Constitutional Money vs. the Modern Welfare/Warfare State
What is a dollar? What is money? Most Americans cannot answer these questions properly. If one were to ask a cashier what is meant by the advertisement "2 for a dollar," he would be met with a blank stare. The incredulous response would be, "You don't know what a dollar is?" But in reality, people don't know what dollars are -- even if they think they do.I caught a small portion of Dave Barry's appearance on Talk of the Nation with Neil Conan on NPR. Dave says, "I'm not making this up" as he explains how brilliant and enlightened we are because we believe in the value of pieces of paper as money. You can listen to Dave and read his wise, hilarious explanations on the NPR site. Among his rather bizarre insights, I found this from the excerpt of his book:
By 9000 b.c., the most commonly accepted form of animal money was cattle. When you bought something, you would give the other person a cow, and the other person would give your change in calves. This was better than squirrels, but still not an efficient system. The cash registers were disgusting.His article, though witty and edgy throughout, is quite clever and enlightening. He writes the following:
Over the years, all the governments in the world, having discovered that gold is, like, rare, decided that it would be more convenient to back their money with something that is easier to come by, namely: nothing. So even though the U.S. government still allegedly holds tons of gold in "reserve," you can no longer exchange your dollars for it. You can't even see it, because visitors are not allowed. For all you know, Fort Knox is filled with Cheez Whiz.Transitioning just a bit, let me say that Howard Phillips should be on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He would have asked Alito some meaningful questions, including the following:
Article I, Section 8 says "Congress shall have Power…To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures". Does this not imply that our money shall be of fixed value, not subject to regulation by an entity such as the Federal Reserve? (From his January 16 entry on his blog.)Although I was not able to attend the Witherspoon School when Dr. Edwin Viera spoke, I have heard his lecture about money in the set available from VF. It's been awhile, so I will have to refresh my memory about all his great points by listening again to the lecture. I do recall his definition of a dollar: 371.25 grains of fine troy silver. In order to understand this, a brief history lesson is necessary, and Google.com is the perfect tool for interested students.
Here are some questions: When the founders gave Congress the Constitutional authority to regulate the value of money and to fix the Standard of Weights and Measures, did they have anything particular in mind? Did they simply intend to hand over this power to a central bank that would inflate and deflate the money supply at will? Might they have had some Biblical commands in mind, such as Deuteronomy 25:13-16 or Leviticus 19:35-36? Were they concerned that our nation have a standard of honest money?
Is there a difference between redefining the standard of, say, a year, a foot, an inch, or a dollar? What if the state thought it would be beneficial to redefine a year as 320 days? Would this be alright? What if the state said it wanted to make a foot into 10 inches instead of 12? Would we accept this redefinition of the standard?
Some people might say: "Why would the civil government want to do these things?" I really have no idea. I doubt they would want to. But they have a tremendous advantage if they grant an agency the power to change the standard for money at will. Although this question is uncomfortable for politicians and pundits on both mainstream sides of the political spectrum, I will ask it anyway: Would these united States have such a bloated welfare and warfare state if our central government's access to financing was restricted by hard money (i.e., gold, honest money), as envisioned by the founders? I think not.
This post might seem a little vague to those who have not researched the history of money and the dollar in particular, but the issue is quite simple: if our monetary system conformed to Biblical and Constitutional standards, we would not have the belligerent, thieving state under which we suffer today. When the state is forced to finance its operations honestly and live within its means, it cannot expand as ours has. Because our Federal Reserve, along with many foreign banks and nations with whom we have trade deficits, purchase Federal Government Treasury Securities, the state can finance its massive operations for now.
Dr. Gary North has been doing a question and answer series in his Reality Check emails, and he was his usual witty self when he wrote this today:
Re-thinking your future is painful. Re-structuring your future is even more painful. Because re-thinking creates the risk of having to re-structure, most people never get to the re-thinking stage. In times of massive economic change, this forces them to create a fantasy world, a world in which causes do not produce predictable effects. These people are so out of touch with reality that they might as well be Congressmen.Indeed, these deficits cannot last forever. Our central government can pretend for only so long that its unbiblical, unconstitutional methods of financing will never require reckoning. Our citizens will not always be able to demand cheap goods from foreign countries in exchange for paper and promises to pay. There is a day of reckoning coming, as we have discussed in previous posts.
...
For those of you who are at the edge of the re-thinking process, but who are afraid to take the leap, I hope these questions and answers are valuable. They may not solve your specific problem, but they may encourage you to solve your general problem: your unwillingness to re-think your future in terms of the reality of a country whose central government is running a $400 billion annual deficit and whose residents are running a $750 billion annual balance of payments deficit with non-residents. To all of you in this condition, let me quote Herb Stein, who was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Nixon. He said: "Things that cannot go on have a tendency to stop" (emphasis mine).
My practical side demands an answer to this question: "What are we to do?" We cannot simply abandon the government, unless we want to start Civil War II. (I have a lot of other things to do right now, and I don't think starting CWII would be wise.) It would be well-nigh impossible to abandon our monetary system and replace it with our own. (People have tried with little success, from what I am aware.) Here is what we can do: 1) faithfully proclaim the truth, unpopular though it may be; 2) invest in hard assets, such as gold and silver (these have risen by about 33% and 39%, respectively, since around this time last year; you can easily find charts on this site; many experts are predicting further increases as the US economy continues to struggle with debt and deficits of various kinds); 3) start a business that will survive a hit on the economy; 4) get out of debt and stay out. There are undoubtedly many other things we can do.
I hope these somewhat random but related thoughts about money, the state, and our financial status as individuals are helpful and enlightening. I hope each of us will be motivated to further learn about money, its origins, Biblical and Constitutional standards, and ways we can deal with the perilous economic realities of our day.
posted by C.S. Hayden @ 11:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home