“It’s not WHAT backs our money, it’s WHO controls the QUANTITY!”

- Bill Still

The Fallacy of Gold Backed Money… Anytime one looks to make adjustments to our monetary system they will be well served to make certain that they are careful what they ask for. What and who backs our money is an age old battle, the discontent created by gold backed money is exactly what led to one of the most famous speeches of all time where William Jennings Bryan famously said, “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” People who support gold backed money do so mostly for the right reason – to keep the QUANTITY OF MONEY UNDER CONTROL. There are, however, MANY misrepresentations, half-truths, and self-serving reasons to promote gold either as a backing for money or as a direct form of money itself. People who support backing our money with DEBT do so for only one reason - GREED. When money is backed by debt, interest and debt repayment sweeps it back into the banks and thus causes the banks to seek ever increasing quantities of DEBT and PROFITS. Those closest to the creation of credit dollars profit, while those furthest from it pay for it. Let’s clear out the fog of history and look at our money system objectively. To view money for what it is, we need to speak in a common language so that we all understand the features of money:

Assay – Metallurgy. to analyze (an ore, alloy, etc.) in order to determine the quantity of gold, silver, or other metal in it. Credit Dollars – Are dollars that come into existence via a loan and thus they bear interest. ALL dollars in our current system, except coins, come into existence in this manner. When paid back, credit dollars go back out of existence. In a system that is almost entirely credit dollars, such as ours, new debt must constantly be issued to replace old debt and it must expand by an amount equal to the interest or otherwise deflation will occur. This is why we experienced a bout of deflation last year as credit creation dropped, and it is why politicians who are funded with banker dollars stand in front of teleprompters stating, “We must get credit flowing again!” Debt Repayment – There are only two ways to pay back debt. Pay it back per agreement, with interest, or default. Debt Saturation – A condition whereby once a person, business, or a government has pulled forward in time all future income (beyond reasonable lending limits), then additional debt cannot be forced into that entity without producing a future debt default.

Fiat – Means “by decree,” usually by the King or by the Government in power. Once our government puts a money into circulation, it becomes “by decree” and is thus “fiat.” It does not matter what BACKS the money. Fractional Reserves – This is the ability to lend more credit dollars than a bank has. This concept first began with the gold smiths who used to hold other people’s gold in their safes. For this service, they would charge a small fee and issue gold receipts. They figured out that as long as not everyone cashed in their receipts at once, that they could write more receipts than they actually possessed in gold. This was the birth of the Fractional Reserve concept, a concept that many still believe is simply FRAUD (that’s because it is, UNLESS everyone agrees that it’s okay to do and there are limits placed upon it – if you use U.S. Dollars, you’ve agreed). Fractional ability creates LEVERAGE. Limits in America began at reasonable limits but have increased time and again on behalf of the bankers who have done away with rules regulating and limiting this ability. The effective fractional ability in America is now INFINITE as many of the large banks possess far more debts than assets. Interest Bearing/ Debt Backed – The act of borrowing money means that one person is giving up the use of their money to another for a specified time, and in return for the time they are without its use, and for the risk of possibly not being paid back, the person lending money charges interest. Under our present money system, all money (except coin) is brought into being as debt. At the Federal level, our nation takes in taxes. The amount they spend above that is our current deficit. Our deficit is borrowed from via the Treasury primarily from commercial banks. In this way, we all pay interest to private banks for the use of our nation’s money. Money – Is simply an agreed upon method to exchange the fruits of one’s labor for another’s. That is the essence of money, everything else you read is simply an over complication of money’s purpose. Monetary Inflation/ Deflation – An increase/ decrease in the overall supply of money, credit, and other instruments that leverage them. Price Inflation/ Deflation – An increase/ decrease in the overall PRICE of the goods or services under examination. Real Dollars – Are dollars that came into existence without the backing of DEBT.

Many proponents of gold backed money argue that it is “Constitutional money,” or “honest money. Neither is the case, let’s start by reading what the Constitution actually says, not what other people say it says. There are really only two sections that deal with money, they are both a part of Article I (italics are mine, otherwise it is all in context):

Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

- To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

- To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; - To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States; - To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; - To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

So, Congress is given the power to coin money and to “regulate the value thereof.” Note the terminology “current Coin of the United States.” “Coin” is a term used to mean money when capitalized as it is here. Would this not indicate that the “Coin” or money of the U.S. was envisioned to possibly change? No mention of gold or silver here. For that we must examine the only place gold and silver are mentioned:

Section 10: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

Section 10 deals with STATES. “No state shall… coin Money; emit bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” This is saying that states shall not make their own money, issue their own credit, and when they pay back the Federal Government, they must pay them back in gold or silver. Bill Still, an expert on the history of money, has this to say about these two sections:

“Congress is given the responsibility to "To coin Money, regulate the value thereof...." in Article 1, Section 8. Regulating the value of our money is one of the most important responsibilities of Congress. The mere fact that they had to "regulate the value thereof" implies without question paper money not backed by gold or silver. The reason states were forbidden to pay in anything but gold -- something which was never enforced, incidentally -- was that during the previous generation, some states had been responsible, like Pennsylvania, and printed just enough, while some states had been irresponsible and printed too much. It was an anarchic situation. Interstate commerce would have been impossible without this clause. “Bullionists” respond that the 1792 Coinage Act specifies that a dollar coin shall contain so many grams of gold. They misconstrue this to be a mandate for gold backing of paper dollars. You can read it for yourself, the original is now available online. That is hardly the meaning.”

Thus, the people who support gold as a basis for our money have pulled the gold and silver coin phrase out of context. It is CONGRESS, elected by the people, WHO HAS THE POWER TO

COIN MONEY. Not the bankers, not the states. Today it is the bankers who actually Coin most of our money and it is backed by debt. An objective review of history will find that NOTHING has ultimately worked to back money and to keep the quantity of money under control. Everything has ultimately failed for one reason or another. That’s because “It’s not WHAT backs the money” that’s important, “it’s WHO controls the QUANTITY!” If gold backed money actually worked, then those money systems would still be around today, but they are not. During the 1920s gold backed our money yet one of the largest credit bubbles in history was formed and ultimately popped regardless of the existence of a gold backed money system – the same has been repeated throughout history. There are several reasons that the quantity of money gets out of control regardless of commodity backing:

1. Bankers have been the ones to always get their hands on control of the gold and the availability of any paper that is backed by gold. They have time and again wielded the power to hurt the economy as blackmail against the people and politicians to get their way.

2. Politicians can simply change the ratio of paper to gold or any other commodity. From

the time of the Gold Standard Act of 1900 until President Nixon removed the dollar completely from gold, the ratio of paper to gold was changed many times. Here’s a Wikipedia entry describing what happened just during the 20th century:

The Gold Standard Act of 1900 abandoned the bimetallic standard and defined the dollar as 23.22 grains (1.505 g) of gold, equivalent to setting the price of 1 troy ounce of gold at $20.67. Silver coins continued to be issued for circulation until 1964, when all silver was removed from dimes and quarters, and the half dollar was reduced to 40% silver. Silver half dollars were last issued for circulation in 1969. Gold coins were confiscated in 1933 and the gold standard was changed to 13.71 grains (0.888 g), equivalent to setting the price of 1 troy ounce of gold at $35. This standard persisted until 1968. Between 1968 and 1975, a variety of pegs to gold were put in place. The price was at $42.22 per ounce before August 15, 197 saw the U.S. dollar freely float on currency markets.

Why do you suppose the ratio was changed? The ratio of gold/ silver was always changed under pressure to increase the quantity of money.

3. Storing and controlling the actual gold is quite a feat and is subject to manipulation. First a country who wishes to back their currency must possess gold. According to Bill Still, “At the end of World War II, the United States had over 700 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox, then thought to be about 70% of the world’s supply. By 1959 gold reserves at

Fort Knox had dwindled to less than 558 million ounces, and by 1971, 291 million ounces.”

Recently the IMF (International Monetary Fund – the world’s central bankers) became the world’s third largest holder of gold:

How did the IMF get that much gold? By lending countries debt backed money and accepting gold in repayment! If that’s not a great scam, I don’t know what is. I’ll gladly run off some credit notes on my printer to anyone willing to exchange their gold to me! Gold is measured in Troy ounces. There are 12 Troy ounces per pound, or 24,000 Troy ounces to a ton. If that chart is correct, the U.S. now only possesses 195,204,000 ounces of gold, that’s quite a drop from the 700 million claimed in the 1940s. And the IMF now has 103 million ounces. What was their productive effort to obtain that?

Even today without gold backing our money, it is being manipulated by BOTH governments and bankers. This is something that must stop, it must be allowed to trade freely! Too bad it’s simply not. In fact, GATA (the Gold Anti-Trust Action Commitee) is suing the Federal Reserve Board concerning international gold “swaps.” Here is more from Zero Hedge on the manipulation that is currently occurring with gold. And here is still more on what they call the smoking gun showing that the Fed is controlling gold.

“The Fed claims that its gold swap records involve "trade secrets" exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. While GATA has produced many U.S. government records showing both open and surreptitious intervention in the gold market in recent decades (see http://www.gata.org/node/8052), Fed Governor Warsh's letter is confirmation that the government is surreptitiously operating in the gold market in the present as well. That intervention constitutes a huge deception of financial markets as well as expropriation of precious metals miners and investors particularly. This deception and expropriation are what GATA was established in 1999 to expose and oppose.”

Who owns the gold located at Ft. Knox? Does it belong to the bankers? No? How about the “Fed?” No? Does it not belong to the collective people of the United States? If that’s the case, why has it not been assayed and records made public? I’ll bet you can guess.

To learn more about the history of what backs our money, I highly recommend that you, your family, and your friends watch Bill Still’s movie, The Secret of Oz. When it comes to keeping the quantity of money under control the ideal system would be one that allows the QUANTITY of money to increase and to decrease in accordance with the reality of the economy, the size of the population, and a multitude of other factors. Such a currency would withstand the shock of war or natural disaster and neither produce extremes in PRICE inflation or PRICE deflation. There is simply no way to remove humans completely from the equation. This is the illusion of commodity backed money – it is just that, an illusion – it has never worked to actually keep the quantity of money under control, nor has any system ultimately passed the test of time. Even if we had perfect economic models (not even close) and a computer controlled the quantity, the computer would have to be programmed by a human! Here’s the simple truth… What ultimately backs a country’s money is the RULE OF LAW, and what ultimately backs the rule of law is a nation’s PEOPLE. Not its bankers, and rarely its politicians. The very best that one can achieve when it comes to human nature and keeping GREED in check is to have checks and balances. Citizens of America, YOU are the ultimate check and balance when you have transparency, and YOU are needed by your country at this critical juncture of our history! Freedom's Vision was designed to obtain the maximum benefit with the minimum of working parts. The strategy is to get the maximum number of people behind it knowing that each change will create a special interest group who is against it. There is much else that needs to be reformed, like the way we collect taxes, but those issues will be easier to manage once monetary and political reforms are enacted. We must work to limit how much we attempt to chew on the first bite. The benefits of Freedom’s Vision are many:

1. Avoid the disaster about to unfold – regardless of how we get there, by inflation or deflation, the math of debt that underlies our currency does not work. This would break that math and preempt the negative events that are going to follow should we fail to take action.

2. No more debt backed money for our Federal Government. Lower taxes and more

productivity result.

3. Direct and immediate relief for people in debt, accomplished in a way that’s fair to everyone including those who are not in debt and without creating excessive price inflation, deflation or a giant “moral hazard.”

4. Direct and immediate compensation for those who are savers and have been damaged by

past practice.

5. Relief for States, almost all of whom are in deep debt trouble.

6. Cleanses the banks and financial businesses of unserviceable debts and derivatives and would ensure that they stay that way. All banks would survive the transition, immediately benefiting from improvements in our citizen’s balance sheets. The same process would be used to cleanse other financial like businesses.

7. Businesses, both large and small, would immediately benefit from our citizens and the

banks improved balance sheets.

8. Unfunded liabilities would immediately get better with zero percent price inflation.

9. Limits on special interests would separate their money from politics lessening the pressure to continually increase the quantity of money. This allows long term decision making. Special interests associated with the banking, oil, defense, food, insurance, and other industries would no longer have their huge pull. Thus politicians would not have to focus on spending our resources on special interests, but instead on the interests of the people. Budget pressures would decrease as a result.

10. States would exercise more control over their own destiny. Lower taxes on the state

level, more productivity. Low cost money would become available to repair and upgrade current infrastructure and to build the infrastructure of tomorrow’s commerce.

11. The powers possessed by the central banks would be greatly diminished freeing our

country and others from their methods of control via debt, now even issued worldwide by the IMF. Countries would no longer be working to pay central banks interest. Instead they would work to develop their own rule of law, their productive labors could be used to improve their own infrastructure, to feed and cloth themselves, and to build a future for themselves. In other words, they need to be taught how to fish, not simply given a fish and asked to pay it back forever and ever.

12. No price inflation eroding away future savings. People who take on reasonable debt

could once again make progress towards paying it off.

13. Massively supports education, underpinning progress so that we may continue to lead the world in innovation and the production of meaningful technologies.

14. Provides a national mission - focused on creating the energy and infrastructure of the

future. REAL and meaningful economic growth would ensue and massive new employment would result.

Your specific input is needed to improve the outline and to provide specific legal language. You are needed to support Freedom's Vision, we need your participation in the SWARM, and we need volunteers to organize and execute the Swarm. We are making progress on a new website, and we are organizing a Political Action Committee (PAC) now. Bill Still and I are both officers of the committee, we have a volunteer to act as the PAC Treasurer, but we need a CPA to volunteer to back us up in regards to accounting. It is our intention to provide overall input and strategy and to even travel with the Swarm. We need someone who is a leader and an organizer who can keep the swarm amicably focused on the target. We need leaders and organizers in each state. We also need all the members that comprise any successful organization – everyone’s talents are needed, please email us at time4changenow@comcast.net to let us know your strengths, what state you reside in, and how you can help (we will be creating a data base on the website for this but need a Secretary as well). This organization will focus on only two objectives initially; one is economic reform and the second is political reform as outlined in Freedom's Vision. Our future America will thank you for your support, and so do we! Nathan A. Martin Bill Still