It’s all about the Benjamins
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
When the thirteen American colonies still fell under the providence of Great Britain, the currency in use was the British Pound Sterling. The word comes from the Roman word “pounds,” meaning “weight,” with one English Pound literally a pound of silver in weight.
The term “sterling” comes from the ancient Greek στερεός, or stereós, meaning solid, or durable. Because pure silver is a soft metal, silver coins are made from an alloy of “sterling silver” (92.5% silver and 7.5% copper) to increase their durability. “Money” is literally coinage made from precious metals like gold or silver, or in lower denominations, made from semi-precious copper.
The war that Americans know of as the “French and Indian War” was the trigger that led to the eventual independence of our nation. In 1754, troops led by a young 22-year-old lieutenant colonel by the name of George Washington ambushed a small French force in present day western Pennsylvania. That clash grew into the world-wide “Seven Years’ War,” fought between the British and the French from 1756 to 1763.
With the end of that war, Britain was left holding a massive amount of debt. The British sought to replenish their depleted supply of Sterling Pounds by enacting new taxes upon their colonies around the world. It was the Sugar Act of 1764, the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Act of 1767, and the Tea Act of 1773 that led American colonists to demand equal representation within the British Parliament.
When their demands were dismissed, their love for Mother England soured, leading to events like the Boston Massacre in 1770 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. There can be no doubt as to the correlation between excessive taxation, at that time between 1% and 1.5%, and the breakout of the American Revolutionary War in 1775 and our Declaration of Independence from England in 1776.
With the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the Revolution came to an end, enabling the later ratification of our Constitution in 1788. The federal government created by our Constitution rightfully avoided direct taxes upon its citizens for the next 125 years, instead relying mostly upon tariffs for revenue.
With the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to our Constitution in 1913, the modern federal income tax was born, along with the modern Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve System, the Central Bank that our founders had warned us to avoid.
For more than 100 years, the Federal Reserve Bank has gradually laundered wealth away from the populace through the power of inflation. On their web page the Federal Reserve states that an annual inflation of 2% is desirable. What the Federal Reserve does not say is that a 2% inflation of costs is a 2% deflation in the buying power of the U.S. dollar. As the dollar becomes worth less and less, it takes more and more dollars to buy similar items each passing year.
While the U.S. did mint a gold one-dollar piece for a brief period of 40 years after the California Gold Rush, the silver dollar coin was the common base of measure for U.S. “money” from 1794 until production ceased in 1935, as the value of the dollar declined because of inflation of prices caused by Federal Reserve policies.
Silver continued to be used in lesser value U.S. coins until 1964, when the continuing devalued dollar led people to hoard silver coins as the base metal became worth more than the coin’s face value. The 0.773 troy-ounce of silver contained in the last true “silver dollar” is worth $18.37 in just its melt value today.
In the mid-20th century, with items costing more, the weight of coins needed for daily commerce eventually became an issue, leading many to adopt the more readily carried paper dollar. U.S. paper money used to consist of Gold Certificates, Silver Certificates and U.S. Notes.
Gold Certificates were redeemable in gold coin, at least until the government stopped that in 1934. Silver Certificates were redeemable in silver coin, until the government stopped that in 1967, when they switched to raw silver bullion, ending that just one year later in 1968. U.S. Notes, also known as Legal Tender Notes, were receivable for all taxes and debts, until the government stopped production in 1971. Replacing these are our current Federal Reserve Notes that are not redeemable for anything, as they are not backed by a commodity.
The current U.S. dollar is what is known as “Fiat” currency. The worthless scraps of paper, and worthless bits of cheap metals used for coins, hold their alleged value by “fiat,” or decree, simply because the government says that they are worth what they say.
The difference between a U.S. Note and a Federal Reserve Note is that a U.S. Note represented a “bill of credit” and, since it was issued by the government itself, involved neither lending or borrowing, they were inserted by the Treasury directly into circulation free of interest.
In contrast, Federal Reserve Notes are not backed by either precious metals or the full faith of the United States government. The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing produces Federal Reserve Notes and issues them to the Federal Reserve banks, who then sell them to commercial banks for the face value of the notes.
My point in this brief history lesson regarding money is that “all y’all” have been cheated. The money that you work hard for, and try to save for future use, is worthless.
The Federal Reserve has siphoned off the value of your money for the last 110 years. That system has enabled our Congress to pass bigger and bigger spending bills, growing the size of the government and saddling you, and your children and their children, with more and more debt.
The national debt currently totals more than $31.525 trillion, and Congress currently wants to raise their debt limit even higher yet again. (Note: One trillion is equal to one million multiplied by one million.) To pay for this, Congress wants to raise taxation values even higher than the average tax rate of 28.4% reported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
This giant inflation bubble is on the verge of collapsing under its own weight. When this bubble pops, as all bubbles do, our nation will be forced to declare bankruptcy. The government will then expect you to pay all their bills, and that is when things will get spicy.
Our founding fathers fought a war over a 1.5% tax, and we are currently taxed an average of 28.4%. … Remember that correlation between excessive taxation, and the breakout of very uncivil wars? I hope you’re prepared!