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The economy functions best when on a hard money standard and absent central control of the money supply and burdensome taxation and redistribution.
Remember: Since the U.S. monetary system is no longer on the gold standard, Federal Reserve Notes (what we call “dollars”) are no longer redeemable for gold, as they were before 1933. Now the government recognizes a slip of paper with a printed value on it as money. That slip of paper is backed by the “full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.” However, that government can simply print money whenever the supply runs short or the government decides to spend more on the pet projects of the elected class, to curry favor with one demographic or the other, or to bail out their favored corporatist masters.
In 1966, before he sold his soul to the banksters, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote an essay titled Gold and Economic Freedom. In it, he said:
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
Many things lie beneath the mystique of gold besides greed and fear. Most Americans think of gold in terms of dollars. This fact demonstrates the unbelievable power of propaganda over our thought processes.
Think on this for a moment. As we have discussed in detail in recent letters, the “dollar” is an imaginary fiction supported by the force of government in the form of legal tender laws, regulation and restriction of credit (the U.S. “dollar” is a unit of credit) or taxation. In other words, government force has created a myth and given it life in our minds, so much so that we measure real and substantive value such as gold (created by God) by this myth and imaginary enigma.
Believe me, the tail is wagging the dog. Myth and mysticism rule over substance and value. This is exactly the reverse of reality.
When we think of gold, we think in terms of “dollars.” The time will come once again when we will think of gold in terms of value, not “dollars.” This will be a move back toward the restriction of politicians and an expansion of and a new birth of human liberty.
Governments hoard gold to stabilize their political and economic power. At the same time, they downplay gold to the people to destabilize their psyche and make them dependent on government credit. Gold stabilizes human emotions, dissipates fear of authority, and promotes individualism and human dignity. Government-created money (credit) destabilizes emotions, creates fear of unseen authority, creates political tyranny, and it expropriates the wealth of the people.
Government(s) and their partners, the central banks, are involved in history’s greatest fraud and deception. They are stealing and have stolen the wealth of the world with bank credit (“dollars”) while forcing the deception upon the people that they are in heavy debt and near bankruptcy. So clever and deceitful is government propaganda that not one man in a million suspects this fraud. An army of “opponents” of government “wasting and spending” have built their careers on mimicking government propaganda about “the national debt” and the need to “balance the budget.” There is a whole industry of deception built around governments to keep up the mirage. Our lives are wrapped in myths and countermyths simply because we are ignorant of the nature of money.
Gold allows no such monopoly of credit by central banks. Gold is a natural creation extracted and fabricated by human production. It is not only long-term value, it is forever. It survives the deception and tyranny of political governments that always turn to dust.
As government dollars (credit) create immorality, gold supports morality and honesty. Gold is the substance of economic survival. It is the essence of privacy and the preservation of wealth.
For gold to be all that we say it is, it needs to be in your possession. We don’t mean in your “safe deposit box” at the bank, and we certainly don’t mean in some “trust” account. It should be in your private safe with other valuable effects. This is the way it used to be before we got drunk on bank credit.
If your pension or retirement fund is in the form of computer symbols in some bank, and it is, you might want to consider putting a small percentage in gold coins to keep in your possession. It may turn out to be all you have. And brother, this is not fear hysteria when you understand how fast things can implode into financial disaster.
Do you have faith in the U.S. currency? Well, faith in the currency is a misnomer. Currency is faith itself — a belief system. When you think of money or currency, you think of green paper, but 95 percent of “money” is computer symbols in bank computers. More specifically, your money is a pure psychological entity that evaporates as confidence fails.
Gold is substance. It is hard currency. It and silver are the only hard currencies in existence. You don’t have to have faith in gold as you do in fiat money. Fiat currency creates fiat government. When the fiat currency fails, its government and fiat politicians fail, too. Gold stands on its own. The sooner we recognize this fact, the sooner our government bureaucratic nightmare will come to an end.
The only gold (and silver) to buy is in its physical or bullion form — not paper gold, which is another fiction government uses to manipulate the price of gold. Bullion refers to the metal cast in bars or minted into coins with the weights marked on them.
Actual coins we recommend are the American Gold Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf, African Krugerrand or the Australian Kangaroo. We prefer these because they are stamped in English, have their gold content stamped on them, come in convenient, well-known sizes (1 oz., ½ oz., ¼ oz. and 1/10 oz.) and sell at small premiums over the value of their gold content.
If you can’t make up your mind which to buy you should probably give more consideration to the American Gold Eagle, which the U.S. mint still lists as legal tender.
But don’t buy numismatics. Their price is not determined by their gold or silver content, but by their value as a collectors’ item. You will overpay dramatically in terms of real value if you buy numismatics.
For silver, we recommend buying pre-1965 U.S silver coins, also called “junk” silver. They were minted using 90 percent silver. They are still legal tender and are worth more than their face value (proving the devaluation of the dollar) because of their silver content.
One of the best ways to buy these is in bags with a $1,000 face value of dimes, quarters, half dollars and silver dollars. A bag contains 715 oz. of coins and currently costs around $12,000. You can buy them in smaller quantities, i.e., $500 face value or $250 face value. You can also buy American Silver Eagles.
There are many places you can go to buy gold and silver coins, both locally and over the internet. Local dealers give you the confidence that you are shopping with a legitimate business — particularly if they have been around a while — and the ability to actually see and hold what you are about to buy. You can make your purchases with cash if you choose, which will help you remain under the Government radar. Find a dealer in your community — preferably one that has been in business for a number of years — and check with the Better Business Bureau and/or online ratings agencies to determine the seller’s reputation. Remember, buyer beware. Do your homework first.
Yours for the truth,
Bob Livingston
Editor, The Bob Livingston Letter™ |
