Posted on 11/15/2007 7:50:21 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder
Frontal Assault on Freedom: FBI Raids Liberty Dollar Posted by BJT on Nov 15, 2007 Read this email closely. I just got it this morning. Those of you who consider the gold standard a quaint anachronism, pay extra close attention. If Ron Paul supporters, gold standard advocates and the Liberty Dollar were nothing but harmless kooks, why would the FBI raid their offices when no crime was ever committed? This is a currency competing with the USD, yes, but they never, but never make the claim that it is legal tender or anything other than what it is: private currency. And private currencies are numerous in the USA.
No. This raid happened because the Liberty Dollar, the second most popular currency in the country, threatens to usurp the entrenched power of the Feds Almighty Dollar. People can see the buying power of the greenback eroding, and they will choose something else if it is available, and the Liberty Dollar is ready and waiting. And thats why the government must resort to force in order to protect its stranglehold on the economy.
From Liberty Dollar Headquarters: Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:
I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8:00 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville.
For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that where just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files, all the computers and froze our bank accounts.
We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to be defrauded by the fake government money.
But to make matters worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been confiscated. Even the dies for mint the Gold and Silver Libertys have been taken.
This in spite of the fact that Edmond C. Moy, the Director of the Mint, acknowledged in a letter to a US Senator that the paper certificates did not violate Section 486 and were not illegal. But the FBI and Services took all the paper currency too.
The possibility of such action was the reason the Liberty Dollar was designed so that the vast majority of the money was in specie form and in the peoples hands. Of the $20 million Liberty Dollars, only about a million is in paper or digital form.
I regret that if you are due an order. It may be some time until it will be filled if ever it now all depends on our actions.
Everyone who has an unfulfilled order or has digital or paper currency should band together for a class action suit and demand redemption. We cannot allow the government to steal our money! Please dont let this happen!!! Many of you read the articles quoting the government and Federal Reserve officials that the Liberty Dollar was legal. You did nothing wrong. You are legally entitled to your property. Let us use this terrible act to band together and further our goal to return America to a value based currency.
Please forward this important Alert so everyone who possess or use the Liberty Dollar is aware of the situation.
Please click HERE to sign up for the class action lawsuit and get your property back!
If the above link does not work you can access the page by copying the following into your web browser. http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php
Thanks again for your support at this darkest time as the damn government and their dollar sinks to a new low.
Bernard von NotHaus
“If you haven’t noticed, the Constitution expressly gives the federal government the authority ‘To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin’.”
As I understad, its not congress who is coining money. Its a cartel of private banks. Congress gave up that authority in 1913. No?
“I have a few double eagles from the US Mint that have a value of $50 on the coin. The 1 OZ gold vale, the real value, is almost $800. Is not the government selling me a coin with a government value value 1/16 of its actual value and is that not fraud?
What did you pay per coin for possession?
Depends, from $420 to $750 each. (depends on the time). What I am noting is that the government is selling the coins at their bullion value (and a bit) but only redeams them for 1/16 of their actual gold value. The government is only on the hook for a tiny fraction of the actual value of the coin if used in trade.
Look at it this way, say you buy a new car but the car comes with a legal statement that advises that the car can never be sold in the future for more than 1/16 of its current value. If the government tries another gold grab like the 1930’s, do you think they will reimburse owners at teh actual value (which would skyrocket) or at the fake value on the coin itself?
Yes, I can see how they could make a little money on the side too.
There's another thread on this. Liberty Dollar office raided (mod note: paper cites email as source). On it you'll learn that the $20 Ron Paul coin, which has less than $20 in metal, is now being sold on EBay for over $50.
Guess who's selling?
NORFED, the minter.
A profitable EMail
“Now you are a list the FBI has somewhere. If the story is to be believed. :-)”
Oh, joy! And I tried for years to get off their **** e-mail list.
I think I understand the point you are making.
The point I am trying to make is that you can disagree with our government's monetary policy. You can lobby to change it.
However, you can't try and usurp the government's constitutionally granted authority and coin your own money, and try and undermine the government's regulation of the US dollar. That's insurrection.
I may not agree with what the government does with monetary policy, but I recognize that the Federal government has the authority to do it.
I do recognize that if we don't start showing some fiscal restraint, we are likely to remove ourselves from being the most powerful nation in the world economically. If that happens, the dollar's slide is going to continue for a long time, because the value of the dollar is based on the world's faith in our economy, and if we lose the number one spot, it's going to take a serious hit.
Fortunately for us, the economies of the world are so intertwined through trade that if we take a big hit, pretty much everyone else does as well, which has helped keep us on top despite our own foolishness.
Two words—Gresham’s Law. This whole thing begs the question of whether the promoters of this “money” are accepting worthless federal reserve notes in exchange for their valuable liberty dollars. If so, something just ain’t right.
None of which was happening here. There have been disclaimers left right and upside down six ways from Sunday that Liberty Dollars are NOT "legal tender," "money," "current money," "coin," and so on.
If I accept a new plasma TV set, or an couple of bars of gold, instead of $2,000 in federal reserve notes for the motorcycle I just sold on eBay, I'm not trying to undermine the government's regulation of the US dollar, I'm engaging in barter with a willing partner in the transaction.
If you haven't noticed lately, we have already lost the world's faith in our economy with our out-of-control federal spending and the blinding speed of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's presses.
A "dollar" used to be a specified weight of gold or silver, when this country was founded. Twenty "dollars" was about an ounce of gold. The slide of the dollar has been going on for nearly a century, what makes you think it won't continue?
You can trade in gold. Just don't coin your own currency out of it and try and regulate it's value.
There are likely a lot of things that the founders didn't imagine. However, it sure seems that they imagined that it would be bad is the federal government couldn't regulate currency and every state, municipality, and person could just create whatever currency they wanted and try and get everyone else to use it.
That's why one of the rather limited list of powers they gave to the Federal government was the ability to regulate our currency.
If you want to go after folks undermining our currecny how about starting at walmart
Oh yes. The EVIL Wal-Mart that does such horrible things as offering to sell people goods at inexpensive prices, and tracking what sells well enough to realize that they buy USA program they tried wasn't gaining traction with their customers who let the more expensive American products sit on the shelves and bought foreign products instead. So they dropped products that were taking up shelf space and costing them money.
The still do sell American products that are available at a competitive price, but they can't make people buy American products, and they aren't going to force their customers to go somewhere else to buy things at lower prices.
Wal-Mart's efficiency has also done a lot to keep prices low for consumers, which has kept our standard of living high, and they make a rather sizable contribution to our GDP, so I think your accusation isn't exactly based in reality.
It's not fraud because they make no secret of the fact that you are paying far more for the coin than it's face value.
Thank G-d I still have my solid gold Judicial Watch badge! That's real!
“Those are uncirculated coins that are meant for collectors. They don’t want to mint them with a face value that might somehow be worth more than what they are selling them for as collector’s items because they would then get people turning them back in for cash. Therefore the face value will always be lower than the value of the gold, and obviously lower than the price they charge for them.
It’s not fraud because they make no secret of the fact that you are paying far more for the coin than it’s face value.”
Then why put a face value on them at all? Krugerands don’t. I suspect teh idea is that, in the event of government theft, the face value in worthless paper would be the reimbursement value? That is what they did in the 1930’s.
The tell people that it is legal, functional currency.
The tell people that to use it like legal tender.
They call the legal tender fake money, and tell everyone to use theirs instead.
After all that they put in the disclaimer that their money isn't legal tender.
They are pretty obviously saying that you should use it as legal tender, but they can't call it that because they would get in trouble.
That's like robbing a bank and assuring everyone the whole time that it isn't a robbery, you are just borrowing the money.
If I accept a new plasma TV set, or an couple of bars of gold, instead of $2,000 in federal reserve notes for the motorcycle I just sold on eBay, I'm not trying to undermine the government's regulation of the US dollar, I'm engaging in barter with a willing partner in the transaction.
I agree. I see nothing wrong with doing that.
f you haven't noticed lately, we have already lost the world's faith in our economy with our out-of-control federal spending and the blinding speed of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's presses.
We haven't lost the world's faith in our economy, but that faith is weakening. Our prominence is fading.
A "dollar" used to be a specified weight of gold or silver, when this country was founded. Twenty "dollars" was about an ounce of gold. The slide of the dollar has been going on for nearly a century, what makes you think it won't continue?
I never said it won't continue to slowly slide. Our monetary policy is designed to limit inflation to a very low level, but not completely erase it.
The government doesn't aim for zero inflation either. They aim for very low inflation, but they do consider a tiny amount of inflation desirable. Our government is intentionally discouraging people from sticking money away in mattresses. They want to encourage people to invest their money to stimulate growth. That's pretty much stated policy, it isn't a secret.
I expect it have more to do with them having a higher perceived value to collectors if they are actually considered US currency even though they are uncirculated. They probably just stick a value on them because they can sell them for more that way.
No not referring to the mexican paso. LOL.
Some downtown establishments in Austin have accept a script/currency to exchange for goods and it’s like using regular cash. Similar to the BerkShares. http://www.berkshares.org/localcurrency.htm#whatare
As I understand it, the paper bills are/were backed by silver and gold stored in a warehouse, which I presume is the one that got raided. As far as the actual reason for the raid, I wonder if it’s simply because the money was being created without a federal license. In the Berkshares link above, it quickly became clear that the town needed a license from the federal government to make its own money. This raid may have nothing to due with the Liberty Dollar being an actual currency of value (backed by silver and gold).
I figured that out after reading a little further. Of course with the outrage that some people expressed over a private business (Pizza Patron) making a business decision to accept Mexican pesos as payment from its customers who preferred to pay that way (at exchange rates extremely beneficial to PP I'm sure), I just assumed there was an immigration angle to the "alternate currency".
It was my thought that this guy might not have the reserves he claimed.
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