The Last Great Bubble - Counterfeiting the Dollar

The last few years has seen a series of "nested bubbles" popping. The internet bubble popped and brought down the tech sector which brought down the NASDAQ which is bringing down the U.S. economy. But the granddaddy of them all, the bubble which envelopes them all is still in play.

Premise

You may be inclined to think that the green bills in your wallet are dollars, but I have shocking news for you: They're not. They're counterfeits. Since 1913, a gradual shift has turned our money from wealth to debt, and finally into a speculative investment.

Following, I shall offer proof of my statement with argument, evidence and deductive logic. See if you agree with me.

First, a couple of quizzes

Quiz 1: What do the hyper-inflated reichsmark of post WWI Germany,

the Argentinean peso and the U.S. dollar all have in common?

Background to the quizzes

Prior to 1913, the first year of the Federal income tax, and the year of the founding of the Federal Reserve System, gold and silver coins, stamped by the U.S. Mint were the principal money used in this country. This was not merely tradition, but it was a constitutional imperative, as we shall see. The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792, consistent with the Constitution, provided for a U.S. Mint, which stamped silver and gold coins. One dollar was defined by statute as a specific weight of gold. The Act also invoked the death penalty for anyone found to be debasing money.

Gold & silver certificates were also issued, as a convenience. It was clear that they were not gold, but equally clear that they represented and could be redeemed for physical gold on demand.

Exhibit A: The Gold Certificate

Here is an example, from 1928, of a $10 Gold Cert

Note the verbiage: Gold Certificate. Payable to the bearer on demand, in gold coin. At the top it states "This certifies that there have been deposited in the Treasury of the United States, ten dollars in gold coin, payable to the bearer on demand."

The above bill is consistent with the U. S. Coinage Act and the constitution of the United States, which lays the legal foundation for money in the U.S.:

Article I, Section 10, U.S. Constitution

This, taken with Section 10, is quite clear: Since only gold & silver coin is acceptable as payment, and the Congress is in charge of coinage, it follows that Fed money must be backed by gold.

This constitutional standard was followed for just over 100 years. There were booms and busts, and non-backed "greenbacks" were printed to help finance the Civil War. Following the war, the currency was deflated and returned to its legal standing. Over this period, inflation remained in check. One dollar at the time of Washington had roughly the same value of a dollar in 1912. But a curios thing happened in 1913. The government started to cheat.

Curious Amendment

Amendment 16, ratified Feb. 3, 1913 established the Federal income tax:

A brieftime linee:

As time wore on, and additional monies were needed to finance wars, patch up the (first) Great Depression, pay for social programs, etc., the unconstitutionalde couplingg continued. Here are some of thelow lightss:

1922 - As a result of wartime inflationary pressures, the gold exchange standard was adopted. The dollar and the pound sterling were officially declared 'as good as gold' - deemed fit to be used along with gold in the monetary reserves of other countries

1933 -April 5 - One month after his inauguration, at the nadir of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt declared a national emergency and unconstitutionally ordered all gold coins, gold bullion, and gold certificates to be turned into the Federal Reserve banks by May 1st under the threat of imprisonment and fines. It was a national confiscation of gold and silver.

June 5 - Congress enacted a joint resolution, that all gold clauses in contracts were outlawed and no one could legally demand gold in payment for any obligation due to him. This resolution is clearly in violation of Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution.*

1934 - The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 officially prohibited private persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction from holding gold for monetary purposes. It became illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold! The old standard was officially dead.

The result was this:

Exhibit B: The series 1934 D Federal Reserve Note

This is what happened to our money in just 6 short years:

Note the change in verbiage. All references to gold have been subtly replaced, while retaining the overall appearance of the bill. A casual observer would hardly notice the difference. It still says that $10 dollars will be paid to the bearer on demand. But in what? It does not say.

And then there is the bizarre disclaimer on the face of the bill: "This note is legal tender for all debts public & private, and redeemable in lawful money at the U.S. Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank."

If the bill is redeemable in lawful money, doesn't it imply that the bill itself in not lawful money?

This disclaimer continued on the bills until 1963, when….

1963 - New Federal Reserve notes with no promise to pay in "lawful money" was released. No guarantees, no value. This is also the year of the disappearance of the $1 silver certificate. Once again, a subtle shift in plain view.

1965 - Silver is completely eliminated in all coins save the Kennedy half-dollar, which was reduced to 40 percent silver by President Lyndon Johnson's authorization.

1968 - June 24 - President Johnson issued a proclamation that all Federal Reserve Silver Certificates were merely fiat legal tender and could not really be redeemed in silver.

1971 - Aug 15 - President Nixon closes the international gold window. U.S. Dollars are no longer redeemable in gold for international settlements. This marked the beginning of the current, anchorless floating currency regime, an not coincidentally, a decade of inflation.

1980 - Gold reaches an all time high of $850/oz, as world confidence in the Dollar plunges.

This gets us fairly well caught up on the current situation. Clearly, the money we use today is not, by definition, constitutional, and has not been since 1934. We have come a long way from 1794, when the debasing of money was punishable by death. Now the government does it at will. Today, the dollar holds the record as the longest running fiat currency, ever. But the mighty dollar is an emperor with no clothes. It powers the world, sets the price of oil, gold, and a working man's wages, all without a constitutional leg to stand on, nor a standard of value to back it.

Conclusion: The Last Great Bubble

Make no mistake, the dollar is still rising against every other currency in the world. For now. The Yen, the Euro, the Canadian dollar, the Argentinian Peso, the South African Rand are all vastly inferior competitors. The dollar is viewed as a safe haven, and a no-brainer investment on the world market. It alone is rising, seemingly levitating as the rest of the world's currencies tumble. It is reminiscent of the last big bubble we witnessed up close, only 2 years ago: NASDAQ.

The final run up in NASDAQ was 86% in one year. But powering the advance was only a handful of about 50 stocks - the safe havens, the no-brainer big-cap investments. These were the Microsofts, Ciscos, Suns, Intels & Junipers. They were bought not merely because they were going up, but because everything else was going down! And up they went, until they too were discovered to be so many emperors without clothing. We are all familiar with what happened next.

The dollar's days are numbered, my friends. We know the truth. It's a phony. It's a giant momentum play, and the biggest bubble this world has ever seen. Time to wake up. We've been here before.

As Mark Twain said, history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Stocks are still at all time historic highs by PE measures, and still climbing. Gold is close to a 20 year low. What is your definition of a bargain?

M. A. Nystrom

DEPRESSION2. TV

www.depression2.tv/bio.html