How They Might Save Themselves from Hanging*

( * even though they deserve it )

16 October 2022

Fiat currency in general and the Federal Reserve System specifically have fueled a century of inflation, graft, and elective war. Throughout history, governments have found the power to counterfeit almost irresistible, and it inevitably results in both financial and cultural dissipation, usually ending in horrific violence. Sometimes, as in the case of the Soviet Union, the violence is relatively restrained. Nevertheless, after people get cold and hungry enough, they will turn on their masters and destroy them, too often instituting even more predatory regimes.

The united States have followed the same arc, but they have benefited from a couple of advantages. The industrial revolution has conferred such great prosperity, that pernicious inflation has allowed the criminal class to enrich themselves almost unnoticed as the producers also advanced (albeit less than they would have with a more stable currency) and surviving a global war has allowed it to offer its own corrupt currency as the international standard, thereby allowing them to export the symptoms of their larcenous monetary policies.

But “American Exceptionalism” refers, contrary to localist conceit, not to an exemption from the consequences of natural law, but to our unique founding predicated on individual liberty rather than on divine right or ethnic homogeneity. No one escapes natural law, not even superstitious American nationalists.

So the future looks grim. But not certain. Before we follow the paths of Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe, or Venezuela and end up with our own native version of Nazis or Bolsheviks, I’d like to offer a way out.

Early evening in the home of Mr and Mrs America, as the credits begin to roll after the end of their favorite sitcom, the television screen goes black, flickers momentarily, then lights up to show the President seated at his desk in the Oval Office. The soothing voice-over announces, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States.”

“My fellow Americans, I don’t need to tell you that inflation has been eating us alive, especially after the last disastrous administration. And since I neither desire nor expect to be re-elected, I’m not afraid to tell you the truth. There’s no easy way out. But the least hard way, the least destructive way, is a return to Constitutional principles, the same principles that made America the greatest, freest, most prosperous, and most humane nation in the history of the world.

“Since the beginning of our Constitutional Republic, America has never demonetized its currency, but since the institution of the illegal, immoral, and unconstitutional Federal Reserve System, we have steadily and perniciously devalued our currency until today’s so-called Dollar is just a shadow of its former glory.

“Effective immediately, the Mints and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will cease production of all base metal tokens and Federal Reserve Notes, and the Federal Reserve System will be closed. In five hundred days, about a year and a half from now, all Federal Reserve Notes will be demonetized, and all debased metal tokens masquerading as Lawful Coins minted after 1964, Nickel and Copper Five Cent Pieces minted after 1938, and Copper and Zinc One Cent Pieces minted after 1958 will also be demonetized. Buffalo Nickels, Wheat Cents, Lawful Gold and Silver Coins, United States Notes, Silver Certificates, and Gold Certificates will continue to be honored at face value.

“To reflect the disparity in values between Constitutional Currency and Federal Reserve scrip, government checks will be reduced to one fiftieth of their nominal value, and redeemable in Lawful Coin. During this transition period, existing Federal Reserve branches will be repurposed as redemption centers, and Federal Reserve scrip will be redeemed at the same ratio. As market conditions evolve, this ratio will be adjusted, probably upward, on a weekly basis. To facilitate this transition, any advance tax payments will be accepted in Federal Reserve scrip and will be fully creditable for the life of the taxpayer. If you’ve got a million paper dollars you want to drop on us, you may never have to pay taxes again, and depending on the size of that credit, that surplus may also be applied to your heirs’ future tax bills.

“Many may wonder… Is there enough gold and silver available for this to work? We’ll find out, but in order to smooth this transition, the Mints have been instructed to mint Silver Coins on demand. Show up at a Redemption Center with twenty-four grams of pure silver, and you can walk away with a Silver Dollar or ten Silver Dimes. Furthermore, we are also monetizing certain foreign Silver Coins. For brief example, Canadian Silver Caribou Quarters minted prior to 1967 will be Twenty Silver Cents, Canadian Silver Schooner Dimes minted prior to 1967 will be Eight Silver Cents, and Swiss Silver Francs minted prior to 1968 will be Twenty Silver Cents. For numerous other options, see our schedule of equivalents now posted on-line at Sound-as-a-Dollar dot gov.

“So get out your checkbooks, if you can afford it now, and pay up your taxes for the next few years. Then dig out Grandpa’s cigar box and start spending those old Mercury Dimes into circulation again. Let’s get America back on solid ground. I know this transition will be awkward, but as The Bard reminds us, If ’twere done, ’twere well it were done quickly.

“Thank you, good night, and God Bless the United States of America.”

see also:

Keep Cash Alive – Global Walk Out

meanwhile…

The Currency Buds – 211202
(meter stolen from Jimmy Driftwood)

Long about 1865, the French and the Swiss thought trade was jive!
“We ought to adopt a common currency!”
And so, they organized the Latin League.
The Franc was defined in Silver and Gold,
And the Lire and Peseta jumped in the fold!
They had the goods, and they had the cash,
And the market fired up like a birthday bash!

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!

In ’73 the USA, thought they’d jump in and join the fray!
“If we make our Dime just a little bit light,
It’ll match up with Half a Franc just right!”
So the Western world had the finest of times,
Hustlin’ their goods ‘cross the border lines!
Reliable money worked as slick as you please,
Then it all blew away in the War Storm’s breeze.

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!

Fiat scrip’s now here to stay, so hide your silver and gold away.

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!
(That’s good money…)

Sucker Bucks  — 140430  (original meter?)

I pulled into the QuikkStopp™, to check my manifest.
The price I saw for gasoline, well it put me to the test.
The sign said, “Bring your silver.  We’ll gladly make a deal.”
For just two silver dollars, a full tank and a good hot meal!
A paper “dollar” don’t go too far
When you try to put gasoline in your car.
Groceries, rent, and an MP3, underwear, and an orange tree,
A six-pack, chips, or a pack of smokes,
These sucker bucks are a sad sad joke!

So they call it Quantitative Easin’, but it’s their skids they’re greasin’.
The banksters keep on squeezin’ while the workers take their beatin’!
We’re just tryin’ to make a livin’ but we’re givin’ up on givin’
Our hopes or votes to more rich parasites.
It’s long past time that we adjust our sights!

If you make from silver or you make it from gold,
If you give it some value a man can hold.
If you give it some weight he can feel in his hand,
Then good’s good enough for a workin’ man.

“Go Look at Woods’ Thing”

31 December 2022

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12 January 2023 —
To the The Tattooed Trekkie® and The Squariest of the Squares®

Ledy & Xujjon,
It was very kind of ya’ll to include me in your recent festivities. Even if the inclusion was simply a matter of adding my address to a file and letting machinery do the rest, someone took the effort to do so, and I am grateful.
The beautiful wedding portrait was most apt, as the Wuhan Willies® inflicted enormous damages on individuals (like murdering my mom by house arrest in Oregon) and on society in general (by unleashing hordes of Maskerati and Jabolins to hector and harangue those of us unwilling to pretend that we’re all surgeons.) The shutdown was additionally difficult for those of us who are already socially retarded, and the enforced isolation hardly helped to improve our skills.
But you offered comforts and consolations beyond the regularly scheduled podcasts. It was a delight to witness the budding romance of The Tattooed Trekkie® and The Squariest of the Squares®. Many may have offered scorn (based on their own deficiencies) while most of us cheered you on, reveling vicariously in the joys ya’ll expressed throughout.
The enclosed is a gift, and therefore entails no obligation on your part. It is my hope that someone there will find it entertaining (or at least interesting.) The story is NOT “child-friendly” but hardly too heavy for bright adolescents. If no one there likes it, my hope is that it be passed on to someone else whom might.
While I lean closer to Xujjon culturally, I still consider Ledy to be among my staunchest of allies. And despair not, Ledy, the tide may be turning yet in your favor. More basic moral values, like responsibility, resolve, dignity, honesty, and coherence, seem to be resurging lately, so we could be witnessing the Dawning of the Age of the Squariest.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars”
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o 
Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas; 76903

A Cost/Benefit Analysis

4 September 2022

correspondents Jizeg and Ffjigh wish to make it known that it costs only $0.00 to remind someone that they are not alone in the world.

I’m not convinced about that figure.
Not knowing the exchange rate, the fact that it requires finite time and effort is still not sufficient information, but it seems likely to be over $0.00.
Unless it is being suggested that that is the net cost, in which case it’s still amazing that the costs and benefits would so exactly match each other!

Frankly, I think I’m actually getting the better end of the deal.

Because, at least in the philosophical all mankind sense,
I love Jizeg and Ffjigh and you.
And I derive benefit from sharing that.

Ending the F’eral Reserve

27 July 2022

correspondent Tyguop-Ojgezfe Wumim wonders what happens after we End the Fed. It seems like we’re dependent on their system. I wonder how long it would take, and if anyone is prepared for the chaos the transition will create.

There are a multitude of transactional options available with a robust de-regulated securities market and instantaneous communication. You may well be faced with the agonizing choices of GoldPass, The Confederate Mint, or DigitalExpress all vying for your trade, be they Silver Dollars, grams of gold, or the latest electric tulip bulbs. Greedy merchants and savvy consumers always find “… uh… a way.”

Wumim opines further: I’ve heard people talking about global resets and money magically appearing…I think it will be precious metals, clean water, and land.

I’m not so sure about magical reappearances, but I do know that there are already lots of gold and silver coins out there, and people will adjust to them as quickly as needed to get dinner on the table. Of course, all transitions are awkward and clumsy and uncomfortable, but practice makes improvement. Money is anything that holds value (beaver pelts, grams of gold, silver quarters, clean water, high test hootch, canned goods, ammunition…) and currency is anything that circulates in place of money. For millennia, after every fiat fiasco, we have always returned to gold and silver coin.

15 October 2022

In order for a State to “end inflation” it must nullify the unconstitutional legal tender laws, repudiate the F’eral Reserve, and reinstitute lawful money in the form of gold and silver coin. The US Constitution does not prohibit any of those acts, any more than it prohibits secession. But FedGov is still more heavily armed.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars”
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o
Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas; 76903

Dumping on Digits?

1 November 2021

The most popular and well known of an emerging class of “crypto-currencies,” BitCoin™ is a digital product without physical backing or central controlling authority beyond the parameters of its internal definition. It has been described as a “peer-to-peer” record of solutions to mathematical puzzles known as a “blockchain.”

It has been decried by its detractors as the ultimate fiat, insofar as it has no material backing, and lauded as the savior of civilization as a currency which cannot be inflated without limit, nor controlled by any bureaucracy. Like metals, crypto satisfies many of the necessary criteria of a serviceable currency — it is scarce, it is readily recognizable (to those familiar with it), it is easily divisible, and it is fungible. Even if it neither clinks like metals nor rustles like paper. And it seems to be dependent on modern tech to be recognized and manipulated, but that’s a small problem, as long as the ‘net stays up and electrons continue to race around circuitry.

But metals’ greatest fans remain leery of it, or of it’s smaller subdivision the Satoshi, while many of its boosters earnestly defend it against the criticisms of “goldbugs” and other obsolescent old relics like your genial host.

correspondent TC is particularly passionate, stating that “Relying on metals in the age of the internet is stupid. [Peter] Schiffian goldbugs are cultists worse than the covidiots.” Which invites the question, how am I “worse than the covidiots?” Was it my effort to destroy the economy, murder the elderly, or abuse children? Or simply to squirrel away some secure savings that would survive both regime changes AND power outages? So many crimes. Which did he catch me committing?

correspondent TC responds: “Its [sic] your intransigence in simultaneously raising gold to a holy status while denigrating crypto as funny money. Your comment about a power outage already tells me you don’t know anything about it.  Besides if we’re preparing for the end of the world, I have a box of bullets that’s worth more than all the gold in your safe.  People like Schiff have just raised the deception to an art form. The comparison to the ‘covidiots’ is the unwillingness to learn, grow, apply logic and reason.

I appreciate TC‘s refining his definition of my allegedly “covidiotic” misbehavior or misapprehension, but he still raises more questions than he answers, as he goes on to advise me to “[d]o whatever you want with your wealth, just stop trying to tell me crypto is bullshit and gold is magic. They are at best on equal footing, and that’s being generous.”

TC seems to have mistaken my curiosity for an inability to compromise or to learn (“intransigence”), as well as inferring a mysticism (conferring a “holy status” onto the profane) that is antithetical to empiricism. In order for me to “stop” telling him that “crypto is bullshit and gold is magic” I would have to first START. Someone seems to have tapped a well of hostility within him, and he’s vomited it all over me. But I have a generous heart and am willing to leave such emotionalism behind.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of “transigence” I’m eager to learn new things, and generally grateful for correction. So I posed this question to him: Lacking electrical power (including batteries or photoelectric transformers), please explain how I might purchase or spend a Satoshi or two. Can a verifiable “block-chain” be expressed manually? I (mis?)understand that all digital products are ultimately sequences or matrices of ‘nits and noughts. Finally, I advised TC to be wary of assuming that I have (or anyone else has) neglected ANY of the four metals of freedom: gold, silver, copper, AND LEAD!

correspondent TC has so far declined to respond.

correspondent Otmia Unogsy, meanwhile, points out that “crypto currencies DO have a physical backing. The devices you use, mining equipment, computers. All essential physical things in an internet age.” By the same token, of course, F’eral Reserve “Dollars” also have a similar “physical backing.” Their value is supported by the “full faith and credit” of the united States’ military reputation, and their demonstrated ability to obliterate would-be competitors to petro-dollar hegemony. The important difference between “support” and “backing” is convertibility. Remove the support, and the value evaporates, whereas gold and silver retain their value irrespective of the fate of the backing authority. I have silver and gold coins that were issued by extinct governments, and they are still just as valuable as equivalent lumps of metal.

correspondent LR-L offers a few kind words, and adds that he is “a ‘diversify’ guy” himself “with an admitted bias toward the post-collapse value of boxes of lead denominated in grains per unit.” He concludes from my thoughts, and from the various responses that I provoked, that there exists a “need to do a Kickstarter for the Well of Hostility®, although what form that should take is proving a stubborn idea.” 

The Fixed Game

correspondent KJ asks:
“Why do people confuse corporate capitalism with libertarianism?”

correspondent Bret Hinowi is also particularly puzzled, insofar as “corporatism is bipartisan policy. They seem to want to defend it and oppose it at the same time.”

I too am sad, but hopeful anyway, as long as there are still people like me around to come up with answers to KJ’s and others’ questions. Maybe the insights are helpful.

People don’t like thinking.
Thinking is hard. It’s easier to equate tropes.
Corporadoes and Banksters deal in money and “capitalists are all about making money” so therefore our corporatist (or “fascist,” Benito had a hard time deciding which) status quo is called “capitalist” in spite of the mountains of impedimenta erected by the state, and the special favors offered to loyal campaign contributors.

Leftists, mystics, and children believe that buying bureaucrats and legislators are “free market” activities. PJ O’Rourke reminds us that when legislatures are charged with deciding what gets bought or sold, then the first things bought or sold are legislators.

We don’t need to get all the big money out of politics.
We need to get all the big politics out of our money.

correspondent Von Tietje wonders: “How many actual scientists do you know?

Golly, in light of my Mom once asserting that she knew me better than I knew myself, I have to doubt if I really know any other scientists either.

So… let’s pretend it’s zero. How would that disqualify me from analyzing mathematical models or understanding the difference between the literal and the allegorical? Many lay enthusiasts are well versed in arcana outside their professions. A draft dodger can be an astute military analyst and a paraplegic can be well schooled in baseball, and I may not even be an actual scientist or engineer.
Maybe, like Charlie, “I’m not even here!”

Strictly Minimum™

15 May 2021

Hereafter, given a choice, I will no longer work for more than the statutory minimum wage, and will take partial payment in CASH, meaning United States Legal Tender® Gold or Silver Coins at face value.  Naturally, the proportion of specie to F’eral Reserve® Digits will be negotiable, but the total must never be more than Strictly Minimum™!

Go Strictly Minimum™.  Minimum tax liability helps to starve the beast and gun ownership helps to hold it at bay.  Transact in silver coins at face value, at currently a 97%(?) discount against F’eral Reserve® Digits (aka ClowNotes™, Sucker Bux™, or United States Legal Tender®).  Work for minimum wage and take partial (negotiable) advance payment in U$LT® silver coin at face value.  DO NOT redeem specie for F’eral paper with your employer or you are professing a tax liability.

correspondent KE expresses some (familiar and fully justified) doubts about my sincerity and/or my sanity.  She’s not always sure, and I don’t blame her because I am a lifelong sarcastic prick.

I am utterly sincere.  If tax forms are ever involved again, I will not realize more than the statutory minimum.  Fuck the state and fuck its war machine.  Far too much of my money has already been used to murder children.  The Demoblican Occupation (and their Stockholm Syndrome Cheerleaders) won’t stop until they are completely powerless or until WE are all dead.

The Currency Buds – 211202
(meter stolen from Jimmy Driftwood)

Long about 1865, the French and the Swiss thought trade was jive!
“We ought to adopt a common currency!”
And so, they organized the Latin League.
The Franc was defined in Silver and Gold,
And the Lire and Peseta jumped in the fold!
They had the goods, and they had the cash,
And the market fired up like a birthday bash!

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!

In ’73 the USA, thought they’d jump in and join the fray!
“If we make our Dime just a little bit light,
It’ll match up with Half a Franc just right!”
So the Western world had the finest of times,
Hustlin’ their goods ‘cross the border lines!
Reliable money worked as slick as you please,
Then it all blew away in the War Storm’s breeze.

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!

Fiat scrip’s now here to stay, so hide your silver and gold away.

The currency buds thought trade was keen,
That tariffs were lame and taxes were mean.
If you had silver or you had the gelt,
Then exchange rate trauma was a pain not felt!
(That’s good money…)

Sucker Bucks  — 140430  (original meter?)

I pulled into the QuikkStopp™, to check my manifest.
The price I saw for gasoline, well it put me to the test.
The sign said, “Bring your silver.  We’ll gladly make a deal.”
For just two silver dollars, a full tank and a good hot meal!
A paper “dollar” don’t go too far
When you try to put gasoline in your car.
Groceries, rent, and an MP3, underwear, and an orange tree,
A six-pack, chips, or a pack of smokes,
These sucker bucks are a sad sad joke!

So they call it Quantitative Easin’, but it’s their skids they’re greasin’.
The banksters keep on squeezin’ while the workers take their beatin’!
We’re just tryin’ to make a livin’ but we’re givin’ up on givin’
Our hopes or votes to more rich parasites.
It’s long past time that we adjust our sights!

If you make from silver or you make it from gold,
If you give it some value a man can hold.
If you give it some weight he can feel in his hand,
Then good’s good enough for a workin’ man.

Commie Trek®

12 April 2021Star Trek® is a wonderful fantasy whose benign communism only works internally because replicator tech has eliminated most scarcity. As a consequence, there’s no need for mass murder to balance the books. It’s make believe, and many Trekkies know this, and we try to be patient with our leftie friends. But it’s hard. Sometimes it’s really really hard.

210712Speaking a bit more than nonsense, and, “as a huuuuuge Star Trek fan.….” a cordial correspondent agrees with my assessment. “But even in Star Trek, we humans are still subject to our natures. With a replicator and a holodeck, what makes you want to go out and be a productive member of society? Replicate some burgers and go plug in Lonely Space Vixens XVIII® .

230907 — correspondent Towlej Jumuk points out that “even with the replicators Star Trek® had quite a bit of capitalism. Kirk® trading for Dilithium Crystals®, poker game in the next generation.Jum includes this comment from Captain Janeway® to Commander Tuvok®: “No matter how vast the differences may be between cultures, people always have something that somebody else wants. And trade is born.” I am grateful to both Jum and Janeway’s writers for the reminders. Hopeless leftists that they are, they can’t help themselves. Trek® writers try to depict realistic human emotions, and human action ALWAYS spawns rational market activity. Bless their squishy commie hearts, even as they express the inherent contradictions of their cherished belief systems, doublethink protects them from seeing it.

211009 — in other Trekterpretations®… Spiders are clearly the Klingons® of our present Terrestrial Federation — staunch allies, dangerous foes, and creepy as all get out. Of course I am grateful and respectful, when I find one in the house I usually manage to safely transport it out so that it can resume defending the frontier. I guess that makes Dragonflies the Vulcans ®— also a little weird, but overall benign and exotically beautiful.

shown: Admiral Ball as a young communications ensign,
rockin’ that mini!

Hard Money

19 April 2002

You don’t see them much anymore, but every so often, when going through your change, you may catch a glint of something. It’s a whiter metal, with a unique luster, like moonlight reflecting off honey. Silver. It’s what made up America’s coins when we had a government with a little more integrity and a Dollar with real value.

Or maybe you got a few bills in change and noticed an odd one. The seal and the serial number were different, blue or red ink perhaps, or there was a little extra printing that spelled out how the instrument worked.

THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND
PRIVATE, AND IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED
STATES TREASURY, OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK.

The note made no pretense of being lawful money itself, it simply promised to pay up if the bearer chose to redeem it for lawful money.

What then is “lawful money”? Lawful in the context of American money means in accord with Constitutional principles. Article 1, Section 8 spells out the delegated powers of the Congress, and Paragraphs 5 and 6 stipulate that the Congress shall have the power to Coin money and regulate its value, and to provide for the punishment of the counterfeiting of the coin and securities of the United States. It goes on to state, in Section 10, Paragraph 1, that no State shall make anything but Gold and Silver Coin a tender in payment of debts. Lawful money then, in America, at least, is either Gold or Silver Coin, or reliable receipts (bank notes, warehouse markers, merchant chits, or even government bonds) that may be redeemed for a specific quantity of Gold or Silver. Congress has the power to COIN money and to regulate its value. To coin money is to stamp an image into a disc of precious metal. It is not to delegate to a private cabal of bankers the authority to print piles of paper notes having no intrinsic value themselves beyond the “full faith and credit” of the government. The promises of the government have a way of being easily forgotten whenever it’s convenient for the Congress or the White House to infuse a batch of paper into the economy to stimulate some favored sector or to enrich well-connected contributors.

If I had my way there’d be a silver dollar in the hand of every American, and gold coins in the bank for every worker or investor cashing a dividend or paycheck.

Before 1913 and the passage of the unlawful Federal Reserve Act, the “price of gold” was $20.67 per troy ounce. Of course, in that context, the “price of gold” is a misnomer. It wasn’t that gold was found to have that temporary market value in dollars, but that the dollar was defined by statute to be that specific quantity of metal. Today, in violation of the Constitution, our government no longer guarantees the value of our currency. Democrat Lyndon Johnson’s debasement of silver coinage and Republican Richard Nixon’s repudiation of the gold standard unleashed the inflation that has savaged our savings and eviscerated our investments for three decades. Gold now trades for about $300.00 to the ounce, and silver about $5.00. Or thereabouts. Try to pin it down sometime and it will wiggle away. It’s not the metal that fluctuates. Gold and silver are material, and their supply is fairly stable. It is the value of the dollar that won’t sit still, because it is not fixed to anything solid.

Ironically, today’s dollar is backed up by something more rare even than silver or gold, its value is guaranteed by political integrity. Consider this, when you fill a tire or bubble gum with hot air, you call it inflation. When something is filled up with nothing of value, it is inflated. It may look impressive, but it is light and insubstantial and its value is diminished. Inflation is good for balloons or anything else that you’d like to float, but we want our money to hold value and to retain that value over time. Once, it did. Of course, after it got to be considered inconvenient to carry around a lot of gold or silver coins, people came up with the idea of carrying warehouse receipts, notes that indicated that someone you could trust would hold your metal, and redeem it in coin or bullion when you turned in the note. Or you could trade notes. Easier on the pockets than jing jing jangling through the market. As long as the notes were understood to be redeemable, and the banks or merchants or refiners issuing them were known to be honest there was no problem. Bank notes were considered to be “as good as gold.” (And haven’t you ever wondered where THAT expression came from?)

Once governments discover the power to create money from paper, backed up by nothing more tangible than a politician’s promise, they inflate themselves into poverty and tyranny. The temptation is just too great. Many of us remember the near panic at the end of the seventies when silver soared to fifty dollars an ounce, and gold was pulled along with it to nearly a thousand. After twenty years of relative fiscal restraint, prices seem to be less volatile. But Ronald Reagan is out of office, and we can’t count on Alan Greenspan living forever. Sooner or later, an indulgent Congress or an adventurous President will unleash the power of the printing press and we’ll find ourselves reliving the horror of Weimar Germany. Or worse. It may appear that we’ve Whipped Inflation Now, but we cannot afford to push our luck.

As the Century of the Leviathan State withdraws into history, it is altogether fitting and proper that we return to the principles that bore this Republic, and restore honesty and durability to our national currency. It is the Federal government’s responsibility, and as your Congressman, it will be my duty, to insure a stable, inflation resistant currency based on Gold and Silver Coin.

update 180129: Okeh, swiping text from “Honest” Abe doesn’t seem either fitting or proper, but we fail now and then, and move on.

In 2002 much of America was still enamored of the Maestro (Mister Andrea); real estate just kept boomin’ along… Selling out and moving to the mainland in 2007 was probably my second best financial maneuver. Most lucrative remains that “honorable discharge.” Riding the real estate bubble might have been possible without it, but things were generally tight. Nevertheless, when a guy with a family and a steady job shows up at the mortgage office and says, “VA,” their eyes just light up! Following the philosophy of The Confederate Mint, I’ve squirreled away a bit of gold, silver, copper, and lead. Not enough gold or silver to inspire too many would be free lance socialists, but enough copper-jacketed lead to dissuade those who might otherwise be tempted.

These comments are sponsored by The Confederate Mint (purveyors of metallic securities in gold, silver, copper, and lead).  For sample sheets of Metallic Certificates (total face value One Tenth Silver Dollar) send One Silver Dime plus a self-addressed stamped envelope; or 
Four United States Legal Tender Federal Reserve “Dollars”
in scrip, check, or money order, to Greigh Area Associates,
c/o Gene Greigh // 401 Rio Concho Drive, #105;  San Angelo, Texas; 76903

Scrooge McMoneybags®

23 March 2021

correspondents IA & BA express concerns that the “pathological hoard[ing]” of cash by the monied elite could “impoverish [an] entire nation” and yet society lauds such miserly malefactors as “role models.”
And some offer lamentations of “glorify[ing] greed.”

Hoarding cash” impoverishes no one except perhaps the truly rare “pathological” miser, and even that’s arguable. He may get a rush out of it, but it’s his, so it “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Maybe he likes hookers and blow, too. What do I care?
Contrariwise, the accumulation of large resources permits long term delays of consumption on a massive scale, which can, for example, build a hydroelectric dam or fuel a moon launch. And even if the wealth is NOT invested, just the very removal of currency from circulation enhances the value of that which remains. If your megabucks are NOT bidding up prices, my meagre mites have more power.
And frankly, I find the exaltation of need to be symptomatic of the
greater pathology, and far more destructive.

Scrooge McDuck® et al are the creations of Carl Barks
and are held de jure by das MausenKorp®

Hotez Bears the WHO
(by Doctor Staccato)

Joe Rogan knows a showman shows,
And Rogan shows how much he knows,
But when his lacks to him occur,
To wiser heads he will defer.
But Hotez knows to go with flows,
And yield conclusions presupposed,
To carry forth his sponsors’ products:
Placebos palliating addicts.