Discussion

hey,
thank you for all the books and audio books - they are really helpful and now I'm even satarting my own business :)

I didn't get the part about the Federal Reseve.
why it's not Federal, American, has no reserves and not a bank?

thanks again, Nir.

It is clear that money is no longer backed by gold, but merely by confidence in the future financial strength of the issuer. No confidence, no value??

Robert, I would refer anyone interested in this important issue, to a book called 'THE LOST SCIENCE OF MONEY' by Stephen Zarlenga. While I don't claim to be an expert, I have studied and pondered this issue for along time. One of the keys to a sound monetary system is that money gains it's value not by the intrinsic value of the material that the money is made of, but by the value denominated by the authority of the law of the land."MONEY IS AN ABSTRACT SOCIAL POWER BASED IN LAW" to quote from the above book. I used to believe the argument that money should gain it's value by virtue of being an IOU for real wealth, such as a weight of a precious metal, rather than be a fiat currency. Due to problems with supply of the commodity that might be used as a money token (gold could be one such) and the manipulation of commodities and value fluctuations, I now believe that fiat money works if the supply is balanced with production, and that because of the power that money gives the possessor to obtain goods and services from others, the creation of that money should not be the preserve of the private banking system, but is actually a sovereign right of governments on behalf of, and for the good of, it's citizens and the commonwealth of all. The founding fathers of the USA saw that the separation of powers of Executive, Judiciary and Legislation were crucial, but they did not strongly ringfence the Monetary power to be the sovereign right of the people through congress.
I think Robert is doing an important service by the publication of this new book, correctly naming the Federal Reserve Bank as a private organisation. I think that it is not the removal of the gold standard that we should focus on, it is the fact that the Banking cartels have power to create money/credit through the fractional reserve mechanism, and it their abuse of this power that has led to the present global crisis. The ultimate sovereign power of governments is evidenced by the fact that the banks have run begging for bailouts by the taxpayer. But where is the goverment getting these funds from? This is the kicker, we don't actually have it, so we are borrowing it from the banking system at interest, giving it back to the banks, and we will be paying interest on that $trillion dollars until death us do part.Now what we could do is create the money as a debt-free bill of credit, as we did in the War of Independence, and as Lincoln did during the American Civil War (greenbacks), owe nothing to the banking system, and the government would then spend it into infrastructure through the democratic political process.
Instead of my ad-hoc writings on the subject, may I refer the reader to the text of The American Monetary Act.
There is a critical 3 point plan to successfully take back the monetary power to congress, where it belongs, rather than the present privately owned monetary system.

I would like to make a comment about wallstreet's bailout....HOW ABOUT A TAXPAYERs BAILOUT? Seems like they got to have their cake & eat it too and the bailout was frosting with a cherry on top.

This is my own view,

Now to understand this Gold and Money Problem the USA and the rest of the world are facing today, we need to look back at the Author of all these issue.

God made man, Man made money, Money confused man, Man move round a circle.

The solution might be simpler that we think if we are serious about finding it and how do we find it? By looking at the Author definition of money (wealth) and with what he linked it to. Who is this Author? Is name is called GOD or the Forces, or Nature or called it what ever you know how to call it.

The written record of God can be seen in a book called the “Bible” (this book is not difficult to find in any bookshop) it says that Abraham (The man from who most of us in today’s world sprung up from was rich in Gold, Silver, Cattle, Sheep and Servants (male and female).

What does that definition says? Simple: money can’t be tied to “Gold” alone but must include other goods and services and their productive power. If you can beat this definition then I will like to know it.

What is happening in the US today is called “Gross Mismanagement on a massive scale.”

I think for people who have read all of your other books, the gold standard makes sense. But for new readers, they may be a bit confused about how getting away from the gold standard turned all of these dollar bills that we have into funny money. The one thing I don't fully understand is what triggers the government to print more money? Is it that they have a $100 million bill to pay, so they go down to the mint and hit "print"? Or is it because there's a cycle of money going back into the mint, and they burn some of the money up, and replace it with new?

Sometime before President Nixon took us off the gold standard, Harry Browne wrote a book entitled How You Can Profit From the Coming Devaluation, which predicted that the dollar would be devalued (it would take more dollars to buy an ounce of gold). I can't remember whether he also predicted that the United States would abandon the gold standard altogether, but I vaguely remember that he might have, and he did go into great detail to explain how political decisions tend to favor inflation and why hyperinflation was inevitable. Anyway, I didn't read his book until after we were taken off the gold standard, but a co-worker who had read the book in time to profit from it and had recommended the book to me was making a lot of money investing in gold and silver. I don't know how is is doing now. Harry Browne later became the Libertarian Party's candidate for President of the United States twice.

Yes, I understand the impact. Now, what is the solution? What can we do to course correct this direction. I am very pragmatic and solution oriented. We have a problem, okay - moving on, what do we do to fix the problem? Let's get to the meat of action.

When Nixon took us off the gold standard, he wanted to create hyperinflation (or deflation). He thought he could start another Great Depression, and it would be good for the country. What he didn't bargain for was sharp individuals who would take advantage of that.

The dollar is basically a lick and a promise. It has nothing backing it. How do we fix this? Someone brought up the Constitution. The problem is, even though we know that taking the dollar off the gold standard is illegal according to the Constitution, our current crop of legislators and judges don't seem to recognize that because they are viewing the Constitution as a "living document" that changes with the times.

My father in law had a strange solution to this issue: void all the money and then determine what an hour's worth of work was worth. Strange, but it could work.

I've heard it said that paper will lay down for anything. In this case, it's very true.

I NEED TO DO MY RESEARCH ON THAT ONE.......