A New Source Of Buttons

Question: How do you double the value of a Russian rouble?

Answer: Put two holes in it and sell it as a button.

The above was a joke that was circulating during my school days some decades ago and little did I suspect at that time that comedy contained the seeds of truth.

Since then, time has escaped quite quickly as has the value of all our fiat dollars and currencies. The silver coin that many of us handled as children some decades ago could buy us lunch and can still buy us lunch, but the worthless successors that followed are incapable of doing so.

In an article I wrote in January 2010, titled, "Watch your Money Disappear" , I made the following observation:

Instead of realizing that governments are cannibals who have us in a slowly simmering pot, we instead wear the dopey smile of someone in a Jacuzzi. If you doubt this then you only have to consider how gold and then silver have gradually been withdrawn from circulating currency and that before long even copper and nickel will be removed from the coinage of the USA.

Well that day has come a lot closer because by press release dated March 7, 2011, the United States Mint has announced that it is requesting public comment on factors to be considered in conducting research for alternative metallic coinage materials for the production of all circulating coins.

Thousands of years of history, experimentation and logic are being put aside step by step as our political and banking masters seek to suck out the value of our labour and savings in return for a worthless coin or piece of paper that is an insult to our very existence as thinking human beings. And perhaps that is the problem - we no longer think, we just fall into line and head or look wherever the finger of big brother is pointing. I think the name that has been given to such individuals is "sheeple".

Make no mistake, coins will come to be made of worthless pieces of aluminium or brass and perhaps they might even convince the people that all coins should be scrapped and instead replaced by some sort of smart card which can track you and your purchases. Perhaps they might even issue plastic casino-like chips with embedded RFID chips that can be tracked and detected no matter where they are hidden so that they can be intercepted at airports and border crossings.

In time they will convince you that your wealth can be stored as an electronic impulse on a computer in the same way that Bernanke presses buttons in the process of propping insolvent banks with fake money.

Intrinsic value and scarcity will no longer be a characteristic of circulating currency and without these, the store of value aspect will die a gradual death as well.

The "boffins" at the Mint think that they can give legitimacy to their plans by asking for public comment to shape the outcome of their "research and evaluation of potential new metallic coinage materials." Rest assured that the so-called public submissions will be nothing more than carefully orchestrated offerings that have already been prepared and which are awaiting delivery. In other words the cake has been baked.

If the ignoramuses at the United States Mint had any sense at all they would scrap the $1 note in favour of the $1 coin. There would be hundreds of millions of dollars saved annually and it is known that coins carry far fewer germs and far less bacteria. If the coins were of silver then the germicidal effects of such a coin would be a plus. Finally, what better hedge against the ravages of inflation than a silver or gold coin?

Our masters are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Our currencies are backed by debt. Our politicians are backed by moneyed interests. Our banks are backed by lousy accounting standards and clever accounting. Our bankers are backed by inept regulators who will fail to act within the five year time frame required for the prosecution of securities fraud and by central bankers who manufacture confetti masquerading as money.

I ask you, "who is backing the people?" The answer to that is gold and silver as foreseen and prescribed by the founding fathers of the United States of America.

Unless you have need of more buttons I suggest you get off your behinds and take a stand against this subtle, all embracing exercise by the United States Mint and write to the them, your Congressman and even your President. If you don't then in good time you may find that you have lost your shirt and trousers and have nothing left to button up anyway.

Sydney Australia