FIAT CURRENCY – HOW HUMANITY HAS BEEN ENSLAVED WITH DEBT

[Bob BashboshParticipant 160]

Tiga K wrote:

Another shorter explaination of Hegelian dialectic:

http://theobserverwatches.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-hegelian-dialectic-in-action-two.html?m=1

Hahaha, what an excellent article.

“what about the childrenzzz?” – had me in stitches.

Don’t forget the timeless euphemism, “Lessons must be learned!”.

You know it’s frightening just how conspicuous this activity becomes when you start to familiarise yourself with the pattern. These days, on the rare occasions that I turn to mainstream media for current affairs updates, the first question I ask, in response to any alleged travesty is, which civil liberty will need to be curtailed in response to this development. Interestingly, it’s the political talk shows that often serve to clarify the underlying motive. In the case of the BBC’s ‘politics program’, one only needs to ascertain which of the guest ‘talking heads’ is treated most sympathetically by the host and voila!

Incidentally, what does anyone think of Jon Stewart? I have no idea where most of the US celebrity pundits stand with respect to mainstream politics.

[Tiga KParticipant 1693]

Glad you guys like the article. Reading redpill blogs is how I came to find this site. The Observer Watches, and that post in particular, are one of the ones that led to me finding mgtow.com. Also, I like the women driving video. It reminds of the parking lot I used in high school. The girls soccer team was insane. Some of them would occasionally get impatient with traffic and DRIVE ON THE SIDEWALK to the soccer field! They also launched out of their parking spaces like rockets at the end of the day and nearly rammed into the side of my truck one day.

As for Jon Stewart, I don’t know who he is. I don’t use television, radio, or social media so my only source of news is through word of mouth and this website.

[Bob BashboshParticipant 160]

Tiga K wrote:

…Some of them would occasionally get impatient with traffic and DRIVE ON THE SIDEWALK to the soccer field! They also launched out of their parking spaces like rockets at the end of the day and nearly rammed into the side of my truck one day.

Hahaha, maybe for my first non-introductory thread, I’ll raise the subject of female driving s-kill-zzzz, though I’m willing to bet serious money that the subject has been raised before. 😛

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Do you want convenience or reality?

I’m assuming by your asking the question that you’re going to assert we can’t have both. So the question becomes to what degree does reality, by which I will assume you mean “accurately reflects value”, interfere with convenience and vice versa?.

For a thing to be useful, it must be convenient to some degree. It wouldn’t make sense for us to be lugging around every possible commodity that, say, the turnip man might want every time we go to the marketplace to buy our turnips.. We may not even have the things the turnip man wants and we almost certainly don’t have the time to go all around town and trade everything everyone wants from everyone else in order to get the thing we need to trade for turnips. Even a small degree of inconvenience can dampen trade to the point that people don’t get what they want and need.

On the other hand, a symbolic form of value storage (money) that is portable, fungible, consistent, widely accepted and relatively trustworthy but which can be eroded through some means beyond the control of the person holding the money meets the need for convenience but may fail the test of “reality” to the degree that it can be hacked, falsified, counterfeited or otherwise devalued… i.e. a portion of its value “stolen” from the holder.

So given that we need a balance of “is convenient” and “accurately reflects value” I ask again. what is the solution?

[Big BossParticipant 4496]

Stargazer wrote:

So given that we need a balance of “is convenient” and “accurately reflects value” I ask again. what is the solution?

I already answered this question. Milton Friedman has explained that the best form money can take is basket “commodity” money. Not just a gold standard, but copper, nickel, silver, gold, and other forms of precious, semi-precious metals. As long as the coin’s metal holds the intrinsic value, it will have that and numismatic value and can be expanded.

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Sure, and I responded to that by asking how is that really any different from a gold standard?

Sure, by having different metal types collected into a single “basket” you can mitigate against inter-metal value fluctuations and it would be hard to create inflation or deflation artificially by adding or removing supply of any one metal type… but they’re all still metals and would all appear to be subject to many of the same manipulation that printed currency is.

Feel free to tell me that I’m not getting it because I don’t feel like I am. We’re not talking about a price-stable metaphorical basket of actual commodities here, we’re talking about storing value in and carrying around a pocket full of different types of precious metals, any one or all of which are no more stable than gold but which, taken together, may be more stable than gold over the long run, but they’re still representational tokens (you can’t eat copper) and therefore still subject to most of the issues that any form of currency would be, right?

First off, people who are poor in fiat currency tend to also be poor in precious metals so that doesn’t change, Metals, particularly rounds and bars, can be “watered down” so there are issues of coins with mint marks being more valuable (due to the faith in the mark itself) than equal mass of the raw metal… you still need marketplaces of exchange where buy and sell prices will vary in order for the changers to make profits… industrial use effects price, mining output effects price… recycling effects price… value of x-amount of metal in y-amount of good or service will still need to be determined and will fluctuate… and, above all, metals can be taxed and they can be stolen.

Even a sufficiently motivated manipulator with access to large metal reserves could totally undermine such a money system if they wanted to by hoarding metals out of the economy or dumping metals into the economy to change the money supply to their own ends and, thereby, the purchasing power of the entire basket.

Does simply having a few different types of precious metal in a portfolio together make some or all of these things not matter?

[Big BossParticipant 4496]

Stargazer wrote:

Sure, and I responded to that by asking how is that really any different from a gold standard?

Sure, by having different metal types collected into a single “basket” you can mitigate against inter-metal value fluctuations and it would be hard to create inflation or deflation artificially by adding or removing supply of any one metal type… but they’re all still metals and would all appear to be subject to many of the same manipulation that printed currency is.

Feel free to tell me that I’m not getting it because I don’t feel like I am. We’re not talking about a price-stable metaphorical basket of actual commodities here, we’re talking about storing value in and carrying around a pocket full of different types of precious metals, any one or all of which are no more stable than gold but which, taken together, may be more stable than gold over the long run, but they’re still representational tokens (you can’t eat copper) and therefore still subject to most of the issues that any form of currency are, right?

First off, people who are poor in fiat currency tend to also be poor in precious metals so that doesn’t change, Metals, particularly rounds and bars, can be “watered down” so there are issues of coins with mint marks being more valuable (due to the faith in the mark itself) than equal mass of the raw metal… you still need marketplaces of exchange where buy and sell prices will vary in order for the changers to make profits… industrial use effects price, mining output effects price… recycling effects price… value of x-amount of metal in y-amount of good or service will still need to be determined and will fluctuate… and, above all, metals can be taxed and they can be stolen.

Even a sufficiently motivated manipulator with access to large metal reserves could totally undermine such a money system if they wanted to by hoarding metals out of the economy or dumping metals into the economy to change the money supply to their own ends and, thereby, the purchasing power of the entire basket.

Does simply having a few different types of precious metal in a portfolio together make some or all of these things not matter?

Here you go son, and I was wrong it was Hayek not Friedman.

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Thanks, dad. Now you wanna summarize that for us? I promise I won’t accuse you of mansplaining.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

[SnakeSpectator 2080]

Thanks for the video, Big Boss. That Hayek guy sounds like a f~~~ing genius.

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

You see, this is why I love video posts as response. That post had nothing to do with my argument, it was a primer on how commodity baskets work… which I already explained in my post… and ONE example of how they could conceivably be better than the gold standard… except that the example had nothing to do with your comment or my question because the example talked about a broad spectrum of practical, useful commodities (wheat, sugar, copper, rubber) and not a variety of precious metals, as you proposed.

It was, therefore, pointless of you to post and a waste of four and a half minutes of my life to watch. You might have noticed that yourself if you’d answered my question in your own words rather than appealing to authority,

Now. Let’s say we DID go with an basket of diverse and useful commodities, what would they be, who would decide what they are, where would they be held, how would they be transmitted to the note bearer (I’d like my bushel of wheat, pound of sugar, coil of copper wire and, uh, package of rubbers now, please!) and how would any of this prevent theft, counterfeiting, undue seizure, loss to rot of the underlying commodities and any number of other problems?

The basket protects against fluctuations In the price of the single commodity (in the case of the gold standard) but does it solve the problems of taxation or interest? Nope. And there’s one thing that we’ve all forgotten to consider… the gold standard did not even guarantee price stability… because we abandoned it. Who is to say we would not later abandon any other, even more price stable form of currency?

Price stability depends less on whether money is “created out of thin air” and more on the credibility of the monetary authority to manage the economy’s money supply in a responsible manner.

Sooo… unless you’re proposing we do away with the current monetary authority and get a new one (the desire for which I suspect hides behind the currency rhetoric) then all this talk about stable currencies is completely irrelevant. Any monetary authority can f~~~ with any form of currency so why mask the true intention and muck about with all this BS when we can just tear down the current authority, put a new one in place and let the new, hypothetically more just money authority print currency then trust THEM to not inflate it? Good luck with THAT.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

Doc has a point here, the problem is the existence of authority. Corruption is just the natural flow of self serving psychopaths into authoritative positions of power. Any system that requires the “right” person to be in power is severely flawed. I think this quote just about covers it: https://everyotherdomainwastaken.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/img_0030.jpg?w=800

I don’t think anyone knows the solution, but we definitely all know the problem. If I had to guess the solution though, it’s for the populace as individuals to eliminate the necessity to trade. In other words, absolute independence and autonomy. I am hoping that technology will provide this. I am loving the possibilities of what 3D printers can do, including printing parts to create an additional 3D printer.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -Buckminster Fuller

[Tiga KParticipant 1693]

Stargazer wrote:

You see, this is why I love video posts as response. That post had nothing to do with my argument, it was a primer on how commodity baskets work… which I already explained in my post… and ONE example of how they could conceivably be better than the gold standard… except that the example had nothing to do with your comment or my question because the example talked about a broad spectrum of practical, useful commodities (wheat, sugar, copper, rubber) and not a variety of precious metals, as you proposed.

It was, therefore, pointless of you to post and a waste of four and a half minutes of my life to watch. You might have noticed that yourself if you’d answered my question in your own words rather than appealing to authority,

I also am not a big fan of video responses. It is nice to include sources if your viewers wish to explore them, but the reason I like debating online or reading others’ debates is so I can follow peoples’ thought processes. It’s quicker, simpler, and never includes YouTube advertisements!

[Tiga KParticipant 1693]

Veniversum wrote:

<iframe src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/GTQnarzmTOc?feature=oembed” allowfullscreen=”” frameborder=”0″ height=”281″ width=”500″></iframe>

Someone put time into that. Was entertaining.

[Big BossParticipant 4496]

Stargazer wrote:

You see, this is why I love video posts as response.

Now. Let’s say we DID go with an basket of diverse and useful commodities, what would they be, who would decide what they are, where would they be held, how would they be transmitted to the note bearer (I’d like my bushel of wheat, pound of sugar, coil of copper wire and, uh, package of rubbers now, please!) and how would any of this prevent theft, counterfeiting, undue seizure, loss to rot of the underlying commodities and any number of other problems?

The basket protects against fluctuations In the price of the single commodity (in the case of the gold standard) but does it solve the problems of taxation or interest?

because we abandoned it. Who is to say we would not later abandon any other, even more price stable form of currency?

Sooo… unless you’re proposing we do away with the current monetary authority and get a new one (the desire for which I suspect hides behind the currency rhetoric) then all this talk about stable currencies is completely irrelevant. Any monetary authority can f~~~ with any form of currency so why mask the true intention and muck about with all this BS when we can just tear down the current authority, put a new one in place and let the new, hypothetically more just money authority print currency then trust THEM to not inflate it? Good luck with THAT.

I posted it because of the last section. The point is you aren’t as savvy as a simple break down all the time. It helps to have SOME refresher on the subject not just for you but everyone else. Anyway the last section explains the flexibility of commodity without the “weakness” perceived by some of the gold standard.. Sorry for the delay as I was busy yesterday. Here are your answers.

1. Local commercial banks the traditional issuer of bank notes would decide as they did traditionally. See before the fed screwing everything up with their international/national fed note, it was banks like Jimmy Stewart’s local bank in “It’s a Wonderful Life” issued out certificates of deposits. Meaning you stored the held money there and they would issue out their certificates so you could carry those. Put in the approved commodity currency and banks issue you the note of how much is stored in your account. Simple.

Why local banks? Local banks actually provide a very important function in the business cycle and markets, they provide a balance between savers and spenders. But that is an entirely different subject and another video. So banks ARE needed, but what we have currently warps markets everywhere.

2. Taxation and interest isn’t a problem. And since you are not using a Fed note, you really won’t be subjected to an excise tax that is used to justify the income tax. That’s what it is, an excise tax on using federal reserve notes. Either way, taxes and interest isn’t a problem, they are part of a state economy. Are you simply looking for anything to bash it without understanding it? It sounds like you want the worst system possible and are desperate to keep up the current abuse. Honest question because I wasn’t following most of the thread. All I am proposing is something akin to what America had before before Brenton Woods II.

3. We abandoned it because we couldn’t keep control of the spending. So if we abandon it, we are in trouble again. BUT That isn’t the fault of the currency and its effectiveness, that is the fault of the people who are working to bring ruin to their own functioning society. You need to realize, we are aiming for the best currency and the one that can’t be abused. We can’t control people’s actual budgetary decisions on a national level unless we pass laws to punish people that refuse to balance the budget. That is two different elements.

4. Yes, I personally want to do away with our current monetary authority for one specific reason, fractional reserve banking HAS rapidly put an expiration date on our current system. B.R.I.C.S. nations understand the scam, and are taking steps to end dollar hegemony. Dollar hegemony was the primary reason the system worked. It is time to start moving to a more stable currency and get control of our debt and spending. If right after the Soviet Union collapse we quietly made it law to balance the budget and end fractional reserve currency, we would currently be fine since oil is a commodity and we would have ended the current abuse. We didn’t, now its all going to crap.

You know what’s funny? Your current preferred monetary authority was even being proposed to be changed from the Fed to the IMF back in 2009 son! They were going to go with IMF “special drawing rights’ to replace the Fed. Then Hugo Chavez blew that plan up by repatriating Venezuelan gold reserves in the bank of England back in 2010 which started a fire storm of gold buying by national entities like Germany, China, University of Texas and etc.

People KNOW the scam is ending at ALL levels, not just the crazy conspiracy guys who believe in reptiles. Anyone who has been following this drama since 2007 has seen a LOT of plans for changes on the horizon. You are running on pre-2008 propaganda just like Baghdad Bob saying the American’s have not entered Baghdad.

[VeniversumParticipant 492]

“That is SO boss!” – 19 year old girl

[StargazerParticipant 12505]

Big Boss wrote:

Put in the approved commodity currency and banks issue you the note of how much is stored in your account.

Let’s hope the “approved” commodities include everything that everyone has ready access to produce on their own, otherwise they’re going to have to barter or trade to get the approved commodities in order to deposit them and you’ve got the same basic problem all over again.

Big Boss wrote:

Taxation and interest isn’t a problem.

Somewhere up near the beginning of the thread it was stated that fiat currency allows the government to falsely collect taxes and banks and the wealthy to unfairly collect interest. I’ve argued repeatedly that these points are red herrings.

Big Boss wrote:

That isn’t the fault of the currency and its effectiveness, that is the fault of the people who are working to bring ruin to their own functioning society.

This is EXACTLY my point. It’s not about the currency at all and that renders 90% of what’s been said on this thread totally moot. “Fiat Currency – How Humanity Has Been Enslaved With Debt” maybe should have read “The Internatinal Banking Conspiracy has you, Neo!”

So can we PLEASE stop talking about currencies and get to the point? Some people are p~~~ed that rich people control s~~~ and they talk about taking away the tools they use to do it as though it will take away their power. Like I said, you can’t starve the dog by removing it’s bowl. If you believe the dog is a menace, either take it to the pound and get a new one or take it out in the yard and put it down. THAT is what we should be talking about, if we’re going to talk about a global conspiracy to keep working people in perpetual debt,

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