Agitator Hour - NORFED - Use specie backed currency instead of Federal Reserve Notes

The Agitator ^ | 020206 | The Agitator

[zog]

--gee, I dunno. Might be that government (or the pseduo governmental "private' central bank) A with 10 bingo bucks to the ounce of gold, decides sometime it needs more loot, beyond what the citizenry can honestly justify with 'actual" monetary increases based on produced wealth, not future credit, so they print 100 bingo bucks to the ounce. They "inflate" it's worth. They start passing the new and improved bingo bucks into the economy to pay for government make work non producing 'things". Those things not actually producing tangible wealth, deflate the worth of the bingo bucks, deflate and minimize all ther citizens work that actually produce wealth, because the sheer number in circulation is now higher, and is only tangible in the sense that you have postponed 'work" until some far away from now tomorrow to pay for that money you just printed up. And it doesn't matter if it started out gold backed or not, once it was inflated beyond it's true worth, it collapses. The gold doesn't shrink any.

I don't like any of the schemes, I'd rather see all notes be private and be based on actual inventory someplace, so it's impossible to inflate it's worth, and with the government using gold for it's dealings with other nations if and when the private notes were not sufficient.

I like the idea of a tangible backed currency, I just don't think it shouild be based on one "thing" like gold. I'd like to see a top 100 commodities based note, for instance. And COMPLETELY remove future-credit as a tangible asset that can be called "money" especially by government. And restrict usury to one step removed, then it has to sit., and remain until paid non-transferrable except as inheritance...

[Ben Bolt]

Mike , Anytime a soverign republic signs over there own power to coin money , they have relinquished there foreign and domestic policy . They have sold there control of the future . All of the debating in the world will not change that .

[Ben Bolt]

Spin it as you please my friend . The bottom line is that darling piece of paper congress agreed to ,what we now know as the Federal Reserve . Damn sorry I missed your show , Sir !

[Pelham]

But the fact is, we pay an interest on our currency to use it.

That is about as far from fact as is possible. I believe there was once interest accruing currency in this country, but the last of that sort was likely issued by the Continental Congress.

Interest is paid on debt, and currency isn't debt. It is a small fraction of the American money supply, which in its broadest measure includes Treasury Bills, Bonds, and Notes. Those are part of the National Debt, and on those we pay interest. But not on currency. Currency doesn't even get what is called a seignorage fee. Even if we did pay interest on currency, which we don't, it wouldn't add up to a fraction of what we pay on Treasury paper, which dwarfs the amount of the money supply held as cash. Currency is also dwarfed by the amount of money held as simple bank balances, bookkeeping entries.

Learning to read the Ms published weekly in Barron's and other financial journals would quickly dispel the idea that currency is a major factor in the economy. Currency is only that part of money which people want to hold for current usage- it is much smaller than what people hold as savings, which they keep as book entries- or specie if they buy bullion.

If you don't like paying interest, tell Congress to start paying down the debt. That's where interest is paid. Not on currency.

[Texaggie79]

Who backs our currency?

[Ben Bolt]

Tex , it goes to more to the what as opposed to the question of who . when you break it down to the bottom line the issue comes to the coining of money .

[Pelham]

The Bureau of Printing and Engraving prints money. The Fed can purchase Treasuries to "inject" money into the banking system, but it prints nothing.

The Fed earns its money on its supply of Treasury bonds. It buys and sells them in Open Market transactions, primarily to influence the base money available to local banks for the purpose of creating loans. Any proceeds in excess of the payroll for the Fed employees reverts to the Treasury. The Fed is not "owned" by its member banks, despite all the nonsense that we see claiming this. It was created by an Act of Congress to legalize and control the Clearinghouse System that the big private banks were using to prop up the banking system during crises like the Panic of 1907. The banking system is actually less privately controlled now than it was before the Fed.

The real creators of money in the American economy are the loan officers at banks. Local banks create credit when you apply for a loan, and this credit creation is in effect new money. Banks are limited in the amount of credit they can create by their reserve balances they have with the Fed, and by whatever percentage of deposits the Fed requires for backing those loans.

[nunya bidness]

All you had to do was click on the link I provided but you didn't.

Don't make me pull out the Doctor Evil pictures again. Scott.

[Texaggie79]

Do you think I am asking the question because I don't know?

[Texaggie79]

ARE you the one that was doing all that Scott crap a few months ago to me?

[agitator]

All of the shows are available as archives, see post #30

[Pelham]

American currency isn't backed by anything right now. It's worth is only a function of people's faith in the American economy, and their desire to hold the money that is used in it. If the Fed reverted to its behavior during the 70s, when it was directly purchasing debt from the Treasury (which is currently illegal), we could have another nasty inflation. But unlike in the early 70s, you are now free buy bullion if you don't trust the American dollar. Bullion, like currency, is non-interest bearing. Unlike currency it's not as easily spent. But if there is an inflation, it should protect you from having your savings lose buying power.

[Economics]

Please post sources. This is new to me.

[Always Right]

This is simply not true, unless you mean the interest on the national debt, which we would pay no matter what kind of money we had. All earnings of the Federal Reserve above and beyond expenses go to the U.S. Treasury.

Yes it is true. The government only pays hundreds of billions of dollars in interest, much to the Federal Reserve who returns only about $20 billion to the US Treasury each year. That money pays ALL the expenses of the Federal Reserve, which has accumulated property of worth roughly half a trillion dollars. Our government completely subsidies the banking system, and the Federal Reserve has zero incentives to reduce their cost of operations.