YOU HAVE TO READ THIS

By Derry Brownfield
June 15, 2008

NewsWithViews.com

I began a recent presentation before a large group of cattle producers (R-CALFUSA) by showing a paper dollar bill and a silver coin. The words “one dollar” is inscribed on both the coin and the paper, yet the paper dollar will only pay for about one quart of gasoline at today’s prices, while the silver dollar will pay for well over five gallons. I explained to my audience that consumer prices are not high – the paper dollar has lost most of its value. It makes no difference how high the price of gasoline goes, a silver dollar will continue to buy gas for 20 cents a gallon, exactly the price gas was during the Great Depression. Based on 1940 prices, a paper dollar is worth about two pennies.

Today in America, we are being systematically robbed of our property because we have allowed the Federal Reserve to flood our banks with fiat, worthless paper money. There is actually a law against paper money but nobody seems to know about it. The Supreme law of the land is the US Constitution, which stated in Article I Section 10: Individual states are “not allowed to make any things but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” The Constitution also states that “Congress has the power to COIN money and regulate the value thereof.” Our Founding Fathers knew how a central bank printing paper money would collapse our economy. Had we followed the US Constitution to the full letter of the law, gasoline would still be 20 cents a gallon. As the dollar continues to lose value we say our currency has lost its purchasing power. It should be more properly referred to as embezzlement by the banking industry.

Robert Kahre owns a family business and instead of using paper money he paid his workers with gold and silver coins minted by the United States government. He paid them based on the “face value” of the coins. If he paid a worker a dollar an hour he paid with a silver dollar, which states on the coin that it is “one dollar” regardless of today’s value. His wages were so low that he didn’t have to file W-2 income tax forms or withhold taxes or pay workman’s comp. This upset the IRS, which charged him and his family with 161 federal tax crimes.

The case which was tried before a Las Vegas jury in a Federal Court, heard testimony for almost four months. Defendants believed they had no legal obligation to withhold, pay income taxes or report anything to the government because the “face value” of the gold and silver coins is so small as to fall beneath the reporting thresholds set by the Internal Revenue Code. The government argued that the payments in gold and silver US coins must be considered at their bullion, full-market value when considering the worth of the wages for purposes of the IRS code. The essence of the argument is that Congress is obligated by law to mint and circulate such coins as demand requires, and must establish the value of coins as they are used as legal tender, but a coin’s market value is a distinct, separate attribute of such coins and is of no legal consequence if the coins are used as legal tender. If a worker is paid with such coins, his taxable income can only be the face value indicated on the coin. “A coin dollar is worth no more for the purposes of tender in payment of an ordinary debt than a note dollar. The law has not made the note a standard of value anymore than coin. It is true that in the market, as an article of merchandise, one is of greater value than the other; but as money, as a medium of exchange, the law knows no difference between them.”

On September 17, the jury returned its verdict refusing to convict all nine defendants of any of the 161 federal tax crimes they had been charged with. One would think, “we the tax payers would want to hear that the IRS was defeated by the use of the true money.” To my knowledge, the results of this trial were never printed or broadcast by any of the major news media. Three days after the trial’s conclusion, the Las Vegas Review Journal ran its first and last story about the outcome and then only because of public pressure from interested parties who attended the trial.

The Department of Justice prosecutors know that justice was done and that if this information was made available to the general public their house of cards would come tumbling down. All federal agencies have a great fear of the truth and only by controlling the news media can they keep the world from caving in on their heads.

(After typing this article, Beth (my secretary) has now surrendered the raise that she has yet to receive, contingent on me agreeing to pay her in gold & silver coins; see the truth does hurt.)

© 2008 Derry Brownfield - All Rights Reserved

Q&A: The dollar's rally

Foreign exchange markets sense a change in the global economic climate

The US dollar is making a comeback as sluggish European economies and falling oil prices make the outlook for the world's largest economy seem better.

The greenback hit a six-month high against the euro on Friday, after earlier data showed the eurozone economy shrank in the second quarter, adding to fears that the region may be heading towards recession.

Meanwhile the Bank of England issued a gloomy assessment of the UK economy.

That has caused the pound to fall against the dollar for an 11th consecutive day.

What is driving the dollar?

The US has been seen as the worst hit by the recent slowdown, but there has been promising news recently from the world's biggest economy.

A surge in June's export sales and rising industrial output in July have made economists more optimistic about its outlook.

This, coupled with news that economies outside the US are doing badly, has led to a rise in the dollar as foreign exchange markets sense a change in the economic climate.

The dollar's climb against the euro was triggered after the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet, reiterated his fears about the health of the eurozone economy earlier this month.

Many analysts expect the ECB and the Bank of England to cut rates in a bid to boost their flagging economies.

So if US rates head in the opposite direction, the shifting interest rate gap should also boost the dollar, as the euro and sterling become less attractive to global investors.

The oil factor?

But commodities - namely oil - also have a part to play.

The recent fall in the price of crude oil has helped the US currency because the US, the world's biggest oil consumer, has most to lose and least to gain from sky-high oil.

When oil prices rise, the dollar traditionally weakens.

But a lower oil price helps tame inflation, helping revive consumer and business spending and so kick-starting the wider economy.

Will the greenback rally last?

If the US economic picture continues to improve and oil keeps falling, analysts say the rally will be supported.

Goldman Sachs, the largest US investment bank, said it believed "the dollar's long-term downtrend had ended".

After a decade of taking a negative view on the dollar, the bank said it was waving "goodbye to our long-held dollar bearish stance".

Still, the dollar faces challenges ahead, such as volatility in oil prices and weaker US consumer spending.

Investors will also be looking at the giant emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China - key drivers of this decade's global expansion.

If cracks start to appear in the economies of the emerging world, that too could determine the extent of the dollar rally.

Why does the currency change matter?

American tourists in Europe have bemoaned the weak dollar and how it has reduced their purchasing power for years.

Europeans crossing the Atlantic have enjoyed a spending spree fuelled by the strong euro.

These factors will change slightly, analysts said.

On the upside, European exporters will benefit as their goods will become cheaper overseas.

And institutions holding large reserves of of dollar assets, such as Asian central banks, will be breathing a sigh of relief with the current direction of the dollar

US dominates the world economically and militarily for how long?

It will not come as news to anyone that the US dominates the world
economically and militarily. But the exact mechanisms by which American
hegemony has been established and maintained are perhaps less well understood
than they might be. One tool used to great effect has been the dollar, but its
efficacy has recently been under threat since Europe introduced the euro.
The dollar is the de facto world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for
approximately two thirds of all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths
of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all world exports are
denominated in dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars.
But the more dollars there are circulating outside the US, or invested by foreign
owners in American assets, the more the rest of the world has had to provide the
US with goods and services in exchange for these dollars. The dollars cost the
US next to nothing to produce, so the fact that the world uses the currency in
this way means that the US is importing vast quantities of goods and services
virtually for free.
Since so many foreign-owned dollars are not spent on American goods and
services, the US is able to run a huge trade deficit year after year without
apparently any major economic consequences. The most recently published
figures, for example, show that in November of last year US imports were worth
48% more than US exports1. No other country can run such a large trade deficit
with impunity. The financial media tell us the US is acting as the ‘consumer of
last resort’ and the implication is that we should be thankful, but a more
enlightening description of this state of affairs would be to say that it is getting a
massive interest-free loan from the rest of the world.
While the US’ position may seem inviolable, one should remember that the
more you have, the more you have to lose. And recently there have been signs of
how, for the first time in a long time, the US may be beginning to lose.
One of the stated economic objectives, and perhaps the primary objective, when
setting up the euro was to turn it into a reserve currency to challenge the dollar
so that Europe too could get something for nothing.
This however would be a disaster for the US. Not only would they lose a large
part of their annual subsidy of effectively free goods and services, but countries
switching to euro reserves from dollar reserves would bring down the value of
the US currency. Imports would start to cost Americans a lot more and as
increasing numbers of those holding dollars began to spend them, the US would
have to start paying its debts by supplying in goods and services to foreign
countries, thus reducing American living standards. As countries and businesses
converted their dollar assets into euro assets, the US property and stock market
bubbles would, without doubt, burst. The Federal Reserve would no longer be
able to print more money to reflate the bubble, as it is currently openly
considering doing, because, without lots of eager foreigners prepared to mop
them up, a serious inflation would result which, in turn, would make foreigners
even more reluctant to hold the US currency and thus heighten the crisis.
There is though one major obstacle to this happening: oil. Oil is not just by far
the most important commodity traded internationally, it is the lifeblood of all
modern industrialised economies. If you don’t have oil, you have to buy it. And
if you want to buy oil on the international markets, you usually have to have
dollars. Until recently all OPEC countries agreed to sell their oil for dollars only.
So long as this remained the case, the euro was unlikely to become the major
reserve currency: there is not a lot of point in stockpiling euros if every time you
need to buy oil you have to change them into dollars. This arrangement also
meant that the US effectively part-controlled the entire world oil market: you
could only buy oil if you had dollars, and only one country had the right to print
dollars - the US.
If on the other hand OPEC were to decide to accept euros only for its oil
(assuming for a moment it were allowed to make this decision), then American
economic dominance would be over. Not only would Europe not need as many
dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle
East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro
assets (Japan is the major subsidiser of the US because it holds so many dollar
investments). The US on the other hand, being the world's largest oil importer
would have, to run a trade surplus to acquire euros. The conversion from trade
deficit to trade surplus would have to be achieved at a time when its property
and stock market prices were collapsing and its domestic supplies of oil and gas
were contracting. It would be a very painful conversion.
The purely economic arguments for OPEC converting to the euro, at least for a
while, seem very strong. The Euro-zone does not run a huge trade deficit nor is
it heavily endebted to the rest of the world like the US and interest rates in the
Euro-zone are also significantly higher. The Euro-zone has a larger share of
world trade than the US and is the Middle East’s main trading partner. And
nearly everything you can buy for dollars you can also buy for euros - apart, of
course, from oil. Furthermore, if OPEC were to convert their dollar assets to
euro assets and then require payment for oil in Euros, their assets would
immediately increase in value, since oil importing countries would be forced to
also convert part of their assets, driving the prices up. For OPEC, backing the
euro would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. They could then at some later date
move to some other currency, perhaps back to the dollar, and again make huge
profits.
But of course it is not a purely economic decision.
So far only one OPEC country has dared switch to the euro: Iraq, in November
20002,3. There is little doubt that this was a deliberate attempt by Saddam to
strike back at the US, but in economic terms it has also turned out to have been a
huge success: at the time of Iraq's conversion the euro was worth around 83 US
cents but it is now worth over $1.05. There may however be other consequences
to this decision.
One other OPEC country has been talking publicly about possible conversion to
the euro since 1999: Iran2,4, a country which has since been included in the
George W. Bush’s ‘axis of evil’.
A third OPEC country which has recently fallen out with the US government is
Venezuela and it too has been showing disloyalty to the dollar. Under Hugo
Chavez’s rule, Venezuela has established barter deals for trading its oil with 12
Latin American countries as well as Cuba. This means that the US is missing out
on its usual subsidy and might help explain the American wish to see the back of
Chavez. At the OPEC summit in September 2000, Chavez delivered to the
OPEC heads of state the report of the 'Interrnational Seminar on the Future of
Energy’, a conference called by Chavez earlier that year to examine the future
supplies of both fossil and renewable energies. One of the two key
recommendations of the report was that ‘OPEC take advantage of high-tech
electronic barter and bi-lateral exchanges of its oil with its developing country
customers’5, i.e. OPEC should avoid using both the dollar and the euro for many
transactions.
And last April, a senior OPEC representative gave a public speech in Spain
during Spain’s presidency of the EU during which he made clear that though
OPEC had as yet no plans to make oil available for euros, it was an option that
was being considered and which could well be of economic benefit to many
OPEC countries, particularly those of the Middle East6.
As oil production is now in decline in most oil producing countries, the
importance of the remaining large oil producers, particularly those of the Middle
East, is going to grow and grow in years to come7.
Iraq, whose oil production has been severely curtailed by sanctions, is one of a
very small number of countries which can help ease this looming oil shortage.
Europe, like most of the rest of the world, wishes to see a peaceful resolution of
the current US-Iraqi tensions and a gradual lifting of the sanctions - this would
certainly serve its interests best. But as Iraqi oil is denominated in euros,
allowing it to become more widely available at present could loosen the dollar
stranglehold and possibly do more damage than good to US economic health.
All of this is bad news for the US economy and the dollar. The fear for
Washington will be that not only will the future price of oil not be right, but the
currency might not be right either. Which perhaps helps explain why the US is
increasingly turning to its second major tool for dominating world affairs:
military force.
REFERENCES
1. Anon., ‘Trade Deficit Surges to a Record High’, Reuters, (January 17, 2003),
http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/4970891.htm.
2. Recknagel, Charles, ‘Iraq: Baghdad Moves to Euro’, Radio Free Europe
(November 1, 2000),
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/11/01112000160846.asp.
3. Anon., ‘A Look At The World's Economy’, CBS Worldwide Inc., (December
22, 2000),
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/22/2000/main259203.shtml.
4. Anon., ‘Iran may switch to euro for crude sale payments’, Alexander Oil and
Gas, (September 5, 2002), http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntm23638.htm.
5. Hazel Henderson, ‘Globocop v. Venezuela’s Chavez: Oil, Globalization and
Competing Visions of Development’, InterPress Service, (April 2002),
http://www.hazelhenderson.com/Globocop%20v.%20Chavez.htm.
6. Javad Yarjani, ‘The Choice of Currency for the Denomination of the Oil Bill’,
(April 14, 2002),
http://www.opec.org/NewsInfo/Speeches/sp2002/spAraqueSpainApr14.htm.
7. The Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Newsletter 26, (February 2003),
http://www.asponews.org.
FURTHER READING
William Clark, ‘The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A
Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth’, (January
2003), http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html.