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Banning the Benjamin Suggests the Democrats Are Running Out of Ideas
New York Sun ^ | 02/20/2016 | Seth Lipsky

Posted on 02/21/2016 5:44:46 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Banning the Benjamin would strip Americans of a layer of privacy and a currency of convenience. It's being advanced as a war measure to make it harder for terrorists to carry cash. But it's a smokescreen for the fact that the Democrats are out of ideas on both the economy and national security.

The putsch against the Benjamin is being sprung by Lawrence Summers. He was President Bill Clinton's treasury secretary and also a president of Harvard. He came within a whisker of being chairman of the Federal Reserve under President Obama.

Mr. Summers wrote up his idea in the Washington Post, touting a proposal from a think tank he directs. It wants the Europeans to stop issuing new 500-euro notes and America its hundreds -- and maybe even withdraw such notes already in circulation.

This, Mr. Summers suggests, is justified because these denominations -- and Portraits of Grant (meaning 50s) -- are being used by criminals and terrorists. In "certain circles," Mr. Summers says, the 500-euro marker is known as the "bin Laden."

That strikes me as an unconvincing argument, particularly from the Democrats. They have withdrawn from nigh every front in the war on Islamic terror. They don't want to name our enemies or even call our struggle a war.

Meantime, they're downsizing our army. Secretary of State Kerry is preparing to surrender in Syria, and the Russians and Communist Chinese are on the march. The best the Democrats can come up with is taking away Americans' favorite form of cash.

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cash; currency; democrats; hundreddollars
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To: P.O.E.

I have a bunch of those.


21 posted on 02/21/2016 6:35:10 AM PST by for-q-clinton (If at first you don't succeed keep on sucking until you do succeed)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

Me too. They’re in a box somewhere in the attic, but which box is what puzzles me.


22 posted on 02/21/2016 6:39:23 AM PST by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: SeekAndFind

It strikes me as an unconvincing argument too. We do NOT want to go to a 100% e-money system!


23 posted on 02/21/2016 6:42:01 AM PST by BlackAdderess ("They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." ---Andy Warhol)
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To: SeekAndFind

Democrats: “Let’s tailor all of our laws around terrorists or psychopaths”


24 posted on 02/21/2016 6:42:46 AM PST by Red in Blue PA (war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, obama loves America)
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To: SeekAndFind

Of course he is not proposing a 100% e-money system, just doing away with larger bills. That is troubling though, nonetheless as it aids in the downward creep of the cashless system.


25 posted on 02/21/2016 6:46:48 AM PST by BlackAdderess ("They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." ---Andy Warhol)
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To: SeekAndFind

Banning the Benjamin would strip Americans of a layer of privacy and a currency of convenience

Our debt based monetary system is coming to it’s natural end of life that was known from the beginning, Whenever you have a monetary system whereby ALL SPECIES is Loaned into Society with INTEREST, You MUST continually DEVALUE EVERY UNIT OF MONETARY MEASURE just to pay the INTEREST DUE!, mathematics eventually wins!!


26 posted on 02/21/2016 6:47:40 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: SeekAndFind

I carry three in my money belt when I travel. I have used them when tips for cruise service welcome cash.


27 posted on 02/21/2016 6:47:54 AM PST by larryjohnson (FReepersonaltrainer)
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To: SeekAndFind

Globalists want to do away with paper money. Money is to be electronically controlled through banking (with negative interest rates).


28 posted on 02/21/2016 6:56:51 AM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: IMR 4350
Would the price of gold coin be set, say a $20 gold piece, or would you have to work out the exchange rate based on the actual price of gold at the time you used it to buy something?

You're looking at it from the wrong direction.

Gold coins are valued by weight. You don't set the value of a 1/10 oz gold or silver coin in dollars. You set it in the amount of product or service the seller is willing to provide for that 1/10 oz.

I will sell you a cart of groceries for 1/10 oz gold coin. You take it or go to a place that will give you more groceries for your money, or you go to Whole Foods and get less (grin). Does a $100 bill buy the same amount of groceries at Save-A-Lot as it does at Kroger, Winn Dixie, Publix or your local produce stand? No reason a gold or silver coin should be any different.

You earned $100 a year ago. Can you spend that $100 and get the same goods that you could on the day you earned it? There is nothing "fixed" about the value of any medium of exchange.

29 posted on 02/21/2016 7:40:57 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there....)
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To: SeekAndFind

With the inflation that RAT/progressive policies have imposed on “We The People” since 1960 we not only need to keep our hundred dollar bills but bring back the thousand dollar bill. Just over a year ago if you have a 3/4 ton work truck with saddle tanks a hundred dollar bill wouldn’t pay for a fill up. The RATs must really think that “We The People” are to stupid to remember that far back.

I’m old enough to have lived through the 50s and early 60s when our currency was stable and the IRS short form was an IBM punch card and the back side was the instructions.


30 posted on 02/21/2016 8:01:02 AM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: BlackAdderess
Incrementalism. There is no doubt at all the end game is all digital currency. NO doubt. If you pay a monthly fee (or any fee beyond the cost of checks) for a checking account, you are basically doing a "bail in" for the bank. When cash is abolished, you will pay a "fee" to keep your money in any sort of bank account.

As well as the fact the government can confiscate any amount of that money it likes under whatever "legal" pretext it decides sounds legitimate. It's called asset forfeiture. No conviction of a crime required.

31 posted on 02/21/2016 8:06:45 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s (If you can remember the 60s, you weren't really there....)
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To: Smokin' Joe
"Negative interest rates will never fly here if people can have cash."

As the Brits would say . . .

Hear! Hear!

32 posted on 02/21/2016 8:10:02 AM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: SeekAndFind

As an alternative, let me suggest very high quality, sealed specie coinage, *normalized* to be greater than the value of the raw specie.

In the last 10 years, the price of an ounce of gold has varied from around $600 to as high as $2000. Silver from $5 to $50. Platinum from $850 to $2300.

Currently, the Canadian Maple Leaf has a purity of between .9999 and .99999. It is also engraved with a holographic image which is very clear because of its purity, that makes tampering very difficult.

Now imagine if the US coined gold, silver and platinum with that purity, then sealed them in a tamper resistant package to preserve their quality?

But here’s the twist: make the legal tender value of the coinage much closer, but higher than its historical market value. So, for example, the one ounce gold coin would have a face value of $3000; the silver one ounce, $100; and the platinum one ounce of $4000, since it is a highly valuable, very scarce metal.

Each tamper resistant package *could* have a unique identification number, used almost exclusively by dealers to prove their ownership of pure coins prior to sale. Those who bought the coins in anonymous sale, *could* register them; but if they didn’t want to, the coin would, when they wanted to sell it to a dealer, be removed from its package by a certified dealer, who would accurately weigh it, then repackage it with a new number provided instantly by the US mint.


33 posted on 02/21/2016 8:10:13 AM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: P.O.E.
Reverse is wrong. Here's the real Walking Liberty Reverse:

It is a beautiful coin.

34 posted on 02/21/2016 8:14:44 AM PST by PLMerite (The Revolution...will not be kind.)
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To: glorgau

The new criminals being imported at the moment don’t and they don’t use toilet paper either.


35 posted on 02/21/2016 8:28:05 AM PST by Guardian Sebastian
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To: SeekAndFind
It's being advanced as a war measure to make it harder for terrorists to carry cash.

Or we could just try keeping terrorists out of the country instead of inviting them in, as in Boston and San Bernardino.

36 posted on 02/21/2016 8:34:13 AM PST by Rummyfan (Let us now try liberty.)
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To: Red in Blue PA
Democrats: “Let’s tailor all of our laws around terrorists or psychopaths.”
Thomas Sowell points out that the lowest income quintile of the population is loaded with young people just starting out, and people who linger in that income bracket for substantial periods of time tend to have real problems causing that. He calls the Democrat’s proclivity for making policy based on its putative effect on such people the “wino veto.”

37 posted on 02/21/2016 8:54:44 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion ('Liberalism' is a conspiracy against the public by wire-service journalism.)
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To: Smokin' Joe

In Viet Nam where the unit of currency is worth very little, there is very little theft of cash. It is not worth the effort. Children walk around with impressive looking wads of cash in their hands and no one tries to take it from them.


38 posted on 02/21/2016 10:51:02 AM PST by ThanhPhero (Khach san La Vang hanh huong tham vieng Maria)
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To: ThanhPhero

The piaster was a pretty low economic gear compared to the greenback, iirc.


39 posted on 02/21/2016 10:52:08 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: ThanhPhero
Makes you wonder how things were in Germany during the inflation there or in Zimbwabe. I have a 10,000 mark note from the days when a wheelbarrow load would barely buy bread, and a quadrillion dollars (Zimbabwe), worth far more as a numismatic curiosity (ten 100,000,000,000 notes) than it is worth in purchasing power.

People still accepted gold and silver as payment in both places, though.

40 posted on 02/21/2016 10:55:18 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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