Russia Makes the First Call for the Monetization of Gold

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**How far off are we??**


'Supermarkets set to refuse cash'

Dutch supermarkets are hoping to phase out the use of cash by 2014, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday, quoting the retail board CBL.

The aim of the ban on cash is to make supermarkets less vulnerable to armed robberies, the paper says.


According to CBL research, 87% of customers support moves to stimulate the use of direct debit cards.

The Telegraaf reports that €10bn of supermarket total turnover of over €30bn last year was in cash. Supermarkets had to deal with 200 'incidents', ranging from a grab at the cash register to armed robbery, the paper said.

Other solutions will be found for customers who do not want to use direct debit cards, a CBL spokesman said. 'Technology is making enormous advances. Trials are also being done with payment by mobile phone, but you can also pay with a finger print or iris scan,' the spokesman said.

The Dutch consumers association said the move was 'going too far'.

[link to www.dutchnews.nl]

great article

FIAT MONEY IN DEATH THROES
Antal E. Fekete


"Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. If you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let them continue to create deposits.”
-Sir Joshua Stamp (1880-1941) (One time governor of the Bank of England, in his Commencement Address at the University of Texas in 1927. Reportedly he was the second wealthiest individual in Britain.)

Make no mistake about it: in this credit collapse we are witnessing the death throes of irredeemable currency. In vain have governments and their client banks tried, for hundreds of years, to graft this repulsive and degenerate bastard on the living organism of society. The result was always the same: the healthy organism rejected the unnatural implant in its own good time.

The present episode is no different from earlier ones except, perhaps, in the degree of the conceitedness of the perpetrators, and in their contempt for the native intelligence of man.

When on August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon defaulted on the gold obligations of the United States and declared the irredeemable dollar the “ultimate” means of payments and liquidator of debt, he was relying on the expert advice of Chicago economist Milton Friedman. Five years later the world’s oldest central bank, the Swedish Riksbank would bestow upon Friedman the prize it established in memory of Alfred Nobel. The reward would be in recognition of the brilliance of Friedman’s idea that if a central bank robs the people piecemeal (read: it dilutes the currency at a fixed rate of, say, 3 percent per annum) then the victims would not cry “we wuz robbed!” They would never notice the robbery.

In all previous episodes shame and disgrace were part and parcel of the government’s default on its promises to pay. Not so in 1971. In this latest experiment with irredeemable currency there was a new feature: far from being a disgrace, the default was presented as a scientific breakthrough; conquering “monetary superstition” epitomized by gold; a triumph of progress. Sycophant governments and central banks overseas that were victimized by it and had to swallow unprecedented losses due to the devaluation of the dollar were not even allowed to say “ouch!” They were forced to celebrate their own undoing and hail the advent of the New Age of synthetic credit, irredeemable currencies and irredeemable debts.

The regime of the irredeemable dollar was put to the test soon enough. In 1979 the genie escaped from the bottle. The price of oil, silver, and gold were quoted at twenty times that prior to 1971; in the case of sugar the rate of increase was more like forty times. Interest rates were quoted in double digits well past the teens. There was panic across the land and the globe. Hoarding of goods became a way of life. Everybody was expecting the worst. It was at this time that the notion of “targeting inflation” was invented.

Previously the claims of central bank power were rather modest. Central banks were supposed to target shortterm interest rates. Later they graduated to targeting the money supply. Now they were claiming supernatural powers of micromanaging price increases. It was apparently working, and the genie was put back in the bottle.

In the intervening three decades policymakers and mainstream economists became ever more confident that in inflation-targeting they have found the holy grail of irredeemable currency.

Ironically, disaster struck just at the time when the prophets of inflation-targeting became cocky beyond any measure of modesty. They actually had a whole debate going on in American journals, but also English ones.

Ben Bernanke, who in the meantime was made the chairman of the Federal Reserve, contributed the keynote address and the title to the debate: “The Great Moderation”. Their description, up to and including the beginning of 2007 of what was happening in the macro economy, was a reduction in the volatility in the trade cycle: more consistent growth, less bouts of inflation, more stability.

The London Times published a jubilant piece as recently as early 2007 with the title “The Great Moderation” which began with the line: “History will marvel at the stability of our era.” It was not meant to be a joke. It was meant to be believed. Complacency about the almighty nature of monetary policy reached its peak. They celebrated the success of inflation targeting just when it started to unravel.

Policymakers, central bankers, and their lackeys in academia and journalism, felt inordinately proud of themselves. They thought they held the whole world in their hands.

The celebration and self-congratulation was premature. Bernanke & Co. did not know that they were about to be humbled by the markets. Blinded by the glare of their own glory, none of them foresaw the coming disaster.

Martin Wolf in his column on May 7 talks about “this unforeseen crisis” as an unmitigated disaster for monetary policy. It leaves fiat money with just one last chance to put its act together and save its hide. He says: “The holy grail turned out to be a mirage. If fiat money is not made to work better than it has, who knows what our children might decide to do in desperation. They might even decide to bring back and embrace gold”. Oh horror of horrors! Wolf still considers the gold standard an absurdity.

It’s kind of strange. It is not the regime of irredeemable currency, whereby governments are supposed to create wealth by sprinkling some ink on little scraps of paper, that is considered an absurdity. Of course, Mr. Wolf has the right of wanting to be pilfered and plundered. But he has no right to advocate that the rest of us be cheated through this crudest form of plunder forever and ever.

Quote:
He is also mistaken when he assumes that Bernanke & Co. still has one more chance. The chance they just blew was the last. We are witnessing the closing of the regime of irredeemable currency and irredeemable debt. We may not know how long its death throes will take, but there will be no other chance.

Financial journalists and mainstream economists, in their blind stupor acting as cheerleaders for the disastrous monetary policy of the government and the insane credit policy of the banks, have exhausted and destroyed their own credibility for once and all.
* * *

Martin Wolf, like most of his colleagues, is a victim of brainwashing inspired by Keynes that has been going on to discredit the gold standard for some 75 years, but which got a new lift after Friedman inspired Nixon to default.

Yet here are the facts about the gold dollar that should be made available to the world through the opening of the Mint to gold, as demanded by the U.S. Constitution.

The gold standard is an indispensable prerequisite of freedom. Without it individuals are helpless in facing the constant and ongoing encroachment of their property rights by the government and the banks. The right to demand gold in exchange for bank notes and bank deposits far transcends the mere exchange of one form of money for another. It is the only way to check the unlimited power of the government manifested by the unlimited creation of bank deposits.

The combination of governmental power and the power of the banks to create deposits is especially dangerous for the freedom of the individual, because of the double standard involved. The government exempts banks from the effects of contract law in exchange for the banks’ special treatment accorded to government debt. Gold hoarding is not a blemish on the gold standard; it is its main excellence. When a sufficient number of individuals are disturbed by the encroachment of this combination of powers, or disapprove the monetary policy of the government and the credit policy of the banks, they are not helpless under a gold standard.

They can withdraw gold from the banking system, thereby putting the government and the banks on notice that unless they mend their ways, and stop their adventures in debt creation, they will find themselves insolvent and out of power. The gold standard gives people the upper hand. It is no accident that all dictatorships set out by limiting the people’s access to gold. It makes no difference whether they march under the banner of national or international socialism.

All totalitarian regimes inflict irredeemable currency on the people as an instrument of servitude and bondage. Martin Wolf should know this. The ideal of limited government is meaningless unless reinforced by a gold standard denying to the government the power of issuing unlimited amounts of currency. There is no other way of doing this than making the promises of the government redeemable in something other than more promises of the samekind.

Once the government makes the currency irredeemable, it puts itself in the position to curtail the rights and freedoms of the people as it sees fit.

Constitutional government is effectively overthrown. Once the government usurps the public purse, its power becomes uncontrollable. Budget debate in Parliament or in Congress becomes an annual farce. Nothing stands in the way of unscrupulous politicians to undermine constitutional government.

The purchasing power of the currency is constantly undermined year in, year out. The banks are freed from constraints on them exercised by the people under the gold standard. Pandora’s box of corruption is opened and its contents contaminate the nation’s economic, political, and social system.

Governments which employ irredeemable currency grab unconditional control over foreign trade, exchange rates, foreign investments and travel, even the amount of currency an individual can take in or out of the country. The more powerful governments will buy the allegiance of the less powerful. Out of this feudalistic web of allegiances financed by irredeemable currency come various adventures in fomenting and waging wars in far-away lands, spilling the blood of the young people of the nation for causes alien to them.

Under a gold standard prolonged budget deficits and prolonged unfavorable balance of payments cannot occur. There are forces limiting persistent losses of gold which tend to correct the underlying distortion. By contrast, under the regime of irredeemable currency economic distortions can persist indefinitely. They ultimately become destructive. This is so because government bureaucrats cannot possibly provide the same level of wisdom that a people free to act in their own interest can.

As problems in foreign trade mount, governments will find ever more excuses for ever more controls. There is no end to the expansion of government power over the individual until the nation regains the benefits of a gold standard, requiring that the government retire to its proper role of umpire and relinquish its role as dominant partner and dictator.

Quote:
A government can take total control of the people either by the use of military force, or by the use of irredeemable currency. The former is readily understood, while the latter is a subtle national drug that is not generally recognized as such. Rather, it is readily embraced by its victims. For these and similar reasons irredeemable currency is the favorite device of modern governments that want to bring people under total control.

Indeed, it enables the government to succeed in controlling the masses while, at the same time, earning their approval and even their
enthusiastic support. Irredeemable currency must be seen as the habit-forming drug that the government uses to intoxicate people. Under this intoxication people will want more and more national spending, more and more government control, and more and more debt.
This intoxication obscures the sad end that arrives when the merry-go-round is coming to a jerky halt, when credit is exhausted or withdrawn, and the kitty is found empty. The nation is facing a most serious economic disaster followed by prolonged economic pain. Unfortunately government economists, university professors, and financial journalists have taken their share of the fun and they failed miserably in their duty to forewarn people of the coming disaster. It is useless to expect a mass movement on behalf of a sound currency.

The daily experiences of people provide them with a warped outlook. They confirm in their minds the alleged virtues and benefits of an infinitely inflatable currency. People lack sufficient understanding of monetary science to see that no currency can be made infinitely inflatable without inviting disaster. Like a drug addict, people exposed to irredeemable currency do not regard it as a dangerous and undermining narcotic agent. Even the loss of purchasing power does not disturb them to any great extent. Their response is to demand more money, and they take pride in the fact that the government listens sympathetically to their demand.

They welcome the soaring stock indexes and real estate prices, and put great stores on them. Heavy taxes and burgeoning debt are not regarded with anxiety. A frequent and common agitation is for ever more government spending.
* * *

Quote:
If we are to be saved from the ultimate evil consequences of the regime of irredeemable currency, needed action must come from the leadership of the opposition party when it is its turn to take over government. The new President and his Secretary of the Treasury must be statesmen. They must act as informed and tough monetary surgeons, men who can and will persuade Congress or Parliament to reinstate redeemable currency.

Once that step is taken, the people should experience a breath of fresh air. Government would once more be subordinated to the Constitution, bringing greater freedom to the people. Optimism should be wide-spread, because the currency of the people would once more had integrity.

Business should prosper, domestic and foreign trade expand. Imbalances in foreign trade should rectify themselves. Gold should start to circulate and flow in from abroad. The control of the public purse would be returned to the people where it belongs if human freedom is to be preserved and responsible government is to be obtained.
But as the last presidential election in the United States has shown, the needed leadership is lacking. The party of the opposition is just as much in thrall to the same toxic ideology as the governing party. The last change of guards took place in the middle of a financial and economic crisis involving the destruction of quantities of wealth unprecedented in all history, with more destruction coming. Yet when the new president appointed officials at the Treasury, confirmed others at the Federal Reserve, and named economic advisors, they turned out to be the same men who were responsible for the credit collapse in the first place.

Not only do these officials continue the dangerous course of the previous administration; they increase the stakes by several orders of magnitude in announcing more government spending, more government debt, and more fiat money creation.

When the economic pain inflicted on the people reaches unbearable heights, anarchy and chaos will ensue. This is precisely what the great monetary tradition of the English-speaking countries, in ruling out irredeemable currency and mandating a metallic monetary standard, was designed to prevent.



[link to www.drschoon.com]

Aw, crud.
I was hoping that gold & silver would take a temporary decline in price.
Just in time to stock up at somewhat economical prices.

But if this keeps up, we might see a HUGE jump gold & silver really soon. :/

House Passes Bill With “Global Bailout” Provision

Billions in taxpayer dollars to be handed over to European banks through the IMF

Steve Watson
Infowars.net

The House has passed a war funding bill which had tagged onto it a completely unrelated provision to hand over $5 billion to secure $108 billion in loans to the IMF.

The chamber voted 226 to 202 yesterday to forward the legislation to the Senate, which may take it up later this week, reports Bloomberg News.

The measure in the bill will also increase the U.S. member contribution to the IMF by $8 billion and authorize the United States to back the IMF’s plan to sell 400 tons (12.97 million ounces) of gold.

It was placed in the bill at the behest of the Obama administration in order to fulfill the president’s pledge to the G20 in April, to contribute toward a $500 billion boost for the IMF, which it says will go toward “helping poorer nations” during the economic downturn.

However, as we have previously reported, the proposal constitutes an international version of the Wall Street bailout; a $100+ billion bailout for the IMF, which amounts to a bailout for European banks facing big losses in Central and Eastern Europe.

“This will directly benefit Western Europe’s banks, ensuring that their CEE subsidiaries will receive the support they need to weather the recession and remain lucrative businesses.” a Banking Business Review report stated at the time.

Democratic leaders in the House needed 18 of the 51 rebels who previously voted against an earlier draft of the bill, most on anti-war platforms, to reverse their defection and vote yes in order to overcome an almost unanimous Republican opposition.

According to various reports emanating from Capitol Hill, Influential Democrats including Hillary Clinton, and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former member of the House leadership, were among those making calls to the potential rebels in an effort to sweet talk them into changing their minds.

It transpired that 19 Democrats dropped their anti-war principals and voted for the legislation.

In order to further woo the potential rebel Democrats, leaders dropped a provision from an earlier draft of the legislation aimed at blocking an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking the release of photos showing American military personnel abusing prisoners.

The decision was made easier by the fact that president Obama announced that he would personally block any attempt to release the photos.

“Passing a $108 billion global bailout on the backs of our soldiers is just not right,” said Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the chamber’s No. 3 Republican. “Emergency war funding bills should be about emergency war funding.”

Several other leading House Republicans – including the minority leader, John Boehner, and the whip, Eric Cantor – also referred to the IMF provision as a “global bailout”.

In addition to allocating about $80 billion to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, the bill also proposes $1 billion to pay for “cash for clunkers” vouchers of $3,500 to $4,500 for people who turn in older gas-guzzling cars and buy new ones.

The bill also includes almost $8 billion to fight the flu pandemic.

Democrats will need 60-vote super majorities in the Senate to see the bill passed into law

We have previously highlighted the ongoing agenda to vastly empower the IMF and transform the institution into a “bank of the world” with the power to print its own currency.

This is not a “conspiracy theory”.

As the Washington Post highlighted, the agenda is laid out in publicly available internal IMF documents, interviews and think-tank reports.

It is part of an open move to empower a group of unelected central bankers with the authority to usurp state sovereignty by overseeing benchmarks for national economic governance and setting regulations for financial institutions all over the globe.

As we have also previously highlighted, both the IMF and the United Nations have thrown their weight behind proposals to implement a de-facto global financial dictatorship.

Both bodies have expressed support for new world reserve currency system to replace the dollar as part of the acceleration towards a new economic world order.

this is concerning me as well. im gonna have to take a hit/fees to make a w/d in order to convert some $$ into metals.

24hr gold chart

[link to www.kitco.com]

Hey, at least you CAN buy precious metals right now.
I'm in the process of moving house at the moment.
I don't want to risk one of the moving men 'moving' my back up fund.

Well, I could always stock up on packaged foodstuffs instead.


With Germany posting gold dispensing ATMs, and now this news story that you posted...I'm really, REALLY concerned about the prices going through the roof at any moment.

ive been waiting to see if any red flags/alarms would go off re a gold confiscation. it happened once - which is why im apprehensive in doing it.

hmmm will we have to recieve the devils mark to purchase goods

i see the US going cashless by 2011. most employers here in Pa are paying wages by employer debit card for those w/o a bank acct, the state welfare system has been paying benefits via access card/unemployment & workers comp too & even the social security admin pays beneficiaries w/o a bank acct via gov issued debit cards.

How would they even know if you have any sort of old gold or silver laying around your house in the first place?

They can't possibly track every single scrap of precious metal in each household in America.

omegas thread on that article was a shocker to me. i dont think we will see that here. every time someone mentions the gold standard the pollies put it on ignore.

a thread months ago detailed that the new world monetary order system will be backed by gold - in essence a virtual/digital gold.

damn you get up early...you got a whole hour on this and I have not had my first cup of coffe yet...betcha the gold goes to china...wanna bet?

i cant answer that - but best to my knowledge, information & belief.... under current federal law, gold bullion can be confiscated by the federal government in times of national crisis. as collectibles, rare coins do not fall within the provisions permitting confiscation.

however....theres this:
No federal law or Treasury department regulation supports these contentions.

The myth that specific types of gold coins are "not confiscateable" stems from the Executive Order that President Roosevelt issued in 1933 calling in gold. The Executive Order exempted "gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins," but it did not define special value or collector, and certainly not collectibles. Nevertheless, telemarketers promoting old U.S. gold coins perpetuate this myth because it makes easier the selling of high-priced coins.

Just because Roosevelt exempted "gold coins having a recognized special value" does not mean that any future call-in would exempt collectibles. Roosevelt's Executive Order would have no legal binding on another gold call-in. Besides, on December 31, 1974, with Executive Order 11825, President Gerald Ford repealed the Executive Order that Roosevelt used to call in gold in 1933. This was necessary because on the same day Congress restored Americans' right to own gold. Furthermore, in 1977 Congress removed the president's authority to regulate gold transactions during a period of national emergency other than war.

Even if a law did exempt certain coins from future confiscation, the government could change that law. Sadly, the government often simply ignores laws. Dealers who say they sell "non-confiscateable" gold have no basis for making such claims

which leaves me apprehensive bc i do not trust the gov. im gonna do it anyway, but not with everything i have.

hadda make drewskii breakfast so i was up at 430. im not takin that bet AV

thanks for the pin trin

I was at the Mall on Tuesday and there was a kiosk/cart for selling your gold. I haven't seen this anywhere else but there...I mean yeah, I have seen the commercials on television and the ads in the newspaper, but a KIOSK?

Which makes me think with all of the stuff going on in the Middle East and North Korea, the natives in other countries are getting restless. This explains the sudden shift in gold.

-Economy goes sour.
-People invest in 'old faithful' i.e. precious metals
-War/economic collapse breaks out
-Confiscation/Shakedown

I still would like to invest in some kind of precious metal, just because it's the wise thing to do during hard times. It's difficult to do at the moment.

seriously? yea our cable system over advertises those same commercials but ive yet to see a kiosk cart locally on gold.

see....i said last summer on here, that with all these 'ads' to buy your gold - "they" know something, besides capitalizing on ppl's financial straits. i felt that the gov is behind these companies and taking what tangible value in metals we have outside of a confiscation. know what i mean?

as a kid my father would save coin/change in mayo jars and put them on the shelf in his closet.

little did i know, 4 of those jars were SILVER coin. i raided one jar for arcade money. took the jar down to where he noticed. man did he rip me a new asshole. i had no idea. i was 12.

Yeah, I actually walked by it a couple of times to make sure it was real. I was there to help find a gift at Bath/body works or one of those stores us men don't care for. It was odd as it was a young kid...maybe in his early 20s sitting there.

This is the mall I saw it at:
[link to www.galleriaatsunset.com]

drewce is thinking of partnering with this guy we know on a pawn shop. we dont have one here in HBG. that one closed in 2005. everyone has to travel to york/lancaster.

the guy wanted to go that route specifically for the gold/silver not just the used stuff.

drews considering it. hes gonna decide here shortly.

this one also

[link to www.livecharts.co.uk]

Certainly seems like good timing still. I almost bought into the Networking/Gold jewelry parties that someone came up with last year.

I thought something was fishy about the superbowl 'gold' commercial...

Great post Phenom

Russia and China are basically stating that they're going to ass-fuk the U.S. with a promissory reach-around, which the U.S. will never get!

banana republic = sacagawea

This is huge. Here it comes.....

.

they shall cast there gold in the streets...

an economy that has a gold standard DOESNT GROW! it means economic stagnation! people who call for a gold standard are morons!