10/21/2011 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

As the western world braces for a full scale currency collapse, we have endeavored here at The Mint to offer an explanation as to why these events are taking place and, along the way, offering the obvious solution to the chief problem, mistaking credit for money.  

For those of you who have missed Part I, Part II, Part II, and/or Part IV, you may read them by clicking on the following links:

Dual Entry Accounting – Man’s Greatest Innovation, Modern Central Banking – Man’s Greatest Catastrophe – Part I

Dual Entry Accounting – Man’s Greatest Innovation, Modern Central Banking – Man’s Greatest Catastrophe – Part II – Irony

Dual Entry Accounting – Man’s Greatest Innovation, Modern Central Banking – Man’s Greatest Catastrophe – Part III – Money or Credit?

Dual Entry Accounting – Man’s Greatest Innovation, Modern Central Banking – Man’s Greatest Catastrophe – Part IV – The Catastrophe at Hand

If you require only a brief summary, Part IV above offers a relatively brief and comprehensive summary of the previous three.  Now where were we…

Ah yes, in the United States, circa 1968, a time not so unlike our own.  The Vietnam war was becoming increasingly unpopular and the social climate was ripe for protest.  The US had run up a large and increasing trade deficit with the rest of the world.  It was becoming clear that if foreign dollar holders were to redeem a significant amount of their Federal Reserve Notes, which we now understand to be banknotes and not money proper, for gold, which we now understand to be money proper, the Federal Reserve would not be able to deliver enough gold.

The solution, if it can be called that, was to gradually increase the amount of Federal Reserve Notes required to obtain an ounce of gold from $35 to $41 between 1968 and 1971.  Then, in 1971, with the US dollar collapsing in value and the Bretton Woods system falling apart at the seams, then President of the United States Richard Nixon announced that US dollars were no longer convertible into gold.  The event is now referred to as the Nixon Shock.

And a shock it was.  The US dollar, the benchmark of Central Bank currencies throughout the world, was now officially backed only by the faith that it would continue to be accepted in trade.  The Federal Reserve had defaulted.

Most of the world still lives by this faith today, and if anything, the delusion that a banknote issued by a Central Bank which has defaulted on its obligation to deliver real money on demand has only grown.

The reason that the large scale catastrophe of modern Central Banking lies before us is that over the last 40 years, the lack of gold and silver to back the banknotes in circulation has been replaced by the expectation that governments, and by extension their subjects (citizens), will produce enough goods and perform enough services to repay the obligations represented by the banknotes. As the unrestricted quantity of banknotes and obligations to deliver banknotes in existence will always tend to exceed the stock of available goods and services, these obligations are impossible to satisfy.

Human beings are fallible.  It is normal and should be expected that they will not be able to deliver on certain obligations.  The natural beauty of banknotes redeemable in gold and silver was that, if it was suspected or observed that a person or entity would be unable to pay their obligations, the creditor would move to seize the gold, silver, or other assets that the debtor had pledged as collateral.

The seizure of collateral or the threat of seizure was often enough to correct the failed human action or decisions that were leading to the net loss of wealth incurred by the activity which was undertaken.  In economic parlance, we would call this the correction of the malinvestment of resources.

Without gold and silver to act as a natural limitation on the supply of banknotes and other forms of credit, the bad decisions that lead to the malinvestment and the activities that lead to the destruction of wealth and resources can continue for a very long time.

The use of gold and silver as money had another, more important function that is often overlooked.  Gold and silver are inert, non-consumable objects.  Their hoarding and use as money will not generally cause starvation or want.  In fact, the hoarding of gold and silver as money would have the effect of lowering general prices as productivity increased, naturally creating an incentive to decrease production which in turn would raise prices, making the expenditure of more silver and gold necessary and in turn raise prices, creating a natural  incentive to produce.

Gold and silver allow the economy to naturally regulate itself and, by virtue of the difficulty in extracting them, cause the rest of the earth’s resources to be used in harmony with each other.

Finally, gold and silver are inanimate objects.  Their recognition and possible seizure as collateral does not threaten the liberty or life of a person.  However, because modern central banking has replaced money proper and placed credit in its place, it will become increasingly common to entire societies held as security for a debt that many of them had no direct hand in creating. This is the logical end of using credit as money.

It is the truth that will bring tragedy to the earth.

Without the natural counterbalance to trade and growth which gold and silver money had provided for over 9,000 years, man’s activities, whether productive or destructive, have continued nearly unchecked for the past 40 years.  It is staggering to think of the catastrophe that awaits if man is truly on the path to destruction.

Man, by nature, is always on the path of destruction, but the use of gold and silver as money served to correct him before he strayed too far down it.

Most people alive today have been trained to believe that using Gold and Silver as money is an unnecessary and environmentally harmful process.  Even Adam Smith believed that if the effort expended to mine metals to create money could be directed to other, more useful activities, that humanity would be better off.

What Smith did not realize was that man would not always direct its energies to useful activities.  Like modern Socialists, he underestimated the power of self interest inherent in all human action.  Today we are preparing to reap the consequences of 40 years of unrestricted and more often misguided human actions.

While it may be too late to avoid the catastrophe that Modern Central Banking may bring upon us, it is comforting to know that a return to the understanding and use of gold and silver as money offers hope for a future of truly infinite possibilities.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

P.S.  For more ideas and commentary please check out The Mint at www.davidmint.com

Key Indicators for October 21, 2011

Copper Price per Lb: $3.23
Oil Price per Barrel:  $87.40

Corn Price per Bushel:  $6.49
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.20%
FED Target Rate:  0.07%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!

Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,642 PERMANENT UNCERTAINTY

MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  2.00%
Unemployment Rate:  9.1%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.3%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  11,809  

M1 Monetary Base:  $2,056,000,000,000 RED ALERT!!!
M2 Monetary Base:  $9,570,500,000,000 YIKES UP $1 Trillion in one year!!!!!!!