALCY BIAS.    I can only deduce from your posts RT you skipped alot of History classes in high school (actually you may just be the product of our dire education system)

[lieutenantjohnchard]

only in the world of the old catfish mouth robo uber bull bear wannabe is a ten consecutive yearly rise in prices a cap on prices.

btw: are you saying in this particular pico-second that jpm doesn't have a short position in silver, given that you suggest they have unlimited, unfettered ability to short using fiat? of course, you'll change your tune in the next post but that's beside the point.

[Ben Fleeced]

Your algo didn't include the herd.

Fail.

[honestann]

Increasing numbers of people will refuse to accept fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve computer bits for real, physical goods.

You may be correct that some morons will always be willing to play games with monopoly money, including games like "commodity futures" that have no connection to "commodities", and gold and silver ETFs that have no connection to gold and silver.

Those of us who believe in honesty, ethics and liberty claim no right to force morons to stop playing stupid games.  But gradually, everyone with half a brain will stop playing them.

Exactly when and how that happens is difficult to say, except we can see early stages now.  I will not trade my gold or silver for fiat.  PERIOD.  If I need food or something real, I'll consider trading gold and silver for that.  You understand?  This is the first major marginalization of fiat.

You are correct to think the masses will laugh at us "reality bugs", because they copy the mainstream media that laughs at reality and gives the masses of morons an example to follow.  However, at some point they will notice they are laughing at people doing much better than them.  At first they'll start collecting gold and silver shamefully, without admitting it to others.  The better their results, the more they'll find themselves bragging about their success.  After a while the hordes will follow and the tables will be completely turned.  Then you will hear terms like "untied states of zimbabwe" on mainstream media.

Reality is reality.  Those fiat fraudsters are fleecing the masses.  At some point, that's gonna hurt so much, the masses will turn on fiat, no matter which media personalities continue to advertise for fiat.

[Djirk]

true that, gold is just shiny metal with limited industrial uses, if there is a melt down (no pun intended) there will be less demand for gold jewelry. The value of gold is based on a belief of a future value.

bi-flation bitchez.

[DosZap]

The value of gold is based on a belief of a future value.

False, the value is determined by the want to insure one's assets from total loss.

Jewelry will be the last thing people cling to when the SHTF.

Food,Clothing, Shelter,Transportation.

Without these, you die.

[cranky-old-geezer]

Absolutely nothing of significance is going to happen.

When was the last time you went to the grocery store?  Or bought gas?

When was the last time you tried to buy something with those pieces of paper?

Granted, the Fed will contine on the same path, creating more trillions of FRNs out of thin air, steadily debasing all FRNs in the process. 

They'll continue on that path until FRNs are viewed as worthless.

So yes I agree nothing will change on the Fed's end. 

The change is happening outside the Fed,  people viewing FRNs as being worth less and less. 

At some point FRNs will lose world reserve currency status. Then you'll see a HUGE  change.  But it won't be a change at the Fed. They'll continue right on doing what they're doing now. 

The change will be among people outside the Fed who stop accepting FRNs in payment.

[collinar]

Yes, we can stop the naked shorting of paper gold and silver. It is as simple as buy physical silver and stand for delivery. This trick does not work for gold since the banks stock gold. But it will work for Silver. Buy and hold physical Silver and do not sell. Buy COMEX Silver and Stand for Delivery. When the naked shorts fail to deliver the Physical Silver, then the paper shorts will be broken. Paper silver will go to zero, and Physical Silver will go to the moon and take gold with it.

[PhD]

FY TOOL.

FY. And according to my "infinitie life theory". You will burn forever!

Take heed Heeden

[Muir]

Gollum:   “Bless us and splash us, my preciousss!” Gollum:   “Sssss,” …. “Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It like riddles, praps it does, does it?” Gollum:   “Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scumptiously crunchable?”

“Bless us and splash us, my preciousss!”

“Sssss,” …. “Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It like riddles, praps it does, does it?”

“Is it nice, my preciousss? Is it juicy? Is it scumptiously crunchable?”

[PlanForTheWorst...]

Eventually we will go back on a gold / silver standard.  This has been the reverted mean in world history for the last 6000 years.  It will take longer than one would think, but it's coming.

[Muir]

"Eventually we will go back on a gold / silver standard.  This has been the reverted mean in world history for the last 6000 years.  It will take longer than one would think, but it's coming."

Absolutely!!!

Yes, when we go back to an agricultural economy, feudal State system.

-

[tmosley]

You certainly have a low opinion of the US, pre 1971.

I love how you don't think.  It makes it easier for me to appropriate your purchasing power.

[Ben Fleeced]

Tobacco for toppence m' lady? Toppence for silver m' lord

One for the earth, one for the birds and one for me.

F(e)u(t/d)(a/i)lity of which you speak?

B. Fleeced

[falak pema]

Unlike the other central banks of the main currency global players : UK (BOE), EU (ECB), JPN (BOJ), the FED is a PRIVATELY OWNED INSTITUTION SINCE INCEPTION. It has the redoubtable privilege since 1944, BW, of managing the money supply of the world reserve currency. "Exorbitant privilege" as aptly put by Charles de Gaulle in 1965.

So this privately owned bank that has as main shareholders BOFA, Citi, JPM-Chase and special consultant GS, the squid, runs the money supply of the USA (and the world), on the sole basis of a deal done with the US Treasury department giving it exclusive rights by mandate to issue USD notes by a simple exchange of IOU slips between DOT and FED.

Thus after the financial collapse of 2008 initiated by its TBTF shareholders, it is not surprising that the FED helped out its INSOLVENT shareholders through TARP and then through QE forever. At the expense of the US public. When one hears criticism here on ZH about the "central bank" behavior of FED/Bernanke it is a total mis-statement of the real issues. The political bosses of the USA are NOT the shareholders of FED. Which is not the case in ANY central bank anywhere else in the world. How can one expect this incestuous relationship between PD-FED to be anything else than mutual back scratching. And total rip-off of the American people. With their BOUGHT political partners looking on impotent as they do not sit on the board of the FED.  Why be surprised that the state of financial affairs of the USA are in their current state. This is not public control of the money supply. This is total PRIVATE control in the name of the Kleptocrats who got us in this mess in the first place. Sic gloria transit mundi.

[Yen Cross]

I dream of Genie.

[Yen Cross]

Let's watch the fog on a western sunrise.

[Stuck on Zero]

For years we have been hearing about these huge naked silver shorts by JPM etc.  Do they ever expire or does the story just keep getting longer and longer?

[Papasmurf]

It just gets rolled over, like the national debt.

[JohnG]

They have to cover at some point.  What is happening now is that the long contract holders are being bribed to NOT take physical at huge premiums, 30 - 40%.  Then they roll into next delivery month, profit and all.  Just gets worse and worse.  Backwardation across the entire strip in evidence of the shortage; the metal does not exist for delivery.

So yes, it get longer and longer - until it doesn't.

I can't agree that the supression necessarily goes on forever.  If the CFTC were to implement position limits, supression falls apart.  There is a huge move, 10's of thousands of comments to the CFTC during a public comment period demanfing this.  Not daying it will happen, Gensler is a Goldmanite.  Chilton is the most "honest" guy at the CFTC.  So, position limits would help stop, a 1500 position limit and Boom! No position limit (my expectation), and the operation continues as is.

Still, I buy my physical.  Price doesn't matter.  It has to stop sometime, and those standing for delivery will eventually break JPM's back.

YMMV.

[Imminent Crucible]

How do we know that the massive spike in silver from $18 to over $30 in three months last year wasn't caused by JPMorgue offsetting their massive short losses by hedging with long silver contracts?  They know how to buy as well as sell.

[cranky-old-geezer]

Blythe might well be going long as a hedge against their massive short exposue.

But the physical isn't out there. It's a huge paper game, and yes I suppose they can keep it up for a long time ...as long as they can keep everyone looking at the paper market and ignoring the physical market.

[Yen Cross]

I'm looking over the Pacific from my balcony! Right Now!

[Pseudo Anonym]

Intelligent and fiscally conservative local representatives have seen the obvious danger to the stability of the dollar in this equation

such as Salt Spring, BC in Canada that started issuing and circulating their own currency, including minting and circulating a silver 1/2$ in 2007:

http://saltspringdollars.com/faq/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Spring_Dollars

http://saltspringdollars.com/about-us/issuing-policies.html

[css1971]

A little town in Austria did similarly during the depression; Woergl.

[ImNotExposed]

This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood mining association.

[Al Gorerhythm]

Oh yes you are.

[quo vadis]

Wow... 

"The tension in the air is dense and sweaty"

Indeed, the folks I see suffer a quiet desperation for a vague collapse. Few have any concrete grasp of the coming destruction to our way of life (you know, what u do off-line with your flesh&blood fellows). The requisite crash & burn of one's "home of the free, land of the brave" patriotic paradigm is the pons asinorum for the thrivers in the post-Fed world.

[Vendetta]

when I was in Canada earlier this week, there were places that wouldn't accept my dollars

[Ben Fleeced]

Will the DEA think pooly of me for having a gram scale for exchange puposes? i accept junk for food.

[ipud]

Can't discuss that sound money crap on Denninger's Tickerforum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsLu6iPi3pc

[JohnG]

Don't understand that.  The word Gold in one comment got me banned.  He hates it.

He must have been burned once, or is just pissed he missed the last ten years.

I read some of his rants, that's ok, just don't mention sound money.  Denninger's a little off imho.

[Creed]

yes Denningers a little off...but I've seen the rabid wolf gold bugs attacking him and don't blame him for his own rabidity

the problem over there is that most of their theories have crashed and burned over the last 3 years while gold & silver have SOARED

bwahahaha

so I don't blame them for being a bit testy about the subject, it would just be nice if they were more HONEST

[cranky-old-geezer]

Denninger's a whining slivelling snot-nose sore loser, can't admit he's DEAD WRONG.

[Dr. Porkchop]

I don't think tying a currency to gold is going to solve problems. The system can be manipulated just like fiat money. The problem is having a world reserve currency. Gold can serve as a globally recognized store of wealth without being tied to a currency. I'm of a mind that when shit collapses, gold will be revalued much higher and won't be of much use as a hard currency, it will better serve people as a store of wealth.

Without a reserve currency, no government would have a free lunch. If they tried to start the money printing, it would only destroy them.

[Jack Sheet]

Agreed. Introducing a gold-backed USD for example would require honesty and transparency on the part of the political and banking elite. Like freely providing information on where the gold is located, regular audits to be performed and the results made public, is the gold genuine or 90% tungsten, has it been leased out, what is the procedure for "converting" your paper to gold, daily publication of the paper/gold exchange rate (to be kept wihtin narrow limits) etc etc. Hardly likely.

[DosZap]

You must have an ethical and honest Government before that works, we dont, and wont, maybe ever again.

So , US 0, them 100.

After watching them burn thru trillions in just the SS/MC/MC accounts, not countng the other 24T + in debt since GWB's 1st stint, I can ,and never will trust them again.

If they were a person, I would hate their guts.Right now I just hate their system that has allowed them to foist this upon us.

We cannot point to one or two culprits, they all are complicit.

And blame US for their abuses.

[Al Gorerhythm]

I don't think tying a currency to gold is going to solve problems. The system can be manipulated just like fiat money.

The essence of this thread is contained in those two sentences. My reply to your statement in the second sentence is;with gold,  the manipulation ends when the physical is in my hands (supply wise). I know that when I exchange my labor for gold, I know that the issuer cannot defraud me by printing another.

There's nothing underhanded about gold as money. Both people in the transaction have had to work for it. Honest money represents as a value exchange token between parties, that is linked with work (the result of energy expended).

If I'm going to exchange my gold token for a FRN token, I want to be assured that the FRN token has been honestly created and has its origin based in effort.

Wealth recognition may be a point of contention or perception but honest exchange isn't (if the value people attach to work and the token is universal). Dickering over value comes down to the circumstance associated with the  exchange parties, and should not be privileged to the token creators. That simply leads to manipulation. Gold tokens are the workers money. Paper tokens is in the hands of manipulators. Choice of token at a grass roots level is illegal which makes it (FRN) a manipulated token by decree.

[Ben Fleeced]

"If they tried to start the money printing, it would only destroy them".

Check.

[Shameful]

The states won't fully move away now, they can't short of a repeat of 1860. As things get worse the states will demand either bailouts (aka monitization of their bonds) or they will talk of keeping tax revenue. It's a matter of self preservation. Does anyone really think state politicians and bureaucrats want to be forced to get real jobs in this market?

So any return to sound money will likely be a result of either states bailing out of the union or post total meltdown. It's likely we see grumblings from the states before total collapse. Though a Fed bailout of muni debt would go a long way to satisfy them. After all if the Fed also begins financing state deficient they to would be in effect have a press. Granted such a moral hazard would make the better behaved states act worse and the worse fiscal states to act like the Federal government for drunken spending. This of course leading to faster dollar death and collapse. No easy way out of this train wreck.

[Ben Fleeced]

"Does anyone really think state politicians and bureaucrats want to be forced to get real jobs in this market"?

Locally, three outta five have been replaced as retired.

[proLiberty]

Deflation mainly matters to borrowers of long term debt because they are forced to repay with dollars that are more costly in real terms than the value of the dollars they borrowed. 

Government is the largest long term borrower in the economy.  Watch how supporters and beneficiaries of big and Bigger government react to even the possibility of deflation.  They respond like Dracula does to a silver cross.  Why?  It means pure death to them.  Well it sure does.  Long term debt and particularly perpetual debt is a form of slavery.  In our case, it is our own government that is binding us and our children into servitude to the nations that hold our debt instruments. Further, when government inflates our currency, it effects a transfer of wealth from eveyone who holds any of their private wealth in that currency into the hands of government.    When coupled on a tax on "income" that is measured in nominal dollars, it is the grandest scheme of theft in human history. 

Government is using our own wealth to enslave us to parties favored by government, those being banks (who own the Federal Reserve Corporation in proportion to their assets), big business (GE gets tax credits to buy Chevy Volts all financed by printing money) and voter blocks (in 2007, over 50% of home loans were made to sub-prime urban borrowers). 

The only answer to this is to go to a money that government cannot manipulate and to forbid government from creating money out of thin air by expanding credit, like it did by leveraging the balance sheets of Fannie and Freddie.

"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."

From the last two paragraphs of Gold and Economic Freedom by Alan Greenspan.  1966.

see: http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm

[Ben Fleeced]

"...servitude to the same nation/banks that hold our debt instruments".

THINK

B. Fleeced

[falak pema]

It has to be a basket. It could be PM backed. It has to be under the aegis of a globalized, world/nation states backed entity. It cannot be this lousy squid called the FED. It cannot be other central banks owned by other state governments. It has to be neutral and uber-all nation states. Can the current IMF play this role, after being for fifty years the surrogate to US monetary policy and USD hegemony? Who else is there to fill this vertiginous void...?

[Ben Fleeced]

01000110 01100001 01101001 01101100!

[Hacked Economy]

I've begun holding an 1800s Morgan in my pocket (from my stash) as a reminder of what real money feels like.  I've read others say they carry Morgans or SAEs, but now I've begun, and you're all right...what a difference it makes.

[TimmyM]

What I like is to put a couple of 90% quarters in my pocket so when I walk around it reminds me what real money sounded like when I was a kid. Get a younger person to try it and they are amazed by the sound.

[CrockettAlmanac.com]

"I got a little change in my pocket going jing-aling-aling..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdpAop7gp0w

[DoChenRollingBearing]

Less than a week ago I decided that I would carry 2 pcs of 1/10 oz Gold Eagles with me.  They are wrapped in a Kleenex in a tiny ziploc, take hardly any space at all.  Fits with my little knife in that little pocket of my jeans.

Hey, someday I may need to buy something with it...  And it is there to remind me that gold has value and that I DO have that alternative, even when walking around...  Even if only 1% of the people understand gold.

[RockyRacoon]

My silver American Eagle fits right in that jeans watch pocket.  I also carry a Kennedy half along with a few of the modern "gold" coins and a SBA dollar.   All other trash change I throw in a jar -- after pulling out all the nickels.

[slewie the pi-rat]

i like mr. bruno's slewie-like cascading negativity regarding all things FED:

"You get a space-time-debt singularity so volatile it stretches the very fabric of your local economy until it tears wide open, unleashing a gravity well of capital destruction similar to a double-ended tornado that snatches your money and hurls it into the upper stratosphere never to be seen again. The point is, you get yet another Fanny and Freddy; a self perpetuating never ending bailout free-for-all that fizzles only when the dollar has been thoroughly cremated, which shouldn’t be long from now."

never having been involved in a double-ended tornado, myself, i fight back the adventurer's envy.

mr. B. thinks the states are getting ready for the collapse of the dollar which may be caused by bailing out the states!  so, they turn for help to...the constitution???

HahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha      

[Ben Fleeced]

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01111001 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101101 01100001 01111010 01100101 01100100 00100001

[NidStyles]

01001101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110110 01100101 01110010 01110111 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110010 00100000 01101001 01100100 01101001 01101111 01100011 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00101110

[Captain Benny]

01010111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01101100 01110000 01101000 01100001 01100010 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100011 01101111 01100100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 00111000 00101101 01100010 01101001 01110100 00100000 01100001 01110011 01100011 01101001 01101001 00111111 00100000 00100000 01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01110100 00111111

[RockyRacoon]

How 'bout posting in Swahili at least, for us non-nerds.  Thanks!

[ebworthen]

Quit posting the FED's binary printing algorithm for FDIC banks will ya'!?!?

[99er]

Gold and Silver Charts

http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/99er-charts-0

[ebworthen]

Hmmm...I see a breakout higher approacing for GOLD.

I'm seeing the same thing in the Gold/DOW pairing too...

[The Real McCoy]

This guy was convicted of minting and selling his own silver coins.. 

  http://charlotte.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/ce031811.htm

[RockyRacoon]

You must have missed the ZH article on that:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/fbi-busts-mastermind-criminal-issuing-s...

[speculator]

Screw the gold standard. Why do we need government to set the price of money? They always just issue to many receipts and have to default anyway. 

What we need is a free market in money - accept gold & silver as legal tender and stop charging capital gains tax on them. That is all we would have to do - in fact, legal tender laws wouldn't even have to be repealed. All that's holding back the metals (and private electronic metal warehouse receipts) from use as common currency is the tax accounting required on any dollar-denominated gain or loss on the difference betweeen when you acquired the metal and when you traded it for something else, even if you neither bought nor sold your metal for fiat. 

People are already free to barter with gold or silver, so even if they are not legal tender for all debts, people have the choice of whether or not to accept them, even as wages. It is just the tax treatment that makes it impossible to use them as money.  

[RobotTrader]

Bottom line is this:

If the market crashes, gold and silver will also crash.

U.S. "Fiatscos" don't crash, they simply devalue.

But the sheep don't really know any better.  They do not know they are getting their spending power wasted away.

But the sheep are acutely aware when stocks and gold get hammered.  Therefore, they will probably never regain their interest in stocks, and gold will probably have to get to $2,000 before the average joe starts to notice, but by that time, he will think it is too late, and gold will crash like the price of cabbage patch dolls, beanie babies, and Tickle Me Elmo dolls.  They will think it is just another fad.

Ergo, the sheep will continue to clutch dollars no matter what.

And the PigMen will continue to invest in stocks and commodities.

The rich get richer.

The average joe gets poorer.

What else has changed in the last 100 years?