EEEEE
EARNINGS DRIFT: The key, long-term objective must be to cut out "earnings drift", which is the rate at which over-award payments accelerate. - Pop opinion, also opinion by "experts". - They would be harmless, non-inflationary and just - if they merely represented increases in productivity. - J. Z., n.d. - Wages can only "drift" upwards, beyond their productivity and nominally, when paid in legal tender monopoly money. If productivity and total turnover remain the same and the central bank does not issue additional legal tender notes, where do the additional notes come for, to pay for the "earnings drift"? - Whenever sense and comprehension are lacking, another senseless word is coined as a cover-up or merely verbal "explanation" or "justification". - J.Z., 2.4.97. Mere words have often no reality but mere errors and false thinking behind them. - J.Z., 15.6.11. - WAGES & INFLATION, WAGE & PRICE SPIRAL, DIS.
EASY MONEY - Nonsense! Coercive, exclusive and fraudulent money is easy for the issuer but hard on his victims. It does, at the same time, make it hard to impossible to get or issue sound alternative monies easily and cheaply. Easy and hard are false and misleading alternatives, which wrongly assume that all paper monies are easy monies, or some are even easier than others (in the laxity of their issues or in ignoring the required reflux arrangements) and really only all rare metal currencies are hard monies. Paper money can be "hard" (as good as gold, or even better, although made out of a softer material) but at the same time easy and cheap to issue. Or it can be easy and cheap for a fraudulent and coercive issuer to get into circulation and very hard upon his victims. Easy and hard, or scarce and cheap, fiat or commodity money, are all over-simplified generalisations, that do not distinguish sufficiently between all the exchange media and value standards of monetary despotism and all the exchange media and value standards and clearing options of monetary freedom. They are rather attempts to avoid thinking realistically and thoroughly enough on this subject, by making all the necessary distinctions, not just choosing two wrongfully polarised ones, as if they could fully represent the present reality and the future freedom possibilities. Easy and cheap things are not necessarily useless. A cheap digital watch might last you a year or two and cost you no more than a new battery for it would. Instead, you might spend hundreds or even thousands on a quality watch, that might not give you that much more accuracy in timing and that might last you only a few decades. It might look better and is much more expensive but you might be able to save considerably by buying annually a new cheap and disposable watch. The same applies to an electronic calculator. I have a cheap one, still on its first battery, after at least 10 years. It is a Sharp, Elsimate, Model EL-8159. A very expensive one could hardly have served me better. The most comfortable shoes I have ever had are also some of the cheapest, costing only $ 12-14 and each pair lasts me for many months. Because they are so comfortable I do wear them till the fall to pieces or the soles are worn flat and become slippery on sloping lawns. Good money can be as easy and cheap. It is just a tool. It does not have to be gold-plated, gold covered or studded with diamonds. It does not have to have any art value, either. It need not be beautiful at all, just sufficiently useful and always ready on hand when needed, just like e.g. a cheap plastic ruler or measuring tape. - J. Z., 28.1.94, 2.5.97, 3.8.11. - IS IT A PRELUDE TO A RECESSION, DEPRESSION OR DEFLATION? See: INFLATION, CREDIT EXPANSION, MONEY EXPANSION, CREATION OF MONEY, CREATION OF CREDIT, CRISES, SOUND & UNSOUND PAPER MONEY, DIS.
EASY MONEY: Easy money is not necessarily coercive or fiat money or depreciating money, although it might be cheap to produce and its not redeemable by the issuer in rare metals but only in wanted goods and services up to the purchasing power of a stated certain weight of gold or silver, used merely as a value standard, not as an exchange medium or as a cover or redemption fund. It need not be fraudulent or inflatable money. It can be an honest and stable money, easily and cheaply issued, by the owners of goods and labour capacity and providers of services, to facilitate the sales of what they have to offer, to those who want them, and this at market prices using value standards that are agreeable or previously agreed upon. The costs of providing it need not be higher than that of printing tickets and vouchers for goods and services. It can be the easiest way in which producers and distributors can bring their goods and services to the market and assure their sales, to the extent that they can use their own notes, tickets, clearing certificates, IOUs, etc., as means of payment for the goods and services of others or in payment of other debts. Without legal tender power and an issue monopoly, it would NOT be an EASY money to FORCE it upon UNWILLING creditors AT ITS NOMINAL VALUE, in spite of it having been greatly over-issued and thus depreciated in purchasing power. Under freedom of choice also for value standards, it would be easy to issue sound monies and to keep them sound but hard to get a money accepted at all or at par with its nominal value standard, which has been over-issued, uses an unsound value standard or is locally unknown or suspected. It would be easy money, for issuers, under monetary freedom, for the ones who has some to many consumer goods or services to offer to other people, which people want, at his prices. With his own issues he could to liquidify these assets and anticipate their sales and also assure their sales in advance, by thus "producing" his own ticket money upon these assets, assuring with them his own readiness to perform, his readiness to accept them for his goods and services. He would use them first of all to buy from others the goods, services and labour they have to offer to him and which he wants from them at market prices. Secondly, with them he could grant short term turnover credits to employers, discounting with his goods and service warrants or vouchers the claims factory owners or farmers have against wholesalers for goods or produce already produced and sold to them and on the road to the retailers and thus the final consumers. With these notes these producers could pay their payroll and other expenses. Finally, their recipients would bring them to the retail shops, from which they would, directly, or via bank accounts, find their way to the wholesalers, who could thus redeem the short term turnover credit certificate upon which this alternative currency was issued. This kind of money is easy for its potential acceptors as well. It would not be forced upon them. It would neither be inflated nor deflated nor stag-flated. They would have a free choice between such exchange media and would thus be free to choose only the best among them for themselves. Thus the good and better money would drive out the flawed and bad ones. Under freedom it would be easy for a productive person to oblige himself in this way while increasing his ability to pay to the extent of his productive and exchange capacity to serve the wants and needs of his customers. He himself could, by his issues, help to turn the wants and needs of his potential customers into effective demand against himself. Without his issues they might not be able to sell their goods and services and labour (unless they became effective issuers themselves) and thus they might never be able to buy from him and able to pay him. To oblige others to accept one's own money at par, no matter how little or unwanted one's offers, or how overpriced they are, is not EASY. It requires special legislation, a) granting a monopoly to a central bank and b) also legal tender power for its notes. This requires political power combined with ignorance and prejudices among the victims of this system and also among those, who do support it, believing that thereby they would really supply a public service instead of the contrary of it, namely an abusive and abused monetary despotism. It is a "hard" money system, hard upon all its victims. But it is an "easy" system for the victimizers involved, one with which they can e.g. "finance" an aggressive and unpopular war or seemingly "finance" ever increasing nominal Welfare State handouts and, with these used as bait, catch the votes of the ignorant and prejudiced, which always tend to outnumber the votes of the educated and enlightened voters. The situation becomes quite different under monetary freedom. By only obliging oneself with one's own IOUs, goods warrants, service vouchers and clearing certificates and offering optional one's obligations of this kind at their market value, which is, as a rule, kept at par with their nominal value, at least towards oneself and by voluntary acceptance in local circulation, one does not have power over others but merely the power to serve others. One does not conquer, rob and subdue them, but merely serves them as much as they want to be served. That is a comparatively EASY business and one that makes and sound business or enterprise comparatively easy. On the other hand, the monopoly money and forced currency of monetary despotism does rather resemble the issue of "requisitioning certificates" upon the goods, services, and labour of others, certificates based at best upon tax slavery and offering merely nation-wide uniformity and the opportunity to likewise cheat one's own creditors. It ceases to remain easy for such monopoly issuers of forced currency only towards the end of still another inflation by them and is rather hard upon the victims. Towards the end of a rapid inflation even the policemen, other civil servants and soldiers of such a regime are unable and unwilling to furthermore accept its inflated currency because it does no longer provide a living for them. The prices do then race ahead of the printing presses and they remain unpaid for long periods or, with the money paid to them they can no longer pay their way. - It is easy to carelessly play around with terms like "easy" money and arrive thereby at wrong conclusions. It is relatively hard to make all the necessary distinctions which an understanding of reality requires, instead of "seeing" or "thinking" merely in verbally opposite terms. - "Hard" money, on the other hand, might mean an exclusive gold coin currency. It would be "hard" for all those unable to sell their goods, services and labour, at market prices, for gold coins or gold certificates, who could, otherwise, under monetary freedom, sell them easily, at gold weight prices, for certificates merely denominated in gold weight denominated, that are, without gold redemption by the issuers, kept at par with their nominal gold weight values. It would also be hard for all potential consumers, who do not posses or do not earn sufficient gold coins to pay all their debts with them. Central bank powers, legally granted to them, make it "easy" for central banks to do the wrong and irrational thing to a whole national economy and hard to impossible to service it properly, satisfying every legitimate demand for exchange media, sound value reckoning and clearing avenues. At the same time, it makes it hard for all their victims to help themselves, by their own private and sound issues and clearing arrangements. Easy and hard and soft and hard do mean different things under monetary despotism and monetary freedom, under legal tender and under free market rating, under exclusive currencies and under competing ones, under an exclusive paper value standard and under freedom of choice for value standards, under an issue monopoly and under freedom to issue. So far we have made it all too easy for monetary monopolists and coercers to turn us into their victims and we have made it hard for all those who would turn our minds and our actions towards monetary freedom options for ourselves and for all others. - If you try to use simple words and distinctions, then do at least apply them to all the possibilities, not only to your favoured narrow range of them or within an all too limited horizon. - Laissez faire, let people produce and exchange, even in the sphere of providing monetary, clearing, credit or financial services, is easy. Trying to achieve the same by a command economy, state socialism, dictocracy, interventionism, central planning and direction, in one word, by territorialism, is not only hard but impossible, in every sphere. To call a forced currency, based upon compulsory acceptance and compulsory value for a monopoly money an "easy" money is easily misleading for most who have not considered their monetary freedom alternatives or have merely confined their alternative vision to that of the gold bugs and their very limited redemptionism and convertibility that excludes even gold-weight accounting and clearing. - In other words, it is easy to be uninformed, misinformed or even stupid in this sphere and to make the same mistakes over and over again, in one's opinions, decisions and actions. - Monetary freedom for all the monetary theorists and experimenters - that is the only easy way out of our present monetary problems. No one is to be subjected any longer to the theories and opinions and misjudgements of any supposedly monetary experts that he has not freely chosen for himself as his guide in this sphere. Individual monetary rights and liberties for all, even in this sphere. - J.Z., 29.6.89, 14.5.97, 15.6.11.
EASY MONEY: Easy, soft and cheap monies, as well as paper monies in general, were often attacked as if they were inherently unsound. If only the forced, monopolistic paper currencies of governments are thus attacked, that would be unobjectionable. But to attack sound alternative private money issues, that would be cheap and easy for their users, to obtain and pay with, when they and the goods and services bought or sold with them are using a sound value standard, is absurd and only reveals the ignorance and prejudices of the users of such terms. Paper and plastic monies, issued under full monetary freedom, can be quite sound, also cheap and easy to obtain and retain their value at least as well if not much better than the best of the present governmental currencies. The price (including monetary crises) we have to pay for exclusive government currencies, including e.g. the gold redemptionist ones, is rather high and in free competition with sound paper currencies, these “solid” or “hard” currencies would be rather expensive, without being more sound, and thus their market share would tend to go down more and more. – Cheap and easy, soft and forced monopoly currencies may be good for the power interests and policies of territorial governments but not for their victims. Monetary enlightenment and emancipation would lead people to issue or accept easy, soft and cheap monies, including paper monies, competitively issued, and retaining their purchasing power. They would also always be sufficiently and cheaply available to sound debtors and could even be cheaply issued by them, as their IOUs or clearing certificates in sound monetary denominations, with the kind of IOU- debt- or shop-foundation or clearing-foundation that they have to offer for them. – Who refuses tickets to wanted artistic or entertainments or sports performances just because, judging them merely by their material, they are cheap, soft and easy? – Market-rated, in this sphere, they may be worth dozens to hundreds dollars per seat-ticket. – While not everything that looks like gold is really gold, anything that is widely enough as readily accepted as a corresponding gold coin would be, will also be widely accepted by those who intend to make consumer goods and service purchases priced out in gold weight units, although these standardized purchasing vouchers or ticket money have, as such, apart from their purchasing power, no rare metal value. Only on a free gold market could they be turned into metallic gold. – For small change currently valid postage stamps have also often been freely used. Would anyone declare them to be useless or inferior because their production and their material is easy, cheap and soft? – Would anyone declare that sound shares of bonds are inferior or valueless because they are made out of relatively cheap materials and soft in their nature? – The “hardest” money, for the involuntary acceptor, is often the forced and much depreciated paper currency of a government – Iron or steel or nickel coins are also “hard” money judging by their material, but hardly cheap to produce or as valuable as soft gold and silver coins. – Sound (by its reflux foundation and its value standard) and sufficient money supply should be the objective, also a supply of it cheaply supplied as possible, when it comes to interest charges and materials, whether in hard or soft materials. The terms and definitions that people are using are often their own worst enemies. - J.Z., 2.9.10, 2.11.10. - DIS., OBJECTIONS, PREJUDICES, ERRORS, MYTHS ON MONEY & BANKING, MONOPOLLY MONEY, GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY
EASY MONEY: The BALTIMORE SUN jocularly observed that 'the word 'easy' means 'easy', except when used in connection with the word 'payments'. - E. Haldeman-Julius, The Bunk Box, p.72. - As a rule payments will be easier when you are free to offer your own means of exchange or clearing certificates in payment, or those of others, competitively supplied, rather than being obliged to acquire first of all sufficient notes of a monopolised money which the issuer keeps in short supply, for the time being, or, all too much, out of your own channels of circulation. If a governmental or central bank currency is all too "easily" or excessively issued, i.e. beyond a pari-stand with a sound value standard, then this "easy money" is "easy" only for its monopoly issuer but hard for the whole economy that is subjected to it, because it loses more and more of its original value. Thus the term "easy money" is quite inappropriate for it. It is a forced currency, one with a monopoly and legal tender power - compulsory acceptance and a forced and fictitious value standard, which has already been depreciated by over-issues. - The uncritical use and repetition of such terms turns us into ignorant and not even protesting inflation victims and into liars. - J.Z., 17.4.97, 15.6.11. - EASY PAYMENTS, ABILITY TO PAY, DIS.
EASY MONEY: Under monetary despotism it is easy (via the money issue monopoly and legal tender) for the debtor to force "easy money" or "soft money" upon an unwilling creditor, who certainly won't rest easy before and after receiving it. It makes it also easy for the monopoly issuer to issue more and more of it and to carelessly grant loans with it to unreliable debtors or to favourites. For this kind of issuer only the printing costs will have to be covered. For him they are like ready requisitioning certificates upon much of the property and earnings in any country, whether the victims like that or not. - Its initial value to the issuer comes easy and its value also disappears easily - at the expense of its victims. - J. Z., 8.11.92, 15.4.97. - See: SOFT MONEY, HARD MONEY.
EBELING, RICHARD M., Government, Fiscal Responsibility, and Free Banking - February 2005. - "If the belief in and desire for personal and economic liberty gains hold and grows, monetary and fiscal reform will eventually come by logical necessity." - Roy Halliday, in section on Government-Regulated Banking
EBELING, RICHARD M., Why Not Monetary Freedom? - December 2005. - "In all of the commentaries that have appeared since President George W. Bush nominated Dr. Ben S. Bernanke as Alan Greenspan’s successor at the Federal Reserve, there has been one crucial question that has remained virtually unasked: Why do we need a central bank and therefore a new chairman for the Fed?" - Roy Halliday, in section on Free Market Banking.
ECONOMIC & HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECTS IGNORED BY MOST MODERN AUTHORS: You say '... that the modern authors have dealt with the problems of value, price, wages, interest, rent, money, capital, currency, markets, etc., together with ALL the questions and problems which belong to them.' - Now - I believe to have found, indeed, that they have NOT dealt with ALL the most important and subsidiary questions and problems. Instead, and essentially, they have been going in circles. - Every single of these problems will be seen in quite different light when the following possibilities are taken into consideration: (I) The note issue monopoly of the central bank is repealed. (II) The men in power in the world will return to all human beings the freedom, which existed before 1914, to adopt in their contracts a value standard of their own choice, whether it be gold, silver, an index, music records or canaries. (III) Patronage (i.e. the splitting of most enterprises into employers and employees) is replaced. The employees constitute themselves into an association and purchase the enterprises. (IV) Provision is made that every human being may join any productive association as a member, as far as this is technically possible. (Hertzka has up to now best elaborated this idea and I hold that this ought to apply even if working hours would have to be reduced to half an hour a day.) (*) (V) The whole population is sworn in upon human rights - to the extent that it is voluntarily prepared to undertake such an oath. (VI) For the protection of human rights an international militia is established. All its members are sworn in upon human rights. (**) (VII) Freedom to issue (notes etc.), free choice of value standards, and other freedoms from a money and means of payment monopoly, are counted as human and civil rights. (VIII) The principle, recognized already in almost all constitutions, that the authority of civil and military superiors to give commands, finds its limits in the rights of human beings and citizens, will be brought to the attention of all people at short intervals, so that it will never be forgotten and will be more and more firmly impressed. - The crisis of 1932 would have disappeared in less than 4 weeks if THIS would have happened. ... Do you know of ONE author among the modern ones who included the above hinted at possibilities in his calculations? Do not ALL of them consider the absolute power of the legislator as a truism? Is not for all of them the money monopoly of the State, the exclusive value standard, the authority to introduce planning etc., a foregone conclusion? Do you know of even ONE exception? ... (Rittershausen is one, but perhaps the only exception, apart, PERHAPS from an American theoretician of money named Faulkner. I read a very derogatory criticism of him, written by the money-monopolist (J. Z.: He favours an exclusive gold standard!) SPAHR. From his objections, I could only conclude that Faulkner is a very sharp and independent thinker. Unfortunately, I do not see how I can obtain F.'s writings.)" - A translation by J. Z. of part of a letter by Ulrich von Beckerath to Dr. Mann, 29.9.1957: Bth. confirmed that the novelist William Faulkner was not meant. Perhaps it was R. P. Faulkner, listed as author of "The Private Issue of Token Coins", in Pol. Sc. Qu., vol. 16, on Jackson and Civil War Token Money? A copy of this article is still wanted by me. - J.Z., 1997. - Yesterday I looked in vain with Google for a this or any other essay by this writer on money. - J.Z., 16.6.11. - Since then a few authors have indeed questioned some of the premises challenged here - but is there one other author who has challenged ALL of them and who has made as sensible suggestions on all these points as Ulrich von Beckerath (1882-1969) had? Please, tell me his name, his address and give me a list of his writings. For such people and texts I will always make room in my PEACE PLANS series. - J. Z., 4.1.86. - (*) I would exempt from this very small productive associations, let us say of up to 50 members. (**) The international militia should merely be a federation of local militias. The human rights they ought to upheld are not those declared by the U.N. in Dec. 1948 but an ideal declaration of individual rights, for which a draft has been published in PP 4 & 61-63. Ca. 130 private drafts of human rights were reproduced in PEACE PLANS 589/590. - HUMAN RIGHTS, ECONOMIC RIGHTS, MONETARY RIGHTS. - Compare U. v. Beckerath's longer draft of economic human rights in PEACE PLANS 589/90, which I do also offer digitized. - J.Z., 15.6.11.
ECONOMIC GROWTH: Economic growth policies amount to a positive anti-inflationary policy. - Popular opinion. - They embrace technological and scientific developments, education, training, labour mobility and adaptability, tax concessions, subsidies, protectionist policies etc. - Economic growth may somewhat hide inflation but does not abolish it. Sound economic development or growth does have the tendency to reduce prices from the goods side. When at the same time inflation is just large enough to prevent that price reduction (in the average), then we have no reason to assume that no monetary inflation of all prices has taken place. They have been inflated above their market level by keeping them artificially at their former nominal level! - J. Z., 29.3.97. - DIS., INFLATION, DEARNESS, PRICE INCREASES, GOODS SIDE, MONETARY SIDE, GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT.
ECONOMIC INTERVENTIONISM: You can't try to control one side of an economic system without screwing up some other segment of the economy. This is because all economic phenomena are at some level interconnected. - Jim Downard, TC131p40. - Centralised and monopolised banking screws up almost everything. - J.Z., 6.10.89. - REGULATIONS, DIRIGISM, CONTROLS, CENTRAL BANKING
ECONOMIC POLICY JOURNAL: EconomicPolicyJournal.com: What Would You Like to See as the ... - www.economicpolicyjournal.com/.../what-would-you-like-to-see-as... - Cached - 19 Jul 2011 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk5aRIz17fk. - Once people start talking about free market money, then I'll really be hopeful! ... - They have started to talk about it. Recently, with Google, I got over 700 results, when searching for "free market money". Under "Free banking" and "monetary freedom" I got even many more search results. - Many more than I can explore on my own. Some of the results from the "free market money" search I have inserted here. - J.Z., 9.8.11.
ECONOMIST, THE, A Survey of the World Economy: An endangered species | The Economist - www.economist.com/node/242239 - Cached - 23 Sep 1999 – Why not abolish central banks, ask those critics, and have a free-market money system where interest rates adjust in response to changes in ... - That sounds promising to me and worth downloading and reading, if and when do get around to it. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
EDUCATION VOUCHERS: I do favour education vouchers. Not those issued by governments to parents, to arrange for them the payment of the school fees of the schools they have chosen for their children, but education vouchers, in money denominations, issued by self-supporting private and cooperative schools, issued in payments to their teachers and suppliers and accepted by them in payment of school fees, as freely issued, soundly based and fast returning service money or service tokens. Naturally, they should also use a sound value standard which the acceptors of this alternative currency would prefer. To achieve a wider circulation for this school money and to promote the education of their school children better, they should also try to arrange for the part-time employment of their pupils, in which they are paid with this school money. That kind of practice might help most school teachers to come away from thinking only in terms of statist" solutions". Actually, when old but advanced teaching systems like Joseph Lancaster's "monitor system are used, where one teacher can indirectly teach, with the aid of his pupil-monitors, 1,000 children at a time, the education costs can become so low that the school children, by a few part-time hours of productive work a week, in jobs they have chosen, because they are interested in them, and paid only according to their productive contributions, would easily be able to pay their teachers, since the combined purchasing power of a 1,000 children is considerable. Naturally such a system presupposes an end to government subsidisation of schooling and an end to monetary despotism or the chance to ignore it safely enough at least in this sphere. All compulsory school attendance laws should also be abolished. The basic school skills, reading and writing can be acquired outside of schools, e.g. under this monitor system and within such schools it would take usually only weeks to months, at most, to acquire them. It would be up to parents to insist that they acquire, somehow, in schools or otherwise, basic reading and writing skills. From then on, with some guidance and advice, their further education could and should be largely their own choice, following their interests and capabilities, and it could also be paid for by them. (Only in a few and extreme cases might some personal education loans be required. On a stable value basis there would be funds available for them. - J.Z., 6.6.11.) For this not only the school curriculum of the local schools should be open to them but all educational events outside the school system, via combined calendar for all such upcoming events. According to a recent study of pupils learning French, where class learning was compared with outside of class learning with some teacher involvement and independent learning, without any personal contact with teachers, using audio and video tapes and computers and educational broadcasting and having only a telephone number to contact a teacher by phone, if any problem arose, those pupils who had least contact with teachers, did best! - If child labour were not outlawed, taxed and subjected to red tape, children could probably work at many local jobs part-time. - J. Z., 16.5.97, 16.6.11.
E-GOLD & SHOP FOUNDATION: To the extent that rare metal redemption by the issuer is chosen, the value standard and the exchange medium functions are unnecessarily mixed up. (With legal tender paper money they are not only unnecessarily but unjustly and despotically mixed up.) The essential cover for all currencies is not a stock of gold held somewhere and offered for redemption but their convertibility into goods and services at a certain stated value, which could be the value of a stated weight of gold or silver. Shops can offer this much more directly and naturally for shop currencies issued by them and their associations than can bankers who have only gold stocks to offer for their notes. Moreover, no one else, unless he has contracted for this with the shops, can rightly issue claims upon their goods and services. Shop currencies, issued by shop associations, do automatically stream back shortly after their issues, especially when they have only a predetermined and short term validity. Gold certificates stream back only partly and occasionally, in case of distrust or when metallic gold is needed, i.e., relatively rarely. That led to wide-spread fraud, with 100% gold redemption being promised upon a fractional gold cover. (If only a fractional gold redemption would be promised, one depending on the availability of gold coins, or one with delay or option clause or the handing over of corresponding securities in case of withdrawal attempts, that would not be dishonest. - J.Z., 16.6.11.) Shop currency can also be denominated in gold weight value units - but without offering gold weight units as redemption goods. Only the redemption in goods and services would be promised that are priced in gold weight units and the issuers will always be obliged to accept their notes at par, regardless of their rating in the general market. That acceptance obligation for their own issues will keep their issues at or close enough to par with their nominal gold weight value - and would allow them to expand the issue of their sound currencies in proportion to their readiness to supply wanted goods and services, thus always keeping a balance between the goods and services they offer and the volume of their currency in circulation. Any small excess issues will lead to a temporary discount in general circulation and wide-spread refusals to accept them, while the issuers would still be obliged to accept notes at par which, at the same time, they could only issue at a discount. Thus they would soon stop issues. They would also want to preserve their business reputation and potential circulation sphere for their notes, which they could lose if they were careless in their issues. The reflux of their notes would be automatic, in payment for their goods and services. They could issue them in payment of the own wage bill and other debts and also in short term loans, especially to factories and others suppliers, for their wage and salary bills, in the discount of the short term debt certificates of these other employers, which they have received from their wholesalers for goods already produced and sold to them for short term payment promises. All exclusive and forced currencies and gold redemption notes ignore the natural cover, issue and reflux options for currencies that are truly current for consumer requirements, for their daily needs. The value preservation function of notes can be secured otherwise, better and cheaper than by gold redemption. Competitive notes can be kept at par with their nominal gold weight value, redeemed in gold-weight priced goods and services, and used in payment of other debts so measured. Moreover, on a free gold market they can be converted into metallic gold - from the largest redemption fund of all, namely all the gold that is available on a free and world-wide gold market. But at any time only a few people are likely to make use of this opportunity, those who really need the metallic gold. - J.Z., 9.12.00, 25.8.02, 16.6.11. - SHOP CURRENCIES, BANKING PRINCIPLE & REAL BILLS DOCTRINE & SOUND COMMERCIAL BILLS
E-MONEY: E-money : Issues - www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/E-money::sub::Issues - Cached - ... (1996) by Michael Froomkin; indomitus.net/2004status.html: ''Status Report on Free Market Money'' (2005) from THE INDOMITUS REPORT ... - DIGITAL CASH, ELECTRONIC MONEY
ELECTRONIC DATA BANK ON MONETARY FREEDOM & MONETARY DESPOTISM: Currently, Klaus Falke is attempting to set one up, first with the aim to finally produce a handbook on monetary freedom. He is seeking collaborators. See: www.monetary-freedom.net/ - J.Z., 11.6.11.
ELLIOTT, N., THE USES AND ABUSES OF - www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/econn/econn047.pdf - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - by N ELLIOTT - 1992 - Related articles - And see also: Antoine Clarke, The Micropolitics of Free Market Money: A ... which contains a useful Free Market Money EMERGENCY MONEY ISSUES DURING INFLATIONS: During the Great German inflation almost every printer and numerous firms were also busy issuing their own emergency currency, almost always counting still, until close to the end of this inflation, in the continuously depreciated legal tender paper standard. The private emergency issues were permitted or tolerated by the authorities because of the accelerating shortage of legal tender cash, even while the note printing presses of the governmental ran hot, 24 hours a day. The prices and sometimes wages, anticipating further inflation, rose faster still than the note printing, even of notes in high denominations. In the end, the note-printing costs came to 48% of the face value of the notes. Then a monetary revolution occurred, probably beginning with booksellers pricing their books on gold weight units and accepting the governments inflated currency only at its current market rate against gold. Also large firms, e.g. the Hoechst Farbenwerke, did produce their own emergency money, finally also with gold weight value standard reckoning. At last the government was wise enough to finally put itself at its head. Otherwise several secessionist movements would have gone ahead. All accounts reckoned in and transferred in the very rapidly depreciating paper standard of the government did, naturally participate in that depreciation. They should not be blamed for it, but, instead, the government's central banking system, with its inbuilt and intended (for war and deficit financing) inflation system. - J. Z., 3/97, 16.6.11.
EMERGENCY MONIES: At least some illustrations to be included in the final edition of this compilation. There are many books produced by and for note-collectors with numerous illustrations of such issues. I listed some of them in my free banking bibliography on www.panarchy.org/zube/money.index.html
EMORY, BOBBY YATES, Banking for Free: Banking in a Free Society - There will be more banking options in a free society. "Market forces will select the solution that provides the best combination of safety and efficiency." - Roy Halliday, in section on Free Market Banking.
EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP: A Finnish paper company, burdened by tree-harvesting machinery always in need of repair, sold the machines to its operators, and gave them contracts to do their old jobs,. Productivity soared, as the operators now kept the machines in better condition and used them with far greater care than before. See THE ECONOMIST, December 24, 1988, p.16. - Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nations, 1991, indexed, 339pp., p.91. - CONTRACT WORK, AUTONOMOUS WORK GROUPS, DECENTRALIZATION, LIBERATION AT WORK, COOPS, PURCHASE OF ENTERPRISE OR AT LEAST OF SOME OF THEIR EQUIPMENT TO EMPLOYEES, SELF-MANAGEMENT, EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP
EMPLOYERS UNDER MONETARY FREEDOM: Only under monetary freedom are employers free to completely fill their niche as employers, i.e. to be or become or remain employers for all those able and willing to work productively, even for the fractionally disabled, who, within their limitations, could still be fully employed at whatever rates their work efforts would still be worth. Already a single permanently unemployed in an economy, who is able and willing to work, shows up a condition of monetary despotism that reduces all employers at least fractionally to non-employers Moreover, under monetary despotism the still employed, part-time employed do always have to fear unemployment and thus put up with jobs, conditions and wages that they would, otherwise, not choose for themselves and would not have to. - J.Z., 28.4.97, 16.6.11. - EMPLOYEES, CONDITIONS, WAGES, FEAR OF UNEMPLOYMENT
EMPLOYERS UNDER MONETARY FREEDOM: The concept of the employer is likely to change in the future, under monetary freedom. He will then not only be considered as a provider of working capital, land, buildings, machinery, raw material and organiser and manager and supervisor of productive efforts, as a publicist, sales person and advertiser as well, but, also as one who either issues sound means of exchange himself, to pay his suppliers and labourers and staff and his own profit with or who associates with others, especially shopping centres, for the provision of sound exchange media, as many as needed and in the total volume or circulation that is needed. Then they will also choose one or the other sound value standard for their exchange media and credit transactions and use them in the pricing of goods, services and labour. Today, under monetary despotism, employers have failed to be employers for all the unemployed and under-employed. Their job also as a distributor for their products and services will be very much facilitated and become independent from any central banking system. Issuing money tokens based upon one's readiness to supply wanted goods and services for them is, essentially, much easier than merely offering goods and services that can be sold only for a monopolised and forced exchange medium. Then the employers will appear, to the extent of their own currency issues, as a cash-paying buyer in the market, instead of merely as seller, trying to be paid in monopoly money with which many of their potential customers are insufficiently supplied. All the notes issued by them will automatically and rather soon tend to stream back to them, in payment for their goods and services (directly, or indirectly, via his wholesaler and the retailers of this wholesaler), for they have no other value. His notes will be recognised as distribution, transport and sales tickets for his products and services. - J.Z., 20.2.93, 23.4.97. - The optimal solution for them would, probably, still be getting their claims for goods, those already produced and sold to wholesalers, on short terms, discounted by a local shop association bank with its shop currency, in analogy to the old Real Bills Doctrine or the best of the various free banking principles, the one essentially based upon clearing with the use of a sound value standard for this purpose but without the promise to redeem these clearing certificates in gold. Their issuers should only promise to accept them as if they were gold coins of a certain weight, for goods and services priced out in gold weight units - or use whatever other value standard issuers and acceptors are satisfied with. - J.Z., 16.6.11, 3.8.11.
EMPLOYERS: They can "provide" jobs only to the extent that the central banking system permits them and their customers to do so. When the central bank fails in this task then e.g. the manufacturers, other producers and traders have to dismiss a percentage of their employees, since they do no longer earn enough through sales, to pay the wages of workers whose work they do no longer need under these conditions of reduced production and reduced sales. Presently, self-help steps, to overcome their sales difficulties, through monetary freedom, are outlawed and usually not even known to and appreciated by those victimized by monetary despotism, still put forward as a supposedly ideal system - even after it failed again and again for a century. Like the workers themselves, the employers, too, have become victims of monetary despotism - and usually even grant it the sanction of the victims. - J. Z., 28.4.97. - Just like they have become consenting statist victims of numerous other territorial State institutions, not only the postal monopoly, by now for centuries. Where are the real successes of any statist, territorial and monopolistic constitutional or legalized institution, method, program or establishment? If there are any, I have not found them as yet. Please, point them out to me. Also consider, how they could balance the numerous failures of territorialist politicians and bureaucrats? - J.Z., 16.6.11. - UNDER MONETARY DESPOTISM
EMPLOYERS: Under monetary despotism and its mass unemployment caused by its deflations and inflations, "employers" have, to a large extent, ceased to be employers - with regard to the unemployed and under-employed and those paid subsidies to remain out of the job market. But the belief exists that a special group of people exists that somehow, miraculously, can provide employment to others. That these employers, in their turn, depend largely of a sufficient supply of sound exchange media is largely ignored. Animosities and coercion are directed against the employers rather than against the real culprit: the coercive and monopolistic central bank behind them, instituting and maintaining a system of monetary despotism, aided and abetted largely by a system of financial despotism, which exploits employers and employees alike, putting penalizing taxes upon enterprise and employment. - J.Z., 24.8.02, 16.6.11. - & UNEMPLOYMENT
EMPLOYMENT & INDEPENDENCE: If you can sell your labour then this gives you independence." - This is a popular view, which at first sounds plausible and has, indeed, more than a grain of truth in it. But is it the full truth on the subject? Firstly, when you can sell your labour only within the framework of an employer - employee relationship, then your personal independence in your self-supporting job activity leaves, usually, at least something to be desired, compared with various forms of partnerships, self-management, cooperative production or production by autonomous work groups. Secondly, when in times of mass unemployment, you can sell your labour only at emergency sales prices for labour and have to fear unemployment at any time, then your independence is also rather limited. Moreover, with the term "sell" all the difficulties arising out of monetary despotism are glossed over, namely that in practice it allows you to sell your labour and services only for the money of monetary despotism, not the money of monetary freedom. Thus your ability to freely exchange or to pay, in a society of free exchange, is greatly reduced and with that your economic and personal independence - even while you may be very much better off than many other victims of this system are. - The terms and language that we use is often our worst enemy. They do prevent us from seeing things as they are - and as they could and should be, at least for people interested in their rights, liberties and opportunities.- J. Z., 26.5.97, 16.6.11. - DIS..
EMPLOYMENT & WEALTH: The demand of the working masses for wealth to consume, is, naturally, a demand for their own employment. How then can they suffer from lack of employment? … I should say “effective demand. … To demand the service of others is not only to wish for it, but also to be able and willing to transfer service in payment. - Louis F. Post, Social Service, New York, Wessels & Bissell Co., 1910, p.123. - The supply of labour, goods and services often can and does exceed the supply of soundly issued exchange media and clearing certificates in the hands of potential buyers and streaming back to their issuers. Thus of both groups, producers and consumers, many can and do remain unsatisfied, because in this sphere the market is not yet free enough. Central banking is a poor substitute for free banking. Monetary despotism is a poor substitute for monetary freedom. – J.Z., 17.8.10. - DEMAND, EFFECTIVE DEMAND, MONETARY DEMAND, ABILITY TO PAY, SUPPLY OF EXCHANGE MEDIA OR OF CLEARING OPTIONS, ABILITY TO PAY
EMPLOYMENT POLICIES OF POLITICIANS: Politicians are mad enough to believe that when they take much of our earned money (in form of their exclusive, compulsory acceptance and forced value currency) away from us and then give some of it back to us or our neighbours or countrymen, that then they are providing employment. They are still building "pyramids" and expropriate and enslave us for such public works. - They are also mad enough to believe that when they are monopolising the sphere of currency issues that then they can always sufficiently supply the whole economy with sound exchange media and that when they give it legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and compulsory value), which, in combination with the money issue monopoly, permits this bad money to drive out all existing or possible good alternative currencies, that then and thereby they do provide the soundest, best-managed, modern, scientific, stable and also uniform national currencies and do pretend to have reasons to believe to be proud of this "achievement" and the record it has, of deflations, inflations and stagflations, with mass bankruptcies, mass unemployment and an enormous spread of involuntary poverty. They blame everything else and everyone else but their money monopoly and legal tender power (those of their legalized central banks) for economic crises. At the same time, they do confess their helplessness before the crises their actions bring about and maintain, at least sometimes, when e.g. stating that, within a few years they hope or aim to bring down the current inflation and unemployment rate, somewhat. If they new how to achieve full employment and a stable currency, they would do so immediately and thus become very popular. All their "cures" amount merely to more compulsory transfer payments, in which they get their undeserved large cuts. And we are foolish enough to go on voting for such fools or scoundrels again and again and look forward to a new set of them. At the same time, the distrust of politicians is larger than ever before. But that has not yet led enough people to take up the study of self-help options in those spheres that matter most - economically, socially, politically and militarily. - An old proverb says it all: For every tyrant a thousand ready slaves! - How can we achieve their monetary emancipation? How can we even raise interest them for such questions? The ball is in your court! - J.Z., 5/97, 16.9.02, 16.6.11. - JOB LEVY, FULL EMPLOYMENT, UNEMPLOYMENT, POLITICIANS, EXPERTS, ECONOMISTS, TEXT BOOKS, INFLATION, DEFLATION, CRISES, LEGAL TENDER, MONEY MONOPOLY.
EMPLOYMENT, HOUSING: Never put a law, regulation, bureaucrat, monopolistic or privileged trade union or professional association between an able and willing worker and his potential job, housing, trading and credit opportunities, his potential employers, partners and customers. The disastrous results of such policies can be seen daily - all around us. Mass unemployment, inflations, immigration restrictions, difficult sales, many bankruptcies, artificial and trade production restrictions via official quotes, compulsory licensing or prohibitions. – Often their political consequences can be even worse. The Nazi Regime would not have arisen, with its mass murder and WW II, without the government caused Great Inflation and subsequent Great Depression. - J.Z., 3.10.10, 3.8.11.
EMPLOYMENT: Jobs need not be and cannot be rightfully conquered, occupied and forcefully defended against competitors, no matter how hard and violently one tries. Lastly the remaining free consumer choices will defeat all such efforts. All one can achieve by coercive intervention is not job creation but job transfers, from unfavoured to favoured groups, e.g. from non-unionists to unionists, from private employment into government employment. Nor are jobs inherently scarce and limited so that one has to fight for them, although the conditions under monetary despotism do often give people that impression and the notion of a "fair" distribution of the limited number of available jobs and various forms of "job sharing" do remain popular. But jobs, under freedom, especially monetary and financial freedom, can be rightfully "created", or rather financed, as far as wage and salary payments are concerned, by assuring the sale of their products and services. The products and services themselves can then be monetised and exert a monetary demand for or purchasing power for labour. When there is no legal or misled (prejudicial, ignorant) obstruction against free forms of payment for productive jobs, via competing currencies and clearing options, all usable to purchase daily wanted goods, services and labour with, then there will always be more jobs waiting than can be filled by the available workforce. (Adding up all the goods and services that they would want to purchase, if they had the money for them, comes to much more than they can earn in a day, a week or a months or even a year. Since all these goods and services require labour for their availability, the need for labour is always greater than the quantity of labour that can be offered in a day, even if three 8 hour shifts are worked daily, or even within a week or a months. - J.Z., 8.9.02, 16.6.11.) The desire for consumer goods and services (including labour) is not limited and need no artificial stimulation, e.g., by advertisements. As free producers and consumers all people can do their things for each other, under free enterprise (including coops), division of labour (as extensive as they want it to be and find profitable and enjoyable) and freedom of exchange (including all monetary and financial rights and liberties). Even much overtime or three 8-hour shifts a day (to fully use the machine and building capital available) by many to most employees, cannot produce at any time as much as most people want to consume, at least of those luxuries of life that can now be produced and gradually acquired out of the proceeds of one's daily labours. The good living and the wealth that can be accumulated by productively working for 40 years constitutes, in essence 40 years of demand for one's labour. The day's labour can supply only a fraction of one's own wants or of those of anyone else. Shortage of labour or the fullest possible employment is the natural condition of a free market - for people not prepared to beg, eat garbage, or merely gather natural food (that can be very laborious and insufficient), or steal or rob from other people. There is only a limit to the quantity of e.g. basic consumption, of e.g. food stuffs, which one can consume, without doing harm to oneself. However, when the basics are secured, then most people do not wish to sit back and enjoy only these, and more leisure, but are prepared to work more for increased qualities, advancing e.g., from a VW to a Mercedes, from a track suit to a tailored suit, from a shack to a mansion. There is no shortage of jobs but an artificial and legally upheld shortage of exchange media and sound value standards to pay for them. (Under heavy taxation and unsound value standards as well as many other restrictions there can also be a shortage of capital to make work easier and more productive.) That kind of shortage can be abolished by a stroke of a pen, the repeal of the laws of monetary and financial despotism or by the acts of a peaceful and quite rightful monetary and financial freedom revolution. Moreover, from the saved-up surpluses of greatly increased current production over current consumption, an a greatly increased amount of productive capital can be saved up and soundly invested, as long as there are still any unsatisfied wants or needs that people are willing to work and pay for. - J.Z., 6.11.91, 26.4.97, 8.9.02, 16.6.11. - STRIKES, UNIONS, DIS., MONETARY DESPOTISM
EMPLOYMENT: Look at Robinson Crusoe, for example. Within his powers he supplied himself with service in response to his demand for service, and only so. … Demanding goat’s flesh, he caught and killed goats. Demanding corn, he cultivated corn. Demanding shelter, he fixed his cave and built his hut. Even upon goods he found in stranded ships, he was obliged to render service, by preparing places for safe-keeping and in fetching the goods there. Nothing came to him without his labor.” – (He suffered from over-employment rather than unemployment. – J.Z., 17.8.10.) … Clearly it was Robinson Crusoe’s demand for service that determined his labor in supplying service. – Well, now, Crusoe is a type of society.” - Louis F. Post, Social Service, New York, Wessels & Bissell Co., 1910, p.106. – Alas, a “society” of a population of one and later two only (Friday), without a sufficient division of labour and without money. His labour opportunities were only limited by his needs, wants and abilities. For a whole population, even for the world population, it is the same. However, a whole population, for and advanced standard of living, needs a sound and sufficient money supply or clearing system and both, sound exchange media and clearing services can only be supplied competitively, for any extensive system of division of labour and free exchange of goods and services. – J.Z., 16.11.09, 17.8.10. - LABOUR, WORK, ROBINSON CRUSOE, UNEMPLOYMENT
EMPLOYMENT: The number of jobs is not limited in a free economy, because the needs and desires of consumers are practically unlimited. But under monetary despotism the job numbers are limited by the effective, i.e., monetary demand for labor, goods and services, under that monopolistic and coercive system, which can never work as well as a free market system, which includes full monetary freedom. Once this is well enough known and consistently practised, the number of workers offering their services will be easily exceeded by the monetary demand for workers, which would not only lead to full employment but also better paid employment, paid in sound currencies. Then over-work will become a problem rather than under-employment or unemployment. But freedom of contract can cope with that, too, because unemployment is not to be feared by those who refuse to work overtime for still higher earnings. - J.Z., 24.4.02, 27.8.02. - After all, freedom is, largely, leisure for things one wants to do, instead of merely freedom to engage in bread-earning jobs. - J.Z., 16.6.11. - JOBS, WORK, LABOR, FULL EMPLOYMENT, EMPLOYEES, CENTRAL BANKING, MONETARY DESPOTISM, UNEMPLOYMENT
ENCYCLOPAEDIA ON MONETARY FREEDOM & MONETARY DESPOTISM: By now all the nonsense said and written about money, currency, credit, value standards, investments, savings, interest, note-issuing banks, etc., could and should be written down, alphabetized, computer sorted, and confronted with the correct observations, theories and laws of money etc. that were so far found. The same could and should be done for all correct views on monetary and financial freedom. Having a few pearls of wisdom buried in all too much muck is not a good enough help for most information seekers. - In could be done in alphabetized compilations like this one, sufficiently corrected and supplemented, or in databank format, as proposed by Klaus Falke: www.monetary-freedom.net/ or both ways and, perhaps also in other forms, e.g. via a comprehensive bibliography, abstracts and review compilation dealing with all related subjects and numerous specialize blogs and other digitized discussions. - So far all too many sites are offered, still insufficiently sorted out, separating the wheat from the chaff. No individual can, on his own and effectively enough, deal with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of such offers. See e.g. with Google how many there are pointed out when one searches for "free banking" or "monetary freedom". - J.Z., 16.3.97, 16.6.11.
ENERGY UTILITIES AS ISSUERS: How much better off would the plants and distributors be (and the general economy as well) if they gained the freedom to issue and accept their own oil-, petrol-, coal-, gas- and electricity token monies? Why should they, too, have to depend upon the either inflated, deflated or stag-flated and always somewhat mismanaged note issues of central banks, when their own service supply capacities could render them monetarily largely independent from currencies supplied by others? - They, too, are considered to be powerful lobby groups. Alas, they did not, so far, to my knowledge, lobby for monetary freedom for themselves and others. - To that extent they, too, have granted the sanction of the victims. - J. Z. 16.5.94, 22.4.97.
ENTERPRISES AS ISSUERS: Enterprises could contribute to full employment and utilise their full production potential up to the limit of their market and could widen this market to its optimum, by issuing their own notes, in standardised money denominations and using them in payment of many or even all of their expenses, at free market rates. Their own obligation in these cases would consist merely in their readiness to accept all own their notes, service vouchers or clearing certificates in payment for all their goods and services, from anyone, anytime, and this at their full nominal valuem, expressed in one or the other and self-chosen value standard. For details see. e.g., Dr. Walter Zander's "Railway Money and Unemployment", reprinted in PEACE PLANS No.9. (See www.reinventingmoney.com ) These enterprises could pay their suppliers, dividends, profits and wages in their own notes. Through retailers, wholesalers and clearing the notes would come into the hands of those who could use the goods and services offered - or have other debts to pay to the issuers - and thus the circle would be closed. - J. Z., in AN ABC AGAINST NUCLEAR WAR, in PP 16-17. Revised 16.6.11 (Original version on: www.butterbach.net/epinfo/abc.htm ) Not many enterprises have to make and receive as many payments as the railways have to make daily. A single small workshop could hardly do it - except in an emergency. See e.g., the example of the Arnold print shop mentioned in John DeWitt-Warner's The Currency Famine of 1893, also on www.reinventingmoney.com - But local gas and electricity suppliers, petrol stations and gas companies could go it on their own, if they are not associated with the local shopping association as a local issuing centre. At least whenever any kind of currency shortage is felt then each potential issuer should be free to issue notes, clearing certificates, goods or service vouchers, even labour warrants - in his payment sphere. - J.Z., 30.5.97.
EURO & CENTRAL BANKING: The Euro represents a still worse central banking and monetary despotism system because it is still larger than the various central banks it replaced. - J.Z., 3.4.02, 26.8.02.
EURO-CURRENCY: Once it becomes a forced and exclusive currency for all of Europe, or even a world currency, then it will introduce Europe-wide or even world-wide deflations, inflations and stagflations and mass unemployment. It will be more constitutionally, legally, juridically and politically upheld, with all its inbuilt flaws, corruption, waste, errors and mismanagement, in the absence of less or any alternatives within or across borders, so that monetary crises, too, will tend to become enlarged and prolonged. - There would be less checks and balances upon monetary despotism than existed when it was nationally decentralized among a number of territorial States. It would exaggerate and tend to perpetuate all evils of central banking and make it still more centralised, coercive and mismanaged. Local conditions and the interests of particular payment spheres would be even less considered than they are now. And, generally, the victims would be blamed again, rather than the real offenders and the offending despotic but legalized system. Just another aspect of state socialism is involved, on a larger scale. A monopoly is not abolished by being increased. (Curiously enough, at the same time, across the former Iron Curtain, precisely the opposite development took place, one away from a single central bank for all of the former USSR to a number of national central banks of the newly recognized territorial "nations". Excess territorial centralisation is not abolished by becoming still more territorially centralised. Despotism does not become reduced but more widely and uniformly spread by further centralisation. - The uniformity of means of exchange and of "value standards" thus obtained would be too small a consolation for all the evils it would further increase. However, if anyone or any group could manage to issue, administrate and redeem, with wanted consumer goods and services, a Europe-wide or world-wide kind of money, one that is merely optional, market rated and can be freely refused, I wish him good luck or success. Theoretically, a world-wide clearing network could be established that would, e.g., use, a freely chosen value standard like grams of gold, for all its clearing transactions and would not promise any redemption in gold at all but, refer, instead all those who want gold, to the free and world-wide market in gold. Such a system, if it remains non-monopolistic, i.e. competitive and not interfered with by national governments, would be desirable. Competition to it would remain open. Even better systems could still be established and numerous local clearing centres could be independently provided and deal with it, too. But I fear what national politicians would agree upon and make a "treaty" about, which would, once again, establish the contrary of freedom of contract and freedom of association. That would establish again ignorance, prejudice and vested interest in action against the genuine public interest and the genuine rights and liberties of every individual. - J. Z., 5.10.92, 14.4.97, 16.6.11.
EURO-CURRENCY: Rather than introducing just one central banking system for all of Europe, we should see to it that as many banks of issue, and their currencies, could be established in Europe as Europeans want to establish and use. The exclusive and forced European currency will lead to even more economic crises, dictatorships, and civil wars and racial riots and genocide attempts, than the former national monetary despotism did. Politicians, bureaucrats and their advisors are so ignorant and prejudiced that they would rather increase than abolish an evil - and then attempt to "justify" their actions and to maintain them - for decades. Allowing free trade, free migration, the free movement of capitals, freely floating exchange rates, and economic freedom in general would have unified Europe, to the extent that this would be desirable, much more so than unifying its government and its currency. Gold- and silver coins, in gram units, could also have "unified" the value reckoning in Europe and some credit cards are already accepted in payments all over Europe. There is really no need for imposing any unified paper currency upon all of Europe except the spleens, ignorance and prejudices of the political planners for a "United Europe" (from which no individual or minority would be free to secede!), who have nothing better in mind and thus do not know cause and cure for most of Europe's economic problems. Thus they respond with expensive symbol building, like the Pharaohs did with the building of the pyramids, never mind how many people they had to impoverish or enslave to realize their "great" building programme. Still the sheep follow their "great leaders" into the sheering sheds and slaughter houses, because they have nothing better in mind, either. - J. Z., 22.9.92, 1.5.97, 16.6.11.
EUROSKEPTIC: Euroskeptic - The Free Radical Online - freeradical.co.nz/content/39/39mayer.php - Cached - My case against the Euro rests on one fact: that the Euro is not free-market money. The problem with the monetary union is simply that it combined eleven ... - It is just the product of another over-sized central bank, and as such even worse than all the prior national and central banking currencies it replaced, even if and while, temporarily, it acted somewhat more rationally than some of the territorial national central banks did. - Any sound value standard is international for all those, who are free to adopt it for themselves. Likewise, any exchange medium or clearing avenue. - Value standards, exchange media, clearing and credit should be completely separated from the State, just like religion, arts, philosophies, publishing, natural sciences, education, enterprise and international trade, and international investments. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
EUROPEAN CURRENCY: Economic hopes ride on single currency. - Headline in THE AUSTRALIAN, 5 May 92, of an article on European currency, by Wolfgang Munchau. That proposal is as irrationally hopeful and bound for disappointments as e.g. that of a single monarch or uniform or type of biscuit, bread, breakfast cereal, jewellery or shoes for all of Europe. Free trade can be realized without it and other wrongs of artificial borders can also be done away without it. Metric measures have "unified" Europe for a long time but haven't prevented any economic crises or wars, either. - J.Z., 25.3.97.
EUROPEAN CURRENCY: Free Trade in Europe does not require a unified currency. Instead of reducing all European currencies to one we should allow free enterprise and a free market for all kinds of exchange media, value standards and clearing facilities in Europe, i.e. we should multiply rather than reduce monetary options, as many as a fully free market would be ready to accept and maintain. - J. Z., 30.7.96, 18.3.97.
EUROPEAN CURRENCY: Monetary despotism does not become improved by practising its monopoly and coercion on a larger scale. Since already the centralised, monopolized and forced national currencies lead to inflations, deflations, stagflations, bankruptcies and mass unemployment and prolonged or perpetuated them and remained unable to effectively substitute for local private and cooperative competing currencies, how could we look forward to a centralised European currency? Let those, who want it, use e.g. full weight rare metal coins, in internationally acceptable weight denominations, and credit cards and electronic accounts in such weight units or any other value standard that pleases them. Free choice and free enterprise for all exchange media and value standards. Any enforced unification is wrong and less efficient than self-help could be, in every sphere. It is especially absurd to try to introduce the communist centralistic and monopolistic kind of monetary despotism in Western Europe, on an even larger scale, after the fall of or loss of faith in State socialism in Eastern Europe. The uniform imposition of a criminal institution is no solution. - J.Z., 16.3.97.
EUROPEAN CURRENCY: Those who really want a European currency should be satisfied with freedom to coin and account in full weight gold coins or silver coins (or any other value standard they prefer) and in OPTIONAL & COMPETING private and cooperative paper note and clearing house certificate issues that that are refusable, discountable, market rated, well publicised in each detail of their issue and reflux and tend to circulate, mostly, at par with their nominal value or close to it. They might also arrange for one such paper currency which all European governments would be prepared to accept at par in the payment of all taxes and dues to any government or governmental authority, e.g. a European railway or postal network and electricity and gas supply network. But to force any kind of "European currency" issued by some upon whatever limited cover or backing or reflux they can manage to establish for it, if any, and to give this "currency" a compulsory acceptance and a force value (legal tender) claim upon all goods, labours and services of the dissenters to it, will be and remain an absolutely despotic act and would, most likely, lead to even more and larger abuses than any of the European national currencies did. - J. Z., 24.3.97 & 30.8.02, 16.6.11.
EVERYJOE.COM: Loom Gold: Beyond Digital Currency | EveryJoe - everyjoe.com/work/loom-gold-beyond-digital-currency-162/ - Cached - Digital Currency is sometimes called 'free market' money. This 'money' is available if you want to use it, but its not government issued and you are not ... - DIGITAL CURRENCY, FREE MARKET MONEY
EXCESS DEMAND HAS TO BE SHAVED OFF: Pop opinion by those in favour of monetary despotism. - First they put an excess of a forced monopoly currency into circulation and then they artificially withdraw it, both with catastrophic effects. It is as if we were given unwanted and unneeded blood transfusions, which dangerously increase our blood pressure and then, suddenly, when our bodies have somewhat adapted to this intrusion, as best as they can, we are suddenly bled, against our will, no matter what this would do to our bodies in the short or in the long term. The best way to shave off excess monetary demand would be to do altogether away with the money of monetary despotism, its beliefs, principles, lies and myths, its institutions, powers and legislative and juridical backing, its measures, programs, cures, reforms and actions, at least as territorial impositions upon involuntary victims, and leave in its place full monetary freedom - and also the knowledge of how to make the best possible use of it. - J. Z., 29.3.97, 16.6.11. - DEMAND, CENTRAL BANKING, MONETARY DESPOTISM, STABLE PRICE LEVEL, MONETARY POLICIES.
EXCHANGE MEDIA & CLEARING: Transferable certificates (etc.) often merely FACILITATE free clearing but they do not change its essential nature nor are they required for it. Even when gold coins are used in transactions, then, as exchange media, they do actually merely function (apart from their use for jewellery and various industrial purposes, or storage-medium to preserve capital) as clearing tokens or signals, when, where and while people know of no better and cheaper ones or do not wish to use them. - J. Z., 3/97, 16.6.11,3.8.11.
EXCHANGE MEDIA & VALUE STANDARDS TO BE SUFFICIENTLY DISTINGUISHED: Otherwise most people do not understand and cannot understand how the pricing mechanism applies to both, and what effect it has upon the quantities of exchange media available or issued and the value standards used. When all prices, by law, have to be expressed in the same exchange medium, with the same value standard, then this all too often led to the wrong conclusion that they are or ought to be identical, i.e., as if a transferable security certificate could not have several different characteristics or clauses. When both are thrown together via the legalized money issue monopoly and legal tender privilege for it or by monetary prejudices (like those for an exclusive silver- or gold currency, in coin or redeemable certificate form), then confusion and mistakes do inevitably result. One then tries to limit e.g. the quantity of exchange media by the number of value standard units available or imagines that changes in the quantity of value standard units available coined or in redeemable certificates, must of necessity our could or should rightfully limit the number of monetary transactions that are possible, economic and desired. (This "gold but" point of view ignores altogether, that free clearing on e.g. a gold weight accounting basis, is quite independent of the quantity of gold coins in circulation and available for the redemption of 100% covered gold certificates.) One then remains largely blind to the free choice, rejection, market rating or free pricing and free enterprise as well as free trade mechanism that does, naturally, applies to both, value standards and exchange media, under competitive conditions, limiting their quantity while preserving their soundness. Then good monies would drive out bad monies. Only under monetary despotism is the bad money of governmental central banks allowed to drive out good alternative monies and their better value standards. Voluntary issues and acceptances or refusals, acceptance at par or at a discount, all based on freely competing issue enterprises regarding their production and offers and on consumer sovereignty regarding their acceptance, rating or refusal could rapidly introduce honesty and soundness in this sphere, the use of sound value standards and the circulation of enough sound exchange media or clearing certificates or account transfers to mediate all rightful and rational economic transactions upon which our well-being is based. - To use an analogy (limping like all others), let us take fabric and its colours. Compare the fabric to the exchange medium and the colour to its value standard. Obviously the quantity of textile colours available should not determine the quantity of cloth produced and offered for sale. Nor should all textiles be confined to use one colour only - like in the "blue ants" totalitarian experiment in Red China. Textiles could be multiplied without reducing their value or the beauty of their colours. And a more extensive use of one colour or a particular mixture of colours would not make that textile it is used on less valuable. The kind of textile chosen and its colouring should be haggled out between the producers and the consumers of textiles. Both textiles and colours have their own laws regarding their quantities and values and both are always used in combination. When more red cloth is produced then this tends to be in response to market demands for it, rather than against it. Both have their separate demand and supply effects and the subjective value theory does apply to both. No one can be rightly forced to acquire much more in textiles than he would have use for, nor should anyone be forced to choose only one colour for all this clothing. Anyone should be free to use them in any quantity he likes and in any combination. And if some liked e.g. blue cloth, then their blue cloth is not diminished in their eyes just because others may like red cloth and produce and use more of it. And to force all to use in all their economic transactions only one kind of cloth as an exchange medium and one kind of colour as an exclusive value standard would, obviously, be despotic and inefficient. Perhaps you can and will carry this analogy - or any other one - further - but I do hope that you have already got my drift. - Not even pure gold weight units - or agreed-upon degrees of purity or fineness of certain gold weight units or coins, should be turned into exclusive and forced exchange media and exclusive and forced value standards - except among the members of communities of volunteer, who do favour such an arrangement and as long as they do. Moreover, they should remain free to opt out of them. - J.Z., 11.4.97, 16.6.11, 3.8.11. - THEY SHOULD BECOME AS FAR AS POSSIBLE SEPARATED, IN THEORY & PRACTICE, EVEN WHILE BOTH ARE EXPRESSED IN ALL EXCHANGE MEDIA & CLEARING CERTIFICATES OR ACCOUNTS.
EXCHANGE RATE CONTROL: If one holds the foreign exchange rate stable, then inflation will be prevented." - Widespread error. - Compare PRICE CONTROL. Forcefully controlling an official exchange rate cannot and does not stop any inflation taking place. It can only obstruct it being fast revealed through its falling exchange rates. One might as well try to stop a fever by fixing the indication of a fever thermometer below the fever degree. - J. Z., 24.3.97. - & INFLATION, FIXED EXCHANGE RATES, FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROLS, DIS.
EXCHANGE RATES: As long as the central banks of governments do systematically hoard at least some foreign currencies as "currency reserves", the more or less freely floating exchange rates for foreign exchange are prevented from rapidly and optimally fulfilling their function - even when no other meddling takes place, like licensing, quotas and stabilisation purchases or "dirty floats" or "managed floats". This kind of hoarding does also amount to an exchange rate manipulation. What will happen to the international and internal purchasing power of certain popular international currencies, like the U.S.A. dollar, once, upon further depreciation of them, these vast currency hoards in the hands of central bankers or private black currency hoarders are suddenly liquidated, in panic sales, and appear as additional liquid purchasing power on their home markets? - J. Z., 18.10.87. - FREE FLOATING, FOR INTERNATIONALLY TRADED CURRENCIES, FOREIGN CURRENCY RESERVES & COVERS OF CENTRAL BANKS
EXCHANGE: Motto: All solvable problems can be solved if the creative energies of all people are released for their solution. - J.Z., free after: Leonard E. Read of FEE. (Release all creative energies! - One of numerous similar statements by him.) - Almost all economic problems can be solved, or solved much easier, once the exchange energies (or energy potentials or the exchange potential) of all people becomes fully released. - J. Z., 21.5.97. - CREATIVE ENERGIES, ECONOMIC PROBLEMS, FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE, MONETARY & FINANCIAL FREEDOM, FREE EXCHANGE, FREE TRADE IN ALL SPHERES.
EXCLUSIVE & FORCED CURRENCIES: Both, legal tender in form of exclusive paper money and gold coin circulation, as well as 100% or fractionally covered gold certificates, do unnecessarily and misleadingly identify or combine the exchange media with their value standards. They do thus lead to a lot of misunderstandings, errors and wrong conclusions on both, value standards and exchange media and their effects upon each other and upon the economy. Instead, both ought to be conceptually, legally, juridically, administratively and practically as well as quite clearly separated from each other and subjected, as far as possible. Both should be a matter of free choice for individuals and their voluntary payment associations. All should be subjected to free market rating, voluntary acceptance or refusals and discounting, pricing or rating, and this under full publicity on all their details, so that market responses to any changes in them can be fast as well informed as possible and desirable. The full monetary freedom potential, as well as the risks and dangers of monetary despotism, can only be understood when both, exchange media and value standards, are sufficiently and openly distinguished. Only then can full monetary freedom work properly and help in all voluntary exchanges, with exchange media as well as value standards being as little abused and mismanaged as is humanly possible. - Under free choice of value standards, the increase or reduction of the quantity of any physical value standards, like rare metal coins, would not and could not automatically infringe sound value reckoning in other value standards. Nor, under freedom to issue and accept alternative exchange media, would it automatically increase or reduce the quantity of exchange media, clearing certificates and sum of clearing accounts, competitively offered and chosen, and their total amounts. People should become and remain free to agree upon any value standard and any exchange medium or clearing process that suits them. Free choice for both, value standards and exchange media as well as clearing options would tend to offer, promote and perpetuate the best ones in both spheres, when and where they are needed, in the required varieties, qualities and quantities, in all free exchanges that are also free otherwise, e.g. free of compulsory licensing, taxation, forced loans, quotas, price- and wage controls, protectionist restrictions, central planning and direction, rationing etc. People should be free to choose for themselves whatever they consider to be their best value standard as well as exchange media or clearing options, even if, objectively, they are the worst choices that they could make for themselves. Let them learn from their own experience, at their own risk and expense, as well as from the experiences of others, who made better or the best choices for themselves. In a free economy we do that in every other sphere. Only coercion and fraud ought to be prosecuted. - No multiplication of any value standard unit should be allowed to depreciate any other value standard or any other exchange media than the ones in which it is used. Under monetary freedom no multiplication of any exchange medium could depreciate any other sound exchange medium. If it uses a sound value standard then the greater volume of exchange media would merely indicate a greater turnover of goods and services. - Great troubles arise only when both have become wrongly and coercively combined instead of both by keeping each other in check, by voluntarily acceptance and rejections as well as free market rating in free competition with all other exchange media and value standards. Indeed, sound alternative monies would express and use both, their value carrier and value standard, in the same money or clearing certificate or account, but they would at the same time also account or value them separately. Exchange media could gain a premium on their value standard units, as Scottish banknotes had, sometimes, over gold coins, and could also suffer a discount against their standard (and other standards and exchange media) if they had been over-issued or, temporarily, if they are merely thought or believed to have been over-issued or mismanaged otherwise. Any artificial and enforced par between them (apart from the obligation of the issuer to accept the own notes at par), any failure to distinguish between them, leads to troubles and misunderstandings and false judgements, like e.g. the infamous: "Mark is Mark!" - by which millions of German creditors (including wage- and salary earners) were defrauded by their debtors and impoverished. Legal tender for general circulation (not merely towards the issuer) is a legalized crime. So is any exclusive exchange medium even when the exclusive exchange medium consists of gold- or silver coins! Wrong is also any enforced revaluation or devaluation, any enforced decrease or increase of the "gold price" and any legal restriction of gold ownership, gold trading and gold accounting. Freedom to issue, refuse and discount. Free choice of value standards and exchange media and full publicity for both! - I consider this topic to be so important that I rather compile or publish hundreds of statements on this than only one, all in the hope to thereby somewhat promote monetary enlightenment. - By all means, I appeal to you, try to express this more concisely, accurately and clearly! And keep trying, just like I do or much better! - J. Z., 26.9.92, 16.6.11. - PAPER MONIES, TRADITIONAL GOLD STANDARD, 100% COVERED GOLD CERTIFICATES, EXCHANGE MEDIA & VALUE STANDARDS
EXCLUSIVE & FORCED CURRENCIES: The legal authority of a creditor to demand a particular exclusive means of payment from a debtor is as wrong and pernicious as the authority for a debtor to pay in a particular coercive monopoly money that has been depreciated. - J. Z., 30.8.74, 17.6.11. (*) - The right to demand legal tender paper money or gold or silver, unless this has been contractually agreed upon, should be replaced by the right of creditors to demand only settlement via clearing, to the full stated value of a debt, expressed in a sound value standard, accepting in payment of that debt any means of payment, including IOUs of the debtor, but only at their free market rating against the chosen value standard. In case of disagreements, that market rating might have to be settled by arbitration. - This does, naturally, presume that the debtor is still an able and willing producer or trader, prepared to recognize and to work and pay off his debts with his goods, services or labour. Otherwise, the faster he is driven out of business, the better. All his assets should be claimable by his creditors and he should never get out of his debts by his bankruptcy declaration. All his future earnings should still be subject to the claims of his creditors. They might just leave him enough to go on producing. - I do hold that the present bankruptcy laws do much wrong - to both sides. - J. Z., 18.4.97. - (*) In the East Berlin and East German uprising of the 17th of June, 1953 - I am not sure about the year - East German central bank refused to provide the money for wage and salary payments. This, perhaps more than Soviet tanks, led to the failure of this insurrection. Most families do not have large cash reserves and these revolutionaries, too, never pondered the need for properly financing their revolution, either. - J.Z., 17.6.11. MONETARY DESPOTISM LEGAL TENDER & THE LEGAL & JURIDICAL AUTHORITY FOR CREDITORS TO DEMAND "THE COIN OF THE REALM" OR LEGAL TENDER, & IN CASE OF NON-PAYMENT, TO DRIVE A DEBTOR INTO BANKRUPTCY, RATHER THAN PERMITTING HIM TO SETTLE HIS DEBT THROUGH A CLEARING EFFORT
EXCLUSIVE 7 FORCED CURRENCIES: In relatively underdeveloped countries like India, as well as in relatively developed countries like France, much gold and silver was and, probably still is hoarded, in form of coins or jewellery, rather than circulating in form of coins or rare metal certificates. That was motivated not only by lack of sound social insurance facilities and fear of taxes but also because of a perceived shortage of cash. And thereby this shortage of cash was increased so that labour and goods were often offered, in India almost permanently, only at emergency sales prices. In India the property-sharing custom may also have been so strong that those with a larger than usual earnings would soon have to share it with a wide circle of relatives, who would soon have eaten them up. The same sharing obligation does not seem to have been extended to the sharing of personal jewellery. So they saved up rare metals rather in this form. Some writers have asserted that India could have been abundantly supplied with rare metal coins, greatly boosting its production and trade, if only this habit of investing in jewellery had been abandoned. But that would also have required a change in customs towards respected for private property and earnings as well as reduced hospitality obligations towards relatives. I do not know whether these generalisations are correct. India, more than most other countries, has a large number of diverse folkways societies, often more strictly abided by than the laws of governments. But from a country with much religious fanaticism, holy cows and pariahs, one cannot expect very much in form of monetary and general economic freedom, based upon the recognition, understanding and practice of genuine basic individual economic rights. They are little enough known and respected even in other countries that consider themselves to be progressive, advanced, civilized and enlightened. - I have found many hints to monetary freedom experiments in China but none in India. Where there any at all in India? A great variety of religious creeds and "Gods" is certainly not a good enough substitute for enough alternative and sound currencies. - J. Z., 15.5.97, 17.6.11. - GOLD AND SILVER CURRENCIES & CURRENCY SHORTAGES & CURRENCY FAMINES
EXCLUSIVE AND FORCED CURRENCIES: Rare metal circulation currencies and certificates developed naturally, in a way each can easily comprehend. This model still predominates public opinion. Given a choice or a legal privilege, each will insist on being paid either in gold coins of gold certificates or in "the coin of the realm" or in a paper currency that is exclusive and enforced over a whole nation, imagining that it would be as good and as easy as gold payments or gold certificates or even better. People want not only more money, almost any kind of money, but also money that saves them the labour of thinking and decision-making, the worry of initiative, enterprise and discrimination in this sphere. "Decidophobia" was an apt term coined for it a few years ago. (Walter Kaufmann?) The wrong model of a supposedly ideal and uniform and ideally managed or self-managed simple currency, that everybody would have to accept, still spooks in most heads and has led to monetary despotism and its catastrophes. People rather think and discriminate and freely choose when it comes to their clothing, their food and drinks, their music, sports and entertainment involvement, their cars, their homes and gardens, but not when it comes to the exchange media and value standard systems they are forced to use and those they could and should substitute for them, in order to improve their situation. In politics the over-simplified and thoughtless to primitive or intentionally misleading models and terms of territorial and egalitarian or uniform statism have similar got their lives, liberties and rights within their grip. They leave all too many decisions on their lives to politicians and bureaucrats and imagine, for instance, that their political votes would constitute THE right to vote, although it largely disfranchises, expropriates, cheats and represses them via the "representatives" thus chosen. The underlying territorial totalitarianism, even that of democracies and republics (and that of all other States), is ignored as much as is monetary despotism with regard to our exclusive and forced currencies. We would rather choose between hundreds of different drinks than between hundreds of different monies. Even when confronted by problems like the continued existence of ABC mass murder devices, and this in the hands of our supposed protectors, we either console ourselves with "thoughts" like "We never had it so good!" or "There is nothing I can do about it!". Or with any of other popular errors and prejudices. We do readily accept experimental freedom in agriculture, science and technology - but not for monetary freedom experiments and for volunteer communities that are only exterritorially autonomous, thus quite free to do their own things for or to themselves. The wrong and over-simplified models and their representatives have us in their power. We grant them the sanction of the victims and imagine we are good and responsible citizens as a result. - J.Z., 25.12. 85, 3.5.97, 17.6.11. - GOLD COINS & GOLD CERTIFICATES & THE DESIRE TO BE PAID IN WHAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE EXCHANGE MEDIA OF THE HIGHEST VALUE AND WIDEST ACCEPTANCE, WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND MUCH THOUGHT & ENERGY ON HOW THESE AIMS COULD BE BEST REALIZED. THE SUPPOSED RIGHT TO DEMAND "CASH" INSTEAD OF CLEARING, USING A SOUND VALUE STANDARD, UNIFORMITY, TERRITORIALISM, EXPERIMENTAL FREEDOM, DIS., NWT.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO FREE BANKING & MONETARY FREEDOM: We must not, of course, assume that people will at once act rationally in a new situation. But, if not by insight, they would soon learn by experience and imitation of the most successful what conduct best serves their interests. - Hayek, Denationalisation of Money, p.55. - MISTAKES, GRADUALISM, DEVELOPMENT, LEARNING CURVE, EXPERIENCE, ENLIGHTENMENT
EXPERTS QUOTED IN FAVOUR OF THE MONEY CREATION HYPOTHESIS: Many of the official and private supposed experts are merely, as Ulrich von Beckerath once remarked, the high priests of the popular religion or faith on money. And this faith is as diversified and as false as the churches and sects and their belief and dogma systems are. Thus we do need, in the monetary and financial field, too, the equivalent to religious freedom and tolerance, here in form of full monetary and financial freedom, not a merely a new and supposedly reformed Catholic or other hierarchical, exclusive, despotic and centralised system - imposed upon the neck of every dissenter. Monetary freedom means monetary panarchism. - J.Z., 3/97, 17.6.11,3.8.11. - CREDIT CREATION & DEPOSIT INFLATION BY PRIVATE BANKS? DIS., SOCIAL CREDIT NOTIONS, PANARCHISM, TOLERANT & FREE EXPERIMENTATION IN THE SPHERES OF MONEY & FINANCE.
EXPERTS: See: ECONOMIC & HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECTS IGNORED BY MOST MODERN AUTHORS.
EXPERTS: the expert" can generate new terms faster than the layman can dispel the fog generated by the old ones. Accordingly, it is a mistake for the layman to attempt to refute sophisticated economic theory on a technical basis. That is playing the game on their terms with their vocabulary. There is again this one basic area, however, in which the mightiest Harvard economist is not one whit better qualified to speak than the worker or the housewife or the businessman or the Amish farmer; the basic area of individual rights. No amount of charm, sophistication, erudition or downright arrogance, can disguise the fact that the economic theories of Galbraith, Harris, Samuelson, Keynes, et al., are implemented ultimately by force: by legalized physical compulsion. It is the economics of fascism. Whether through taxes, the legalized counterfeiting (part-confiscation, through legal tender power! - J.Z.) of inflation, or by direct controls, it involves the coercive seizure by the State of the control of the property of the individual. This is the basis on which such proposals should be opposed. The layman may not understand the subtleties of Keynesian economics, but he can understand the concept of stealing; he may not understand the disastrous consequences of Galbraith's theories in economic terms, but he can understand that when Galbraith attempts thereby to impose his tastes upon others by force, individual rights are going to be violated; argument-wise, this is the Achilles heel of any collectivist program. Once again, it is the premise of individualism on which the strongest defense of freedom will be based." - Richard W. Grant, The Incredible Breadmachine, self-published, n.d., indexed, 286pp, p.179/80 - INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS & LIBERTIES, KEYNES, GALBRAITH, SAMUELSON & CO., LAYMEN
EXTERRITORIAL AUTONOMY & QUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL VOLUNTEERS IN THE MONETARY & FINANCIAL FREEDOM SPHERE, AS WELL: These are just two of the many different practical applications of the general framework of panarchism: to each the government or free society and thus also monetary and financial (saving, investment, securities trading etc.) and the taxing or contribution system of his or her choice. Single tax systems only for single taxers. Progressive taxes and central banks only for their advocates. Before we get there we might have to engage in a monetary and financial revolution and to achieve that, we might have to engage in a genuinely cultural or educational revolution first of all, making optimal use of all easily affordable alternative expression and information media, like microfiche, floppy disks, CDs, DVDs, audio and video tapes and disks, e-mail, the Internet, free broadcasting, etc., all at their optimal strengths. - J. Z., 3/97, 17.6.11.
EXTERRITORIAL AUTONOMY FOR ALL COMMUNITIES OF VOLUNTEER: Monetary freedom would be one of its many by-products or part-realisations, since these volunteer communities could, among themselves, introduce any monetary and financial freedom system or experiment which they do prefer and this quite undisturbed, as long as they do. Towards outsiders their money tokens would be more or less appreciated and market rated as "foreign exchange". A territorially imposed, exclusive and coercive money system (enforced acceptance and enforced value) is the essence of monetary despotism. Volunteer communities might, indeed, adopt an exclusive currency and one that has legal tender towards all their members. But since membership is voluntary and they have no territorial monopoly, their currency would still be an optional one. Their members could individually opt out from under it and thus renounce it for themselves, at least for all future contracts which they are undertaking. - J. Z., 10.4.97, 17.6.11. & MONETARY FREEDOM, BASED ON INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY, INDIVIDUAL SECESSIONISM & INDIVIDUALIZED, THAT IS, VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONISM, PANARCHISM, POLYARCHISM, VOLUNTARISM, EXPERIMENTAL FREEDOM
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FAILURES OF BANKS OF ISSUE: One should distinguish different kinds of failures and use different terms for. Some banks merely legally and juridically but not economically failed to be able to redeem all their notes at par upon demand in rare metal coins and were, therefore, legally and juridically driven into bankruptcy - although, at least in some instances, their notes still continued to circulate at par, simply because there were enough outstanding credits of the bank which the remaining debtors could readily pay with its notes and this demand preserved the par value of these notes. (They still had a sufficient clearing, reflux or readiness to accept or debt foundation.) A single such case should have been enough to question, quite generally, the need for gold convertibility by the issuer and to insist, instead, on a sufficient cover of all notes by short-term debts that represented real trades, like real bills, in combination with shop foundation for the notes so issued. In competitions between facts and dogmas at least the popular dogmas often "win", i.e., get more support from the general public, the "experts" and the legislators, than the facts. Economics is still far from being a science, at least with regard to many of its schools of thought or certain of its subjects. It has its religions, churches and sects, its insistence upon faith and traditions as well as rituals, even when not at all backed by facts, natural laws and sound reasoning. - J.Z., 5.9.02, 17.6.11. - A strong reflux of its notes, regularly enforced by debts due to the bank can keep notes at par which were issued in the discounting of sound short-term debt certificates, which used to be sound commercial bills und what was then called the Real Bills Doctrine or "the banking principle" as opposed to the currency principle. The old practices of gold certificates and of the promise in commercial bills, to pay them in rare metal coins, when due, blinded most observers to this clearing option and practice or, just to be on the safe side, they may have insisted then that both covers be provided. Then, when the metallic cover was insufficient, and fully claimed, a bank failure was declared to exist, although the other cover, the clearing and debt payment reflux was still existing and fully working and to that extent then there was really no bank failure at all but only a failure of the legislators, judges and other "experts" to understand what was really happening and necessary to maintain the par value of banknotes with their nominal rare metal value. - Other "failures" can, naturally, arise due to inflations of a government's forced and exclusive currency, which can partly or completely destroy assets expressed in and repayable in it. Other failures arising out of the money issue monopoly of monetary despotism, leading to its deflations, which can drive otherwise sound enterprises into bankruptcy and burden the remainders with taxes to keep masses of unemployed alive. - Other failures are all too predictable, e.g. when "assets" like real estate or railways, or buildings or speculatively withheld commodities, in form of their warehouse certificates, or even government debt certificates, are monetized, i.e. confront the current output of goods or services, without the issuers having provided any correspondingly added goods and services, that provide the immediately claimable equivalent or backing of these issues, the currently required reflux for any sound currency. Then only monetary despotism can force the ones providing the real cover (in consumer goods and services) to provide it and prevent them from fully monetising it themselves, directly or indirectly, for their own benefit an profit, their sales of their goods and services or labour, instead of having to provide an enforced value for the monies of monetary despotism, which pretends to be covered by other assets or having to try so support themselves when sound exchange media or clearing options are not provided in sufficient quantities to assure the exchange of all wanted goods, services and labour for the wanted goods, services and labour of others. Sometimes the central bank monopoly issuers were impertinent enough to assert that their issues are "backed" by the labour and productivity of the nation - but without explaining what right they do would have to issue their monopoly money notes upon these values owned by others and to prevent the owners of the goods, services and labour of a whole territorial population nation to monetise their own assets themselves. - All real capital assets (I do not consider present and future tax slaves as such) are gradually built up out of savings of current turnovers of consumer goods, services and labour and, properly invested, they do make possible a much larger total of production and consumption of consumer goods and services than would be possible without them. But that does not mean that their accumulated capital value, invested in real and long lasting assets, is at any time and in any country the equal to the present consumer goods and services, including labour, - when it comes to monetising assets. Capital assets can be cashed in only within the limits and changes of the capital market. Real cash or currency or exchange media are already real cash. They does not have to be first transformed into cash, like capital securities have to be, if one wishes to use them as currency anywhere else than in the capital exchanges on the capital market.. With a genuine currency one can immediately purchase daily wanted consumer goods and services, as well as labour. With mere capital certificates, even if issued in small denominations, one cannot go shopping like with cash or pay wages and salaries in full. When one has only capital, not cash, and one needs cash, then one does not have to sell first or try to sell first, for cash, a house, factory, farm or business or any capital security. That does, often, take considerable time or, in forced sales, one may lose much of this capital. If one tried to express the huge capital values not in capital securities, to the extent that they are profitable or still valuable, but, instead, tries to monetize them at once and completely, and, provided all the potential acceptors would not hesitate to accept all such "money" at par, then the current offers of goods, services and labour would suddenly be confronted by a much larger circulation of money tokens. If these were optional and market-rated and no one but the issuers would be obliged to accept them (for land, factory or business buildings, trains, trucks, planes, ships etc., then would soon become greatly depreciated, while soundly issued and thus widely accepted currencies, those with shop- or at least tax-foundation, would remain stable. All stable pricing and accounting of debts, wages, rents etc. could continue. The asset currencies, greatly depreciated, would simply give some investors the chance to buy up the capital securities that are their "foundation", and the real capital assets, which they represent, very cheaply. But even that would take time. It would not immediately withdraw all of this "asset currency" and restore it to par by taking it out of circulation. (Assuming that it had ever managed to achieve a wide-spread par acceptance.) However, if such an "asset currency" were given exclusive means of payment status (like that based upon governmental "insecurities"), forced acceptance and forced value (legal tender status), i.e., alternative currencies and sound value standards would be outlawed, then a failure of such banks would be inevitable. This failure would be expressed in inflations, deflations and stagflations, often and for long with high unemployment and business failure rates. - What are good securities for capital assets are not good securities for currency issues. Nor are the capital assets themselves good securities for currency issues, although the capital securities - and the real capital assets behind them, can be used to satisfy the investors in a failed savings and loan bank. They are not good enough securities for its currency business, conducted in its banknotes. Alas, both kinds of securities, the turnover credit securities as well as the capital investment securities, are marketable, both have some value, both can, normally, be turned into purchasing power, although at different degrees of immediate "liquidity", and so one concludes, all too often, and quite wrongly, that capital and "money" are equally "money" in the meaning of cash currency in all cases, or even that capital could form a suitable, good or even the best possible security (cover, reflux, value guaranty, acceptance or debt foundation) for currency. Ask yourself, as holder of an "asset currency" note, what rights you have towards the issuer of that "asset currency" What fragment of his capital values can you directly and immediately claim from him, now, with his note in your hands? He does not want to sell you a brick from the foundations of his house or a tile of his roof or a window pane. No, he wants to direct you to others, who, he thinks, should give some real purchasing power to his notes for you. But then, why should they, if they are not legally forced to do so? And if they are legally forced to do so, then their supplies of consumer goods, services and labour are the real cover - and they are robbed of them, receiving only scrip to shares, bonds or mortgages, far beyond their ability and willingness to invest in them. Such "money" has only the privilege of being legally authorised to rob others, likewise, once one has been saddled with it. Thus a mutual plunder-bund is established, mainly for the benefit of the issuer of an unsound, monopolized and forced currency, issued under false pretences. The literature of economics and lectures on money and banking are still all too full, in all countries of such false assumptions and pretences. Even the minds and writings of most "money reformers" are full of such errors and prejudices. - Today, when the note issues of central bank's are no longer directly tied to e.g. their gold stocks, nor to a gold accounting or gold clearing standard, and their reflux is no longer sufficiently assured by e.g. short term turn-over credits or shortly due taxes, the exclusive and forced currency of the government, its legal tender and monopoly paper money amounts largely to mere requisitioning certificates. - Numerous supposed bank failures happened due to the wrongly imposed or adopted convertibility obligation of an issuer to redeem his notes upon demand in rare metal coins just because the ignorant and prejudiced legislation or public opinion demanded such a redemptionism. By now physical rare metal guaranties, with their wrongful monopoly and limitations, especially when compared with quite free clearing, using self-chosen sound value standards, has been replaced by the obligation for debtors to supply and the authority of creditors to demand legal tender money in payment of all debts, rather than possessing merely a right to achieve or to provide a settlement by some form of direct or indirect clearing. Only the governmental central bank can, via excessive printing and issuing its forced and exclusive currency manage to increase or even rapidly multiply or its legal tender cash money, while it legally and juridically suppresses all sound and extensive competition with it. But it has not any natural market guides for its issues, like voluntary acceptance and refusals, free market rating against a sound value standard, also that used in other currencies, including foreign exchange currencies. Moreover, is so tied to laws and regulations, based on slow decisions by committees, which are based, if on facts at all, then often on all too slowly available statistics or flawed statistics. Thus their response time to additional cash demands is slow, often too slow or their response remains inadequate. These currencies thus produce mostly only inflations and deflations, with stagflations in-between, only rarely, temporarily and locally just the amount of currency which is required for all turnovers. Moreover, once central banks put additional forced currency notes into circulation, they would tend to stay there, without a sufficient reflux to the issuer. Thus, with their monopoly and legal tender power or exclusive currency status, they would tend to drive prices, wages, fees, rents etc. up, permanently. Any kind of competitive and optional additional ticket monies or goods and service vouchers, in sound value standard denominations, could, like tickets, not be issued beyond their requirements. Due to their inbuilt reflux arrangements, they would rapidly disappear from circulation again and then be replaced by new and sound issues of this kind. Furthermore, since they are not legal tender or an exclusive currency, they could not drive up prices, wages etc. that are reckoned in sound standards. Already upon slight discounts - not affecting retail prices and wages expressed in sound value standards, they would be widely refused and thus speeded up on their way back to the issuer, via the remaining debtors of the issuing centre. - Alas, the kinds of privileged or monopoly banks that have often failed and often had to fail because of their powers or privileges, their issue and reflux policies, are legally upheld and the fail-safe banks for currencies based upon the clearing principle, have been outlawed. For this give your "thanks" to your politicians and their official advisors and to all too many voices and texts of academic economists (comparable to the courtiers of absolute kings) and to the majority of money-cranks who are even more rabid in their demands for exclusive greenbacks or forced and wrongfully or irrationally manipulated currencies, than governments are, who are rather hiding their shameful acts as far as possible or do not like to publicise the legal "backing" of their monetary despotism and the disastrous consequences which it has, quite inevitably. Perhaps not even one in a thousand academic economists is quite free of monetary errors, false assumptions and conclusions as yet and perhaps not one in a ten thousand or hundred thousand monetary cranks is. The few sound teachers of monetary freedom are thus easily condemned, as if they were real "money-cranks". E.g., even Hayek, condemned, of all people, Prof. Heinrich Rittershausen, as an inflationist! - I pointed out this error personally, in a short interview with Hayek, some years before he died, but, to my knowledge, he never retracted this utterance. - Hayek was an outstanding scholar, indeed, in many respects. Nevertheless, he came across only very few monetary freedom writings and misjudged even these and with his remaining research and writing tasks, he did not have the time and energy to follow the academic debate that had preceded and that had followed his own 1975 & 1976 monetary freedom writings. At first he even imagined to have been the first academic economist to have advocated monetary freedom and he never fully realized how many predecessors he had or did admit that people like Pauline Russell, Richard King and Robert Carnaghan had pushed him, in public meetings in England, in this direction. - Thus, how much can one expect in this respect from the average economist or politician, banker or voter? Much less, very much less, as a rule. - J.Z., 11.4.97, 5.9.02, 18.6.11. - ABILITY TO PAY OR CLEAR VS. RARE METAL REDEMPTIONISM, FREE CLEARING VS. METALLIC COVER, RESERVES & GUARANTIES.
FAIR GO: Let people issue their own money and choose their own value standard and let them sell their goods, services and labour for their own issues. - J. Z., n.d., 9.5.97. - MONETARY FREEDOM, FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS, FREE EXCHANGE
FALLEN & FALLING PRICES: Fallen prices must not be mixed up with falling prices. The former tend to encourage buying and reduce hoarding. They usually originate at the goods side and lead to corresponding additional turnovers, to new orders and employment. The later tend to deter buying and lead to deflationary hoarding, sales difficulties, bankruptcies and unemployment. Moreover, the former tend to fall step by step, according to developments on the goods side (e.g., technological improvements). The latter tend to occur more generally and evenly because they are due to a deflationary money shortage. This difference may be statistically indistinguishable but it is of great economic importance. Because of this distinction price levels cannot rapidly enough adapt to a deflationary reduction in the money supply - contrary to the expectations and predictions of most economists of the Austrian School of Economics. - J.Z., 77 & 97.
FAST, EASY & SOFT MONEY: While governments, through their central bank and its printing presses, can issue and impose their kind of "money" fast and easily and it becomes soon a "soft" money, of almost constantly diminishing value (due to its legal tender monopoly status, which make over-issues possible and easy), it remains often hard to obtain for all who are not e.g. working in the "public disservices", government contractors or are other moochers and parasites or bought or subsidised groups of legally privileged voters. Those who are not part of the government's budget expenditures might not get any of the government's money fast and easily, not only in their credit applications but also when they struggle for it, with their goods, labour and services, in what remains of the free market under monetary despotism. "Hard money" may, originally, have been a careless use of words for metallic currency, ignoring the fact that for a long time governments had reduced the gold and silver contents of their coins as well, thus turning them into "soft" and "easy" money. Moreover, it ignored that gold is one of the softest metals. As soft money was considered, probably, without sufficient discrimination, all paper money, not only legal tender paper money but also all paper money not redeemable in metal, regardless of whether it was otherwise sufficiently secured and stabilised in its value. - While government money is easy to obtain for governments and easy to spend for them, it is not so easy to obtain for many to most members of the "private sector". Moreover, when private people invest it (for lack of any better currencies) in loans then they might get it back only nominally, in inflated form, which makes it rather hard on the creditors and only somewhat easier, but not continuously, to debtors. They will soon find such loans harder to get. Whereupon a false claim of "capital shortage" is usually raised even while in all spheres were stable value reckoning is still possible, there is an abundance of refuge-capital. - J.Z., n.d. & 18.6.11.
FAULKNER, R. P.: American monetary theoretician, favouring free banking? See: ECONOMIC & HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECTS IGNORED BY MOST MODERN AUTHORS.
FB BIBLIOGRAPHY: Antoine Clarke, The Micropolitics of Free Market Money: A ... which contains a useful Free Market Money bibliography. - Note under N. Elliott, The Uses and Abuses of …- See also my own bibliographical compilation at www.panarchy.org/zube/money.index.html - J.Z., 25.7.11.
FEDER MONEY: See: APHORISMS ON THE MONEY PROBLEM.
FEDERAL FUNDS: A typical statist and political misnomer for funds robbed from individuals and their voluntary associations and then wastefully and dishonestly spread among the vast number of Federal "programs" and their favourites, as determined by the election interests of the politicians spending the proceeds of these robberies, of what is left of them after they had first looked out, directly, after themselves. Federal, State and Local Government "funds" are the accumulated "funds" or treasures of professional robbers. - J. Z., 4.7.93, 24.4.97, 8.9.02, 18.6.11. - See: SPENDING, GOVERNMENT SPENDING, VOLUNTARY TAXATION, TAXATION.
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM: In the 124 year period of our history, before establishing the Federal Reserve, prices rose only by 16%. In the 70 years since, prices have exploded more than 1,000%. - Prof. James L. Green, MM, 1986. - Only the prices which by law have to be expressed in the money of monetary despotism have "exploded" to this extent, in the average, in spite of all scientific and technological improvements. If expressed in sound value standards then we would find the prices for many goods, but not for all kinds of services, greatly reduced and only the prices for many labours and services greatly increased but not by as much as they could have been increased under full monetary and financial freedom. - J.Z., 18.6.11. - CENTRAL BANKING & INFLATION, FED, LEGAL TENDER, CENTRAL BANKING, MONEY MONOPOLY
FEE: What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and a Free Market in Money ... - www.fee.org/.../what’s-so-funny-about-peace-love-and-a-free-mark ... - Cached - 1 Jun 2011 – ... which is sad because the joke is on us. Download The 1977 Wall Street Journal article Toward Free Market Money by F. A. Hayek here. ...
FEKETE & HUGO PRICE: Fekete and Hugo Price Hinder Free Market Development - Gold Speculator - www.gold-speculator.com › GS Database › SilverStockReport - Cached - 4 posts - 4 authors - Last post: yesterday - Nobody should expect society to return to free market money by violating free market principles! Why should silver investors, ... - Fekete and Hugo Price Hinder Free Market ... - Silver Stock Report - silverstockreport.com/2009/free-market-hindered.html - Cached - 29 Oct 2009 – Nobody should expect society to return to free market money by violating free market principles! Why should silver investors, - SILVER, GOLD
FERGUSON, ADAM: When Money Dies by Adam Fergusson. This is the definitive chronicle of the Weimar catastrophe, the death of a money that no one had planned and yet gave rise to the totalitarian state. For years, this book sold for thousands of dollars because there were so few copies. - Currently offered in print by the Mises Institute. - J.Z., 9.8.11.
FIAT CURRENCIES: News Link•Currencies - The Average Life Expectancy For A Fiat Currency Is 27 Years - 08-02-2011 • washingtonsblog.com - Monetary scholar Edwin Vieira ... pointed out that every 30 to 40 years the reigning monetary system fails and has to be retooled. The last time around for the U.S. was in 1971, when Nixon cancelled the convertibility of dollars into gold. - Read Comments • Make a Comment • Email this News Link • Send Letter to Editor
FIAT MONEY: Even what is usually called a mere “fiat money” is not altogether “created out of thin air”. It has, in reality, still one foundation, namely, some tax foundation. It may even be kept within the bounds of that reflux foundation, at par with a nominal sound value standard, although, usually, it is not. It is right only for those billions of statists who still approve of compulsory taxation and the collectivist and bureaucratic use of this kind of “revenue”. At best the victims of taxation, who have already paid their tax “debts” can save it for their future tax payments or pass it on to others, who have not yet paid their current taxes with it. Towards all others it is wrongful, like all aspects of a coercively imposed and collected tribute. When issued beyond its tax foundation and apart from the wrongfulness of all imposed compulsory taxation, a government money is wrongful only as a monopoly money for a whole country and its population and as a money that has compulsory acceptance and a forced value not only for tax payment purposes but also in general circulation. Thus and supported by wrongful legislation, good monies are territorially and coercively replaced by bad statist monies, the world over. All who are not in favour of compulsory taxation, obedience to territorial authorities who imposed and collect such tribute levies and who also oppose the monetary despotism involved, should be or become free to refuse or discount such currencies. By rights there should be only communities, societies and governance systems of volunteers, all of them without a territorial monopoly, and, possibly, with their own exchange media, clearing certificates or accounts and self-chosen value standards. Some of them might have their own tax foundation or contribution-foundation money, others some different money and value standard systems, freely chosen by and for their own members. Among them there would be those that practise full monetary freedom, under which all those, who have wanted goods, services to offer or many payments to receive and to make, are free to issue corresponding coins, tokens, notes or clearing certificates or use corresponding book or digital accounts and transfers, using self-chosen value standards for all their transactions. The insufficiently discriminating use of the term “fiat money” is prejudiced, misleading and insufficiently-informed. – J.Z., 28.9.10, 3.8.11.
FIAT MONEY: Fiat Money: Dual and Single Tier Systems - www.nolanchart.com/article7991_Fiat_Money_Dual_and_Single_T... - Cached - 2 posts -1 author - Last post: 4 Sep 2010. - Unlike free-market money and banking, government is not bound by such limitations, nor is it at much risk since it will rarely, if ever, ... - GOVERNMENT MONEY, MONETARY DESPOTISM, CENTRAL BANKING, EXCLUSIVE CURRENCIES, LEGAL TENDER, MONEY ISSUE MONOPOLY
FIAT MONEY: Fiat money - money with no backing, whose acceptance (and fictitious value! J. Z.) is mandated by the State ..." - David F. Nolan, LP News, March 95. - Most overlook that fiat money can have tax foundation, even a sound tax foundation, if one presumes that any compulsory taxation can be sound. Voluntary contribution- or subscription-based money is also possible, for societies of volunteers. Is an IOU, freely issued and readily accepted, representing a private and mere "fiat" currency or is it an obligation binding only upon the issuer and voluntarily accepted only because of that? Those who cannot imagine any other but a rare metal backing as possible, honest or trustworthy enough, do either lack imagination or historical knowledge or theoretical understanding of the alternatives to government fiat and even of the great varieties that occurred among currencies issued by governments. To simply equate legal tender and monopoly paper-money of the State with private and optional paper monies, that are kept at par, under free market rating, with their nominal values, and call both mere "fiat money", indicates lack of knowledge of what one is talking about. Without legal tender a unilateral fiat money attempt or offer by any issuer does not have to be accepted by any potential acceptor. It takes two to dance tango. Any contract requires at least two participants agreeing with each other. It takes an issuer and an acceptor. Under freedom neither can command the other unilaterally and without his consent. Neither can "create" a fictitious value and force the other to accept it. The term, as usually used, is not enlightening but, rather, misleading. - J. Z., 3/97, 18.6.11.
FIAT MONEY: It is "money" unilaterally and either legally or juridically declared to be money, regardless of its substance or foundation, backing, cover or reflux arrangement and the soundness or unsoundness of its value standard, i.e. by an order, command or legal authorisation. Only governments have the power and a strong motive for doing this. The victims, all creditors (later, in consequence, most debtors, too), including all employees and pensioners, are not asked for their agreement or consent about this, not even in the supposedly self-governing democracies, republics or constitutional monarchies. The means by which this fiat money is usually established is the monopoly granted to a government-favoured central bank, in combination with special legal tender legislation. This bank is then forced to "financially" and monetarily its government. Since it was widely proposed in the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, in1848, it was all too rarely questioned for decades and has been all too readily adopted even by "democratic" and "anti-communist" governments, although Marx and Engels clearly proposed it as a means to support their grab or State power. proposed. Most critics of central banking, like that of the FED, consider only the fact that most fiat monies are not convertible into rare metals and forget about the other part of the definition: "Money (such as an inconvertible paper currency) which is made legal tender by a fiat of the government." - Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. There would not be much point for a government in making its paper money legal tender if it were still fully convertible into gold. But it has a vested interest in having its money, compulsorily accepted and this at its face value, even in the absence of any sound foundation for it, beyond its tax foundation for due or soon due taxes. (Investment in tax slavery or governmental "insecurities", repayable in inflated government paper monies, are, obviously not a good backing for any sound currency issues.) Without its monopoly and legal tender status it could be freely discounted or refused and replaced by alternative sound currencies. The decisive point about the fiat money is its legal tender power. Anything without legal tender is simply not a fiat money but can exist only on its own merits, with or without any gold backing or gold accounting. - This legal tender fiat makes it a unilateral not a contractual act. In Don Werkheiser's terms, it is a "single convenience" rather than a "mutual convenience" relationship that is thereby established. If a genuine gold coin or gold certificate currency with 100 % convertibility at any time and 100% cover (which is certainly not the only honest and economic option) were made legal tender then this might clarify some juridical fine point but it would hardly be necessary. (Except to wrongly and unnecessarily bankrupt debtors, also to the disadvantage of creditors, by forcing them to pay in legal tender monopoly money when they are only able to pay via one or the other form of clearing, using a sound value standard, e.g. a rare metal weight.) But when a currency is not made out of rare metals or redeemable in them and not even covered by them, then, like any other goods or service in the market, it does not have a fiat value but only a market value, depending upon its voluntary acceptance. (Wherever and whenever it is then readily accepted at its nominal value, expressed e.g. in rare metal weight units, for goods, services and wages also expressed in its sound value standard, then such an exchange medium is as good as gold or silver or even better, more convenient. Then it can certainly be issued and accepted without the costs involved in coining rare metals and using them as cover and redemption media for rare metal certificates. Precisely here the intention and practice of fiat money sets in, by turning the governments monopoly money into a forced currency with a fictitious and forced value, one that is, usually, far above its market value. It also permits the government to go on taxing its subjects more and more via the inflation tax - which does also boost its returns from other taxes, at least until the inflation becomes galloping. - One alternative, namely the use of gold coin or gold certificate currency, when it is not legally declared to be an exclusive currency and an exclusive value standard, for the population of a whole country, is rightful and harmless, even somewhat beneficial, for those who can afford it. Those who can't afford it are not helped by it. But they can still use it at least as an accounting or clearing unit for their own gold-less transactions, and this without possessing even a single gold coin, far less a gold reserve or 100% redemption fund. It is also harmless to declare a gold currency to be legal tender, as long as it is not declared to be an exclusive legal tender, i.e., as long as people remain free to pay and account or clear their debts while using other standard of value units and other means of exchange or clearing certificates. Forcing those who believe that they have some reasons or sufficient motives for hating gold, to use gold nevertheless, might be considered as an infringement of their religious liberty. The real or imagined advantages of exclusive rare metal currencies or 100% or fractionally covered and redeemable rare metal certificates should not be used as an excuse to outlaw all other forms of voluntarily adopted means of payment or clearing and all other forms of value standards and other forms of reflux, cover and redemption, like e.g. shop-foundation, service-foundation, clearing or debt foundation for optional exchange media or exchange methods. - Perhaps the errors on fiat money arose because the repeal of metal convertibility and the introduction of legal tender were often coming close together, or were even introduced at the same time. Those imagining that only rare metal bits could be real, honest and desirable money and who had never given a serious thought to alternative monies, privately issued and without legal tender but market rated instead, and their numerous historical examples, tended then to condemn all paper monies and inferior metal coins as mere fiat money or fictitious money, regardless of whether they were legal tender or not and regardless of how honest, sound and successful they were, if allowed to function. Even now very few textbooks on economics get the relationship between legal tender and inflation and Gresham's Law right and that between an exclusive currency and deflation. A currency that is neither made out of rare metals nor convertible into them, compulsorily, by their issuers (instead of merely on the rare metal market), one that does not have to be accepted in general circulation and if accepted has not to be accepted at its face value (by any but its issuer), but may be freely refused or discounted or market-rated by all potential acceptors (the issuer excepted, for he must accept his IOUs at their face values, in accordance with basic principles of justice), is thus not part of a despotic or command economy, one with unilateral "fiats", a command, central planning, governmental, authoritarian or State socialist "economy", but part of a private, voluntary, contractual, associational or free market economy. People may doubt whether in a market economy any means of payment or clearing not made of rare metals or redeemable in them by their issuers could successfully exist and compete against conventional gold standard currencies. But they cannot rightly say that that if they existed then they would exist merely by a fiat, a unilateral say-so. Here, too, it takes two to dance tango. The alternative market money, without legal tender power and a means of payment monopoly, may have some other foundation than rare metal quantities and redemption in them at any time by the issuer and upon demand by the note-holder, whether the "gold bugs" understand that foundation or not. As long as it cannot be unilaterally, juridically and legally forced upon them or other dissenters, they cannot correctly call it a "fiat currency" although they like to slander it as such - because they do not understand and appreciate it. Market money can be issued, offered and accepted as real value tokens or certificates only when and if the issuer obliges himself or herself to deliver for it, upon demand, not rare metal (That particular promise might and usually should be explicitly excluded, at least in some of the freely competing private payment communities!), but something which most participants in a free market need, want and are willing to pay for, namely and especially, consumer goods and services that are in daily demand. E.g. the money issued by a shopping centre or department store, a bus company, power plant, a net of petrol stations, etc. Such ticket or token money is obviously not a unilaterally imposed fiat money - at least not towards others than its voluntary or contractual users. It only unilaterally obliges the issuer (and, by contract, his debtors) to accept it at any time at its face value. The issuer really obliges only himself thereby. He does not oblige any potential acceptor to accept it - except by individual contracts. He might e.g., insist that his debtors accept his tokens at par as long as they owe him money and their debts are due or close to due, so that they can simply pay off their debt at par with his token-money or private alternative currency or clearing certificates. But a unilateral and coercive action towards others, infringing their rights, is not involved. It is not "fiat" money but, rather, a responsibly issued real money, representing real and wanted values. Any form of IOU, to have a value, without being a coercive requisitioning certificate by a government (one with legal tender powers and an exclusive position), requires voluntary acceptance and market-rating and obliges only the issuer. Thus it is NOT fiat money. It obliges only the issuer to deliver his goods, services and labour for it, upon presentation, up to the amounts involved. To call such money "fiat money" is an abuse of the term. However, to government paper money, given legal tender powers in general circulation and also the status of an exclusive currency; it can be rightly applied, especially, when it is neither made out of gold nor convertible in it. But that is the whole point for the government in giving its "currency" legal tender and the money monopoly. - Nevertheless, we should also consider that even the worst kind of government fiat paper money has still got a limited foundation, namely tax foundation. You can get rid of it by paying your tax burden with it. To that extent it is then still having a foundation, a clearing foundation. In the best case, the taxes would be determined e.g. in weight units of rare metals, used merely as value standards and accounting units and the tax-foundation paper money would be accepted by the government at its face value in rare metal weight units, regardless of how low these units this paper money would have sunk against their rare metals in the exchanges of the general circulation and on the rare metal markets. Such degree of honesty, within a system of imposed tributes, could establish a self-limiting tax foundation paper money issue, reckoning in rare metal weight units. To function well enough, its legal tender must then be confined to the tax offices. It must not be given any legal tender power or monopoly status in general circulation. If it has legal tender and tax foundation, then it is fiat money towards those who do not have a tax debts to pay taxes to the government. These can then only make indirectly some use of the tax foundation by using such paper money to pay those who do "owe" the government the tribute it extracts from them. One should also concede to this kind of "system" that the government, by its education, propaganda and slogans, has established at least a pretence of representation, self-government, voting and consent to taxation as well as to the inflation, deflation or stagflation "targets" a territorial government engages in or has even openly proclaimed. Only towards others than the tax payers does the legal tender paper money become, quite obviously, a fiat money. Their only two escape routes are then: 1.) to use such paper money to pay some tax payers with it, for what they have to offer, and thus to get rid of it and get something of value in return. 2.) To increase their prices and wages, expressed in that legal tender money, perhaps even beyond the rate at which it is currently depreciated, anticipating its further inflation or rather doing without sales that are only thus "paid". - There are two major aspects to "fiat money": The one is its "compulsory acceptance" The other is the "compulsory value" or fictitious value given to it. In combination they form the "forced" or "legal tender" currency of "fiat money". If people remained free to discount it towards zero value, or to refuse it outright, then it would obviously not be effective legal tender money or fiat money. Imposing a fictitious value standard and forcing people to accept it at face value, or "at par" with its nominal value, on the "principle" that "Mark equals Mark" and "Dollar equals Dollar", no matter how different the values of Marks and Dollars of different issue and indebtedness dates really are, turns a money quite unilaterally into fiat money and causes all the wrongs and harms of inflations, deflations and stagflations and their serious consequences. - These are some of the facts and truths on the matter which are usually ignored by gold bugs in their oversimplifications and generalisations and oversights. They are partisans of a particular monetary scheme and one has to listen to all their opponents, too. Otherwise, we would allow them to throw out the child with the bath water. - J.Z., 3/97, 29.8.02. - If you can offer monetary freedom truths more concisely and clearly, please, do so and share your insights with me. - J.Z., 18.6.11.
FIAT MONEY: The term is all too indiscriminately applied to all, even contractual and well founded alternatives to rare metal coins and certificates, as if all the alternatives were equal to the forced and exclusive paper currencies of governments. The SUSPENSION OF GOLD REDEMPTION should not and need not, by the nature of things, and according to common experience and based upon basic rights and liberties, restrict other desired exchanges, exchange media and value standards nor should these alternatives be outlawed, taxed or regulated or controlled by any coercive institution, least of all by any government or its central bank. - J.Z., MFNL 3/4 & 8.4.97.
FIAT MONEY: This is not a very enlightened and enlightening expression and frequently abused even to condemn honestly contracted alternative exchange media and value standards, even gold accounting and gold clearing currencies, just because they use paper and debt-, clearing- or acceptance foundation, the banking principle and not the "currency principle" as advocated by the "gold bugs", as supposedly the best or only possible and honest one. This in spite of the fact that even an exclusive rare metal currency is the result of contractual and market appreciation and acceptance of a value standard and exchange medium and that gold was not and is not so appreciated and accepted at all times in all countries and was hardly used at all by most people for most of their recorded history. E.g., Aborigines traded all over Australia in some items but, to my knowledge, never used gold as their medium of exchange or value standard, although, by now, Australia is one of the largest gold producers and even very large gold nuggets are still found close to the surface now and then. Enemies of fiat money may believe and predict that non-convertible (by the issuers, into rare metals, upon demand) currencies could not possibly be issued and accepted and circulate and finally stream back to the issuer, all at par with their nominal gold weight value, although they do not promise any redemption by the issuer in gold. But they have no right to usurp monetary legislation in any country and outlaw what they do not believe in. On the other hand, they should be at liberty to refuse for themselves and not to issue or accept for themselves such alternatives. Gold bugs even ignore that cheques do mostly circulate at par with their cash value in legal tender paper money, although cheques are not legal tender and are themselves not convertible now into gold, except on whatever still exists or again of a free gold market. - I predict that under full monetary freedom "as good as gold" paper currencies, not redeemable by the issuer in gold but only on the free gold market, in free gold purchases there, and circulating (normally and at least locally) at par with their nominal gold weight values, will drive most gold coins and gold certificates out of circulation, as well as paper tickets would drive out most tickets and vouchers made out of gold medallions. Gold coins and gold certificates are not the only kind of alternative currencies that ought to be quite free to compete against the monies of monetary despotism and to attempt to drive it out of circulation. - To the extent that gold coins and 100% or fractionally covered gold certificates are a good enough, sufficient and popular alternative currency, they would not need an official status as an exclusive currency and legal tender power to be widely enough accepted by those who like them. To force such currencies upon people who have a more or less rational or irrational and even religious aversion against gold, would be an unjustified cruelty towards them, somewhat like forcing vegetarians to eat meat, because it would be, supposedly, good for them. Monetary freedom is not just for gold bugs - or for money cranks. Under full monetary freedom all kinds of paper currencies could somewhat circulate, at least locally, at least temporarily and among groups of their believers or contractors, at par or close enough to par with their nominal values. Moreover, all people would then be free to adopt any kind of clearing method that would render them independent altogether from any kind of cash and its supply, although they would still have to agree, among themselves, upon whatever value standard they would use in their clearing transactions. They would consider it as absurd to demand that they must confine their clearing transactions to those, in number and values, which they could fully or fractionally "cover" with a rare metal hoard of gold coins or gold bullion? They would not believe that such sacrifices are necessary to a God in form of a golden calf or holy cow. Nor do they subscribe to the mercantilist nonsense that is involved: First let us acquire a gold treasure, the larger the better. Then we will be able to trade freely, as long as we keep it. - Mind you, I still consider gold weight units to be very good OPTIONAL VALUE STANDARDS, but I hold that they would be QUITE INSUFFICIENT as EXCLUSIVE EXCHANGE MEDIA. - Just try now, to confine all your trading to those exchanges that you can manage to arrange when paying or being paid exclusively in gold coins or gold certificates, on the open market or in the underground economy. As an anarchist, libertarian or freedom lover you should not insist that the government introduce an exclusive gold coin and gold certificate circulation and value standard system for you. But, by all means, join or imitate Antony Hargis & Co. and trade in this way as much as you can, among like-minded people. That is your right and no one has the right to suppress your transactions or to confiscate or tax your gold. It is also true that most governments are unable or unwilling, most of the time, to turn their kind of paper money into paper money as good as gold, i.e., to give it a par value with gold weight units, when they pay their debts with them, in general circulation and when receiving it back in payment of taxes. As exclusive and forced currencies their currencies are mainly mere fiat currencies - apart from their tax-foundation and their taxes are mainly imposed ones. Proof: They rarely subject their introduction, continuance and height to any referendum. Your consent to them or dissent against them gets somehow lost via your supposed "representatives" and "public servants". The term "fiat money" is as much abused as are the term "cheap money" and "soft money". - To come closer to the realities that are possible and desirable, think in terms of "ticket" money, competing currencies and free choice of value standards, rather than in terms of monetary despotism, which tends to make people overlook, as already Marx pointed out, in one of his few truthful observations, the inherent and natural laws of money. - No freely issued and accepted and stable currency deserves the slur or slander of being merely a "fiat" money without any sound foundation, a fraud or deception, a kind of requisitioning certificates like State paper money usually is. - Each exchange medium issued or offered for exchange and each value standard offered are to be judged by their merits, by those who could readily issue them and those who would readily accept them, not by those who would dogmatically condemn them as mere "fiat" money and would refuse them. The Austrian economists point out the subjective value theory in many respects. Why don't they apply it here, too? - Not even their supposedly ideal currency should ever be allowed to become a forced and exclusive currency - except among themselves. - J.Z., Nov. 88, 15.5.97.
FIBONACCI FINANCIAL: Free Market Money | Fibonacci Financial - www.fibonaccifinancial.com/tag/free-market-money/ - Cached - 9 Jun 2009 – Posted in Exploding Neurons | Tags: Constitution, Depressions, Fiat Money, Fibonacci Financial, Free Market Money, Inflation, ...
FICHAS: How does one establish a bank of issue in the wilderness? What are the minimum preconditions for it? - For example, modern mines, established by foreign companies in remote areas of Chile, where a ready workforce may not have existed or only some subsistence economy villagers and while the government of Chile practised only central banking, with all its flaws. So they had to consider attracting, keeping and paying their employees in alternative ways. They did so by providing very well supplied canteens or general stores, with much more choice in competitively priced consumer goods, than existed the few local stores. They kept these, their own shops, very well stocked and, although nominally paying them in government paper money, allowed wage advance payments or small credits payable in warrants upon these stores. These private means of payment were called "fichas". The total of these advances and credits were later, but soon, deducted from their paper money wages. Thus the workers had a wider choice of consumer goods than they would otherwise have had, at lower prices, too, and the firms had their suitable wage payment means. Otherwise, their workers might, e.g., have had to travel long distances, to reach a town and many might then and there have got drunk or otherwise drugged or gambled their earnings away or would have been robbed or returned sick, exhausted or not at all. No one was forced to accept these "fichas", anticipating with them his paper money earnings in this way or take out small loans in these alternative exchange media - but many to most preferred to do so. It gave them a better lifestyle than they had before and involved only minimum transaction costs. This practice went on at least for decades and well into the 20th century. (*) I do not know to what extent it is suppressed now nor whether e.g. the government's paper money was also accepted at these canteens or employer's general stores and at what rate, if it was severely inflated. - Ideally, the workers should have established a consumer coop and issued these fichas themselves, in form of loans to the employer, for wage payment means, taking in exchange the bills of the recipients of the ores produced at the mines. And with these they could have restocked their consumer coop stores through wholesalers in Chile, just like their employers did for their canteens. - J. Z., 6.4.93, 27.5.97. - (*) See e.g: TIMBERLAKE, RICHARD H., Private production of scrip-money in the isolated community, 1987, JMCB, 19, pp. 437-47. - Dowd. - OR CANTEEN OR STORE MONEY OF MINES IN CHILE
FINANCE PLAN OF PEACE PLANS 19 c: I offer it digitized and zipped as an email attachment, until it appears online or on a CD. - It is a comprehensive privatization plan for all government assets, used also to accelerate their privatization and putting capital certificate claims to them into the hands of all the victims of territorial governments, all their subjects. - J.Z., 18.6.11.
FINANCIAL FREEDOM, PRIVATISATION VOUCHERS: According to Radio Moscow, 13.12.93, privatisation vouchers were then traded on the capital market. - Ideally, they should have been either evenly distributed among the population or to taxpayers, in accordance with the tax burden they have born for, let us say, the last 10 years. See my proposals in PEACE PLANS 19C: Let Freedom Pay Its Way. I do not know of any country or liberation movement which has fully used the potential of the issue and distribution of privatisation vouchers in order to achieve privatisation fast and for the benefit of all or most citizens. - Even the communists and socialists could have favoured such a scheme - because it would have enabled them to combine their individual shares in the public property to provide themselves with whatever public services they would still wish to provide, although only for their own and exterritorially autonomous communities of volunteers or on the general free market, via their own competing institutions, if they could manage them well enough, which I doubt. - J.Z., 13.12.93, 30.4.97, 18.6.11. - PRIVATIZATION VOUCHERS, PEACE PLANS 19C, DENATIONALIZATION.
FINANCIAL FREEDOM: Freedom of issue, free market rating, free transferability, freedom to refuse to buy certain "investments" at all, e.g., government "insecurities, and completely free and "well publicised trade in the financial sphere, run by private and competing stock exchanges, free from governmental legislation, controls and boards, would be the financial equivalent to monetary freedom in the monetary sphere (exchange media or currencies). It would permit the free accumulation, utilisation, transfer and combination or separation of productive capital in every economic sphere as voluntary owners, traders, investors and producers would require. - J. Z., 25.4.97. - It would do away with territorial compulsory taxation, replacing it by any form of voluntary taxation or voluntary contribution and subscription schemes. Both, monetary freedom and financial freedom require not any imposed value standard, not even if this is the best one ever found or proposed, but, rather, freedom of choice for individuals among all the value standards, for all their contracts. Not even an ideal value standard should be forced upon anyone, far less upon the whole world or all people. - J.Z., 8.9.02, 18.6.11.
FINANCIAL FREEDOM: Many more people are for financial freedom than for monetary freedom – because the property and exchange rights involved are much clearer to most. – Moreover, the monetary rights and liberties have not yet been sufficiently published and argued for to overcome the submissive “monetary religion” of most people. They are not even included as yet in the statist constitutions and bills of rights and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most just want more of the existing money, often quite regardless of how bad it already is and they cannot envision themselves as issuers and acceptors of private and better monies. It would be easier for them to envision themselves as Pope or as founder of a new church or sect, or as a new “leaders” and dictator, riding roughshod over the rights and liberties of others, always, naturally, with the best intentions and asserting, sometimes even believing, that it would be in the interest of their victims to submit to their “great” plans. – J.Z., 18.7.10. – MONETARY & FINANCIAL DESPOTISM, TAXATION, REGULATIONS, PROPERTY RIGHTS, MONETARY FREEDOM
FINANCING LIBERATION EFFORTS: LIBERATION
FINANCING LIBERTARIAN DEFENCE: DEFENCE
FINANCING LIBERTARIAN PROPAGANDA TO VICTORY: See: PEACE PLANS 19: Let Freedom Pay Its Way! - Available from me digitized, as an email attachment. - J.Z.
FINANCING LIBERTARIAN REVOLUTIONS: LIBERTARIAN REVOLUTIONS
FORCED CURRENCY: Any currency valid only by legally excluding others and by giving it a forced value does hardly deserve the name of currency or money. However, for many decades we have been forced to experience almost nothing else and the literature is largely only full of hypotheses of advocates of forced and exclusive currencies, unaware of the wrong and harm they do and of the rights, liberties and benefits of the users of competing currencies would enjoy. Thus many people have even come to condemn money altogether. That is like condemning all societies because of the existence of some despotic, criminal, intolerant, fanatic and terrorist groups and of a multitude of inherently despotic territorial States. - J.Z., 12.7.96, 20.3.97, 18.6.11. - LEGAL TENDER, CENTRAL BANKING, MONEY.
FOREIGN DEBTS, PAYMENT DIFFICULTIES FOR THEM: The only way to squeeze cash out of the poor countries, so they can pay the banks, is for them to somehow run a trade surplus. They must, accordingly, slash imports and boost exports." - MULTINATIONAL MONITOR, Washington, July 86. - Every debtor can lastly pay only with his goods and services. But it makes a great difference to a debtor whether he is forced to use a means of payment that is short supplied or one that he can supply himself with, one based on his readiness to supply goods, services and labour. Allow them to repay their international debts in private and competing sound currencies that are redeemable, at their stated standard values, only in their goods, services and labour. Allow them to pay wages with such payment means of their own, also taxes, and imports. Then most of their payment problems, arising from the enforced use of the money of monetary despotism, would tend to disappear and this very soon. The former debtor countries could not only become self-supporting and relatively rich, based on their labour, services and other resources, but could also, if they wanted to, turn into creditors, like many of the debtors of the U.S. once did. - J. Z., in old MFNL notes.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE CONTROL: Through foreign exchange control one can prevent or stop and inflation. - Popular opinion. - This has been tried, in vain, for many decades and no one who understands the real cause of inflation will try to fight it, end it or prevent it in this way. This type of price control is as vain and self-defeating as are all others. Rather, control the government's note printing presses, by repealing the legal tender and the exclusive currency status of its paper money in general circulation. Only the government should have to accept its own paper money at par (with any sound value standard, if it has one, or at its nominal value), in all payments of dues and taxes, expressed in its own "value standard" or against a sound value standard, if that has been instituted. The forced INTERNAL EXCHANGE RATE of and the FORCED ACCEPTANCE for its currency, due to its legal tender and monopoly, is the real cause of inflation and without removing it all other measures are at best only palliatives. - Freedom to issue sound and optional competing private currencies, free market rated against self-chosen value standards, freedom for all but their issuers to refuse or discount them and also any remaining government currency in general circulation, should, finally, be at least sufficiently published and discussed, then understood and introduced, if necessary in a peaceful monetary revolution, to end and prevent inflations deflations and stagflations, without a fight, without any further despotic "measures", policies, laws, programs, regulations, controls and governmental institutions.. - J. Z., n.d., 2.4.97, 18.6.11. - See: EXCHANGE RATE CONTROL, DEVALUATION, REVALUATION, PRICE CONTROL, INFLATION, DIS.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATE: As long as the foreign exchange rate remains stable there is no reason to fear inflation. - Wide-spread opinion. - This is obviously not true as long as there is no quite free exchange rate for foreign exchange. Central banks still manipulate or try to manipulate the foreign exchange rates and for this they use their hoards of rare metals and of foreign exchange which they should not have been allowed to accumulate and keep in the first place. Even when there is a freely floating rate for foreign exchange, then its "stability" might merely indicate the fact that other governments do likewise follow Maynard Keynes' proposal for a slow inflation and this to the same degree. Other governments may have inflated their paper money even more so - or less. - To me it seems absurd to maintain in all or any countries any form of centralized, manipulated, exclusive and forced currencies and then to try to measure and stabilise their "values" by observing their exchange rates against each other, i.e., compare a money of monetary despotism only with monies of other forms of monetary despotism elsewhere. Our misrulers may even have "gentlemen's" agreements to inflate their currencies to the same degree and thereby hide their inflations from those who have their eyes and minds only on the foreign exchange rate. The foreign exchange rates and their fluctuations are poor substitutes for free market rating for every governmental national currency and for free competition against it from other, private or cooperative national or local currencies. - The kernel of truth in this notion consists in this that at least towards other national currencies the own national currency has, as a rule, no legal tender value at all nor does it have a monopoly in the world's currency market. - J. Z., 2.4.97.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATE: The foreign exchange rate, when it falls, may be indicating inflation but need not and it certainly does not CAUSE inflation. When a free market rated currency suffers internally a discount against its value standard, then it may but does not necessarily indicate an inflationary over-issue. The discount may be quite small and temporary and would alert debtors to an opportunity for buying up the discounted currency and repaying their debts with it. Thus the depreciated notes and the discount would disappear. Prices marked in sound value standards would remain unchanged anyhow (from the money side). Under legal tender for paper money within a country the foreign exchange rates are the only market rating for a currency that is still permissible and practised. But this foreign exchange rate is not a good enough substitute for internal free market rating of any currency. Nor can one speak of free market rating of a currency when it may legally only be rated in the fictitious and forced paper "value standard" of a government's monopoly currency. Pricing of currencies should not be pushed beyond borders or confined to internal markets for foreign exchange. Like any other pricing, it should be as free, direct, public and as fast as possible to optimally fulfil its function. Legal tender is a form of price and wage control and as such not rendered rightful & harmless by foreign exchange rates remaining free. - J. Z., 9.4.86, 9.5.97. , CURRENCY, INFLATION, DIS., PEACE PLANS 19 A & B.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES OF CENTRAL BANKS: They represent unused excess purchasing power, which should rather be used to import goods from the countries of their origin, thus enriching a country. They do only provide some extra value to the foreign currency thus hoarded, rather than to the own. At most they could be used to buy back some of the own currency, excessively issued and spent in foreign countries and thus having fallen in its exchange rate. That excessive issue should not have occurred in the first place. Under sound issue and reflux practices, using a sound value standard, the own currency would internally stand mostly at par or close to it and would fluctuate only a little in external trading, under free exchange rates, with any fall in its foreign exchange rate merely speeding up its return to pay for our exports. Unless, naturally, the foreign central banks were to hoard “our” central bank’s currency, similarly and thus impart an extra scarcity value to it, which it would not have, otherwise. To me it seems absurd when central banks thus give some value to their paper monies - by mutually hoarding it. They would only need a very limited cash hoarding of foreign exchange, for daily exchange requirements, just like the private foreign exchange offices in tourist centers. – J.Z., 1.11.10.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE RESERVES: What are they good for except as being used, soon, rather than years later, as purchasing power in the countries of their origin? While they are merely stored away in a central bank’s vaults, as supposedly necessary or useful “reserves” or covers, they do not even have a value as paper scrap. As long as this hoarding continues, they represent consumer goods and services that have been sold to foreign countries – but not “paid” for, as they should, ultimately, be, with the goods and services of the countries in which these central bank notes originated. While not used as means of payment in the countries of their origin, they represent financial sacrifices in the service of a spleen regarding the supposedly required cover or reserve for a national currency (one that has not other and better foundation than tax foundation, within its inherent limits, apart from its monopolism and legal tender power as an exclusive and forced national currency, which is a kind of national requisitioning certificate, that of monetary despotism). It does not represent saved and soundly invested money, which would increase our own productivity and standard of living. It has rather reduced our standard of living by the goods and services that we exported and for which our central bank got this “foreign exchange” in return. However, it also serves our central bank as an excuse or supposed “cover” to issue still more of its own forced and monopoly currency. (Beyond the totals at which these notes would be accepted at par with sound value standard – if they used a sound value standard instead of its nominal, abstract and paper value standard, continuously manipulated and mostly depreciated by the central banks.) Thus, in the own country, this new note issue confronts a lesser total of goods and services and inflates their prices further. (If not replaced by new issues of the foreign banks in their countries, then in these countries, their thus reduced total money circulation would be confronting not only the total of their goods and services but also those which we had exported to them. Our central bank “reserves” would thus increase the value of the foreign currency in the foreign country. - Imagine that all of our export returns were thus nominally paid for, with these “reserves” leading merely to a corresponding increase of the total circulation of our central bank, always under the pretence that these new forced currency issues would be thus “covered” and safe, and were never used to pay for our imports. Then this would lead to an obvious imbalance of our external trading. Our exports would remain unpaid for (in foreign goods and services) – except for the foreign currency paper scraps stored in our central bank as supposedly good “reserves”, while they remain unused as means of payment to pay for our imports. Moreover, while thus the own national currency is being inflated, that of the foreign currency is, usually, being inflated as well. Which means that if and when this thus hoarded foreign currency is actually used, after a few years, to pay for imports, then it will be found that in the meantime the foreign currency, too, has been inflated, so that we will have to pay correspondingly more for our imports, thus paid, which means another loss for our economy. All the verbal defences of such currency “policies” have only the “value” of religious dogmas and spleens, like e.g. “Jesus is our Saviour!” If you are a true believer and feel good about them, then you have at least have an emotional consolation for your thus increased economic misery. – An expensive and involuntary joke is involved: The central banks mutually consider their stocks in foreign exchange, all also inflated, as a cover and “reserve” for their own inflated national currencies! – Such “actions” and currency “policies” are all too widely considered to “protect” the national currencies through central banking, even while these wrongfully legalized monopolistic and coercive institutions continue to depreciate the national monopoly and forced currencies and “finance” with them further wrongful and non-productive or even counter-productive governmental activities. – The more they thus hoard foreign currencies and correspondingly increase their circulation of their own inflated paper monies, in the long run, the safer they believe their national currencies to be or they pretend that they are, based upon these “reserves” or “covers”. – The priests of this popular religion on money and foreign trade are also highly paid for applying this kind of “wisdom”. - J.Z., 1.2.10, 2.11.10. - CENTRAL BANKING, COVER FOR NATIONAL CURRENCIES.
FOREIGN OWNERSHIP: Rather than complaining about internal "capitalists" as exploiters or against foreign investors and owners, as "buying up our country", the employees of our enterprises should consider whether, how easily and over what period they could themselves purchase, or take over the enterprises they do work in. Seeing the savings and improvements that could result from such a change in ownership, if only property rights, profit and earnings interests (generally: self-interest), are not ideologically denied or opposed in practice, as they are, in associations of egalitarians) then these purchases of enterprises, by their employees could be relatively easy and fast, on free-market terms. Employees, organized as partnerships or coops, could purchase them on terms, using bearer bonds as means of payment. Preferably, these bonds should have value-preserving clauses and be redeemable in instalments, using clearing certificates of these enterprises as means of paying the instalments and interest rates, whenever possible and acceptable. Then and thus the productive capital acquired by the former mere employees, could then mostly be acquired with part of the additional earnings they could thus attain, due to the additional incentive this change would established for all members of a firm. Consequently, they could, if they wanted to, attain full or controlling ownership of the enterprises, as partners, employee shareholders or co-operators, over a relatively short period, without having to first acquire corresponding savings for a cash purchase price. Even whilst they paid off this debt of their take-over bid, gradually redeeming the bonds they had issued, largely with some of their own clearing certificates, acceptable in all payments for their goods and services, they would not have to make, in most instances, any economic sacrifices, i.e., having to reduce their earnings for a few years. No revolution would be required, no general strike, no occupation of factories or land, nor any official expropriation and nationalization measure. They would just make optimal use the capital market for their own purposes. In practice few enterprises are today ever acquired, by capitalists or financiers, with cash payments. Mostly only securities change hands. Workers could do the same. And they could mutually guaranty their securities better than most present capitalists could guaranty theirs. If afterwards some foreigner offered to buy the enterprise from them, then it would be up to them to either sell it or not. Such decisions should always be made by the owners or sellers and their buyers. If they found that each of them could retire on the sales proceeds and if they did not want to keep ownership of the enterprise, e.g., to provide jobs for their children and grandchildren, who could blame them? Alas, for most people, even the long-term victims of the hierarchical employer-employee relationship, with its numerous anti-industrial warfare actions, such financial and monetary transactions towards the achievement of freedom at the workplace or self-management would be too radical. A gradualist approach would be to permit employers to open savings banks for investments of employees in the own firm. Mostly they could offer them higher interest rates than the banks would. Then it would merely be a case of the workers observing the total of their savings at this bank with the total share value of the enterprise. That would soon tend to steer them in the right direction, towards ownership and ownership responsibilities. Enterprises change hands all the time. The workers would be foolish to exclude themselves from these market options, especially seeing the size of their combined purchasing power and the fact that in most enterprises the employees get directly or indirectly 85 - 95 of the annual returns, if one include the social insurance charges, taxes, supposedly only levied and spent for their benefit, and welfare spending for their members out of general tax revenues. The present capitalist owners get usually only ca. 5-15% out of the annual income of the firm. They might also come to insist that they be permitted to utilise their old age security insurance funds for such acquisitions, instead of handing their administration over to bureaucrats or unionist functionaries, never likely to use them in this way but, rather, to their own advantage. - Indeed, there are some enterprises whose capital investments are so large and the number of their employees is so small that their employees, between them and even over a number of years, would have little chance to become owners of all the capital assets. They could then either take up the required take-over capital as a loan, like many of the take-over financiers do, or acquire only a fraction of the capital assets, enough to give them sufficient of a capital and business interest. To provide that sufficient interest their earnings from their share in the capital would have to come, in the average, at least to about 20 to 30% of their wage and salary earnings. Lesser amounts are simply considered by the employees as mere bonus payments and, as such, do not yet provide a sufficient incentive in running the business efficiently. Alternatively, they could forego the capital acquisition option altogether and improve their personal independence and earnings capacity by forming work cooperatives, autonomous work groups or productive gangs, self-managed, as proposed and described e.g., by Hyacinthe Dubreuil. They could also assure their employment and a higher income by declaring their readiness to be at least partly paid in the monies of monetary freedom. Beyond that, they could exert a considerable influence on the development of their firm by insisting that it adopt at least one of the best suggestion box schemes. Some of these have already come very close to fully exploiting all the innovative and productive talents now still largely wasted in most enterprises. Sony had reached, years ago, already an average of 350 employee suggestions p.a. per employee and they were aiming at a still higher rate. People do not have to be treated as dumb servants or handlers of machines. They can also greatly contribute to improve them, step by step, given the chance and sufficient rewards. - When there is no fear of becoming unemployed, due largely to monetary and financial freedom, they will no longer be adverse to promoting labour saving innovations, and aware that thereby their average earnings capacity will be increased, quite apart from the rewards they would earn for their innovations. I have a 1987 Mitsubishi Magna Sedan. The guy who services it for me, from a mobile van, once was a supervisor in that firm and also made a small improvement on the motor there, by which a lid and a washer were automatically produced united, instead of having to be put on separately. That little suggestion earned him a $ 500 bonus and many of his work mates earned similar rewards. With such recognition and rewards it is surprising that numerous improvement suggestions are coming forward in a steady stream. Their products become their babies. They become in a way creators, designers, engineers and gain self-respect and recognition - while also increasing their income, improving the position of their firm and providing greater consumer satisfaction. - Monetary and financial freedom are just very important aspects of the whole process of "releasing all creative energies" to make this world a better and more prosperous one. Not just money is involved - but money involves almost everything. - J.Z., 16.5.97. - Experience with the better suggestion-box schemes showed that the vast majority of such suggestions were accepted because they were useful to some degree or the other and they were thus rewarded with bonus payments. Alas, in the vast majority of firm even this proven creative potential remains mostly unused by inefficient because all too hierarchical employer-employee relationships. - Likewise, in the monetary and financial freedom sphere most possible and desirable improvements do not take place because all too many aspects are politically, legally, juridically and administratively regulated by hierarchies with little knowledge of, interest in and appreciation of alternative solution. Numerous creative energies could and should be released here, too. Not just more theoretical studies are needed and should be sufficiently published but numerous free experiments should be undertaken by volunteers. So far there exists not even a comprehensive suggestion box or archive and information service for all such proposals. Much better monetary and financial systems are not impossible, they are merely outlawed. - J. Z., 14.9.02, 18.6.11. - PURCHASE OF ENTERPRISES, SELL-OUT OF THE COUNTRY TO FOREIGNERS? PRODUCTIVE COOPERATIVES, PARTNERSHIPS, EMPLOYEE SHAREHOLDING, PURCHASE OF ENTERPRISES BY THEIR EMPLOYEES, SUGGESTION BOX SCHEMES, INCENTIVE SCHEMES
FORGERY OF THE NOTES OF OTHERS OR ISSUE OF THE OWN? The response to the inflated, deflated or stag-flated monopoly and legal tender currency of a central bank should not be any attempts to forge them. Such fraudulent acts should be left to governments, as long as they can get away with them, e.g., when they forge the notes of enemy regimes in wartime. Rather, private issues of the own banknotes, clearing certificates, shop currencies, goods warrants, service vouchers and emergency monies should be tried. The own notes ought to be suitable at least for local circulation. That means that they would have to have a sound acceptance foundation with local suppliers of essential goods and services. These main potential issuers and acceptors must be under a contractual obligation to accept them at par. They are already under a moral and juridical obligation to accept their own IOUs and thus fulfil their own promise expressed in them. This acceptance obligation would be also in their interest as associated issuers, as debtors of the issuing centre of their association, e.g. a local shop association bank and as traders who want to turn over more of their own goods and services by using their private means of exchange, goods warrants and service vouchers in monetary denominations and using a sound value standard in them and in all their pricing. But for other people, in general circulation, these notes need not and should not have the legal tender "quality". The possibility of a discount of the notes in general circulation, as well as an occasional small discount of the notes, at least in large denominations and among merchants, would be necessary to keep all their note issues generally and for a long time (*) mostly at par with the value standard expressed in them. One can determine the existence of a fever only with a working fever thermometer and high air pressure only by a working barometer and high blood presser only by the relevant kinds of meters. For exchange media their free internal exchange rate is their suitable measuring method. - J. Z., 14.9.02.) - These private notes would possess what Prof. Rittershausen called "shop foundation". Even gold and silver coins would be widely refused or depreciate if they did not have this foundation. - If private people and their associations were allowed to issue sound, i.e. non-coercive paper money types that are suitable to pay wages with and acceptable in the stores and which maintain themselves in free competition with other alternative currencies, then unemployment would soon disappear and inflation would become impossible. - The task consists a) in sufficiently increasing the money circulation to achieve all desired and possible turnovers and this b) without depreciating the additionally issued exchange media or their value standard. They must be issued under conditions that keep them mostly at par with or close to their value standard, at least in local circulation, not necessarily in other districts or other countries and continents, where they could acquire a foreign exchange rate. They must be issued in a way that they could not drive up the general price level, measured in sound value standards. The circulation should be increased just sufficiently to so increase the goods and service exchanges that all involuntary unemployment is done away with, all productive potential is used and all sales difficulties for wanted goods are abolished. The sale of labour and goods should then take place neither at emergency sales prices nor at inflated prices but at free market prices. - The general effect of higher turnovers of goods, labor and services would rather tend to be a decline in the price level of consumer goods, while, at the same time, wages, salaries and profits would tend to be increased. - (*) all the frequently renewed issues. The notes or "ticket-money" that have streamed back to them, in payment for their sales, should be cancelled and replaced by new issues. - J. Z., 85 & 21.5.97, 18.6.11.
FOULKES, ARTHUR: Arthur Foulkes: A free market answer to calls for government stimulus - tribstar.com/.../Arthur-Foulkes-A-free-market-answer-to-calls-for-... - Cached - 19 Mar 2009 – And, as I've done many times in this column, I contended that a free-market money, such as money backed by gold, would be superior to our ... - Just another gold bug? - J.Z.
FOUNDATION OR CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS FOR BANKS OF ISSUE: Apart from the capital consisting in office space and equipment and a minimum of cash holding, note issuing banks do not need any capital for the business of sound note issues. Moreover, most of the potential note issuers do already posses the office facilities. Most of the errors in this sphere arose with the notion of banknotes as mere gold deposit certificates. Then, obviously, only those with a sufficient stock of gold coins, their own, or that deposited with them by others, i.e., possessing "real" capital or its gold medal equivalent, could issue such banknotes. These notes, being instantly redeemable in gold coins, were wrongly considered as having no other and sufficient foundation to achieve their acceptance as exchange media in the their circulation sphere, regardless of whatever short-term and self-liquidating debt certificates the bank had demanded from the borrower for the loans granted in its notes. Only its accumulated gold stock was considered as the reserve, cover and redemption fund of the bank. If it had a 100% cover for its gold certificate banknotes then bankruptcy as a result of inability to redeem its notes in gold, could never occur. The introduction of fractional rare metal reserve currencies then led to the introduction of other securities as an ultimate backing, in case a bank of issue would go bankrupt. These assets were either to be used to purchase enough of the currently demanded e.g. gold coins in the open market, to redeem all notes in gold or, in case of bankruptcy, to satisfy the creditors at least with sufficient other capital assets. Based upon this thought-model, legislators, public opinion and supposed experts insisted that for each bank of issue the founders must have either a sufficiently capital of their own or must be able to raise a sufficiently large capital through subscription by partners or shareholders in the bank. Other options for securing the par-value of banknotes issued with their value standard, rare metal weight units, usually coined, were not considered in this model. Such gold certificates were considered merely as convenient substitutes for payments in e.g. gold or silver coins and bullion. No further thought on the subject seemed required and no further thought is still invested in it by the remaining adherents to this system, nicknamed "gold bugs". They are all too ready to condemn all other currency issues as fraudulent or as coercive issues of paper money, whether issued by businessmen, governments or the governments' central bank. - However, even gold coins and 100% covered and redeemable gold certificates, would have little value to most holders, most of the time and in most situations and locations if they were not also readily "redeemable" in or exchangeable for daily wanted consumer goods, services and labours by those who provide these. This latter real "redemption fund" or demand for notes, coins, token money or clearing certificates, by all those who depend upon monetary exchanges, due to the division of labour, is usually ignored by the advocates of rare metal value standards and means of payment. (The currency school, as opposed to the banking school. Even some advocates of the free banking school are still, at least to some extent, adherents of the currency school, not only for its preferred value standard but also for its preferred and exclusive means of payment. They might, like Henry Meulen did, advocate 'option clauses' to postpone redemption or redemption only at a fluctuating "market price for gold", in which the gold weight unit as a value standard is largely replaced by a fictitious paper value standard.) They wrongly assumed that all money issuers and acceptors always want to be paid and pay in gold coins or gold certificates only and that they could not monetise their readiness to sell their assets in form of wanted consumer goods, consumer services and ready labour into monies or clearing certificates, goods warrants or service vouchers of their own and that they could not keep any of their "ticket money" or clearing certificates at par with e.g. their nominal gold weight value, although, based upon other foundations, this could be done if they would not possess a single gold coin between them. - Here the true banking principle as opposed to the currency principle is involved, or the "real bills doctrine": the discounting of sound commercial bills (or their economic equivalents) that represent goods already produced and sold, to the wholesalers and on their road to the retailers. In the note issues upon such bills or short-term and sound debt certificates or accounts, these debts are then merely "discounted" (for the time difference, insurance, and service costs involved) or, rather, "cut up", temporarily or "replaced" in circulation by smaller, standardised bills or notes, in convenient money denominations, with which, ultimately, the original large and uneven bill is paid, redeemed or cleared and thus, together with the notes issued upon it, is taken out of circulation. The manufacturer receives a short-term IOU from the wholesaler or draws a commercial bill upon him. Then the manufacturer gets this IOU, or real bill, discounted by the bank. The bank keeps it, the manufacturer gets banknotes. Then the manufacturer pays his labourers and suppliers with the banknotes. These carry them into the shops of the retailers, getting wanted goods or services for them. The retailers use them, in cash payments or via deposits at the bank, to pay their debts to the wholesaler and he pays his debt to the manufacturer or the bank. (The bank might merely have taken the real bill as security or may have purchased it.) This kind of turn-over clearing and payment scheme is self-liquidating and does not need any gold stock or other capital securities behind it to make it possible. It merely requires some office facilities, some staff and the ability to pay the printer immediately or soon. The ready-for-sale goods, services and labour provide a very large redemption fund for these goods, the only redemption fund or clearing option required. The correspond to an can satisfy the strong need for such means of payment, which assures their reflux to their issuer, whereby the notes disappear from the circulation, as well as all the immediate or short-term debts involved and the goods, services and labour efforts that were bought, paid and used in the regular turnover or free exchange or clearing process. Although all the participants in such free exchanges may consider gold weight pricing of their goods, services and labour as most trustworthy and convenient and at least the issuers (and their debtors) would have to be ready to accept such notes at par with their nominal gold weight values, none of them would have to possess even a single gold coin or bar of bullion and none of them would have to be traded between them, far less would there have to be a gold hoard, in the vaults of the issuer, corresponding to the total volume of their exchanges at any time. How unnecessary such a gold hoard is, both, as a value standard and as a means of exchange, can realized if one envisions all these transactions having taken place only via much more obvious clearing, in account books, via clearing certificates or electronically, without any money tokens (or gold coins or bullion), being owned, produced or moved from one to the other. As long as this clearing current or reflux or demand or debt foundation for a currency is sound, i.e., remains equivalent to the notes issued, no other ultimate redemption fund or security is required - apart from the standard shop foundation among the members of the bank of issue, which might be, most conveniently, a shop association. For such a bank would be primarily interested in rapid turnovers rather than investments in the capital market, which is another kind of business that ought to be kept separate and many investment mistakes. Such mistakes should never be allowed to restrict any current turnover credits, which are required to keep the economy running on a basic level, regardless of any change in the capital market and who does, presently, own its assets. Only when the turnover credit market and its exchange media or clearing certificates and accounts are sound and quite sufficient, can production and sales go on undisturbed, regardless of new ownership and management, and thus the productive capital values can reach and remain at their optimum level, corresponding to their productive potential. When sufficient immediate or near future reflux of money tokens or account values, paying for wanted consumer goods and services, is missing, then only remaining capital funds or securities or insurance funds or claim upon them, are all that the note holders can ultimately claim against such issuers of "notes" or "money" (asset currencies, which are anything but secure securities), in the absence of the required "shop foundation" - if such funds, guaranties or insurance do exist. But the market value of even the largest corporation that no longer has any regular or sufficient sales of its products or services to remain profitable, would be greatly diminished. What counts for the value of note issues, clearing certificates and account credits, in most cases, is not the capital value of small to large enterprises but their regular output in form of wanted consumer goods and services. The capital values of enterprises should be freely transferable in another form of certificates, capital certificates or securities, traded on special markets, stock exchanges, which should also be free of governmental regulations and manipulation attempts. Capital securities, although bought with and sold for currencies are themselves unsuitable as currencies, even when they exist in small units. Their value is fluctuating from day to day, even when they are protected like gold bonds by value preserving clauses. - For the note-issue and acceptance business itself capital is not required. - If notes are, nevertheless, foolishly issued and accepted merely upon capital assets then no one is obliged to honour these notes with any or sufficient immediately available consumer goods, services or labour. An "asset currency" has no such assets. Its "security" is only realisable upon the liquidation or forced sale of the business - or to the extent that any cash can be raised by the sale of such assets on the open market. Unless, of course, enough people are acting under delusions, once again, and, although they are the real providers of the real redemption fund, they oblige themselves to accept notes issued by others, upon mere capital securities, because they "think" or, all too faithfully, believe, that the existence of these securities would make the currency safe or give it a sound and sufficient current value. But even then it is, actually, their own readiness to accept which would give that currency a real, full and immediate value, not the ultimate capital redemption, security or reserve fund which they and such issuers imagine to be necessary. People who issued ticket or token monies were often clearer in their minds about the foundation of their kinds of private money. Alas, often even they, too, were mixed up on the real foundation of sound currencies and thus promised redemption in "real" money, even though their own money was more "real" or better founded than the money they considered to be the only "real" money. Alas, even those who were aware of the mere clearing involved in the pure "banking principle" and of its self-limiting and self-liquidating nature, as well as its inherent safety features, assuring sufficient "reflux" or clearing, were all too often children of their time and thus still subscribed to popular gold redemption notions so that they not only demanded real bills as security or clearing- or debt-foundation or readiness to accept foundation, but also gold or silver redemption for banknotes, although, objectively, under any form of sound value standard reckoning, it was unnecessary and e.g. the gold-par-value of the notes and gold pricing of consumer goods, services and labour could have been continued merely by using gold weight units as a reckoning or value standard units, NOT AT ALL as a means of exchange unit - or only rarely, when holders of such rare metal coins wanted to pay with them and their creditors were willing to accept them. - What any currency really needs is a CURRENT DEMAND for it by the providers of daily wanted consumer goods, services and labour. Currency holders usually want to buy and use goods, services and labour, not purchase capital securities, at least not with most of their regular earnings or all of their savings. (The cases where their earnings are so high that they could, immediately or soon, consume only a small fraction of them and have to invest most of the rest, are still rather rare.) - Currencies should not be issued upon capital assets but only upon their current ready for sale goods and services. Capital assets would only be required by note holders in case of the ultimate failure of a currency issue, when wanted goods and services can no longer be provided for all the notes issued, e.g. when a flood, storm or earthquake has destroyed the shop foundation for a currency. Instead, currency should be issued upon whatever gives it an immediate value in the hands of note holders for the things they do want most of all and most regularly, daily or weekly, in their normal shopping and spending, without which they could not survive for long in a division of labour and free exchange economy. - The issue principle for capital assets produces capital securities for capital markets, not currencies to satisfy daily consumer requirements. Capital is made easier transferable by capital securities. Consumer goods and services and labour are easier exchanged by currencies. Capital asset securities are useless without real capital assets or capital expectations (returns of capital with profit) behind them. Currencies are useless without currently wanted and offered goods and services behind them. The two should never be mixed up. Currency should never be ISSUED to finance capital requirements. It should only be USED by those who can spare some of their income or earnings for investment purposes, to purchase capital securities. Capital securities should not be used and need not be used to ISSUE currencies but can at most provide a guaranty fund in case sound money issue and reflux principles and practices for currency issues have not been followed and that is exactly the case when currencies have been issued merely upon capital "securities". What good is a banknote claim to some bricks in a house, some railway sleeper or part of a bulldozer, or to some capital securities, due in a few years, to the consumer who holds such a "currency" note? No matter how often and how strongly such a note issuer assures him that all his banknotes are secured by capital assets, to the full amount of the note issue, what can the note issuer then buy with the notes - unless he finds some deluded acceptors, who are ready to deliver, for such asset currency, the kinds of goods, services and labour which the note-holder really wants? But even then it is these others, who do provide the real cover for these notes, not those who issued the assets upon which such note issues were supposedly based. - At most the bank issuing "asset currency" could supply a redemption demand for some of its notes with a corresponding quantity of the securities it holds. Then the securities so received in redemption by the former note holder, would have to be sold by him on the capital market, to get the currency he wants. That market may be in decline just then or even in a desperate situation. - Indeed, capital securities may be really secure and profitable - in the long run, in the average, and when insured - but that means merely that they are good capital securities in the medium or long run and not that they do have any other value presently than their market-rated sales value - if and when they can be sold, on any of the stock exchanges. Some might even have an almost instant cash value on the capital market. But, obviously, they do not have it in the local shopping centre. Consequently, potential acceptors avoid them, even if they come in denominations that are like those of money denominations, even if they stand at par with their money denominations. Try to do your shopping with shares or bonds nominally and in the market presently worth $1. Will you find many acceptors who do accept them like ready cash? Why should they, if they do not want to invest or speculate in the capital market, or not in these of its assets? Can you blame them if they reject your share or bond issue offer and rather insist on being paid in their own notes or in the currency notes of others which they do know and have good reasons to trust? - Should people readily trust the glowing promises of some businessmen, financiers and investors as much or as little as they trust the glowing promises of politicians? Most have the common sense to accept as currency only those notes and coins that they can readily exchange for wanted consumer goods and services offered for sale. Many businesses fail. Business promises or promising businesses are not always kept or successful. They are not ready cash - of a public or private kind - which represents already produced goods, services and labour ready for sale for this cash. - Would you accept the promises of a politician of large wealth, which he, supposedly, could and would provide, in form of cash notes issued by him? Would any of your suppliers accept such promissory notes? Then why accept notes that are merely based upon promises or speculations of businessmen, financiers, managers and organizers, who have no immediate cover or redemption fund to offer in the form of the goods, services and labour that you want or need? - When one gets one's asset currency notes redeemed in a capital asset, one is then always confronted with the problem or task to convert that capital asset into cash or a clearing discount by conversion at a stock exchange via a broker. Time and costs are involved. The transaction costs may be large. The delays involved may be considerable. One might have to present the security to a broker in a stock exchange which may be situated 100 km from where one lives or works and whose office hours one cannot use for a while because one has to keep one's own office hours. Nowadays there are also permits and taxes involved upon the transfer of capital securities and special record-keeping. Even the best capital securities are as good as cash only among certain people and in limited situations. They do not encounter an almost universal local acceptance wherever one happens to live and work. - Those who insisted upon a capital guaranty fund even for mere turnover promoting and achieving banknotes, acted under one or the other of many delusions, e.g. the one that the issue of banknotes would enable a banker to take up a loan from the public. Then they wanted to balance that loan by securities to be provided by the banker. They did not see the note-issuing banker as merely providing a clearing house service with his notes, i.e., helping his customers to exchange their goods, services and labour for those of other customers, paying the banker a relatively small fee for this important service. Neither the banker nor his customers need any capital for this purpose. (Apart from the costs of note-printing and offices and their furniture.) - Alas, the very wording of the traditional commercial bills kept up the illusion of a metal payment being ultimately required, although most bills, in practice, were settled by clearing or payment in banknotes. That promise of "payment in gold", or in silver, was a fixed idea or spook in the heads and still does much damage now, in form of the authority of creditors to suddenly demand cash in form of legal tender currency instead of merely non-cash payment or clearing. Even many to most banknotes, in their texts, persisted to uphold the illusion of gold payment - when this was long legally abolished and one legal tender paper note was merely exchanged upon demand for another legal tender paper note. - People are not mastering the words (or not sufficiently) but are largely mastered in their thinking and actions - by insufficiently or falsely defined or interpreted words and ideas in their heads, no matter how false and misleading these words and ideas are. Indeed, cash and securities are both "valuables" but that does not give them an equal and ready cash value towards all people in all localities and situations. Both are also all too often merely called money. But that does not make them the same and easily interchangeable everywhere by everyone and equally acceptable to all people at their face value or at their market value. Indeed, capital securities are sold and bought for cash but the very fact that they are bought and sold for cash does already indicate that they are not identical to cash. Cash has to be kept at par with its nominal value, or close to it and must be acceptable widely, at least locally. Capital securities are always fluctuating in their market value and this is expected of them. Nor is interest paid to cash holders or is any capital appreciation to be expected from holding it (except in times of deflation). - Indeed, there exists even a special "scrip" or currency which facilitates the transfer of capital securities and the dividend stamps attached to securities have sometimes been used as cash, in some circles, shortly before they were due. But that still does not make the securities themselves identical or sufficiently interchangeable with cash to allow them to serve as a foundation for note issues. Securities bridge time and promise - but do not always deliver - a greater value in the future. Currencies offer instant or very near future satisfaction opportunities and without them they become mere capital securities of which most people want, if any at all, then only a limited number or total value. Moreover, capital securities rarely stay in their market rating near their nominal or issue values but fluctuate greatly above or below these. That makes them still useful in the capital market but not in the currency market, except for limited and wanted conversions there. - J. Z., 23.4.97. - Since there is so much confusion on this subject I did not mind repeating myself on thus subject but I do invite shorter and more effective refutations of this ancient error. - J.Z., n.d. & 20.6.11. - TO FACILITATE THE TURNOVER OF DAILY REQUIRED CONSUMER GOODS, SERVICES & LABOUR, AS OPPOSED TO THE FOUNDATION & EXPANSION CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS FOR SAVINGS & LOAN BANKS THAT DO GATHER & INVEST PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL, ON MEDIUM OR LONG TERMS, USING VARIOUS CURRENCIES & CAPITAL SECURITIES IN THE PROCESS
FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING: The Faults of Fractional Reserve Banking :: The Market Oracle ... - www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article25212.html - Cached - 23 Dec 2010 – Such a recommendation has a firm economical-ethical footing: free-market money is the only monetary order that is compatible with ... - Depends upon how you define it. Not all free market money proposals and practices are quite rightful, rational and optimal. - J.Z., 26.7.11. - Also: FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING: The Faults of Fractional-Reserve Banking « Vince's Economic Blog - vinceseconomicblog.wordpress.com/.../the-faults-of-fractional-reser... - Cached - 30 Dec 2010 – Such a recommendation has a firm economical-ethical footing: free-market money is the only monetary order that is compatible with ... - Alas, the whole notion and practice of fractional reserve banking is not yet being sufficiently broken up and demolished, like e.g. the Belin Wall was. - J.Z., 26.7.11. - Also: FRACTIONAL-RESERVE BANKING: The Faults of Fractional-Reserve Banking : Infowars Ireland - info-wars.org/2011/01/19/the-faults-of-fractional-reserve-banking/ - Cached - 19 Jan 2011 – Such a recommendation has a firm economical-ethical footing: free-market money is the only monetary order that is compatible with ... I think that the radical opponents of all kinds of "fractional-reserve-banking" do have acquired so far only a fraction of the knowledge on monetary freedom that is required to see and do any good in this sphere. - J.Z., 23.7.11. - Also: FRACTIONAL-RESERVE BANKING: The Faults of Fractional-Reserve Banking - The Silver Bear Cafe - www.silverbearcafe.com/private//12.10/fractional.html - Cached - Such a recommendation has a firm economical-ethical footing: free-market money is the only monetary order that is compatible with private-property rights, ... - Some people have single track minds. They do endlessly harp upon on idea - and to not even comprehend its limitations and flaws. - J.Z., 23.7.11. - Such a recommendation has a firm economical-ethical footing: free-market money is the only monetary order that is compatible with ... - If you wish to bore anyone, tell him anything you know, or you imagine to know, about "fractional-reserve banking". - J.Z., 23.7.11. - I hold that most conventional notions on fractional or 100 % reserve currencies are flawed and tied to the flaws of rare metal redemptionism for currencies, which does not sufficiently distinguish between sound exchange media and clearing options and value standard reckoning, of which the gold- and silver weight units are just 2 of many options under freedom. For exchange media there may be even more different sound alternatives than there are for gold- and silver coins as value standards. -
FRANKE, HERBERT Geld und Wirtschaft in China unter der Mongolen-Herrschaft, Beitraege zur Wirschaftsgeschichte der Yüan Zeit, 1949, Otto Harrassowitz, Leipzig, indexed & with a large bibliography, 175pages, especially ages 118, 120,124, 127, 133, on street money experiments going back to the Middle Ages. They and were outlawed by the Mongol rulers, in favour of their inflated legal tender paper moneis. Barber shops, restaurants, tea-houses and brothels did then issue their - This author got away with publishing such ancient freedom experiments under the totalitarian communist regime of East Germany. - J.Z., 24.7.11. - Can China Change the Rules of Global Capitalism? - www.dailyreckoning.com.au/can-china-change-the-rules.../13/ - Cached - 13 Jul 2009 – Free market money - at least in a world rife with mistrust about government money-is going to be gold and silver. ... - People of China (at least 56 different ethnic groups, not to speak of religious and ideological diversity) had, historically, a very interesting and varied monetary freedom tradition, of which most of its present misrulers are, probably, still quite unaware. Only a few modern writings point out this tradition. Most of the older and relevant Chinese texts are, probably, still not translated into Western languages. Territorial rulers merely change their wrongful rules, rarely somewhat for the better, and do not permit anyone to opt out from under them. Full monetary and financial freedom ideas can be a great help to overthrow their territorial rule and this rather non-violently. Chinese merchants did achieved much, even under government paper money mismanagement, with e.g. copper-weight value standard reckoning. - Dr. Walter Zander wrote an article on this. - All of the monetary freedom tradition and experiments in China may still have to be compiled in a special digitized anthology. E.g., if I remember a reference right, a Shanghai electricity work produced its own electricity money. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
FREE BANKING & "GOLD BUGS": Some see it only as an obligatory tie of all exchange media to metallic gold, as the only option for supposedly free and honest money. Others see the possibility that issues need merely be confined to the available cover and redemption in form of ready-for-sale consumer goods and services. Others want to over-extend the issue option to include the monetization of all capital assets, including all capital securities, perhaps out of the vague notions that they, too, represent "values" or "money" in a free market or are, relatively easily, most of the time, convertible into one or the other form of cash. Tickets or claims to metallic gold are certainly not the only option but they are, certainly, more liquid than are most shares and bonds, unless the possession of gold and trade in it has become legally or by custom criminalized or "regulated". Adherents of "the" gold standard also manage, in most cases, the overlook the various forms which gold standard reckoning had taken in practice and in theory. Some classified 7 variations. There may be more. Offhand I can think only of the following ten: 1.) 100 % redemption obligation in metallic gold. 2) Fractional redemption obligation in metallic gold, made usually practicable because sufficient other reflux arrangements were made, but exposed to the risk of "runs" upon the fractional gold cover for redemption, in case of distrust. 3.) Option notes, which postponed gold redemption for a period. 4.) Redemption only at a fluctuating "gold price". (The Henry Meulen system, in which the paper pound is the "real" value standard rather than a certain gold weight unit.) 5.) Mere gold cover, complete, but without redemption for the note holder. The hoarded gold becomes available only upon liquidation of the bank of issue. 6.) A "gold standard" at which the issuer merely accepts gold at a fixed rate for its currency, but is not prepared to supply gold at this fixed rate. 7.) A "gold standard" in which the cover consists merely in various securities which do have a gold clause. 8.) A "gold standard" in which the cover consists in "foreign exchange" which are fully or somewhat redeemable in gold. 9.) It appears that some of the e-gold electronic currencies not offered on the Internet are merely declaratory: They do not represent an accumulated metallic gold cover but merely the promises of the issuers and the hopes and expectations of the acceptors. 10.) Gold for clearing or gold-for account gold standard. It does not promise redemption upon demand by the issuer but merely convertibility of the exchange media issued, at then prevailing market rate or discount rate of a currency, in any free gold market, into gold coins or bullion. This rate or discount, as a foreign currency, will, naturally, be influenced by the size of the local market in which such a currency circulates and is readily accepted by its issuers at par with its nominal gold weight value. The larger that local circulation and its market is, the higher to their nominal gold weight value will the notes come on the national, continental or world gold market. On the other hand, if they were only the token money of a local general store or of a village economy, then they might have little if any value on such gold markets, just like a small issue of local bonds or shares in a small enterprise, will hardly be registered on any stock exchange. Naturally, in their local circulation privately or cooperatively issued competing currencies will be kept mostly at par with their nominal value, if they issuer and his associates, especially his debtors, are under obligation to accept them always at par for their goods, labor and services and otherwise, in local circulation, any discounts will be only temporary and small. The right to discount or to refuse them will see to that, as well as their sound reflux, readiness-to-accept, clearing or short-term debt foundation. - There may be quite a number of other versions of "the" gold standard, which might have to be added gradually by those who think of them and want to add them. I would like to hear read about them. Any gold standard, whatever its honesty and advantages or disadvantages, will work best only under free choice of value standards. - This kind of reduction of its power, from an exclusive to an optional currency, will limit the abuses that otherwise would tend to follow from its realization as an exclusive and forced currency. Even gold is not good and sufficient to be turned into an exclusive and forced currency. It insufficiency becomes clear when one considers the sheer volume and number of all the other goods and services that are to be traded exclusively through the bottleneck channel of the availability, for the exchangers, of corresponding quantities of gold, a rare metal, even when neither side has any interest in acquiring any metallic gold. While as a redemption obligation for every transaction, an exchange medium for all exchanges, the available gold is quite insufficient, also quite unnecessary for free exchanges, as a mere value standard, as determined by the rating of a gold weight unit on a free market, in a gold-clearing or gold accounting standard, it can, without any redemption obligation by the issuer and without being depreciated, serve for an unlimited number of possible and wanted exchanges, and this without leading to any "gold shortages" or "runs". This gold-clearing or gold-for-accounting-only-standard" makes, in practices, all the marketed gold in the world available for those desiring to exchange their exchange media into gold. And it can lead to the relatively sound and continuous market rating of all currencies against a weight unit of gold. - J.Z., 26.8.02, 20.6.11. - Fluctuations of the gold price, which then would still occur, when they are measured in monies of monetary despotism, would rather be fluctuations of these forced and exclusive currencies than fluctuations in the value of gold weight units. - J.Z., 20.6.11. - GOLD CLEARING STANDARD VS. "THE" GOLD STANDARD, PERCEIVED TO BE THE GOLD COVER & GOLD REDEMPTION STANDARD
FREE BANKING & FREE MONEY- & GOODS-, SERVICE- & LABOUR EXCHANGES: Goods and services can freely "buy money" and money can freely buy goods, services and labour only once money issues, value reckoning, value accounting and clearing are free and competitive. Labour will also be free only when it is free to "sell itself" as a commodity, not only for a forced and exclusive currency but for all kinds of alternative and optional currencies, value standards and clearing options that it does find acceptable. The more options of this kind it has, the more free it will be. - Full employment can be achieved and perpetuated only under monetary freedom. - J. Z., 2.4.91, 14.4.97, 20.6.11. - FREEDOM OF THE LABOUR MARKET, EXCHANGE, EMPLOYMENT, JOBS, FULL EMPLOYMENT, SALE OF GOODS, SERVICES & LABOUR.
FREE BANKING & INFLATION: Free Banking would lead to inflation. Everybody could then cause a general inflation by over-issues of his notes. - Popular opinion. - Nobody's notes would then be legal tender in general circulation. Only the issuer and his debtors (by contract) would have to accept them at any time at par. The issuers would oblige only themselves - and their indebted associates, not others. People who know that some issues may be over-issued or who merely suspect them or do not know them, would simply refuse them - as they do now e.g. unknown or unwanted or suspected tickets to performances they do not even wish to attend, or shares they do not want to invest in. - Inflation of private money tokens would be as impossible as inflation through cinema, theatre, bus or railway tickets or postage stamps - or through the over-issue of uncovered cheques, or unsound shares, bonds and mortgage certificates. Why? Everyone is free to refuse to accept them. They are directly tied to their cover. And no one is forced to use any of them as his value standard. People can go on reckoning and accounting and pricing and contracting in value standards of their own choice, which they do trust. Thus their prices are not blown up when somebody else over-issues his tickets. - J. Z., n.d. & 2.4.97, 20.6.11. - DIS., INFLATION, REFUSALS TO ACCEPT, MARKET RATING OF COMPETING CURRENCIES.
FREE BANKING & MONETARY COMPETITION OR COMPETITIVE MONIES: One can either competitively fight for more or less scarce monopoly means of exchange (scarce, for some, at some times and occasions, even during inflations and stagflations) or issue one's own sound and competitive means of exchange, based on the own goods and service supply ability or clearing capacity, thus appearing, first of all, as a most welcome buyer with them and then merely having to redeem one's own standardised IOU's with one's own goods and services or clearing capacity. - J. Z., 13.3.97, 20.3.97.
FREE BANKING DISCUSSIONS: See for instance that carried out over many years between two free banking advocates like Henry Meulen and Ulrich von Beckerath. They never came to full agreement between them. As demonstrated by the reproduction of this discussion in all those of their letters that remained accessible to me, on www.butterbach.net. If digital argument mapping had already been available to them, it might have removed their differences of opinion. The next best thing that could be done on this subject, decades after their death, would be to reproduce their arguments in this digital format. Perhaps someone will get around to edit their opinion exchanges in this format. This reformed discussion, put online, would then be available to settle many of the still existing arguments in this sphere and might lead, in the same format, to the settlement of many other related questions, e.g. on Legal Tender & Inflation, Gresham’s Law, Say’s Law, the Quantity Theory, the Real Bills Doctrine, the supposedly ideal value standard, the classical gold standard, the gold weight clearing or accounting standard and other gold standards, the optimal foundation for the issue and reflux of sound exchange media, the various forms of debts, interest and their effects, the various forms of interest, credit- & debt-, clearing, tax- and readiness-to-accept foundation. – The way all such discussions were conducted so far, even if in the same language, has rather increased the number or errors and prejudices, wrong assumptions and conclusions in this sphere than diminished them. They have not yet been systematically collected and optimally refuted in encyclopaedic and digitized form, compiled and published like the GENERAL WIKIPEDIA. - J.Z., 24.1.10, 1.11.10. – ARGUMENT MAPPING, CORRESPONDENCE, LETTER EXCHANGES, PAMPHLETEERING, ESSAYS, BOOKS, ARTICLES, CONTROVERSIES, DISCUSSIONS, DEBATES
FREE BANKING FOR EVERYBODY: With anyone being free, alone or in association with others, to issue his own money notes, vouchers, clearing certificates, credit accounts etc., in convenient money denominations and using any sound value standard, all based on his own goods, services and labour capacity, which he is able, willing and ready to sell for his own or other currencies, such alternative competing monies would become optional, i.e. refusable and discountable but also acceptable local currencies. They would be free market rated by their acceptors - in combination with those who would refuse or discount them. As a local currency, with a sufficient reflux - redemption in wanted goods, services and labour, they could locally circulate at par or close to par, although none but the issuers and their debtors would be obliged to accept them at par for whatever they have to offer. To the extent that they could be issued at par, their issuers could be assured of corresponding sales within a short period, especially if they gave their issues only a short term of circulation period. (Usually only 1-3 months but 1 year at most.) By this means all local ready for sale goods, services and labour could be exchanged for each other in a monetary way, to the extent that people are able and willing to supply them and to use them. The full local productive and exchange potential (limited only by willingness and readiness) of a community could become mobilised, issued and accepted in payment. The goods and service and labour providers would become independent of the monopolised and forced currency and its supply, as well as of its quality or lack of it. They could supply their own purchasing power for their own purchases and see it streaming back to them to pay for their sales. They could and should use their own and self-chosen value standards, which would certainly tend to be much better than the governmental ones. They would be financial for their current expenses, up to their productive capacity, even before they had sold whatever they had to offer. With their own note issues they would anticipate and assure their sales, to the extent that they are readily accepted by others. Under monetary despotism they have first to struggle for whatever quantities of its forced and exclusive currency they can manage to acquire and then would be limited in their spending to these amounts. That restriction and delay would no longer apply. Thus could be "released all creative energies" in a way that Leonard E. Read, who coined that phrase, never fully envisioned, although he did also advocate monetary freedom in very general terms. - J. Z., 19.12.93, 30.4.97, 20.6.11.
FREE BANKING MAKES FOR EASY SALES: Free banking might make sales of wanted goods so easy that, under the assumption that still more of them would be wanted, more goods and services would be offered. Would over-production and over-servicing result? Free pricing, combined with futures markets and good publicity will tend to avoid that. Over-supplied goods and services would lead to diminished returns while under-supplied goods and services offer higher returns and would thus attract more producers and traders. Exchange and clearing should, as far as possible, be frictionless. Then the self-interest-driven machinery of production and exchange will not grind to a halt, for lack of lubricant. Then the only remaining wasteful efforts might be those based on miscalculations or on satisfying merely a hobby interest. The latter would be self-satisfying labours, not dependent upon market approvals and orders and financial profits. - J. Z., 30.5.85, 9.5.97. The law of supply and demand would finally be realized in the monetary sphere, especially that of daily and short-term turnover credits, exchange media, clearing certificates and accounts, all using chosen rather than imposed and inferior value standards. - J.Z., 20.6.11. - & EASY PURCHASES, INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY, GREATER TURNOVER & GREATER PROSPERITY - FOR ALL ABLE & WILLING TO WORK, PRODUCE & TRADE
FREE BANKING TO EASE THE STRUGGLE TO SELL ONE'S LABOUR, SERVICES & GOODS FOR GOVERNMENT "MONEY": The current battle, that has already continued for thousands of years, to sell one's labour, services or products only for an all too scarce or depreciated monopoly money, one that must be provided by others, especially the government or its privileged monetary institution, could and should be replaced, as far as possible, by the much easier effort to get one's own money, clearing certificates etc. accepted by those who supply the labour, services and goods that one's wants and who would either use this money themselves or would pass it on to those who would. This own money could and should be based on the labour, services and goods that one has ready for sale, alone or in association with others. Or on other due debts that others owe to oneself or the issuing association. That is the only cover or redemption fund one would have to possess for this currency and the only one which one would have to keep in balance with one's issues or current expenditures. One's own exchange media would, naturally, not be legal tender for others - but only for oneself - for one must fully recognize one's own IOUs against oneself. But one could and should keep them at par with their nominal value against a self-chosen and sound value standard, also acceptable to those who would accept one's money. Moreover, one would have to price out one's labour, services and goods in that value standard. Then one would have to accept the own notes back at any time at par, from anyone, in any payment due to one. That would be all that is necessary to give them their par value and to maintain it for the short period during which they would locally circulate, before they are returned in payments to oneself, at par. Thus, instead of first appearing on a restricted market, as a SELLER, asking for the supply of a forced and exclusive currency, which one needs under monetary despotism for one's spending, one would, under monetary freedom, as an issuer, appear first as a BUYER, with a paper money, clearing certificates or accounts, of one's own, that could and should be as good as gold, if gold weight units indicate the prices of whatever labour, services and goods one offers and are also used in the own money, to indicate the value at which one would accept them back from anyone. The more local potential issuers associate themselves for this purpose - and then take out short term turnover loans from their common issuing centre - the easier they would find it to get their notes accepted in payment at least by all their local suppliers of labour, goods and services. Under this freedom the items or capacity one has ready for sale can thus provide the exchange media or monetary demand to sell them. Thus one would sell them indirectly but certainly, by spending one's self-issued private or cooperative currency (various exchange media, including goods-warrants and service vouchers in money denominations) for the consumer goods and services one wants and needs oneself. The whole process is almost as simple and straightforward as the issues of tickets. The difference is that not only one particular consumer goods, service or labour value is offered as a backing for the own notes, but a whole wide range of them, especially when several potential issuers combine their issue and readiness to accept potential. (From small general stores to super-markets, department stores and chain stores.) Furthermore, this ticket money is freely transferable and likely to mediate some further exchanges within its short circulation period, beyond being once used for purchases or loans, when issued (when issued to employers, especially for their payrolls) and then, at last, being used upon reflux, in the payment of any debts to the issuer, especially in purchases of goods, service and labour from him. Being issued against this natural cover for money and limited by that cover and its optional and market rated and refusable nature, over-issues become close to impossible or would remain within a quite acceptable margin and even in these cases the over-issues and the small discount they would cause, in some section of the local economy, would exist only for a very short time. The notes with a discount would fast stream back even faster than when they were still at par in general local circulation, to the issuer and his debtors, who would still have to accept them at par. The money and the goods side would be kept in balance and both sides could be rapidly increased and reduced in balance with each other, according to the local requirements. - J.Z., 19.12.93, 1.5.97, 20.5.11.
FREE BANKING VS. MONETARY DESPOTISM: If you let your money become monopolised and coercive (centrally issued, planned, directed and mismanaged, often to the benefit of the issuer only), then the results are even worse than letting your religion become monopolistic, compulsory and intolerant. - J.Z., 26.7.91, 20.6.11. - Indeed, in the exchange media sphere and that of value standards, we are likewise confronted by dominant faiths as well as minority groups of non-conformists, non-believers, dissident and Protestant groups and sects, all of them representing, usually, only small fractions of truths and moral values among their dogmas, if any. The atheists, rationalists, humanists or agnostics in this sphere are still only a very tiny and uninfluential minority and that one, too, is split into numerous factions or sects engaged in a verbal civil war or verbal intolerance. Some have already made attempts to define the basic principles of monetary tolerance but so far few have subscribed to them. See especially the writings and drafts of Ulrich von Beckerath. - J.Z., 26.7.91, 28.4.97. - MONETARY TOLERANCE VS. MONETARY INTOLERANCE
FREE BANKING, DEFINITION: Consumer sovereignty, free enterprise competition, freedom of contract, free pricing, free trade, property rights, self-responsibility, in the most important sphere of money, currency, clearing, credit and value standards. - J.Z., 24.4.97.
FREE BANKING, FREE EXCHANGE, FREE MARKETS: The issue and reflux, acceptance and refusal, discounting and discount rate (against sound alternative and optional value standards), value-standard, foundation, cover and redemption of any competing private or cooperative currency should neither be regulated by constitutions, laws, regulations, government jurisdictions, pressure groups like unions or employer associations, groups of debtors or creditors, customs or traditions but, rather, by free and voluntary contracts, i.e., free-market relationships. - J.Z., 10.7.02, 24.8.02. - LAWS, CONSTITUTIONS, REGULATIONS, CUSTOMS, TRADITIONS, MONETARY & CURRENCY LEGISLATION.
FREE BANKING, INTEREST IN & ENTHUSIASM FOR IT: If one could interest and enthuse the man in the street to cheer for the free banking options versus the restrictions, limitations and monopolies of monetary despotism as much as he does for e.g. his favourite football, soccer, cricket, basket ball or baseball team, then unemployment, deflations, depressions, inflations, stagflations, even wars, civil wars, violent revolutions and terrorism threats would soon be over. - J.Z., 20.3.93, 27.5.9720.6.11. - COMPARED WITH THOSE FOR SPORTS
FREE BANKING, LIQUIDITY: Freedom to turn illiquid goods, services and labour, that are ready for sale, into liquid assets or currencies, spent or lent out on short terms, for turn-over credits, e.g. for wage and salary payments, would soon be spent by their recipients to buy the goods, services and labour of the issuers, especially if they were given only a short circulation period, let us say, of 3 months. To the extent that the owners of these goods, services and labour capacity and willingness would make themselves thus liquid for their expenses, they would make their potential customers liquid, too, if not directly then indirectly. They would similarly benefit, if their customers had taken this initiative first and offered them their alternative currencies and clearing certificates in payment. Liquidity should not be a government monopoly. No one should depend upon the liquidity of any government or of any government institution like the central bank, supposedly able and willing to supply a whole country, evenly, sufficiently, at all times and under all conditions, with a sound exchange medium and value standard - although only very few central banks have ever been able to do that either to a large degree or for long. Liquidity ought to be self-made in order to be as reliable in its supply as one can be in the supply of one's goods, services and labour. In quantity it should correspond exactly to one's readiness to accept it in payment for one's goods, services and labour as well as other due payments. For that purpose it has to be self-issued and self-managed, at least via voluntary associations for the issue of alternative local currencies. Individual issues would be sufficiently practicably only within a perfected clearing system. Even decades ago, in English colonies, colonial officials often paid for many of their expenses with personal chits and the clearing system was then and there well enough developed (even without computers!) to present them again, with their chits, whenever any cash payments became due to them. Some exchange traders specialised on tracing these IOUs back to their issuers. - However, at least for the initial stages of a monetary freedom revolution I would not recommend going as far. Step by step developments might occur and become customary, which would make even this degree of monetary freedom acceptable and, perhaps, customary. Perhaps only the degree of deflation that always accompanies monetary despotism, made such private issues practicable before, likewise many other forms of emergency and token monies. One cannot predict the results of any free development exactly - precisely because freedom of choice and the innovations due to it are involved. - Assume, for instance, that we would all be interlinked via phone and computers and our spending totals and income totals could be known through them and the associate credit bureaus. Then private issues, within one's earnings capacities, in form of private cheques, or credit-card, proven private clearing accounts, etc. would become quite practicable. The credit card itself could serve to identify a person and his remaining credit and even his soon to be expected income, judging from his continuing occupation and past performance. Then he could even have a personal value standard, which would be exchangeable, at electronic speeds, into the value standards of his trading partners and into their kinds of accounts, for an automatically calculated and subtracted fee. Personal notes, IOUs and cheques could be electronically scanned and verified in seconds, as credit cards are now. There is no sound reason why any private transactions should be tied to any forced and exclusive currency or clearing avenue provided or withheld or limited and managed or mismanaged by any government. - See: ABILITY TO PAY, MONETARY FREEDOM. - J. Z., 19.12.93, 1.5.97, 12.9.02, 20.6.11. - ABILITY TO PAY, INDIVIDUAL ISSUERS, PERFECT CLEARING
FREE BANKING, LOCAL CURRENCY, INFLATION & FIAT MONEY: A local bank could, conceivably, flood a local region with unbacked fiat currency ... But these do not last very long. People discount the value of these fiat bills, or else make a run on the bank vaults." - Gary North, THE INDIAN LIBERTARIAN, Aug. 15, 1971. - One cannot "flood" a local circulation with one's own currency when one depends upon voluntary acceptance, acceptance at par and on the actions of one's competitors, too, on note exchanges, clearing settlements, publicity and the existence of alternative sound value standards that can be freely chosen and applied. Fiat money, which can be refused or discounted, is, obviously, not fiat money. What he meant was probably money not redeemable in rare metals. But if it is not redeemable in rare metals then nobody will bother to make a run on the bank's vaults, either. If it is redeemable in local goods, services and labour then any run upon these would be very welcome. - Any competitively issued local note issue would, right from the beginning, have to find voluntary acceptors. To find many of these, while the potential acceptors are used to other means of exchange and are sufficiently supplied with them, would be difficult to impossible. He should also have clearly stated that people can only discount a local currency if it is not legal tender. And if it is not legal tender, then it is not really a "fiat" currency. He wrongly assumes that the issuer must redeem or ought to be able to redeem his notes with rare metals and that every other note issue, even when every note would be tenfold covered by ready for sale goods, services and labour, as well as by short-term debt certificates of borrowers, would be mere "fiat money". - A few words like these by G.N. cannot fully describe the full range of possibilities but rather indicate some of his false assumptions and conclusions. - By now, we should compile a credit reference file for everyone who writes and talks about such subjects, indicating as a credit all his or her correct points and as a debit all of their flawed or incorrect points. Alternatively, this information could be offered in form of an argument map. Seeing how many mistakes I made in the first compilation of the A to Z on free banking, which I corrected now, knowing that I have, probably, discovered and eliminated only a fraction, a full compilation of my own debits might be depressing upon finding it. - Such plus and minus points could also be included in this future A to Z compilation, under the name of the speaker or writer. - J. Z., 2.4.97, 21.6.11. - RUNS, REDEMPTION IN RARE METALS, GOLD STANDARDS, GOLD CERTIFICATES, BANKRUPTCIES, REFLUX, COVER, DIS.
FREE BANKING, MONETARY FREEDOM & FINANCIAL FREEDOM: Unrestricted competition and publicity is to be applied to exchange media and value standards, clearing, credits and their institutions. - J.Z., 20.6.01. - No territorial government is to be granted any constitutional, legal, juridical and administrative powers and privileges in this sphere any longer, because all they amount to is monetary and financial despotism, with inevitable, large and persistent catastrophic consequences. If you need any proof for this demand just consider the history of governmental monetary and financial policies. - J.Z., 27.8.02. - Naturally, in a world subject to tax slavery and attempts to escape some of this enslavement and exploitation, such a full publicity might be difficult to impossible to achieve. Each freedom and right does also depend upon the others to a large extent. - 21.6.11. - PUBLICITY, MARKET RATING
FREE BANKING, PRICES & INFLATION: Private money issues would inevitably increase the circulation, being added to the state paper money, and would thus increase prices." - A still persisting monetary prejudice. - Monetary freedom would permit prices and wages to be expressed in relatively stable and freely agreed upon value standards, rather than in the paper "value standards" of the State's forced and exclusive currency. Thereby they would become relatively stable or at least independent of the government's inflationary or deflationary policies. It would also lead to a refusal or discounting of the government's paper currency, now reckoned in competitive and more stable value units, in which prices and wages are marked out. Thereby the value of the circulation of State paper money would be reduced, reckoned in these relatively stable and optional value units. The better and competitively issued money would take its place. But it could increase the total circulation only to its optimum - not to the potential of the printing presses, precisely because it would be optional, i.e. refusable, and market-rated, too. Upon depreciation the depreciated issues would be discounted or refused and thus could not increase the circulation and they could not increase the prices and wages that are still marked in relatively stable value units. Only reckoned in the depreciated, discounted and widely refused paper currency would they be increased. But no one would be forced to reckon in it - except the issuer, who should still have to take it at par from anyone, any time. - J. Z., 24.3.97. - This means that seeming over-issues, that are still covered by his credits and goods and service supply capacity, and expressed in discounts of the exchange media issued by him, would rapidly disappear, by these issues being cheaply bought by those who owe him money and those who can and want to purchase the goods and services that he has to offer. In all these cases he could and would have to accept his notes at par. Thus the discounted notes and with them their discount would tend to rapidly disappear. - J.Z., 30.8.02.
FREE BANKING: [T]here are various laws of the different States and of the United Staters, arbitrarily prohibiting the manufacture and loan of current notes by anybody but a lawfully organized bank; with penalties ranging from fine to imprisonment. By the Federal law the fine takes the form of a ten per cent tax upon the notes circulated, which acts as a complete prohibition. - Were it not for these restrictive and prohibitory laws which support the money privilege or banking monopoly, it would be easy to start competitive banks; and, with free competition, the charge for money lent would be brought down to a minimum, s in other kinds of lending business. - Benjamin R. Tucker, Instead of a Book, Benjamin R. Tucker, 1893, pp.21-29. - Alas, here he shared one of the many errors on interest. The interest rate for mere turnover credits, in notes, clearing certificates or clearing credit accounts can be very low, close to the administration costs, but not the interest rate for productive capital investments, which cannot be provided merely by printing additional notes, either. The issue principle and practice for capital is expressed in shares, bonds, mortgage certificates and other capita securities. In capital investments the creditor is entitled to a fair share in the extra productivity which the debtor obtains through the capital, which can be considered as pre-done labour, which is also entitled to its fair share. The rate in each case should be determined by free market conditions. Investments must come out of savings, not out of note-printing etc. Their interest rate must correspond to the availability of savings for investments and to the risk involved and the productivity achieved through the investment. That would, under free competition, result in an interest rate that is fair to both, the debtors and the creditors. The main purpose of providing more sound currency is not to reduce the interest rate for it but to achieve additional turnovers through it, of goods, services and labour. The additional turnovers may decrease prices, while increasing wages and service fees. They will also increase savings and under stable value investment options, which might then, indirectly, reduce the interest rate for the lending of capital for productive purposes. On the other hand, when turnover is assured, through sufficient sound currency or clearing, then the productivity of capital might be increased and thus the profit of the debtor and the interest rate or dividend rate for the creditor. - I believe the same error existed on the side of Proudhon in his discussion with Bastiat. - Under free banking the interest rate for turnover credit might be very low and the rate for capital rather high. - J.Z., 10.5.11. - SAVINGS, INVESTMENTS, INTEREST RATE, INTEREST FOR PRODUCTIVE CAPITAL VS. INTEREST MERELY FOR TURNOVER CREDIT OR CLEARING ARRANGEMENTS. DIS.
FREE BANKING: All providers of wanted consumer goods and services, when they are small then at least their local associations, also, generally, all large institutions that receive many payments and have many payments to make, are potential issuers for bank notes and clearing certificates that can serve as and will tend to be widely accepted as local currencies. They would not have to go into debt for short term loans paid by banks or other financial institutions in form of a government’s central bank money. They could thus increase their ability to pay, directly, while also promoting their sales, paid for in their own notes and certificates or account credits. They could and should set up their own local clearing house and note exchange. That would also help to prevent over-issues. [Not only the right to refuse and to discount their issues, which are optional and without legal tender power and as such cannot be inflated or inflate local prices, wages etc. expressed in sound value standards.] On the first sign of a discount of their notes, in local circulation, they should stop further issues, until that discount has disappeared, through payments to them with their notes. Otherwise, they might be forced to stop issues through wide-spread local refusals to accept their notes. Only their debtors might then be still willing to accept their notes at a discount, even search for such discounted notes and buy them in order to pay their debt to the issuing centre at par and profit thereby. But a considerable discount that last for more than a few hours or days might make further local issues difficult to impossible. Thus, in their own interest, issuers will manage their issues in accordance with the reflux of the notes, keeping their value at par with their nominal value. They will do so, just like they try to preserve their good name or business reputations. Notes going astray, to other districts, countries or continents, may suffer a large discount. This could also be reduced through an efficient international clearing centre or note exchange. However, a large discount in these cases, or fall or their exchange rate would serve as an incentive for such note holders to use them or sell them as means of payment against the issuer or his local debtors. - Between them, such local issuers could and should also introduce e.g. a gold-clearing value standard, without possessing and stock of gold or obliging themselves to redeem their notes in gold coins or bullion. – It would not be difficult to provide a better supply of local exchange media, using a better value standard, than the government offers with its central note issuing bank and its paper value standard. Let good monies be free to drive out the bad monies. Only with legal tender power can bad monies drive out good monies. - J.Z., 30.7.10. – LOCAL CURRENCIES.
FREE BANKING: All the producers and traders, service providers and unemployed and underemployed workers have all the necessary ingredients for sufficient sound exchange media and clearing certificate issues at their disposal and could also agree upon better than paper money value standards for their issues and acceptances of their own monies and yet they fail to see the parts and interactions of this possible money making machine of their own, how they could organise and assemble and maintain it, using it to provide themselves with sales for all their ready for sale goods, services and labour - by printing, offering and accepting their own money and clearing certificates. They could be their own note-issuing bankers - but rely rather on the all too flawed and wrongful services of the central banks, which keeps them unemployed or makes them unemployed or makes their business hard or drives them out of business. Nevertheless, they show, as a rule, no interest in monetary despotism, its nature and evils and how it could be overcome and replaced by monetary freedom. In this case they are almost like slaves, who for centuries at most aspired to becoming slave masters themselves, rather than trying to abolish slavery. People greedy to win by gambling, lotteries, betting etc. should show some greed towards the possibilities of coining and printing their own money and thereby helping themselves. But in this respect they act even worse than primitive and illiterate private people often did, who at least agreed upon and utilised their forms or primitive money for themselves. See: PRIMITIVE MONEY. - J. Z., 20.3.93, 27.5.97. - When it comes to financial freedom, an end to involuntary tax slavery, the situation is similar. People suffer under heavy taxes, complain about them, try to evade them more or less successfully, but only rarely do they explore the alternatives of voluntary taxation or subscription schemes and of communities of volunteers under their own personal law, i.e. full exterritorial autonomy or complete experimental freedom in all spheres, always at their own risk and cost. - J.Z., 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Anybody outside the association could obtain a loan by pledging his possessions to the amount of the loan, plus an allowance for deterioration, according to the nature of the commodity pledged, plus an allowance for risk. - Benjamin R. Tucker, Instead of a Book, Benjamin R. Tucker, 1893, pp.21-29. - Only to the extent that the bank and its depositors have capital savings available for this purpose and are satisfied with the securities offered for these capital loans. The capital value of e.g. some real estate land or a house cannot be directly issued in additional bank notes, for they would have no shop foundation, i.e. redemption option in wanted consumer goods and services. But it could be used for the issue of mortgage letters in convenient denominations that makes them attractive capital investment certificates, bearing a market rate in interest. Capital certificates, however valuable, are not currency or ready cash, although they can be sold on a free market for ready cash, at their market value. - J.Z., 10.4.11. - DIS.
FREE BANKING: Blessed will be the day when it will no longer from the benevolence of the government that we expect good money but from the regards of the banks for their own interest. It is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices we stand in need of." - Hayek, Denationalisation of Money, p.100. - What benevolence of governments, since they are always benevolent only with other people's money? - Not just the banks would enjoy monetary freedom. The right to issue, to clear, to discount, to refuse competitive currency issues and value standards, will belong to everyone. Many other businesses, all with many payments to make and many payments to receive, will also be suitable issuers, at least for some forms of local currency, clearing certificates or accounts. Without legal tender and a monopoly for bad money, competitively issued and streaming back good monies would drive out all bad monies and inferior ones. - J.Z., 7.4.94, 24.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: By all means, coin and print your own money and try to find willing acceptors for it, who can use it immediately in payments due to you. But do not try to force it at par or at all upon anyone, except, by contract, your debtors, who could, with it, extinguish their debts to you. Naturally, you yourself must be prepared to accept it, your own IOUs, at any time and at par from anyone. Everything else would, obviously, be fraudulent. - J. Z., 5.11.92, 15.4.97.
FREE BANKING: Each economic sphere, each exterritorially autonomous community or society to be free to have its own mean of exchange or clearing avenue for its payments and mutual debts settlements. Furthermore, they should all be free to adopt for all their transactions any value standard that they think to be suitable for their transactions. While most of their members will, probably, agree on using only one particular value standard, they should not be under any constitutional, legal or juridical obligation to do so. Their freedom of contract should include that choice and also any form of means of payment, clearing, credit, voluntary taxation and contribution scheme. - J.Z., 28.3.11, 21.4.11. - MONETARY FREEDOM, FINANCIAL FREEDOM
FREE BANKING: Except at the very beginning there was, probably, never just one form of exchange medium, one kind of value standard, one form of clearing and one form of credit and debt relationship, one form of capital, of banking, stock exchanges, of community contributions, taxes and insurance? Why should we have to put up with only one form of government legislated and regulated currency and banking now, especially when seeing how badly this system was run in most countries for the last century? What fraction of the original purchasing power of their governmental currency have the various governments been able to maintain, while suppressing competing sound currencies and making millions to billions suffer from inflation, deflation and stagflation? Is that system any better or even worse than the imposition of a single religion upon the various peoples of a whole country? What real and significant benefits did this imposed uniformity or regulation provide? – Sound and competitive alternative currencies are not impossible but simply outlawed. – Good monies are not free to drive out the bad ones. - J.Z., 5.8.10, 10.9.10.
FREE BANKING: Free banking does NOT mean: 1.) its confinement to an exclusive currency, not even a gold- or silver one or paper notes that must be redeemable by the issuer in rare metals. - 2.) that the “cover”, “security” or redemption of its banknotes consists of shares, mortgage letters, governmental or private bonds – beyond the due or soon due payment obligations arising connected with them, which would provide a sufficient reflux or demand for such clearing certificates in form of banknotes. – 3.) Confinement of note issue to a single central bank, one with a monopoly for note and coin issues and a monopoly for determining one value standard and imposing it upon all the transactions in a territory in one or the other enforced “monetary policy”. – 4.) A single exchange medium and a single value standard for the whole population of a territory. 5.) Any exchange medium and value standard that is subject to the constitution, legislation, administration, regulation and jurisdiction of any territorial government. – J.Z., 12.9.10, 3.8.11.
FREE BANKING: Free Banking means liberation from communistic, centralistic, monopolistic and coercive paper money. It allows anyone to engage in the business of issuing bank notes or clearing house certificates who is able to do so and as long as he can, i.e., as he finds voluntary acceptors who accept his notes, certificates, accounts or electronic credits at par with their nominal value - or at least close enough to it to not induce him to refuse to accept such exchange and clearing media altogether. Naturally, he has to offer sufficient "shop-foundation" in form of wanted consumer goods or services, or other and sufficient debt payment options for his competing currency. Monetary freedom potential acceptors offers a choice between privately or cooperatively issued currencies, competing with each other for his acceptance, paper currencies, which are subject to voluntary acceptance and free-market rating against their chosen value standard, also used in the prices and charges of the issuers and subjected to full publicity on every detail of their issues and their reflux. It embraces freedom to issue, freedom to clear, free choice of exchange media, freedom to refuse exchange media not contracted for, freedom to rate them and freedom of choice for value standards, too. - Exclusive and coercive central banking is one of the remaining strongholds of totalitarianism - and one of the strangleholds upon a free market, a free economy and free individuals and minorities. Free Banking or Monetary Freedom means: You could "coin" or monetise your service capacity and readiness and your ready for sale goods into your own token-money, alone or in association with other suppliers, businessmen, tradesmen and professionals. You could pay many to most of your expenses with these privately or cooperatively issued tokens, certificates or IOUs and then and to that extent would merely have to sit back and let them bring you orders, sales or jobs upon their almost inevitable reflux for "redemption" by you in whatever you have to offer your usual and potential additional customers. (If some collectors would rather include your notes in their collections than present them to you for redemption, then they would, indirectly, make a corresponding gift to you. You could easily issue more if your kinds of goods warrants or service vouchers to "move" your goods and services.) In essence, you would merely clear your services and goods against those of others, in a technically convenient form. But you would already now anticipate your sales proceeds, to the extent that you could, successfully, pay with your issues. - J.Z., in MFNL 3/4, 1/89 & 8.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Free choice in banking (including note issuing banks) is even more important than free choice of schools, free choice of newspapers and religious freedom are. - J. Z., 6.10.85, 9.5.97. - However, that is still only the point of view of a small minority. - J. Z., 13.9.02.
FREE BANKING: Free clearing and free note issue can bring about the exchange of all labour, services and goods that their owners or providers are otherwise also free to exchange at free market prices. - J.Z., 23.7.93, 21.6.11. - That option is as important to our survival and prosperity as are e.g. freedom of expression and information, freedom of conscience and freedom to measure and calculate. And yet, this freedom is severely suppressed by the laws of monetary despotism and neglected by public opinion more than most other liberties are. I still wonder why, after pondering this question since 1953. - J. Z., 26.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Free competition, free enterprise, freedom of contract, the free market, free trade, free exchange, capital and capitalism and the money supply and sound value standard reckoning are not free without free banking and without whatever other institutions and settlement methods full monetary freedom would require, e.g. freedom for all clearing processes and institutions, a free gold market, a free market in foreign exchange, its free circulation anywhere, to the extent that it finds voluntary acceptors, in free competition with all internal and local currencies. - J. Z., 23.6.91, 12.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Freedom to sell one's OWN goods, products, labour and services for the self-issued and self-managed means of exchange, and to freely clear their values, exchange media and securities against those of others, using self-chosen standards of value - as opposed to the compulsion to use only a monopolised medium of exchange, imposed by a territorial government, together with its exclusive and forced paper value standard. It means also freedom from the juridical obligation to redeem all one's own notes upon demand by the holder with rare metal coins or with a possibly very scarce exclusive and forced legal tender currency, while one is only able and willing to redeem them, as promised, in one's own ready for sale and wanted consumer goods or services. Only a gold mine should be expected to be able to pay in gold. - J.Z., 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Full employment, a booming economy and stable currencies through free banking or monetary freedom. - J. Z.,28.10.91, 16.4.97.
FREE BANKING: I grew up in West Berlin after WW II. About half of Berlin was in ruins, due to air raids. Obviously much labour was needed to clear away the rubble and to rebuild it. Nevertheless, under its territorial government and its central banking there was much unemployment, further increased through streams of refugees from East Berlin and East Germany, most of them without the officially required "work permit" in West Berlin. Unemployment was, quite wrongly, interpreted as lack of work opportunities. It was, instead, largely due to a lack of means of sound means exchange, which are required in any economy based upon a large degree of division of labour. However, some of the unemployed refugees showed initiative and helped themselves: They formed coops and salvaged bricks and building materials from the ruins, cleaned and stacked them and sold them through an arrangement with one of West Berlin's largest department stores. I believe it was the one called Karstadt. That department store, too, was in difficulties, since the large degree of unemployment had also reduced its sales of consumer goods and services. But it had the contacts required to sell the recycled building materials, mainly remaining whole and cleaned-up bricks. This it managed to pay these cooperatively working self-employed with voucher of it own, with which they could buy any consumer goods and services that this department store, like all others, offered in great variety. Both sides were helped thereby. The rubble was reduced, whatever was still useful among it was recycled. These self-employed workers received their earnings in a form that was useful to them and the department store made a profit on this turn-over. Probably tax payments and compulsory social insurance payments were evaded by mutual consent. Until the authorities interfered and put a stop to these self-help efforts, conducted without official permits and tribute payments. I do not know or remember further details and whether and what penalties were imposed upon these "offenders". Notice the difference between this mutually profitable free exchange and self-help approach to the official policy for reducing Berlin's rubble heaps. It consisted, at least partly, in forced labour for all members of the Nazi Party, the NSDAP, as a penalty for them having been formal members, regardless of whether they were convinced and active Nazis, guilty of some crimes against humanity or basic human rights and liberties or merely opportunists or more or less forced to nominally join this party and to pay their membership fees to it, like e.g. my mother was, in order to get a job to support herself and her two children, my sister and myself. (That membership fee payment was enforced, e.g. by sticking up the latest payment receipt at the outer side of the entrance door or on the frame of this door!) Sometimes the staff of a whole office were signed up by their Chief, as Nazi party members, without their knowledge or intention and then notified after the fact. None of them dared to protest. That would have meant a sentence served in one of the early and also brutal concentration camps of the Nazis, an essential part of its terror regime. My father and mother were separated. My father had fled from the Nazis first to Danzig and then to Austria, was caught there again by the Nazi's occupation first of Danzig and then of Austria and was unable to get immigration permission in other countries. He remained without a work permit for years, until, late in the war, when the shortage of labour became acute. He and my mother and 2 two small children, born 1931 & 1933, had been officially deprived of the German nationality, declared stateless, as a penalty for my father's political opposition writing and publishing activity. His bank accounts and his stock of books for sale were confiscated. My mother could regain German nationality and thereby the required official work permit only after divorce from my father and through joining the Nazi party. Then she got a lowly secretary job and could thus maintain her two children. My father, for years, was unable to contribute to our upkeep. Some of the survivors of the "illegals", living "underground", being sheltered by their friend and contacts, came forward after the war, as witnesses that my mother had been no real and active Nazi, had helped them and thereupon she was officially "de-nazified" (entnazifiziert) and thus exempted from being further subjected to this forced labour. The democratic government had nothing better to offer than forced labour for the initial process of rebuilding West Berlin - and then to stop people providing themselves with paid jobs (paid in an unusual and private way, with private means of payment, as shop currency with shop-foundation) when they did so without official permits. The West Berlin government did not manage to turn the clean-up and recycling into several independent, self-paying and voluntary enterprises. Permits for this kind of self-employment and payment were not granted. -"Free" West Berlin was far from being free in many respects, although it was much more free than East Berlin and East Germany was under Communist rule. Someone may be able and willing to dig up details on this monetary and self-employment experiment from West Berlin archives and press reports. - Perhaps something could already be found online on this. - J.Z., 24.4.11. - UNEMPLOYMENT & SHORTAGE OF WORK OPPORTUNITIES OR CAPITAL? INSTANCES OF MONETARY FREEDOM, PRECEDENTS, REBUILDING BERLIN, FORCED LABOUR, NAZI PARTY MEMBERSHIP, ZUBE FAMILY HISTORY
FREE BANKING: I regard free banking as one of the most important peace plans and panarchistic steps. It brings us closer towards self-liberation and a really free market economy, as well as the realization of all genuine individual human rights and liberties. It could be introduced by repealing or ignoring the laws of monetary despotism, in a peaceful monetary revolution. It would also facilitate any other rightful and liberating revolution. It could be used to facilitate rightful tax strikes, could abolish involuntary mass-unemployment within days and end inflation immediately. - J.Z., n.d. & 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: I should be able to OFFER you MY money, issued by myself (or together with my associates) but I should not be able to FORCE it upon you at par or at any discount, unless you agreed, beforehand, to accept it on terms that are agreeable to both of us. There are some exceptions to this: In case my money has become a local currency, locally accepted at par, and you have not insisted on another payment in our contract, then you should have to accept this local currency - as being tacitly agreed upon. - Moreover, rather than driving me into bankruptcy, by demanding from me payment in any exclusive currency, which I have not contracted to supply you with, you should only have the right to demand clearing from me, possibly settled by the offer of my own means of exchange, even if only at a discount, but up to the full amount that I owe you, determined in some sound value standard or the other. If we cannot agree on the size of the discount then we should come to agree on an arbitrator who would settle this rate for us. (Generally, the local free market rate for my or my association's money would be a satisfactory guide for local potential acceptors.) Only if I were also unwilling or unable to thus satisfy you thus, by clearing, should you be able to drive me into bankruptcy. - J. Z., 2.2.90, 22.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Let all willing and able sellers of labour, services and goods act as BUYERS FIRST, paying with their OWN issues of standardised and typified certificates, in money denominations, which assign all their readiness to labour, service and to provide goods, which they do have to offer each and between them, in their local labour exchanges and service and shopping centres, down to small market stalls. The existing monopolised and forced currencies do not mobilise all these assets sufficiently, monetarily, but leave potential sales of goods and services undone and labour unemployed or underemployed. They could not rightfully and monetarily dispose of these privately owned assets and labour as well as service potentials, either. Only their owners could. The note issuers of monetary despotism have no natural or human right to prevent such self-help steps. On the contrary, they rather owe indemnification to their former victims. But their victims will, usually, be satisfied just with having liberated themselves from monetary despotism and provided themselves with sufficient sales and jobs. - J.Z., 19.11.92, 14.4.97. - However, these victimizers, with all their nationalized, federalized, statized and municipalized real assets, including the federal gold and foreign exchange reserves, have also built up a vast indemnification fund that could and should become dispersed to their, victims merely at the cost of this transaction. See PEACE PLANS 19C on this. - J.Z., 21.6.11. - SELF-HELP IN A MONETARY FREEDOM REVOLUTION, MONETARY INDEPENDENCE, SELF-RELIANCE ALSO IN THE MONEY SUPPLY & CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARD.
FREE BANKING: Let us, whenever possible, establish producer-consumer cooperatives and mutual credit societies … - Bakunin, The Policy of the International, 1869.
FREE BANKING: Lindsay Fox: "Better Banking", how does that work? - Gail Kelly: "Just imagine fine-tuning a pickpocket." - Joke by Clements in THE AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW. - Gail Kelly, being chief executive of one of the largest Australian Banks, Westpac, would hardly have made such a remark. But it does express much of public opinion in this sphere, which sees only the effects, not the causes, of central banking and other legalized banking privileges and almost completely ignores the free banking or monetary freedom alternatives, free exchange, free choice of value standards, free enterprise and freedom of contract for all kinds of banking, clearing and credit systems and full freedom of choice for all consumers of such services among all of them. Public opinion, with all its ignorance, prejudices and misleading "education" and public media services, simply considers bankers to be largely crooks and does not consider the rights and liberty a quite honest, rightful and rational system would require and also could achieve and secure. It holds the same view largely of financiers and of employers and does not consider its self-financing and self-employment options. In these spheres most people are still as thoughtless or short of correct ideas as most slaves and serfs were for centuries. - J.Z., 6.5.11. - JOKES, OBJECTIONS, DIS.
FREE BANKING: Mr. Beck thought out a Mutual Bank by generalizing credit in account; Proudhon, by generalizing the bill of exchange.” - GREENE, WILLIAM B., The Theories of Beck and Proudhon. – In: William B. Greene: … Fragments, pp, 59-78. – MUTUAL BANKING, CLEARING BANKS
FREE BANKING: No note issuing or clearing bank or issuing and accounting clearing centre should need an official charter, permit or licence or be subjected to any territorial “positive” laws. They, their competition with each other and their potential customers, free to refuse or discount their offers, combined with sufficient publicity for all details of the issue and reflux of competing exchange media, also due to the continuous and public valuation of their currencies against their own and other freely chosen value standards, will achieve self-regulation and self-responsibility to a sufficient degree. Government guaranties and promises have not kept their currencies stable and in good enough supply. Good monies would drive bad monies out of circulation or even prevent them from being entered into circulation. The quantity of wanted goods and services, including labor, ready for sale, would set a natural limit to such private issues and provide a value equivalent to all such competitively issued and freely accepted notes. Whoever has nothing to offer that is not widely enough wanted, locally, could, naturally, not issue any local currency notes. However, if there were a large local firm, working mainly for export, then it could issue its own export notes, redeemable in its export products and sell them to national importers, who would pay for them in local currencies and then use them to pay for their imports, while the foreign exporters, so paid, would, directly or indirectly use them to pay this local exporter. International trade could be greatly facilitated through such private issues. See the writings of Prof. Edgard Milhaud and Ulrich von Beckerath on this. To the extent that territorial governments do not get into the way of free exchanges, the whole world is a free market and can produce itself the exchange media, value standards and clearing and credit facilities that is required, without any government hindrance or any government help. – J.Z., 22.11.09, 24.9.10. – FREE ENTERPRISE, FREE TRADE, FREE EXCHANGE, FREEDOM OF CONTRACT, FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION, VOLUNTARISM, FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS, RIGHT TO REFUSE, RIGHT TO DISCOUNT, PUBLICITY.
FREE BANKING: Regarding free banking I was referred to the Australian Banknotes Act of 1910 and the Banknote Act of Hong Kong. So far I have accessed neither of them. Someone might be willing to explore them. I have my doubts because in most cases legislators have only quite unsound or incomplete ideas in this sphere and, nevertheless, they do legally enforce them.
FREE BANKING: Some premises: 1.) We need MORE & also BETTER (quite sound) currencies, clearing certificates and clearing options than territorial governments and their central banks are able or willing to supply us with, instead of their forced and exclusive currencies with legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and a forced value) for their monopoly money, which is almost always badly managed and causes numerous monetary and economic crises: Inflations, Deflations and Stagflations, with mass unemployment. - Without that monetary reform all ready for sale goods, labour and services, that are wanted or needed by others, cannot be always and easily sold, i.e., exchanged for or cleared against whatever goods, services or labour they have to offer in a free market for them. 2.) Value standards, exchange media and clearing options are to be subject to the competition from free enterprises and also to full consumer sovereignty, i.e. the freedom to reject or discount them, unless one has obliged oneself to accept them. They must all be market-rated and optional. Only the issuers of exchange media, clearing certificates and clearing credits must always accept them from anyone at their nominal value, expressed in one or the other value standard and in their denomination. The acceptance by their issuers and the associates of these issuers, in combination with the possibility of their discount in general circulation and also the possibility of a wide-spread refusal to accept them assures as a rule their circulation at par and also their rapid reflux in most cases, when they do suffer a temporary discount. - 3.) All laws upholding monetary despotism ought to be ignored, in a monetary revolution, or repealed - or confined, as personal laws, to their remaining voluntary supporters or victims. 4.) All genuine individual monetary rights and liberties ought to be clearly enough stated and included in a comprehensive declaration of such rights and liberties and also in the constitutions of all governments and societies that consider themselves to be free and democratic ones. See especially the long draft of such rights by Ulrich von Beckerath, 1982-1969, which is reproduced in the digitized anthology of PEACE PLANS 589/590. - 5.) All sound exchange media constitute, in their essence, clearing certificates, even when they are made out of rare metals, which is not necessary to give them a par value to a rare metal weight unit. Nor do they have to be redeemable upon demand by the note or certificate holder, in rare metal weight units, to assure their par value to such units on the gold market or in their local circulation. (If they do have only a small local circulation, then like foreign exchange, they can suffer a discount on rare metal markets, and in other areas or countries, without that discount reducing their par value in their local circulation. Only if that "foreign exchange" discount or convertibility rate on the rare metal markets would be largely reduced and that discount would remain persistent, would it tend to affect the par value of a local currency - but still not the 100 % acceptance obligation of the issuers and, by contract, their debtors. It is at least conceivable that in local circulation private monies might still widely circulate at a 3% discount, while on a gold market, as a minor and internationally unimportant currency, it would have a 30% discount. - 6.) All details of their issue, acceptance and reflux should sufficiently be publicized or subject to public scrutiny. As much relevant information as possible could and should already be expressed on the notes themselves. 7.) Acceptors of local currencies should clearly express this fact in their premises. 8.) For easier administration and control, all notes etc. should be continuously numbered and replaced, to the extent required, once they are returned to the issuer, by issues of a new series. 9.) They should only be issued for the issuer's own current expenditures and beyond that only in short-term turn-over loans, mainly to employers for the payment of wages and salaries, in discount for their claims against e.g. wholesalers, for goods already produced and sold to them. - Different issue and reflux contracts will be made. The most suitable ones will persist. The flawed ones will be discontinued. - J.Z., 27.4.11. - MONETARY FREEDOM, FREEDOM OF NOTE ISSUE, FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARD, FREEDOM TO REFUSE & TO DISCOUNT CURRENCIES THAT ONE HAS NOT ISSUED ONESELF, ISSUE & REFLUX CONTRACTS OR RULES.
FREE BANKING: The greatest new "gold rush" and most permanent boom will occur when the owners of wanted and ready for sale goods, labour power and other service capacity, do realize, finally, that they can directly "coin", "monetise" or "liquidify" them into their own kinds of competing currencies, clearing certificates, goods warrants, service vouchers, credit accounts, to buy with them the goods, labour and services, which they want or need. With them they could and should grant short-term productive loans, especially for wage and salary payments, and assure, through such spending, corresponding sales of their goods, services and labour. In this way all producers and traders could "open their own and successful gold mine". - J. Z., 4.7.93, 24.4.97. - (In spite of all the remaining restrictions on most individual economic rights and liberties, at least in the somewhat developed countries and over a long span or working for a living, most people are already able to earn, in total, a small fortune. Under full freedom they could earn much more and anticipate many of their future earnings, e.g. to help them to purchase the enterprises they work in. See under PURCHASE OF ENTERPRISES. - J.Z., 21.6.11.) - Via the gold clearing or gold for account standard they would, so to speak, open up the treasure chest of all the gold accumulated in the world, for thousands of years, but only for the purpose of gold-weight reckoning or accounting, and for free convertibility of their own notes, clearing certificates etc., into gold, to the extent that they have kept their issues at par with their nominal gold weight value. In this way they could make the best use of this combined gold treasure of all of Earth's inhabitants, if the want to and to the extent that they do want to. To that extent gold-redemptionism in the form of convertibility on free gold markets would be very much extended, but it would no longer by compulsory for the issuers. - One does not have to own gold and provide it oneself, in order to use is merely as a value standard. - J.Z., 8.9.02, 21.6.11. - THE GREATEST "GOLD RUSH" OF THEM ALL, WHILE AVOIDING GOLD AS AN EXCLUSIVE & FORCED MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE & AS AN EXCLUSIVE & FORCED VALUE STANDARD
FREE BANKING: The notes of the bank would be redeemable, not in gold but in any valuable commodity. Gold would no longer be the basis of the circulating paper currency; but all commodities would be available as a basis, that is, as security. - Thus, financial crises would be impossible. - Benjamin R. Tucker, Instead of a Book, Benjamin R. Tucker, 1893, pp.21-29. - Under free banking redeemable gold certificate would not be outlawed, either. But it is unlikely that they could stand the competition from notes merely redeemable in wanted consumer goods or services, a kind or redemption daily required and not needing the expense of a stock of gold for redemption purposes. The redemption in consumer goods and services can be done while using either gold- or silver-weight units in pricing of the goods and services as well as the notes or any other sound enough value standard that is agreed-upon, without promising redemption in the agreed-upon value standard itself. The security for currency notes should only be short-term debts, equivalent to the former sound commercial bills or real bills in the free banking principle of the Real Bills Doctrine, under which most of the notes and real bills were cleared rather than redeemed. Their acceptance at their par value at the bank and its customers, as if they were equivalent gold coins, would be all the redemption they need. Not all commodity assets could be turned into sound banknotes. Notes representing e.g. large quantities of iron ore cannot be used to do one's consumer shopping. But they could be used by importers, who had bought them from such exporting mining companies, to pay for quantity of goods they wish to import. Each sphere needs its own kind of means of payment and has its own kind of security, clearing or redemption options. Shop owners would accept capital securities from their shoppers as means of payment to the extent that they wish to invest in them. They have no legal tender power or should not have it. Mostly they would tell their customers, coming to them, offering as means of payment: shares, bonds, mortgage certificates, not to speak of investment certificates of governments in their tax slaves (governmental insecurities): Come back again when you have sold your capital certificates for ready cash, preferably our own shop currency or that of or shop association. - Tucker failed to distinguish between currency crises and capital crises. Currency crises, like inflation, will certainly result if one turns capital values into a "currency" with legal tender power, i.e. compulsory acceptance with a forced value. - Luckily, only a territorial government can do this. Unluckily, we still have such territorial governments everywhere. Only some daily wanted or needed consumer goods and services, including labour, can be turned into sound currencies and thus help to assure their turnover. - Capital credits can be turned into useful currencies or clearing certificates only to the extent that their repayment instalments, interest rates or dividends are due or soon due. - J.Z., 10.5.11. - SECURITY FOR LOANS OR REFLUX FOR CURRENCY ISSUES?
FREE BANKING: The term is applicable to all monetary freedom options, not only to the issues and acceptances and clearings of formal banks. Primitive money issue and acceptance is also a banking and clearing function, although a primitive one. Monetary development towards advanced banknotes, commercial bills, bill-discounting, clearing facilities, money exchange services, etc., falls also under banking, even while formal banks are not established. The name indicates, probably, the origin. It refers to the bench or table of a money exchanger. He needed no other "capital" than it, and small amounts in different currencies and his exchange rate knowledge and reckoning skill, to let him profitably deal with the various currencies and currency substitutes offered to him and wanted from him by his customers. A modern bank of issue does also not need a capital of its own but just an office and a printing facility or a printer's credit. How far will the circulation area of any advanced private currency expand, beyond a local payment community, over a State, a federation, a continent or the world? That decision would have to be left to the market and its free participants, acceptors and refusers. Computers will facilitate checking up on the validity and value and genuineness of private competing exchange media, as they can scan various credit cards. Automatic forgery detection machines do already exist. But I for one am less worried about international acceptance for any private currency than I am interested in seeing local currency locally provided as much as is required for local service, goods and labour providers. In areas that have much international tourist influx there are already many competing exchange offices, in addition to such services being provided by local commercial banks. Even if no world-wide or continent-wide competing currencies should develop and be maintained, under full monetary freedom - apart from the circulation of e.g. some privately minted gold and silver coins, most likely in standardised weight units - and the use of credit cards - these exchange facilities would suffice to enable tourists to pay their way everywhere and to see to it that local exchange media are returned to their issuers. Whatever is convenient and profitable in this sphere - will be provided under monetary freedom. Whatever is too inconvenient and too unprofitable will not be - and that is as it should be. We should not sacrifice our economic options, prosperity and our liberties to the uniformity spleen. Informally, and without having legal tender in other countries, and often under-ground, some currencies, like the U.S. dollar, have already turned into world currencies. DM were, likewise, widely accepted in other European countries, at least on the black market, when the own national currencies were more wildly inflated than the US$ and the DM was. Let people do their own things for and to themselves, in this sphere, too. Only coercion, theft, forgery and fraud need to be suppressed and that can be done more effectively by private or cooperative and competing agencies, too, than by territorial State governments. - J. Z., 7.12.92, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: To force all people in a country to be paid only with one exclusive and forced currency is as wrong and uneconomical as forcing all of them to be employed only by the State or by a single private but monopolistic corporation. Free choice for the issue and acceptance of all kinds of wage payment means and for all kinds of value standards for them. - What is unlawful here should become legalised and what is legalised here should become outlawed. - "Embrace what you have burned and burn what you have embraced." - A remark supposedly uttered by a priest upon the conversion of the first French king to Christianity. - J. Z., 29.12.92, 29.4.97, 21.6.11.
FREE BANKING: Traditional note issue banking – apart from the metallic redemption spleen, required the discounting only of sound commercial bills (real bills), representing the sale of goods to wholesalers and were thus covered by consumer goods on the path towards their consumers. They kept goods production and note issues in balance and could be repaid with the notes issued upon them or credits established with them. All they needed for a rapid and sound circulation was a sound value standard and a free exchange rate against them, which would indicate any flaws in their issue and in their reflux. They anticipated the payment of the goods already produced and sold and meant only for a short circulation, not a permanent one. The payment anticipation factor is one aspect they do have in common with sound tax foundation or tax anticipation money. One of the differences is that taxes are imposed and enforced and do not, as under voluntary taxation, fully correspond to consumer demand for certain services. Taxes enforce the demand for tax foundation money. RBD banknotes correspond to the needs and wishes of the consumers and the delivery abilities of the producers and distributors. Sound RBD banknotes are, essentially, clearing certificates and so are tax anticipation notes. They make production and distribution possible even in the absence of a sufficient quantity of rare metal coins to pay with them, i.e. in cash, for all transactions. When soundly issued and denominated, e.g. in gold weight units and streaming back in payment of the short term debts upon which they have been issued, they have become so useful and trustworthy or “liquid” means of exchange that they were accepted like ready cash, although they had no legal tender power except towards their issuer. Voluntary acceptance and free market rating against a sound value standard kept them usually at par with their nominal metal weight value. The RBD notes, through their discount with banknotes or the anticipation of their payment in this way, provided the means of their payment. The “financial bills” were merely using the strict bills of exchange laws to speculatively raise cash in the hope or expectation that when they were due one would be able to pay for them. But they had no sound backing of corresponding goods and services. An experienced banker would have known his local customers and their business thus would have been able to distinguish commercial from mere “financial” bills. (Financial bills were, rather, bills issued by unfinancial or illiquid people, whose short-term income was not assured. Thus they had often to be prolonged,, until the issuer was liquid again, if ever. When discounted by a bank with its banknotes then they amounted to a speculative personal loan to the issuer - if they were discounted at all! Thus they were hardly a good enough foundation for a sound currency. They were not automatically self-liquidating or cleared within a short period. They did not bring goods or services into circulation and help to withdraw them again – via their final consumers, using RBD banknotes to pay for them.) Other kinds of exchange media, based upon real goods or services, could be issued directly by the providers to their consumers and would, if the supply is a widely used one, circulate locally not only among their own consumers at par. These are notes of e.g. electricity, gas, petrol and water suppliers, suppliers of sewage, telephone, mail, transport or internet services or, most importantly, local shops, shop associations, supermarkets, department stores and a local association of all such retailers. To promote their turnovers and local wage and salary payments and payments of their other local bills, these associations of retailers do not really need any other bank than their own one, for their own kind of local shop currency with “shop foundation”. But they do need a better value standard for their goods and services than any of the present territorial governments offer. Other potential issuers and acceptors of their own service voucher currencies are e.g. associations of local tradesmen and contractors, providers of educational, entertainment, sports and cultural service services. Such services could be called subscription, fee or ticket-money. If there are many different providers in each of these service and supply fields then the RBD application would be between them and the kind of note issuing centre that they establish between them, to enable them to provide a more uniform money for their kind of service or supply. While they might all express their prices, fees and charges in rare metal units – or other value standards which they might find useful for themselves and their customers, none of them would be under obligation to supply upon demand such standard commodities or baskets of them but merely to account in them in to accept their notes at par with them. Their cover and redemption goods would be their usual consumer goods and services. Metallic redemption would be superfluous for them and even a great obstacle, if it were insisted upon. The main use of such competitively issued local currencies would be for the payment of wages, salaries, profits and other local production costs and for the shopping activities of all the earners of such currencies. Most other payments are already settled via non-cash payments or clearing settlements. Ideally, all turnovers, as opposed to medium and long term capital investments, could be settled in the short term through clearing, which requires that bills are due or soon due. Only the due or soon due instalment payments for medium or long term capital loans, not such whole loans at once, could and should usually be settled through clearing rather than cash payments. Both, Gresham’s Law and Say’s Law, properly understood; do apply to free market exchange media and value standards. – The Quantity Theory explains only the deflationary under-supply and the inflationary depreciation of monopoly monies with legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and forced value). Alas, we are so conditioned to think only in terms of monopoly money with compulsory acceptance and a forced value that we are only rarely willing and able to think of the alternatives to it. Thus any explanation attempt tends to be long and, at first, confusing. Have I succeeded only in confusing your? Since there are so many different producers and so many different products and services and so many different distributors for them, no single one of them could provide a local currency that would be fully and readily acceptable to all local people. The providers have to combine sufficiently to achieve their kind of acceptable local currency. The readiness to accept in payment or clearing declarations or bills or notes or ticket money of minor suppliers will, as a rule, have to be discounted by the banknotes of an association of such suppliers. Then these notes of the minor suppliers will be somewhat comparable to the commercial bills which the sound traditional note-issuing banks discounted with their banknotes. – Otherwise their individual “ticket” “money” etc. is not a local currency or easily exchangeable for it but merely a barter item. – The whole circulation process between producers and consumers, factories, farms, wholesalers, retailers and the employees and entrepreneurs and financiers, as consumer payers and earning payees, and the various means of payment used between them is best described graphically. See my drafts of circulation charts, also offered digitally by me and, hopefully, soon sufficiently improved by others. – Here, once again, a short explanation attempt turned into 2 pages and over 1000 words. - J.Z., 20.5.10, 19.9.10. - REAL BILLS DOCTRINE, RBD, BILL DISCOUNT, NOTE ISSUES, TAX FOUNDATION MONEY, FINANCIAL BILLS.
FREE BANKING: We live under monetary and financial despotism and yet there are still people who manage to ignore both and their alternatives, monetary and financial freedom and do imagine that the many resulting problems can be solved by either charity or insurance! – J.Z., 23.7.10. - MONETARY FREEDOM, MONETARY DESPOTISM, FINANCIAL FREEDOM, FINANCIAL DESPOTISM, INSURANCE, CHARITY
FREE BANKING: We should aim at a comprehensive digital library, bibliography, alphabetical index, abstracts and review compilations of all such writings, an ideas archive, alphabetical encyclopaedia and also electronic data bank, as well at a refutations encyclopaedia for all the errors, myths, prejudices, false assumptions and conclusions on this subject and at electronic “argument mapping” of all the all too extensive remaining controversies, to finally clear them up. – J.Z., 1.11.10.
FREE BANKING: When not only gold but all (many! - J.Z.) commodities are available for the redemption of the paper currency, its volume is limited only by the value of all (some of - J.Z.) the wealth of the country, and it can never become insecure up to this limit. - Benjamin R. Tucker, Instead of a Book, Benjamin R. Tucker, 1893, pp.21-29. - Not all kinds of wealth can be made liquid in form of a currency. Only currently wanted or needed consumer services and goods can be, including e.g. transport, entertainment, education services, the supply of water, gas, electricity, but not the roads and rails, the cinemas, theatre, opera, school and university buildings, the water and gas or sewerage services pipes, the electricity cables and posts, the power plants. Such facilities can be turned into currencies only to the extent that consumers want or need them immediately or in the near future, for their subscriptions, charges or tickets. Thus their service capacity can me monetized not their capital value. Their capital value can be turned into currency only by selling them in a free capital market, to those, who have enough currency or other capital value to offer in exchange for them, usually currencies issued upon quite different foundations. (If any. The government has only its tax power to offer as a foundation for its tax foundation money - and the legal power to turn its paper currency into requisitioning certificates. If it rightfully privatized all its capital assets, it could do so only by offering corresponding capital certificates to its victims.) How small the currency value of various "wealth" items, including furniture, clothing, kitchen utensils, books, shoes, toys,. bicycles etc. is nowadays, is demonstrated e.g. by the various charity shops, which got these items as gifts and sell them, usually cleaned up, at very low prices (unless they are fashionable or antiques), far below the prices they were sold at first, when they are new. Capital value wealth, like houses, cars, computers and their programs, do also depreciate fast, every year. Any currency issued upon them and accepted, would also tend to depreciate fast, especially those based upon cars, computers and computer programs. Their highest market value exists only the moment they are bought new. And they are bought with currencies issued upon a different basis. - J.Z., 10.5.11. - WEALTH, VALUE, MARKET VALUE, CURRENCY, LIQUIDITY, CAPITAL, READINESS TO ACCEPT FOUNDATION, SHOP FOUNDATION
FREE BANKING: While I do favour free banking, I do not want to run a free bank myself. I favour competitive postal services and taxi services as well, competitive courts and jury systems, even competitive governments and free societies and defence forces and free and ideal militia protection services for individual rights - but would not wish to run any of these services myself. - Others would be much better able to run or organise such services and would get much more fun out of them than I would. - J. Z., 12.3.93, 27.5.97.
FREE COMPETITION IN CURRENCY ACT: Free Competition in Currency Act - www.downsizedc.org/etp/honest-money/ - Cached
FREE COMPETITION WITH & WITHOUT MONETARY FREEDOM: (Please provide entries for headings that I failed to provide so far and also other headings that still ought to be dealt with. - J.Z., 21.6.11.)
FREE EXCHANGE & MONETARY DESPOTISM: Our very survival depends upon division of labour and free exchange of our goods and services. So how can we favour or consent to any restriction upon exchange media, value standards and clearing options, in various forms of monetary despotism, rather than insist upon full monetary and clearing freedom? The very term "value standard" suggests already that it should be more reliable than is the frequently mismanaged and often very much depreciated and further deteriorating paper standard provided by the government. The very term "exchange medium" indicates how dependent we are on this medium of an advanced civilisation and economy and that we should never tolerate its monopolisation and manipulation. The very term "monetary policy" should get our hackles up - after all the experiences we have had with it. Nevertheless, we remain calm or apathetic, even when our "leaders" proclaim inflation and unemployment "targets"! - J. Z., 19.3.97, 21.6.11.
FREE EXCHANGE & MONETARY FREEDOM & TAXES: Only an unlicensed, unregulated and untaxed exchange on a truly free market, that is also monetarily and financially free, is a FREE EXCHANGE. - J. Z., 21.10.89, 21.6.11. - It requires absence of all wage- and price-, interest-rate- and rent-controls, quotas, subsidies, compulsory licensing, reserve requirements, imposed rare metal convertibility and a free transport system, too. - The Soviets are not longer ruling in the Soviet empire but all too many of the Soviet's interventionist economic measures persist there - and in the supposedly free Western countries, without being recognised and fought as such. - J. Z., 29.4.97.
FREE EXCHANGE: No obstacles to any creative energies - (Leonard E. Read, mostly expressed as: Release all creative energies!) and their exchanges. Under this condition persistent mass unemployment and sales difficulties, not caused by wars, revolutions, political interventionism or natural catastrophes, do become impossible. - J. Z., 14.12.92, 33.6.11. - MONETARY FREEDOM, FREE BANKING & FREE ENTERPRISE, FREE COMPETITION, FREE COOPERATION, FREE CONTRACTS, FULL PROPERTY RIGHTS
FREE EXCHANGE: The Bank of Exchange is composed of man engaged in productive labor, (*) who, feeling the abuses attached to the fiction which makes gold and silver the (**) basis of the circulation, associate themselves together to restore the real (***) basis - namely, consumable products (****); and, feeling the evils which result from the monopoly of credit in the hands of the non-producing class (*****), they determine to abolish the same. (*** ***). - Charles A. Dana, Proudhon and His Bank of the People, in Henry Cohen, Proudhon's Solution of the Social Problem, New York, Vanguard Press, 1927, pp. 15-31. Reproduced in: Leonard L. Krimerman & Lewis Perry, Patterns of Anarchy, Anchor Books, 1966, p.334.
FREE EXCHANGE: Under full freedom and even now under limited economic freedom, we are more threatened by obesity than hunger. – More free people producing and exchanging means a much higher productivity per head and thus a higher living standard for all. – We have only touched a fraction of all resources on Earth, none of those in space. And most of those on Earth remain on Earth and are recyclable. – The only nuclear reactor we need is the sun. It produced most of the other energy sources that we already use or could use. And this is only the quantity of sun energy that shined and shines on Earth. – We could come to capture and use much more for our purposes. - J.Z., 3.10.10. - FREE ENTERPRISE, MONETARY & FINANCIAL FREEDOM, POPULATION, STARVATION, HUNGER
FREE GOLD MONEY REPORT: FGMR - Free Gold Money Report - www.fgmr.com/ - Cached - 9 Jul 2011 – Welcome to the FGMR website. Having published my paid subscription newsletter since 1987, I am pleased to offer these same commentaries, ...
FREE MARKET & CAPITALISM, OBJECTIONS: How is a free market like a gladiator battle? | ChaCha - www.chacha.com › Categories › Business - Cached - 28 Apr 2011 – The Myth of the Free Market - Money, Interest and Power! Free Market Capitalism FAILS. Related Questions. What is an advantage of a free ... - DIS.
FREE MARKET & MONETARY FREEDOM: A free market needs freedom in the supply of money. - Henry Meulen, THE INDIVIDUALIST, 4/75. - More specifically, in the supply of all kinds of value carriers: exchange media, clearing certificates and clearing account, as well as value standards. No single exchange medium or value standard should be legally imposed upon the population of a whole country, continent or the world. - J.Z., 22.6.11. - VS. MONETARY DESPOTISM.
FREE MARKET & MONETARY FREEDOM: The free market cannot sufficiently liberate, e.g. supply full employment (for all able and willing to work) and easy sales (for all offering consumer satisfactions at market prices) if it is not a fully freed market, i.e., one that would especially include monetary and financial freedom, too. - It is hard to understand how such an important liberty could have been overlooked, distrusted or slandered for so long and by so many, even when freedom of expression and information existed. The extensive existing freedom of expression and information and powerful and very affordable alternative media should be fully utilised, in their strength, against monetary despotism, a.s.a.p. - By now all the texts and arguments for monetary freedom and against monetary despotism could and should be offered on a large capacity single disc. - They should also be summed up in a digitized handbook and in an alphabetized encyclopaedia on free banking. - Two starts in this direction exist so far, to my knowledge: www.monetary-freedom.net/ and this alphabetized collection of notes, quotes and comments. - J.Z., 29.12.92, 29.4.97, 22.6.11. - Vs. STATE SOCIALISM & MONETARY DESPOTISM
FREE MARKET & MONETARY FREEDOM: Without the monetary freedom reform or revolution the "free market" isn't a FREE market. - J.Z., 4.8.01, 22..6.11.
FREE MARKET FOUNDATION: Governments - The Free Market Foundation - News Article - www.freemarketfoundation.com/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleType ... - Cached - 31 Mar 2009 – There is no “free enterprise” or “free market” money. If there is monetary turbulence, such as inflation or boom and bust cycles, ...
FREE MARKET FOUNDATION: Is central banking the best monetary regime for South Africa? - www.freemarketfoundation.com/htmupload/PUBDoc1279.pdf - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View by FMFM No - 2005 - Related articles - 4 Is central banking the best monetary regime for South Africa? 15. 5 Dollarisation. 21. 6 Expansion of the Rand area. 35. 7 Free-market money and banking ...
FREE MARKET MONETARY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: Free Market Money - www.freemarketmoney.org/ - Cached
FREE MARKET MONEY & CAPITALISM: Kvitters|define capitalism|Search|Twitter|Answers|Videos|Digg ... - www.kvitters.com/search/define%20capitalism - Cached - Saying that free market money threatens capitalism is completely absurd! Free market money threatens our phoney fiat "too big to fail" . ...
FREE MARKET MONEY EDUCATION ASSOCIATION: Classes About Money - Free Market Money - www.freemarketmoney.org/class.html - Cached - Current Money - practical applications of free market money. Taught by Jim Davidson and the Free Market Monetary Education Association faculty. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY PICTURES: Index of /wp-content/uploads/2010/01 www.jasonrink.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/ - Cached - ... FMM-3.jpg - Free-Market-Money-1-Pic-150x150.jpg · Free-Market-Money-1-Pic-300x300.jpg - Free-Market-Money-1-Pic.jpg - Free-Market-Money-1-Pic.tiff ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: free market money - Jumptags from WINNX - www.jumptags.com/WINNX/free%20market%20money/ - List of WINNX's resources on Jumptags.com related to free%20market%20money , fiat currency, free market money, gold, the gold standard, why it is not enough.
FREE MARKET MONEY: A Brief History of Money and Banking « Wagner Is Wrong - www.wagneriswrong.com/a-brief-history-of-money-and-banking/ - Cached - 19 Dec 2010 – ... Andrew Jackson to run his campaign on a platform of shutting down the central banks, and establishing a free-market money system ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: A Christian Libertarian Responce to Romans 13 - www.oocities.org/tracysaboe/Romans_13.html - Cached - Let Caesar have his Federal Reserve Notes and we can develop our own private, free market money system. Some Christian's try to do this, and only trade in ... - Central Banking monopoly and legal tender money is only good enough to pay for the compulsory extortion of tributes levied by territorial governments. - Contribution- or subscription monies for voluntary "tax" payments to societies of volunteers, competing protective associations and insurance companies are quite another matter. - J.Z., 25.7.11. - TAX FOUNDATION MONEY, CHRISTIANITY, BIBLE, CAESAR'S MONEY, CENTRAL BANKING.
FREE MARKET MONEY: America-A Purpose-Driven Nation - Google Books Result - books.google.com/books?isbn=1602666318...Sr. Pantana - 2007 - Political Science - 484 pages ... causing the implementation of the graduated income tax, and wages and hours were heavily regulated.26 The flight from sound, free market money to state ... - It is absurd to assume that the USA population constitutes only a single nation with a single purpose. 300 million individuals have 300 million different and self-determined purposes. - J.Z., 25.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: ancap "logo" « bkmarcus.com - bkmarcus.com/2006/05/04/ancap-logo/ - Cached - 4 May 2006 – ... established the word and the symbol as designations for free-market money. At least, that's my current, somewhat informed opinion. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: apriorist.de - Market-Anarchy Web-Sites - www.apriorist.de/modx/links/market-anarchy.html?PHPSESSID ... - Cached - ... Books, Links; The Truth About the 9/11 Attacks (Articles, Links); The Indomitus Report (Insights for Free Market Money); Homepage - www. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Arizona Multiple Listing Service now Accepting Manufactured/Mobile ... - www.stardusthomes.com/.../arizona-multiple-listing-service-now-accepting- - 20 Jul 2011 – ... Home Companies Technology Materials Announces Buildings Free Market Money Earth Company Efficiency Program Building Green Architecture ... - Does it really offer an interesting article on Free Market Money? - I do not have the time and energy to check out over 400 references, far less 1.5 million of them. - J.Z., 26.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Best Gold Investment | My KB Gold - www.mykbgold.com/tag/best-gold-investment/ - Cached - 18 Aug 2010 – Free markets require free market money. Fifty percent of every transaction involves currency. You have to allow the market to pick what ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: blog.mises.org/5886/free-money-against-inflation-bias/ - Cached - 14 Nov 2006 – That is why Austrians argue for an unconditional return to free-market money. They see it as a solution to the dangers emerging from today's ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Competition Entry | Cont'd improvements in technology will ... wlcentral.org/book/export/html/1932 - Cached - ... in order to enrich itself while convincing the people that the currency is safer and more efficient than free-market money, such as gold and silver. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: East European economic reform-Some simulations on a structural VAR ... - www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/01618938/2001/.../art00031 - by M Blangiewicz - 2001 - Cited by 4 - Related articles - 1 Feb 2001 – The model explains interrelations between prices (both state-controlled and free market), money demand, households' incomes and internal ... - Of monetary freedom interest or only dealing with "free pricing" under monopoly money? - J.Z., 25.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Economy | My KB Gold - www.mykbgold.com/tag/economy/ - Cached - 17 Aug 2010 – Free markets require free market money. Fifty percent of every transaction involves currency. You have to allow the market to pick what ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: eggdescrambler: A trap for fiscal conservative: the chicago school ... - eggdescrambler.blogspot.com/.../trap-for-fiscal-conservative-chicag... - Cached - 6 May 2011 – The problem for the banking cartel is that the Austrian school also promotes free market money and banking, where there is no such monopoly ... - AUSTRIAN SCHOOL
FREE MARKET MONEY: Follow the Money; Are we mastering the free market, or is the free ... - www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-74041.html - Cached - 20 Nov 2005 – Article: In a free market, money doesn't ... The New ... - Show more results from highbeam.com
FREE MARKET MONEY: Free Market Money - freemarketmoney.com/ - Cached - Dedicated to promoting the adoption of Digital Gold Currencies Coming Soon. Introducing TidyCal, the shareable, scrollable computer ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Free Market Money Vs. Government Terrorism - Fox Business Video ... - myprops.org/.../Free-Market-Money-Vs.-Government-Terrorism-Fo... - Cached - Free Market Money Vs. Government Terrorism - Fox Business Video - FoxBusiness.com. This Link is located in the Public Channel Facebook Most Shared Finance. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Free Market Money: What is Free Market Money? - vertoro.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-is-free-market-money_13.html - Cached - 13 Aug 2006 – Free market money is about market alternatives to government fiat .... I am the entrepreneur who is going to bring free market money to the ... - Probably Jim Davidson, once again. - How many quite different ideas and practices do exist regarding "free market money"? - J.Z., 26.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Free Money Against “Inflation Bias” - blog.mises.org/5886/free-money-against-inflation-bias/ - Cached - 14 Nov 2006 – That is why Austrians argue for an unconditional return to free-market money. They see it as a solution to the dangers emerging from today's ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: free money talk episodes - www.paidsurveydb.com/free%20money%20talk%20episodes.html - Cached - Free Market; Money ; Personal / Helpful. Advice; Consumer Reports Get More Episodes Welcome to the Free Talk Live 2.0 BETA! You can login ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Gold ATM’s will offer more monetary justice » Human Action - www.humanaction.co.za/.../gold-atms-will-offer-more-monetary-jus ... - Cached - 26 Jan 2011 – They have their sights on providing Capetonians with this crucial service of providing free market money that cannot be debauched by ... - GOLD COIN SELLING VENDING MACHINES? - I read about one at a German large airport, probably Frankfurt. - All the diverse and also largely non-metallic monies of monetary freedom cannot be issued but at most freely exchanged by automatic machines, acting like exchange offices. - J.Z., 25.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the ... - www.independent.org/store/book_detail.asp?bookID=75 - Cached - ... private enterprise solved the problem, and finally how the government reasserted its monopoly to put an end to the nation's free-market money episode. ... - Also: FREE MARKET MONEY: Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the ... - www.thefreemanonline.org/.../good-money-birmingham-button-ma... - Cached - 10 Jul 2011 – ... solved the problem, and finally how the government reasserted its monopoly to put an end to the nation's free-market money episode. ... - MONETARY FREEDOM, EXAMPLES & EXPERIMENTS, PRIVATE COINAGE
FREE MARKET MONEY: In a free market, money doesn't grow on trees: supporters of big ... - goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199.../In-a-free-market-money.html - Cached - 24 Nov 2008 – [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man," economist and journalist Henry Hazlitt ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Lamenting Economic Solutions: Time to Return to Sound Money for ... - www.termlifeassurancemadesimple.com/.../lamenting-economic-sol - Cached - 18 Jul 2011 – The cover story of the November 24, 2008, issue correctly points out, “In a Free Market, Money Doesn't Grow on Trees. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Margaret Pomeranz Is Making A Lot Of Sense Right Now - Pop Culture ... - www.pedestrian.tv/pop-culture/news/margaret.../27822.htm - Cached - 18 Nov 2010 – It doesn't happen because of free market money, it happens because of government regulation and funding support. Those regulations and that ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: MONEY - what-when-how.com/sociology/money/ - Cached - These cases are not anomalies or exceptions to value free market money but typical examples of money's heterogeneity in modern society. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Money | Realestate - www.searchratepro.com/tag/money/ - Cached - services sprite The Myth of the Free Market Money, Interest and Power! Category: Mortgage | Tags: Free, interest, Market, Money, Myth, Power | 25 Comments ... - DIS.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Next Free Voice - https://pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/ - Cached - 2011.06.01. - Nicholas Snow; Toward Free Market Money by F. A. Hayek 2011.05.30 - Nicholas Snow; Radio Interview: Lawrence W. Reed on Gas Prices 2011.05.26 ... - State Capture « Next Free Voice - The View from Abroad « Next Free Voice - pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/state-capture/ - pauliecannoli.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/the-view-from-abroad-45/20 Jul 2011 – 2011.06.01 Nicholas Snow; Toward Free Market Money by F.A. Hayek 2011.05.30
FREE MARKET MONEY: Prev - YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. - www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=E4sLx5O_3M0&page=1 - Cached - If it was a free market - money would not be controlled by govt. ...... Free market money would not allow that, and even if it did the company could not ... - CENTAL BANKING, MONETARY DESPOTISM
FREE MARKET MONEY: Proceeding Boldly: Midweek Musical Interlude - Fear the Boom & Bust - proceedingboldly.blogspot.com/.../midweek-musical-interlude-fear-... - Cached - 4 Feb 2010 – ... gold and silver (or create whatever free-market money a society uses) than the increase in human productivity over the same time period. ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Romania Austrian EconomicsSummer School - www.e-growth.eu/.../romania_austrian_economics_summer_school.pdf - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - Free-market money. Privatization of Healthcare. Entrepreneurship for Students 101. Elements of Austrian-school economics ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: The Myth of the Free Market – Money, Interest and Power! | Penny ... - www.pennystockspress.com/.../the-myth-of-the-free-market-money - Cached - 28 Jul 2010 – default The Myth of the Free Market Money, Interest and Power! A video to send to those who think the free market produced all the recent ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: The relevance of transition to free market, attitude towards money ... - www.freepatentsonline.com/article/International.../175110739.html - Cached - The differences are discussed along the dimensions of transition to free market, money and its cultural meanings, locus of control, and attitude towards ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: Today's Google search for "free market money" brought me 1,580,000 results. I got only around to quickly skim the first 20 pages and saw there already many texts indicated that were new to me. - J.Z., 20.7.11. - DIGITIZED TEXTS, FREE MARKET MONEY
FREE MARKET MONEY: Toward free-market money. The choice of a monetary policy ... - www.faqs.org - Abstracts Index › Abstracts › Political science - Cached - Toward free-market money. The choice of a monetary policy framework: lessons from the 1920s. In what respects will the information age make central banks ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: TROY OUNCE: The Power Of Pricing Money: By Shady Men or The ... - troyounce.blogspot.com/.../power-of-pricing-money-by-shady-men... - Cached - 11 Nov 2010 – What Austrian hard-money economics gives us is a fully formed knowledge-base of how free-market money SHOULD work, and this is precious ... - The monies of full monetary freedom are not confined to those, which are the only ones, which most members of the Austrian School can imagine and have proposed. - J.Z., 26.7.11.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Vertoro About - www.vertoro.com/about.htm - Cached - Decline of the dollar - the rise of gold: Free market money tutorials and expert digital gold consulting.
FREE MARKET MONEY: Video About The Myth of the Free Market - Money, Interest and ... - www.encyclopedia.com/.../KAnXK0_d_T8-myth-of-free-market-m... - Cached - The Myth of the Free Market - Money, Interest and Power! A video to send to those who think the free market produced all the recent economic catastrophes... - DIS., OBJECTIONS, PREJUDICES
FREE MARKET MONEY: What is the definition of the free market system-Business ... - www.qa02.com - Business - Cached - Rather, in a free market, money is privatized and the market is permitted to choose the most efficient commodity to serve as money (traditionally, ...
FREE MARKET MONEY: What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and a Free Market in Money ... - www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150243286376225 - Cached - 1 Jun 2011 – Download The 1977 Wall Street Journal article Toward Free Market Money by F.A. Hayek here. Like - Comment - View Original Post - Share ...
FREE MARKET RATING FOR COMPETING CURRENCIES & ACCOUNTS: The monopolies or oligopolies for the issue of banknotes and for running cheque accounts and clearing centres, are not discussed sufficiently in most writings on economics. Instead, legal tender and the note issue monopoly are uncritically accepted as a supposed ideal or as a necessity and the fact that they are the necessary and sufficient ingredients to make inflations, deflations and stagflations possible, is usually ignored. Thus most "thinkers" and "experts" on this subject remain unaware that free-market rating for currencies, voluntary acceptance or refusals, the self-interest of competing issuers and their internal clearing would rapidly stop or altogether prevent any over-issues. Is there one book in a thousand on economics, which does quite clearly indicates the relationship between inflation, deflation, stagflation and the issue monopoly and legal tender? - J.Z., no.d. & 22.6.11.- & THE EFFECTS OF LEGAL TENDER ESPECIALLY UPON INFLATION & STAGFLATION.
FREE MARKET RATING OF CURRENCIES & THE QUANTITY THEORY: Unless the government money is freely priced, the government will never know whether it is putting too much of its money into circulation or not enough. - J.Z., 24.2.75. - The same applies to any competing private currency issues. Free market rating does also require sufficient publicity for it in order to be effective. - J.Z., 21.3.97. - PUBLICITY
FREE MARKET RATING OF CURRENCIES: When under a free market rate i.e. in the absence of legal tender laws, an over-issue of a paper-money should occur, then it would suffer a discount in circulation so that e.g. a gold coin of 20 marks would come to cost 21 paper marks. But the goods prices would remain unchanged, provided only they are fixed in gold units, e.g. gold marks. - Ulrich von Beckerath, 25.1.52.
FREE MARKET WITH & WITHOUT MONETARY FREEDOM: Can one paragraph or a table sufficiently express these differences? Will you attempt to describe them shortly and convincingly? - J.Z., 22.6.11.
FREE MONEY ISN'T FREE, INTEREST RATES: It cannot be provided quite interest free or free of all fees, like e.g. insurance and administrative and printing costs. But it can be cheaply provided, obliges only the issuers and the acceptors show some understanding and self-responsibility and pay attention to publicity, in order to enable them to discriminate between some good and some bad monies. However, as a rule, the potential acceptor could very easily test the goodness of any private notes offered to him - by taking them to a cashier at the nearest shopping centre, asking him whether he would accept them at par, i.e., whether it would have "shop-foundation" or "readiness to accept foundation" with him.. - So far most people have not yet paid the minimum "price" for monetary freedom: They have not yet read up on it, pondered and discussed it sufficiently and taken the necessary steps to introduce it. - J. Z., 23.12.90, 16.4.97, 22.6.11.
FREE TRADE & MONETARY & CLEARING FREEDOM: The stocks of goods and the number of services and labour hours that could be made accessible on the international market are immense. They could be mobilised, world-wide, via a) gold weight value accounting (or their freely agreed upon equivalents) used in free international clearing transactions that never promise payment in gold weight units but acceptance of these clearing media as if they were their equivalents in metallic gold. b) By the free circulation of clearing certificates of this kind, world-wide, all based upon ready for sale export goods and services and their use to pay with them for all imports, if that is agreeable to the traders involved. c) By the free transfer of non-cash accounts, whether these are kept on paper records or are merely electronically recorded and whether they use for their clearing purposes a gold weight unit or whatever other value standard unit the trading partners find mutually acceptable. d) By the use of sound commercial bills of exchange (real bills) or their equivalents, in international trading, as has been the tradition for hundreds of years, when not interfered with. But these should be bills "for clearing only", unless something to the contrary has been contractually agreed upon. They should not longer be legally and juridically treated as promises to deliver rare metal quantities or legal tender paper money. For that is a kind of speculative dealings in futures in which fulfilment of the contract is not always possible. Hedging must be permissible or a withdrawal premium should be agreed upon. Such international clearing certificates, goods warrants and purchasing vouchers, mostly in large denominations, must be based upon goods already produced and ready for sale as well as upon ready for sale services. All dealings in future goods and services should be left to the capital markets in futures. If the Special Drawing Rights or SDRs, granted by the IMF, were of that nature and if the IMF were not a monopolist for such issues and if they were not usually granted to more or less bankrupt and mismanaged governments, then they would be O.K., too. But it seems advisable to replace them by private issues and accounting and value reckoning, without any exclusive and forced values and between traders rather than between governments. Governments and their special boards and institutions should have nothing whatsoever to do with international trade and finance and with internal monetary and clearing exchanges, nor with any private financial contracts, methods and institutions. Nor do they have the right to levy tributes upon dissenters to cover their expenses. They are only entitled to victimize or serve their own volunteers. - J. Z., n.d., 29.4.97, 22.6.11. - INTERNATIONAL TRADE, INTERNATIONAL CLEARING CERTIFICATES, WRITINGS OF PROF. EDGARD MILHAUD.
FREE TRADE & MONETARY FREEDOM: If Free Traders had been Free Traders regarding Free Banking (internal, self-managed free trade agreements, as well as the free use of international clearing certificates and alternative value standards), and also in the sphere of financial freedom, meaning, primarily, voluntary taxation or subscriptions. then they would have won their struggle, completely, long ago. But under monetary despotism and financial despotism the protectionist statists never lost their influence altogether and had to get the upper hand again. One might even say that central banking is the worst protectionist institution of all. - J. Z., 2.5.93 & 15.4.97, 22.6.11. - CENTRAL BANKING, FINANCIAL & MONETARY DESPOTISM & PROTECTIONISM
FREE TRADE: In short, I'm convinced that any argument for free trade within a nation is automatically and necessarily an argument for free trade internationally. - Dean Russell, Government and Legal Plunder. Bastiat Brought Up to Date, FEE, May 85, ISBN-0-9106614-70-9, 116pp, p.70. - The many false views on money, based upon exclusive currencies, support protectionism. The monies or credits of monetary freedom, spent in foreign countries, do, inevitably, return, sooner or later, usually fast, directly or indirectly, to the own country, in payment for our exports. With rare metal coins and also with governmental currencies this is not always the case or not soon enough, especially when they are privately or officially hoarded in other countries as foreign exchange, supposedly better than their official currencies are. - J.Z., 26.4.11. - MONETARY FREEDOM VS. MONETARY DESPOTISM, PROTECTIONISM, EXPORTS, IMPORTS, INTERNATIONAL TRADE
FREEDOM & MONEY: Freedom - the power over money. - From a St.George (building society) advertisement, on TV, 30.3.87,11.55ppm
FREEDOM OF ACTION & FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT IN THE MONETARY & FINANCIAL SPHERE: Naturally, this should exist only for competing private payment communities. No one has the right to experiment with the lives, earnings, properties and economic transactions of peaceful dissenters who just wish to do their own things for or to themselves. - J.Z., 22.6.11. - PANARCHISM, EXPERIMENTAL FREEDOM
FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE & FREE SOCIETY: If Bastiat was right when he said that "society is exchange" then we will have a free society or many of them only once full freedom of exchange is established. - J.Z. 21.8.74, revised 12.3.85 & 21.5.97, 22.6.11.
FREEDOM OF ISSUE, FREEDOM TO ACCEPT, DISCOUNT & REFUSE: It includes using any suitable exchange medium and value standard: What does it mean with regard to the issue, acceptance, valuation and refusal of monetary freedom writings in alternative media, like microfiche, floppy disks and the enormously cheap and efficient text-only CDs and external HDs? - No law prohibits them. No regulations or special taxation burdens make their utilization for this purpose difficult. No compulsory licensing is required for them. They may be freely produced and traded and valued and collected. However, who cares about this option, even among the monetary freedom advocates? For a while my own libertarian microfiche publishing experiment offered, probably, among its titles (on 1779 microfiche by 2002) the largest "published" collection ever, of this kind. At least if one compares it with other one-person publishing attempts. It is mostly only available from me on microfiche duplicates, and this very cheaply and permanently. Only a few of its titles have so far been digitized and put online, e.g. on www.reinventingmoney.com - Possibly no one has as yet listed together all such titles now offered in digitized form somewhere. My own lists a) of general digitized libertarian writings - www.panarchy.org/zube/list.index.html - and b) of free banking titles in any medium - www.panarchy.org/zube/money.index.html - are long, but still all too incomplete and do need much more input and corrections from many others. - J.Z., 9.4.97, 22.6.11,4.8.11.
FREEDOM OF NOTE ISSUE: They may even find out that freedom of note issue is the simple key to the abolition of bank monopoly." - Henry Meulen, THE INDIVIDUALIST, 6/78 p 27. - FREE BANKING
FREEDOM OF NOTE ISSUE: We must return to a floating gold price and to freedom of note issue. How and when we do this is a matter for the politicians; but the sooner it is done, the better. - Henry Meulen, THE INDIVIDUALIST, Feb. 76, p. 5. - We are not bound to accept Meulen's hobby horse of a supposedly more stable value standard, consisting of a fluctuating gold weight value of a thus supposedly more stable paper pound. But people should be free to adopt his preferred "standard" for themselves. As for expecting politicians to take up this matter and realize freedom of note issue soon: We might have a very long wait ahead. The matter has been left all too much in the hands of politicians, almost since the beginnings of monetary economics. It should finally be taken out of their hands. Enough is enough. - J. Z., 21.3.97. - HENRY MEULEN, GOLD STANDARDS
FREEDOM SCHOOL: How to eliminate unemployment in 60 seconds | The Freedom School - freedomschool.org/.../how-to-eliminate-unemployment-in-60-secon... - Cached - 8 Jan 2010. – Free Market Money: A stable currency that is not subject to manipulation via government printing presses and central bank credit expansion ... - UNEMPLOYMENT, FULL EMPLOYMENT, JOBS
FREEDOMAIN RADIO: Free Market Money - Freedomain Radio
FREEDOMAIN RADIO: Free Market Money - Freedomain Radio
FREEDOMINRADIO.COM/FORUMS: new FDR vid - The Myth of the Free Market - Money, Interest and ... - board.freedomainradio.com/forums/p/24066/186886.aspx - Cached - 5 posts -5 authors - Last post: 14 Jan 2010. - Awarded [award] new FDR vid - The Myth of the Free Market - Money, Interest and Power! Reply Quote Contact ...
FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE ONE'S LABOUR, SERVICES & GOODS THROUGH MONETARY SELF-HELP MEASURES: See: UNEMPLOYMENT & THE RIGHT TO SUPPLY ONESELF WITH WORK. A DECLARATION, by Ulrich von Beckerath, 10.8.1951. - MONETARY FREEDOM, FREE BANKING, EMPLOYMENT, SELF-HELP
FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE: Kids have the right to swap their possession, and to do some household chores to earn some extra pocket money. Adults also and obviously have the right to swap surplus goods and services and labour in family, friendship and neighbourhood circles. All members of all free communities have the right to swap whatever labour, goods or services they can offer for whatever labour goods or services they wish to obtain, directly or via some agreed-upon money token or clearing process. They do have the right to pay off their debts in whichever way they please and with whichever means of exchange, and value standard that suits them and their creditors and debtors or to simply settle them by clearing or to have them cleared via special clearing agencies, methods, certificates and institutions, set up or used by them. No one has a right to interfere with any of their peaceful, honest and creative transactions and with the ways, means and methods they do want to use for them. Especially no government has the right to administratively, juridically, legally or constitutionally interfere with any voluntary, tolerant, honest and well publicised monetary, clearing and financial exchanges, exchange and clearing arrangements and institutions, and any experiments or communities of this kind, designed or intended by their participants to abolish unemployment, underemployment, inflation and stagflation, sales difficulties and bankruptcies between them. The only condition is that all these exchanges and experiments are only undertaken at the risk and expense of their voluntary members, customers and investors. Governments are obviously unable to prevent or end economic crises but rather cause them, again and again and worsen them further, by their interventionist, command, regulation, licensing and monopolistic or other despotic monetary and financial policies. - J. Z., 30.10.93, 30.10.95, 18.3.97, 28.8.02, 22.6.11.
FREEDOM TO EXCHANGE: People should certainly be encouraged to produce and exchange and to clear their debts beyond their currently permitted means, methods and institutions to do so. Currently, they are legally and compulsorily confined and limited in their earnings and trading to the monopolistic supply of exchange media and their all too flawed value standards of territorial governments or their central banks, which are more often and more regularly devalued and stag-flated than re-valued, far less free-market rated under free competition. All the present currencies are nation-wide and territorially imposed exclusive and forced currencies with legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and a forced and fictitious value), although the volume of their circulation is constantly manipulated, independent from changes on the goods, service and labour side and so are their artificial and imposed "value standards". The situation becomes even worse when a single forced currency, like e.g. the Euro, is forced upon several large States. The earnings and sales rights, liberties and opportunities for producers and suppliers are greatly limited and infringed by this kind of monopolistic and coercive monetary and currency despotism, which assures only ever recurring deflations, inflations and stagflations, in ever recurring crises under every centralized "currency reform", or ever changing "stop and go" centralized and imposed currency and credit "policies", all with their kinds of inherent mass unemployment, exploitation and injustice and forms of impoverishment for both, creditors and debtors, employers and employees, producers, wholesalers and retailers, professionals and tradesmen. This despotism has even gone so far that certain degrees of inflation and unemployment as well as credit shortages are centrally planned and as far as possible for such legalized monopoly and enforcement institutions and powers, to avoid what they call e.g. "over-heating" of economies or providing "stimulus payments". All kinds of other asserted "causes" are blamed, while the real causes, monetary and currency despotism, remain, largely, unquestioned by most of the governmental experts and other apologists for or believers in governmental interferences, powers, methods and institutions in this sphere. Monetary and financial freedom alternatives are certainly not taught in the vast majority of all governmental "educational" institutions, from primary schools to universities, nor in most of the media. Not even in openly "anti-communist" States is this communist or State-socialist monetary policy, recommended already by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto of 1848, as a means to promote their kind of communism, criticized, opposed and outlawed, but, rather, systematically upheld by most officials and their victims. Just like the almost always increased compulsory taxes and protectionist "measures" are. All our incomes, savings and investments and our accident and old age insurance provisions are infringed and greatly diminished by these governmental currency and financial "policies". Presently we cannot produce and exchange freely all that cannot be paid for with the government's paper money, coins and permitted clearing and credit avenues. That and the enforced tribute payments to governments, called taxes, and the numerous other legalized but anti-economic interventions of governments, amount to the major factors that keep most people much poorer than they would be under full economic freedom, especially under full monetary and financial freedom. Nevertheless, so far only all too few people do, so far, strive consciously and systematically towards full freedom also in these spheres, beginning with the secessionist or revolutionary or legalized practice of all the individual human rights and liberties that are involved among volunteers only, under full exterritorial autonomy or experimental freedom. What is your excuse for not striving towards full monetary and financial freedom? - J. Z., 14.5.85, 3.5.97, 22.6.11.
FREEMARKETDUCK.COM: QO 284 - www.freemarketduck.com/pages/FMDNewsQO284.htm - Cached - Time to review the terms free market, money, and price formation. First, a free market is an economy in which individuals are free to voluntarily exchange ...
FREEZE: A freeze of all wages and prices would stop inflation. - Popular opinion. - It would not stop the note printing presses! Only the abolition of the issue monopoly and the legal tender for monopoly money could stop the note printing presses for such inflatable, deflatable and stag-flatable money. Freeze the government note printing presses, and end rather than apply legal tender legislation and the note issue monopoly. Then prices can no longer be inflated by the forced issue, acceptance and enforced value of depreciated money and prices will no longer have to be expressed in it or paid for in it. Allow the market to reject bad money and accept good monies instead. Otherwise the bad money would force not only the good monies from the market but would, finally, finally goods, services and labour from the open market and force them into the underground or black market. Price control has been tried, in vain, for over 4,000 years. What makes you believe that it could work now? Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe that legislators and policemen can perform miracles? Do you believe also in whipping waves to make them subside, like King Canute did? (If he did not merely want to demonstrate the futility of all such attempts.) - J. Z., 2.4.97, 22.6.11. See: PRICE CONTROL.
FREMERY, ROBERT DE, Money and Freedom" and "Rights vs. Privilege": These two titles are the best and the most misleading among his monetary writings. For he does not write about full monetary freedom. Instead, he offers his version of a supposedly ideal, exclusive and forced currency, based upon population figures rather than products and services offered. He does, instead, share many of the prejudices of Social Credit advocates and of Single Taxers. His few freedom insights are almost buried among them. However, he is right in the common sense rule that short-term funds should not be invested on medium and long terms. He does not realize the wrongs and harms of the State's money monopoly and legal tender power and advocates as a reform a population-determined circulation of a governmental monopolistic and forced currency. That might turn out even worse than the present central banking system. He opposes inflation but proposes what makes inflation possible and likely: a forced and exclusive currency. "Oh liberty! What crimes are committed in your name!" He wants to outlaw all "credit currencies" and seems nowhere to have comprehended the banking principle or real bills doctrine and the possibility of free and sound clearing for all exchanges. He considers even a freely contracted fractional reserve currency as fraudulent, even when safeguard clauses are added, like option clauses etc. His constitutional stabilization and circulation rule is not likely to work any better than the most of the others that were proposed by other money reformers. Nevertheless, those satisfied with "Fremeries" should be free to try them - among themselves. - By all means, add your own abstract or review! No one can read, abstract and review all the literature. - J. Z., 16.3.97, 22.6.11. - ROBERT DE FREMERY, MONEY VOLUME IN ACCORDANCE WITH POPULATION? DIS.
FRENCH, DOUG, Gold: Now That's a Track Record - March 17, 2011. "Concluding his case against gold, Altfest writes that if he "were a border guard today who received a 'gift' of gold, I would cash it in and buy stocks." There may be a day when the professor/money manager needs to buy his way out of New York. I hope he seriously doesn't think he can get the job done by slipping a stock certificate to the border guard." - Roy Halliday, in section on gold. - Yes, it is a track record, one of thousands of years of deflationary phenomena, in which mankind was still largely reduced to barter exchanges and extreme degree of poverty. If rare metal coins are so useful in promoting production and exchange, why didn't they do this for all too many peoples in the world, still living largely in a wilderness, or under extremely under-developed conditions? Not everywhere is a system of central banking effectively imposed upon all people, everywhere and gold and silver do not know borders and walls. - J.Z., 11.8.11. - DIS., GOLD, ITS TRACK RECORD.
FRIEDMAN, MILTON: Free to Choose. - Book Review: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement by Milton and ... - www.thefreemanonline.org/.../book-review-free-to-choose-a-person... - Cached - 7 Jul 2011 – What is really needed is a free market money divorced from the arbitrary acts of power brokers and political collaborators. ...
FRIEDMAN, PATRI, Metal-backed currency vs. violence-backed currency - "The people behind the Liberty Dollar have been arrested for competing with government issued paper currency, by issuing their own commodity-backed currency. Fiat currency is essentially backed by violence, in that if you don't accept it for payments (as a merchant) or try to compete with it, you will get tossed in jail. It is not used because it is superior, it is used because people with guns will stop you if you try to offer an alternative." - Roy Halliday, in section on Genuine Money.
FROOMKIN, MICHAEL, Status Report on Free Market Money'.' (2005) from THE INDOMITUS REPORT. - E-money : Issues - www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/E-money::sub::Issues - Cached - ... (1996) indomitus.net/2004status.html - - DIGITAL CASH, ELECTRONIC MONEY, E-MONEY
FSK REALITY GUIDE: FSK's Guide to Reality: Reader Mail #65 - Dealing With Scum - fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/.../reader-mail-65-dealing-with-scum... - Cached - 8 Sep 2008 – Replace free market money (gold and silver) with your unbacked paper. Inflate at a carefully controlled rate, so that people's savings are ... - How many flawed or wrong definitions are there for "free market money"? - J.Z., FULCRAUD-MAZEL, M., Labour Exchange Bank, 1818. In 1829, in Paris, a bank was established on his principles. - Hint by Anton Menger. More information on this would be welcomed by me. - J.Z., 19.3.97. - Google could offer me today only a name and address hint. - J.Z., 22.6.11. - GOLD BUGS
FULL DISCLOSURE FOR THE FINANCIAL CONDITIONS OF BANKS OF ISSUE: That is a condition for free note issuing banks that have nothing to hide and want this condition to be fully known. In the far future, when free banking becomes a routine business, in which all the flaws of old banks of issue are habitually avoided, like astronomers would avoid the assumptions and prediction of astrologers and chemists the opinions and aims of alchemists, that insistence upon full publicity might no longer be required to assure the correct functioning of banks of issue, especially those that issue exchange media to promote turnovers of goods, services and labour. But until then such publicity would be part of a sound issue policy. However, we are not as yet living in an honest and secure world for property rights and free exchanges. Under coercively levied tributes and numerous other anti-economic interventions by political authorities, one should make their jobs harder rather than easier. Thus, as long as "politics as usual" continues, internal auditing and mutual auditing of banks of issue will often have to take the place of full publicity, from which the former robbers, oppressors and penalizers of productive people would benefit, too. Anyhow, the normal note exchange and account clearing between banks of issue and clearing banks would rapidly reveal those banks which had issued more banknotes and clearing certificates than they received from other issuers. We are still far from a condition where people would guard their bank relationships like the eyes from any damages or like their children from child molesters, a time in which people would realize that monetary freedom is part of their right to support themselves by their own efforts, thus part of their right to live - through their own efforts and free exchange in societies based upon the division of labour and free exchange. Such people would not tolerate Big Brother looking over their shoulders and snatching away much of their property and earnings, like a sneak thief or open robber baron. Thus, before monetary freedom becomes general or the norm, we might also have merely some private and free payment communities, within the framework of exterritorially autonomous communities of volunteers. They would have no bank note issue secrets for their members, side by side with other free banking undertakings, not yet so liberated, but prepared to uphold their banking secrets against government snoopers and looters. We might in the transition stage also get some who, as a concession to widespread disbelief in the honesty of any bankers and to the general anti-capitalist mentality and in spite of the tax risk that would thus result, would lay all their cards on the table, by opening their books to any enquirers. We live after all in a time where even some free banking advocates, like Rothbard was, are so fanatic in their belief that only their own favourite system would be sound, here a system of 100% gold covered and redeemable gold certificates, apart from circulating gold coins, that they do class all alternatives to it as fraudulent or mere fiat money. So not only the critics of capitalism but also its defenders would have to be shown that sound banks of issue, operating on the "banking principle" or "real bills doctrine, or more directly", utilising their shop foundation or "readiness to accept" foundation or clearing options, with their own "ticket monies", etc., have got nothing to hide and can be quite honest institutions that facilitate wanted exchanges. Another safeguard would be unlimited liability at least for all executive officers of a free bank of issue, if not of all members of it. That would not worsen its position on the capital market, since a bank of issue for banknotes, as well as one for capital securities, does not require any capital of its own or any capital subscription by others, but would merely act as a mediator or broker or clearinghouse for the ready for sale and daily wanted consumer goods, services and labours, via its banknotes, or of the capital assets of others whose marketing is to be facilitated by the issue of transferable capital securities. - J. Z., 15.5.97, 4.8.11. - Alas, under compulsory governmental tribute gathering this would be a condition that is hard to impossible to achieve. That is proven by the current experiments with Bitcoin. As C. S. Friedman wrote,, in his 2000 Harper Collins SF novel, This Alien Shore, in his motto: "In a world where data is coin of the realm, and transmissions are guarded by no better sentinels than man-made codes and corruptible devices, there is no such thing as a secret." - J.Z., 22.6.11. - OR FULL PUBLICITY OR OPEN BOOKS & ACCOUNTS, SECRECY, CODES & CODE BREAKING
FULL EMPLOYMENT & EASY SALES: The money you spend upon your requirements is sure to come back to you in payment for your goods, services or labour - but only if it was issued by you and upon that basis. Otherwise it will tend to stay, at least temporarily, with others, sometimes long enough to make you unemployed or bankrupt. The medium and long-term equilibrium achieved by the law of fluctuating gold or silver quantities is not satisfactorily operating in the short term for governmental monopoly money, either. Thus one should not become or remain dependent upon gold and silver cash or rare metal certificates or upon exclusive and forced legal tender paper currencies issued by a national central bank, under their current monetary and currency policies, whatever they may be and however untimely and insufficient or misleading they might be. - J. Z., 20.4.93, 16.9.02, 22.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT & MONETARY FREEDOM: Full employment by realising the principles and institutions of monetary freedom, in combination with free pricing (for goods and wages and services) and unrestricted savings, investments and capital transfers. - J. Z., 1985, 22.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT & MONETARY FREEDOM: Jobs for all willing and able to work, at market rates, will become available only with freely competing private currencies, that would make possible for all of them to have the means of exchange and the sound value standards required to exchange all their ready-for-sale labour power, services, skills, knowledge and consumer goods for those of others. The monies of monetary despotism are, apparently, not sufficient or suitable to mediate all these wanted or necessary and possible exchanges. - J. Z., 3.3.95, 27.5.97, 22.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT & MUCH EASIER SALE FOR ALL GOODS & SERVICES: Goods, services and labour could almost sell themselves if they could be freely offered in form of competitively issued money tokens, clearing certificates and clearing accounts. Moreover, the owners of goods, providers of services and labourers offering their goods, labour and services in this form, could then even anticipate their sales by using their money tokens first, buying with them - as far as they could - their requirements and then later accepting their own IOUs in payment, i.e., redeeming them with their goods, services and labour. Only monetary despotism could have left such a free, easy, natural and self-liquidating issue and reflux option for sound exchange media - largely unused over the centuries and still overwhelmingly repressed today. The tradition of this repression is so strong and widespread that it is largely accepted as widely as death and taxes are. But this evil is much easier to avoid and defeat permanently. As many goods, services and labour hours could become soundly monetized or liquidified as people want and are able and willing to give their wanted goods, services and labours in return, all at market prices, using sound value standards. Any shortage of exchange media between them could then be rapidly remedied. Moreover, under voluntary acceptance and free competition and sound value standard reckoning, no one could, even if he wanted to, with the worst intentions, force so many of his tokens, IOUs, clearing certificates or private banknotes into circulation that they would become greatly depreciated or that they could affect any prices marked out in sound exchange value standards. - Yet, this natural and problem solving monetary freedom is everywhere legally suppressed and largely unknown and studied only in some more or less obscure writings, that few scholars are aware of. Probably no one knows all of them as yet - for no full bibliography of such writings has been published (an incomplete and flawed beginnings of such a bibliography is at www.panarchy.org/zube/money.index.html ) and only few of these texts are in print at any time or accessible in public libraries. Although, by now, all of them could become fully and permanently published and sufficiently discussed on a single large external HD! Almost all people talk or write about money - but, usually, only about the money of monetary despotism, not the money of their own monetary emancipation. As a result they are all unjustly and unnecessarily impoverished, or kept below the standard of living that they could otherwise attain, driven into dictatorships, civil wars and wars against their will. This lack of freedom and rights is also the foundation of so many errors myths and prejudices that all too many dedicate their lives to class-, race-, national-, religious- and ideological hatreds - instead of being fully employed and freely exchanging with whomever they like on Earth. It is a tragic-comedy. According to one recent report, it may be exaggerated, if one can really exaggerate the wrongs and evil of artificially brought about unemployment, there are ca. 1 billion unemployed and underemployed now. Add to them their dependants! Apparently, no leader, parliamentarian, bureaucrat, government expert or central banker knows the cure or admits to it. Neither do the vast majority of their victims. They do not even show any significant interest in such problems and their solutions. - The situation in the sphere of monetary despotism is almost as it was before the Reformation in Europe with regard to religious freedom. None of the governmental bills of rights, constitutions and laws has established or permitted the individual human rights and liberties of full monetary and financial freedom. This alone is a good enough reason to secede, exterritorially from all present territorial governments. - J. Z., 18.9.91, 28.4.97, 22.6.11, 4.8.11. - SECESSIONISM, FREE EXCHANGE, PANARCHISM, EXPERIMENTAL FREEDOM, MONETARY FREEDOM, INFLATION, DEFLATION, MASS UNEMPLOYMENT, ECONOMIC CRISES.
FULL EMPLOYMENT & SACRIFICES: Full employment requires sacrifices. It can only be achieved by slow inflation. This is the sacrifice or lesser evil that has to be chosen. - Popular opinion. - The only sacrifice that is required to achieve full employment is that of the prejudices, errors and myths of monetary despotism. - This reminds me of the bachelor who set fire to his house in order to get warm, when his heater did not function. - It also reminds me of the ancient Egyptian, Soviet and Nazi approach to full employment: They achieved it by forced labour or slavery, conscription, oppressive and exploitative taxation, confiscation etc. Some people are still foolish enough to praise them for the "successes" of their methods. - J. Z., n.d. & 2.4.97. - See: Must full employment cost money? A monograph by Ulrich von Beckerath, on www.reinventingmoney.com - DIS.
FULL EMPLOYMENT AS A VOLUNTARY & SELF-HELP OPTION: I would like to see a complete register of all such proposals, as opposed to the vast majority of statist proposals that have been advanced, all based upon compulsory taxes and transfer payments or further issues of "greenbacks". I would also exclude all voluntary charity proposals for job provisions and concentrate on those only which are productive, self-supporting, profitable, i.e., credit - and self-help ones, using monetary and financial freedom options and organisational alternatives and free contracts, all free market options, in a business-like way. - J. Z., n.d., 24.5.97. See: IDEAS ARCHIVE, Must full employment cost money? A monograph by Ulrich von Beckerath, on www.reinventingmoney.com .
FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR THOSE SUDDENLY RENDERED UNEMPLOYED THROUGH LIBERATION: Productive and harmless jobs from one day to the other for all those formerly employed by governments, e.g. in armed and uniformed services, in arms factories, in nuclear power plants, in customs disservices, etc. Only free banking could achieve that. Moreover, it should already have proven its ability to do this e.g., by employing, almost instantly, millions of refugees, asylum-seekers and deserters. In Australia every third to fourth employee is employed by the government or one of the Quangos (QUasi-Autonomous Non-Government Organizations), based upon legalized privileges. All these people would tend to vehemently oppose liberation efforts that would threaten their jobs, unless they can be confident to find other jobs and this rapidly. To the extent that they are armed, they could defeat a liberation effort. Thus a tax strike should be combined with some voluntary taxation system run by the liberators, to enable them to become, temporarily, the paymasters of the government's military forces, while the government, through a tax strike, a refusal to buy government bonds and a general refusal to accept government paper money, would be unable to pay its soldiers and other armed forces. Depending upon the situation, the state of enlightenment or the predominant prejudices, the government soldiers could be bought off with temporary grants, including the purchase of their weapons, or with personal credits or with immediate job openings or with a combination of such offers. Even if a statist soldier would have to be bought off, this would cause less than the damages to lives and property that he could cause if he kept fighting for a despotic or authoritarian government and thus helped to keep such a regime in power for a while. - J.Z., 16.3.85, 22.6.11. - However, the liberation will, most likely, not come very suddenly and for all. The prevailing statism will see to that. There will be more of the various statist communities of volunteers than anarchist and libertarian ones. Thus there will be a learning period for the statists and the self-liberated will not have to teach, persuade or bribe the statists and worry about employing all of them productively immediately. The will mainly teach by the practical example which they will set by their own actions among themselves, showing the statists how well off truly free men and women can be. - J.Z., 22.6.11. - LIBERATION COSTS, FINANCING A REVOLUTION, TAX STRIKES, REFUSALS TO ACCEPT GOVERNMENT MONEY OR BUY GOVERNMENT BONDS, UNEMPLOYMENT OF POLITICIANS, BUREAUCRATS, SOLDIERS & POLICEMEN, LIBERATION & ENLIGHTENMENT TO PANARCHISM.
FULL EMPLOYMENT NOT FEASIBLE & LOW UNEMPLOYMENT NO HARDSHIP? "... full employment was 'just not feasible in a democratic economy', the Institute of Public Affairs (Melbourne) said today. ... These figures showed that unemployment at the levels of the past 12 months imposed no desperate hardship on most of those unemployed. - The December figures showed that 137,000 people were unemployed in Australia. - 'Of these, 54,000 were teenagers - more than one-third of the total - and practically all of them would presumably be supported by their families. - Nearly one-third of the unemployed are female, and probably half of these were married women. Half were under 21.' the institute said. - 'Another third of the total unemployed - the HARD CORE - were difficult to place in jobs, because of physical or mental handicaps, age disability or personal defects of character. - Surveys by the Department of Labour show that more than half of the unemployed find jobs within one month. - It is generally overlooked that the unemployed are composed of a moving, not a static, population, and that prolonged hardship is rare. - The prevalent notion that unemployment around 2 % is responsible for widespread hardship clearly does not stand up," the institute said. - THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 3.2.73. - Now that unemployment is somewhere above 8% it is more difficult to be as complacent about it - when one does not suffer under it oneself. - The somewhat disabled, and the young people, at market rates of pay, according to their actual productivity, would have no different rates of unemployment from others. One can always have those numbers of unemployed one is willing to pay for - sufficiently to make some prefer being so paid for doing nothing, rather than working for a living. The figures on unemployed, when compiled by bureaucrats, are unreliable. They will e.g. include many, who are working, some who register as unemployed several times and get several unemployment benefits. (One con-artist in West Berlin managed to get such benefits from 12 of the 20 districts of this city.) Some will work in the underground economy, regularly or occasionally. All this depends on the dole being granted as a handout rather than as a credit, whose repayment is strictly assured. It was absurd to include all school leavers as unemployed, from the moment they left school and all job changers, from the last day of their last job. The bureaucrats and politicians, for their own motives, will either over-state or understate the existing unemployment. But to deny its existence or to assert that any degree of involuntary unemployment of capable and willing workers is necessary or unavoidable is quite another thing. - J.Z., 29.5.97. - DIS., UNEMPLOYMENT
FULL EMPLOYMENT REQUIRES THE RIGHT TO WORK, PROPERLY DEFINED: The right to work, properly defined, means the right to supply oneself with paid productive work, paid at free market rates and this without depriving anyone else of a job to achieve that. It includes the right to undertake all organisational, monetary and financial steps required for this purpose, regardless of contrary legislation, jurisdiction, administrative practices, trade union dogmas, public opinions and the views of presumed experts. - J.Z., 10.12.92, 23.5.97. - HUMAN RIGHTS, LABOUR, RIGHT TO WORK, EMPLOYMENT
FULL EMPLOYMENT THROUGH INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS: Full employment through full knowledge and realisation of all individual rights, especially all economic individual rights and, among these, especially of all monetary and financial freedom rights and liberties. - J.Z., 25.9.93, 16.9.02. - HUMAN RIGHTS
FULL EMPLOYMENT THROUGH SLOW & FIXED INFLATION? No more than 3-5% annual inflation are required to achieve full employment - and this is an acceptable sacrifice. - Popular opinion. - This has been tried, over and over again, for decades, and unemployment of at least some per cent still continued - while the currencies were more and more depreciated and reduced to a small fraction of their former value, with value standard reckoning and long-term private investments destroyed rather than protected. - Will such false employment policies also be pursued, in spite of all evidence against THEM, like religious dogmas, like price control for over 4,000 years? - Full employment does not require any sacrifices. It need not cost anything. It can provide surpluses, extra wages, sales and profits right away - if only the market is set free in every sphere, especially in the monetary and financial sphere. Exchanges of services labour and goods for services, labour and goods do not have to be promoted and stimulated. If only set quite free then they have enough internal and natural stimulants and incentives, also safeguards and warnings and alternative options. No inflation of forced and exclusive currencies does prevent all unemployment nor can it prevent (from establishing by itself) some degrees of unemployment, especially obvious in its latest stages, those of a galloping inflation, or a large degree of unemployment in a stagflation. In Russia today, in spite of an inflation of hundreds of per cent p.a., the government is still in arrears of wage and salary payments for months. Sooner or later, as a result of that, it will either be deserted by most of its servants or even these servants will rebel against it. Sacrificing others, en mass, without their explicit consent, for what you perceive to be the public good, is never a rightful or efficient solution to any problem. Governments have destroyed the lives and properties of hundreds of millions in this century, through their monetary despotism and its consequences: wars, revolutions, civil wars and terrorism. It's high time to end their kind of "full employment" policies and to finally begin on the monetary and financial freedom path to full employment. At least those willing to risk entering it, with their lives, property, services and labour, should not longer be obstructed by governmental monetary and financial "policies". - J.Z., 2.4.97, 22.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT, FREE MARKETS & MONETARY FREEDOM: Full employment through a really free market - including a free market for exchange media and standards of value. - J.Z., 1985.
FULL EMPLOYMENT, MONETARY DESPOTISM & MONETARY FREEDOM: You are not free to sell or offer your labour power or exchange it for other services and goods you want. This is why you or others are unemployed or underemployed and why almost all are under-paid. - You are not free in this respect because you are forced to sell your labour for one exchange medium and value standard only - the exclusive and forced currency of the government or its central bank. This currency is in often in short supply because its supply is monopolised and controlled by the Central Bank. (Remember the past and current credit restrictions with their artificial unemployment and depression.) - It is also as a rule at least gradually inflated and is so flawed that it can create stagflations, stagnation in the middle of inflation. Only freely and competitive note-issues, combined with free choice among value standards can do away with unemployment and sales difficulties, with depressions and underdevelopment, with credit restrictions, stagflations and inflations. - To me that is obvious. The problem still is: How can one make it obvious to other people, as obvious as religious tolerance or religious liberty once became after many centuries of severed religious intolerance? - J.Z., 1985, 23.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT, MONOPOLIES & THE STANDARD OF LIVING: Break ALL legally introduced and maintained monopolies and you could have full employment in a day and a much better standard of living very soon. - J.Z., 23.8.95, 25.5.97.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: Full employment exists naturally when services, labour and goods can be freely exchanged for other services, labour and goods, in a monetary and clearing way, using sound value standards. - Unemployment results only when someone puts one or even several hindrances in their way, e.g. protectionism or compulsory licensing, thus preventing some or many of these voluntary exchanges. - The worst such hindrance is the legalized monopolisation of the exchange medium and of a coercive value standard for all transactions of the population of a whole country and their coercive, wrongful and harmful manipulation. (From PEACE PLANS 16-17, with slight changes. J.Z., 15.9.02, 23.6.11. - UNEMPLOYMENT, JOBS, WORK
FULL EMPLOYMENT: Full employment expresses the freedom to exchange, to mutual satisfaction, whatever one has to offer in wanted labour services and skills (via some currency, employer, retailer, banking or clearing services) for whatever goods, services and labours one wants. To be fully free and effective in promoting full employment for all involved in free exchanges, all factors involved, the exchange media, value standards, clearing and banking services, prices, wages, employers, bankers, wholesalers, retailers, etc., must be quite free to do their things in this process, free in their productive and exchange contracts and in their terms and conditions. Especially they must know, appreciate and apply full monetary, clearing and financial freedom. No law or regulation or board, authority, judge, inspector, controller, policeman - or central bank must be given any powers to prevent, reduce, regulate, postpone or tax their exchanges. Only then will the market be free and can all the debts and credits become freely exchanged for each other and thus settled. Not only some forms of money or exchange medium must be permitted, namely the money of monetary despotism: an exclusive and forced or legal tender currency, but all kinds of monies, tokens, IOUs, clearing certificates and accounts, also all kinds of value standards, which free people are able and willing to offer and are willing to accept, to their own advantage and to that of their trading partners and that of the whole economy. With regard to full employment: It requires e.g. the repeal of all anti-truck legislation, so that alternative exchange media for wage payments can be freely developed, offered and freely accepted, discounted or refused, particularly in times when a central bank has severely over-issued and thus depreciated its paper money or has severely deflated it. In other words, full employment requires free and voluntary conditions, in which good monies are free to drive out bad monies. Under that condition bad monies are not legally given the despotic powers of outlawry for all good monies. Monetary despotism which leads, inevitably, to stop-and-go policies, alternating booms and busts, and almost all the time introduces at least degrees of inflations AND deflations AND stagflations, which would not occur to any significant extent under full monetary freedom, in which self-help options can be applied within hours to days. No truths may be better established in fact and in theories in economics and proven through their opposites, the results of territorial public monetary and currency policies, institutions and legislative efforts and yet, this insight is still one of the rarest and least popular, most ignored or, quite superficially and full of errors, prejudices, wrong assumptions and conclusions, most argued against. - J. Z., n.d. & 29.4.97, 23.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: Full employment for all able and willing to work at market rates and payment for work done in competitive and optional currencies, that are privately or cooperatively issued but presently outlawed, unknown or wrongly maligned or suspected. That would be a free economy, or free market measure, one of free enterprise, free exchange, free contracts and free trade, full consumer sovereignty, one of self-help, more rightful and useful than all the Welfare State measures combined. Finally an end to monetary despotism, to the totalitarian communistic or state socialistic and centralistic money system, with its coercion, monopoly, fraud and wrongful taxation powers, fraudulent and, nevertheless, enforced monopoly value standard, all imposed without any genuine representation by their victims. Not even the masses of unemployed, now ca. 800,000 in Australia and about a billion in the world, been given any effective for or against monetary despotism and for or against monetary freedom, at least as far as their own voluntary associations are concerned, their own potential payment communities. Entrepreneurs do not really deserve this name or the term employers until they prove that they can turn the huge stock of ready for sale consumer goods and services and of under-employed or unemployed labour into at least locally useful cash, a local currency to pay newly employed labourers with and to become thus employers of all able and willing to work for competitively supplied monies at market rates of wages. Their addiction to thinking only in terms of monopolized and enforced currencies, with systematically manipulated "value standards", does probably do much more wrong and harm than do the combined addictions to alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. - Without monetary freedom the required monetary, credit and clearing self-help steps cannot be taken. Monetary despotism is the problem, not the solution. - The despotic monetary clauses in the constitutions, laws, regulations, juridical decisions and despotic powers in the government's monetary and financial institutions have to be either repealed, ignored or overthrown in a monetary revolution, one that is rightful, non-violent, economic, non-destructive of property rights and very rapid in abolishing unemployment through alternative and sound exchange media and value standard reckoning. To the extent that this monetary revolution is not obstructed, the old institutions and practices could be tolerated and continued by those who still like them - at their own expense and risk. However, under fully free competition in this sphere they would then be unlikely to last long. - Monetary freedom would realize the right to supply oneself with work and sales without depriving anyone of their rightful jobs and sales and without extorting tributes or privileges from others. (Some bureaucratic jobs would, indeed, become superfluous. But if the current jobholders are intelligent, industrious and willing, they would soon find productive and perhaps even better paying but certainly more satisfying jobs.) In essence, a new kind of merely monetary and financial revolution is required that would not infringe any basic individual rights but rather would realize many important and so far largely unknown, ignored or suppressed individual and economic human rights, not yet found in any of the official human rights declarations. - J.Z., 29.8.02, 24.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: Full employment requires, first of all, full monetary freedom. - J.Z., 6.11.91. - Alas, so far not one in a million of unemployed and perhaps only one in thousand economists has recognised this truth or, in other words, the connection between legal tender monopoly money and inflation, deflation and stagflation. - Once this truth becomes widely enough recognised, then involuntary mass unemployment could, in most cases, be abolished within a day. Alas, the present mentality or "education" of the vast majority of unemployed induces them rather to seek further government meddling, or to appeal to charity or to gamble, prospect for gold, diamonds etc., retreat to a potato and carrot patch and blame, "capitalism", "financiers", "the market", "conspirators", "competition", "immigrants", "profiteering", "greed", "speculation" etc. - Even these imagined causes have not yet been fully registered and refuted yet. - Their floods swamp or push out of consciousness the few real solutions that have been proposed. GIGO. - J.Z., 26.4.97, 24.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: Inflation is the result of full employment policies. - Popular opinion. - That may be the "good" intention of "full employment policies" by governments - but, alas, never the result. Perhaps we should be grateful that government fails in this as in everything else. Otherwise it would have at least this leg to stand on or could, to that extent, be intellectually defended. - This opinion is based in the popularized hypothesis of Maynard Keynes that demands a slow inflation to promote full employment. Although this hypothesis of Keynes has already been refuted in several books and numerous articles, today's governments still practise it with their "stimulus payments" and bailouts. They do not know anything better and are not open to better proposals. - J. Z., n.d. & 2.4.97, 24.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: People, if only they are free to produce and exchange, make their own jobs for each other, in division of labour and free exchange, as they always have and always will. They can do so in any numbers, even by the millions, as they have done, for instance, for the ca. 50 million immigrants to the U.S. - A hero of French detective stories said: "Cherchez la femme!" - Look for the woman who is involved. With regard to employment and sales difficulties we should always look for the exchange media and value standards that are involved or, rather, for those which are missing because they are outlawed. - J. Z., 23.8.95, 24.5.97, 24.6.11.
FULL EMPLOYMENT: The task consists in transforming the personal needs and wants for consumer goods and services of the unemployed, within the limits of their personal ability and willingness, education and training to give labour and services in exchange, into needs and wants supplied with earned purchasing power or effective monetary demand for the consumer goods and services they require. This task must be solvable for there are many others who have needs and wants for the labour services which these unemployed would be able and willing to supply, if only these others, likewise, could transform their needs and wants into effective demand or purchasing power. - Obviously, central banking is not up to this task. The utmost decentralisation, free enterprise and free competition is required in the sphere of supplying alternative and sound exchange media and value standards. Also the utmost individual sovereignty or consumer sovereignty towards the alternative currencies offered, to assure that they do really serve the needs and wants of all producers and consumers, at least in a local area of issue for any competing currencies. Like the present central bank paper currencies, none of the competing monies has to be UNIVERSALLY acceptable to be LOCALLY very useful. - Let free people find out which kinds of currencies they could offer and free potential acceptors decide which kinds of currencies they are ready to accept and use towards their issuers. To over-supply or under-supply them, under these conditions, with the wrong kind and more or less useless currencies, would be as impossible as supplying them with e.g., the wrong kind of houses or vacuum cleaners or tickets for unwanted performances. Let the good monies drive out the bad ones, by letting sovereign entrepreneurs produce and offer them and sovereign consumers accept them at par and use them at par against their issuers, while they would discount or altogether refuse to accept any unsound or doubtful ones. - J. Z., 20.8.91, 24.5.97, 16.9.02, 24.6.11.
FUNDING ISSUES OF CURRENCIES: Attempts to "fund" currency issues with medium- or long-term private or public securities do not provide a corresponding full or sufficient and immediate or short term demand for the issued notes. Only upon ultimate liquidation of a bank's business would the creditors of a bank be somewhat or fully satisfied through such securities. However, the main purpose of a currency is not to achieve creditor satisfaction in case of a bankruptcy but, instead, almost instant and continuous consumer satisfaction. For this it must have an immediate reflux opportunity to the issuer and he must be ready to supply the note holder with the consumer goods or services that he wants or needs, then and there. Or his associates must be, e.g. the retailers that re members in a local shop association bank. Any asset currency, based merely on capital certificates or capital assets, cannot be turned into a cover consisting of wanted consumer goods and services, although such a cover is wanted by most note holders. At most the debtors of such securities could pay interest and dividends with the "currency" notes they had issued. But that relatively small and periodic demand for the asset currency cannot keep it at par with its nominal value for many months or years. And the notes themselves would not pay interest or dividends to their holders. Capital securities not paying interest or dividend will drop in their market rating. There must be another motivation for potential acceptors and holders of currency notes. They must be able to pay all their current debts and expenses with them. That is not the case when they are merely issued upon medium or long-term private, cooperative or public securities. Why should private suppliers of daily wanted consumer goods and services have to or want to accept such asset currencies - beyond their desires to invest on medium or long terms? They should and could rather issue currencies of their own, based upon their own and sound shop foundation and refuse those of others or discount them in the few cases where they would still be prepared to accept them. Security upon liquidation should be distinguished from the security and guaranty consisting in liquidity, or instant usability or reflux option for a currency. Without it, it is does not constitute a "current" or currency. If the market were flooded only with "asset currency", then it would not be flooded with additional and wanted consumer goods and services and the kind of shop-foundation money corresponding to them. In other words, in relation to the offer of consumer goods and services, the asset currencies would go down in their market rating, against sound value standards, even though the capital assets involved may be quite rightful, honest and productive. They are simply not due yet - and not as much and as widely wanted as consumer goods and services in daily demand are and the providers of these goods and services are under no obligation to exchange them for any asset currency - unless the government forces them to do so via the issue monopoly and legal tender legislation. Then they have no other defence against being so wronged and harmed by this flood of ill founded "currency" than by increasing their prices, fees, salaries and wages, although in purchasing power, reckoned in sound value standards, they might remain largely the same. - Unless people want to invest they do not want scrip promises ultimately only covered by investment securities. If they were to accept such capital assets scrip then it would only be to the extent that they want to so utilise their savings rather than spend them right away or soon upon wanted or needed consumer goods and services or paying due other debts with them. - In other words, any future liquidity does not provide a sufficient liquidity or readiness to accept it right now, for the goods and services one wants right now. - The terms "security" and "guaranty" are very misleading in this connection unless one does sufficiently observe the time factor and the term obligations involved. - In Australia, if you had a share in a privatised Sydney Harbour Bridge, or Harbour Tunnel, what could you do with it? At most you could pay your toll with it, if it were in the right denomination and if the security were already due. You could not dismantle a stone or beam etc. of the bridge or tunnel for it and take it home. Nor would you want to. When interest or dividend are due, you could also pay tolls with your coupons or ask for a share in the toll takings, to the extent of your interest or dividend claims. But no retailer in Sydney would be under any obligation to accept your share or bond in payment for what he has to offer. Why should he be? YOU considered the bond or share certificate to be valuable enough to want to buy it. Why should he? In other words, we should distinguish the capital market from the currency market, in spite of the fact that both might be called the "money market". - J.Z., - 16.8.94, 17.4.97, 24.6.11. - ASSET CURRENCY, GUARANTY & SAFETY FUNDS, BANK CAPITAL, BACKING, COVER & RESERVES FOR BANKS OF ISSUE
FUTURES DEALINGS WITH CASH. EACH MONEY DEBT IS TODAY SUCH A SPECULATION: A speculation in futures is involved in any promise to supply a form of cash which at present one does not yet have on hand. I know of only of one author, namely Ulrich von Beckerath, 1882-1969, who has extensively discussed this problem and its solution. He did not want to abolish the non-cash and clearing transactions but, rather, free them and make them customary and standard behaviour, a basic monetary and property right. Any debtor should become free to offer clearing, instead of cash to his creditor, under conditions that are mutually acceptable, in the settlement of all his debts. For this purpose, he should also become free to offer his own clearing certificates in settlement, in some cases at a discount that would be required to satisfy a creditor. When necessary, the settlement should be arbitrated through an agreed-upon arbitration avenue. The liquidity and bankruptcy rules, like the reserve, redemption and convertibility rules of governments, are entirely unsatisfactory and have caused, promoted prolonged and sharpened many monetary crises. In most cases, when the system is fully developed, such a discount would not even be required. Even when clearing was merely carried on via book-entries, it was already so developed e.g. in colonial India, that a colonial official could "pay" for his coffee, meal or purchases on the market with a privately written and informal "chit", then and there, accepted at par, without hesitation, which ultimately was deducted from his income account, via some chit traders, who specialised on mediating such clearing. Ulrich von Beckerath, probably informed about this through his friend Prof. Rittershausen, report that in more or less primitive French subsistence villages, far from Paris, the villagers had their own private clearing payment communities, for their internal exchanges, in which private IOUs were freely issued and accepted and, periodically, mutually offset, without any official "Francs" being involved at all. The government's cash currency" standard" was merely used as an accounting and pricing standard but not used physically in most of these local clearing settlements. - It should become a fundamental principle that no one should be driven into liquidation or bankruptcy without every clearing options having been fully exhausted first of all. - J.Z., n.d. & 24.6.11.
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G., REBECCA: Elections and the Free Market: Money where your mouth is. - Elections and the Free Market: Money where your mouth is « Keeping ... - redecky.wordpress.com/.../elections-and-the-free-market-money-wh... - Cached - June 7, 2011 by Rebecca G. - Subsidies for parties to be phased out. Tell me I'm not the only one. ... - An approach to voluntary taxation? - I do not have the time and energy to check out all these sites by myself. - J.Z., 23.7.11.
GAME DESIGN & PLAYING OF MONETARY FREEDOM OPTIONS: I had pondered, years ago, a kind of monetary game, among a group of friends, in which banking, note, currency, value standard, issue and similar "suspicious" names would be expressly avoided, but the essence of all monetary and freedom terms and techniques could be practised, using inconspicuous code terms, and in which some limited goods and services could be exchanged between friends, to familiarise them with monetary freedom terms and practices. It would not be very difficult to design. It could even appeal to the self-design and handicraft interest of the participants. It could rapidly teach what does not work in this sphere and thus lead them to proceed, quite naturally, to what does work. It could progress from everyone being an issuer of his own "currency" tokens, or, rather, everyone attempting, in vain, to interest everyone in his own token exchange medium and also his own token value standard, to each participant rather trying to discount his "markers", scrip, etc., in a common token, one which one or the other member would begin to provide, or in a common clearing centre and, most likely and soon, in the acceptance of a common standard of value (under some cover name: like points). After people have played such a game for a few months, on and off, trading, in practice, only very few goods and services in this way, trying to feel their way and trying to understand it, they might then be mentally prepared for reading some theoretical studies or comprehending some handbooks on free banking. I made some notes on such a game while visiting Tom Greco but he had then a "bee in his bonnet" about some "conservation" or "ecology" "currency" and was thus, temporarily, deaf to any deviating notions. Special interests are often like that, for everybody. People are like that, including myself. (For years I ignored, even theoretically, the CD and even the floppy disk options for libertarian literature, in favour of microfiche and, in practice, I still did so until 2002, - although I got involved with some simple computers many years before that, using them mainly only as word processors. - J.Z., 5.9.02, 24.6.11.) Among many others there is the also notion that anything of some subjectively high value could be readily be turned into an acceptable currency for others, especially if the others share that subjective value estimate, or even if they do not. So, sooner or later someone will try to "monetize" the beauty of nature or of art works, of architecture, of human faces, of flowers, etc. - Until his listeners or readers finally wake up and ask themselves: Can I buy my newspaper or loaf of bread or litre of milk with THIS? Is it "current" or "acceptable" enough for this? Does it have sufficient value in the local market, for daily consumer transactions, to be able to compete with other local currencies? - J.Z., 11.4.97. - Would I want my wage or salary or other earnings to be paid in this "currency"? How many of my bills could I readily pay with it? Would my landlord or tax lord accept it? - J. Z., 5.9.02.
GALLAND, DAVID, Debtflation - September 29, 2010. - "As I see it, unlike the inflation of the 1970s that could be treated with a strong dose of tight monetary policy, the debtflation we now face can only be resolved through default. Given that no U.S. government will want to join the ranks of history’s sovereign deadbeats, the inflation option remains the most likely course." - Roy Halliday, in section on Counterfeit Money. - STAGFLATION
GAME ON FREE MARKET MONEY: DGC BLOG: DGC Blog - www.dgcmagazine.com/blog/ - 20 Jul 2011 – ... federal reserve, Frederic Newmann, free and unashamed, free game, free market money, free markets, free online game, free seminar ...
GELFOND, ROBERT,: TOWARD FREE-MARKET MONEY. - Toward Free-Market Money - www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj21n2/cj21n2-9.pdf File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - 2001 - Related articles - Despite the overwhelming evidence that markets perform best when left alone by the government, ...
GELFOND, ROBERT, Toward a Free-Market Money - Atlas Sound Money Project - www.soundmoneyproject.org/?p=3188 - Cached - 27 Oct 2010 – The only alternative is to eliminate government control of money.” Read more. “Toward a Free-Market Money” Robert Gelfond, Cato Journal, Vol. ...
GENERAL PRICE LEVEL: The general price level should be stabilised. When there are goods shortages one must reduce the circulation, when there are surpluses, one must increase it." - Widespread opinion. - The general price level is not of importance to the individual consumer and producer. His particular price level is. And he will not be happy when his transactions with his customers are forcefully interfered with because the transactions between others have changed. Under monetary freedom this kind of monetary despotism would also be "outlawed" (no longer practised) - for all but its voluntary victims. - J. Z., 24.3.97. - If, for instance, further progress in science and technology should make many consumer goods and services cheaper and thus would lower the general price level, then it would be wrong, in my opinion, to inflate a monopoly currency sufficiently to keep the price level the same, thus deprive people of the economic advantages of this cheapness. - J.Z., 24.6.11.
GEORGIA, IN EURASIA, IN 1993, COMPETING CURRENCIES: An all too short and general radio news report of 19.12.93 mentioned that in this formerly Soviet province 2 currencies coexist. Probably the rapidly inflated Ruble paper money of the former Kremlin regime and that of a new central banks of a secessionist group only. However, like the two currencies that coexisted for years in West-Berlin, all such parallel currencies have some lessons to teach. The Eastmark and Westmark in West-Berlin had a relatively free and daily determined market rate against each other. However, in wage payments, for people crossing the frontier, for their work, bureaucratic quotas and rules existed for full or part payment in either currency, according to the residence of the employed, on either side of the Iron Curtain. After a while, already before the Berlin Wall went up, employment beyond the frontier was no longer permitted. Spending of East Mark by West Berliners in the Eastern sector was not only frowned upon and considered to be "unpatriotic" but was sometimes penalised by confiscations of the goods so purchased. I guess that the same applied to East Berliners, who tried to make purchases in West-Berlin. Judging by my flawed memory, the exchange rate between the Eastern German Mark (Ostmark) and Westmark fluctuated between 4 to 1 and 6 to 1. Both sides acted confrontationally and had tried to make their currency an exclusive one for West-Berlin. Due to the favourable exchange rate for my Westmark, I could make some cheap literature purchases in East Berlin, many of historical or classical texts, which the regime had no interest in censoring. In this way I could also buy my first new typewriter very cheaply. (Its quality left much to be desired, though.) The choice of goods in East Berlin was limited but one could find some relative bargains there - through the difference in the exchange rate. Wages for East Berliners in Ostmark were for a long time about the same as Wages in Westmark for West-Berliners. - Hayek pointed out that in border regions the use of both currencies was and is rather frequent - unless the governments involved manage to suppress this limited monetary freedom or choice in currencies. - J.Z., 2.5.97.
GERMAN MANUSCRIPT, English translation, EXTRACT FROM PP 61-63, explaining basic terms of monetary freedom and free banking. The German original is now available digitised, from PEACE PLANS - 399-401. - The English translation of this libertarian peace book, my first book, is online at www.butterbach.net/epinfo/peace.htm
GERMAN SCHOOL OF MONETARY FREEDOM: See: APHORISMS ON THE MONEY PROBLEM.
GERMAN SCHOOL ON MONEY, A SUMMARY OF ITS TEACHINGS or: SOME PRINCIPLES OF MONETARY THEORY REPRESENTED BY RITTERSHAUSEN, MILHAUD, ZANDER & OTHERS, by Ulrich von Beckerath, 1952, with some notes by John Zube, 1977, slightly revised in April 97, 6pp. - Published in PEACE PLANS series, originally as DISCUSSION PAPER No. 7 of the RESEARCH CENTRE FOR MONETARY & FINANCIAL FREEDOM, c/o John Zube. -- (1) INFLATION & DEARNESS: Inflation and dearness (dearth or high prices) are completely different concepts. Inflation is caused exclusively from the monetary side, dearness exclusively from the goods side. - (2) DEFLATION & CHEAPNESS: Deflation and cheapness are completely different concepts. Deflation is caused exclusively from the money side, cheapness exclusively from the goods side. - (3) PRICE INCREASES: Price increases must not be mixed up with dearness. Price increases may be due to inflation or they can be caused by a reduction of supply in relation to demand. In the latter case it would be dearness. Price increases may also be due partly to inflation and partly to dearness. - (4) PRICE REDUCTIONS: Reduced prices should not be mixed up with cheapness. They might be due to deflation or due to an increase of the goods offered in relation to demand. In the latter case only would it represent a genuine cheapness. The reduced prices can also be due partly to deflation and partly to a genuine cheapness. - (5) LEGAL TENDER: Without legal tender one cannot inflate a currency. - (6) NOTE ISSUE MONOPOLY: Without the note issue monopoly one cannot cause a deflation. - (7) FREE MARKET RATING OF CURRENCIES: When under a free market rate (i.e. in the absence of legal tender) an over-issue of a paper money should occur, then it would suffer a discount in circulation so that e.g. a gold coin of 20 marks would come to cost 21 paper marks. But the goods prices would remain unchanged, provided only they are fixed in gold units, e.g. gold marks. - (8) SHORTAGES OF MEANS OF PAYMENT: If typified and standardised exchange media are short in circulation (when e.g. during monetary crises factories are short of means of payment for wages), then those concerned can help themselves by issuing emergency money without legal tender - until nowhere in their payment circles does any shortage of the necessary exchange media remains and the public thus begins to refuse to accept the emergency money at the same face value as gold or silver coins. The goods prices would remain unchanged whenever they were determined in gold units (gold marks or grams of fine gold, etc.). - (9) ACCEPTANCE VS. REDEMPTION FOUNDATION: When paper money is not redeemable (by the issuer in gold) then it will suffice in order to preserve the parity of the paper money with gold to arrange for the acceptance of the paper money like gold money by institutions which sell goods in daily and general demand. (Such institutions are e.g. the taxation department when it "sells" tax receipts, the railway, the P.O., and shops which owe something to the bank issuing that paper. Their indebtedness may arise out of the discounting of sound commercial bills and the corresponding contractual obligation to accept the notes of the bank like gold money. Naturally, in all such cases, the bank must concede its debtors the right to pay back all their bank debts with that paper money as soon as they receive it, at par, regardless of the exchange rate of the paper money.) - (10) PAPER MONEY CIRCULATION & FOUNDATION: When paper money is funded as under 9, then it can circulate more widely than merely among those who directly claim the cover involved. When the paper money has tax foundation, then it will circulate not only among those who just then have to pay taxes. If it has shop foundation (a concept coined by Rittershausen), then it circulates not only among those who have to buy something from the shops which are under acceptance obligation. When the railway issues money (as in Germany in 1923/24 for several 100 million marks), then it circulates not only among those who just then want to use the railway's services. The tax foundation imparts to paper money (as apparently Lorenz von Stein found out first) a par value (to gold or silver coin) for an amount equivalent at least to the tax revenue for 3 months, even without legal tender. - (11) RIGHT TO REFUSE ACCEPTANCE OF ANY PAPER MONEY: The unrestricted right of people to refuse to accept any paper money offered (Compare par.2 of Bismarck's Bank Act of 1875 and the numerous laws of the confederated German States during the 100 years before this law was passed.), makes impossible every abuse of the right to issue, either by the bureaucracy or private persons. - (12) INFLATION: Inflation, according to the above, is a condition in monetary transactions where paper money is accepted without limits and at a prescribed value only because legal tender prevails: a coercion which makes it legally impossible to account for depreciation by discount or refusal. - (13) DEFLATION: Deflation, according to the above, is a condition in monetary transactions in which there is a shortage in typified and standardised exchange media (so that workers have to be dismissed because banks cannot or will not advance the means of payment for their wages) and at the same time, nevertheless, typified and standardised exchange media (e. g. typified clearing cheques and goods warrants etc.) cannot be issued because a certain authority, e.g. a central bank, has the monopoly for note issues. - (14) LEGAL TENDER: Legal tender is the legal prescription for every recipient of monetary payments to accept paper money or inferior coins at a fixed value. This forced exchange rate for general means of circulation, prescribed for every citizen, must not be mixed up, as happened in Berlin in the discussion of West and East Marks, with a fixed or controlled exchange rate for foreign exchange. The word "Zwangskurs" (legal tender) is far older than 100 years and was always used in the way here described, in royal Prussian edicts, in imperial Austrian regulations and even by Marx. Another use of it proves only ignorance of the terminology of economics. - Ulrich von Beckerath. 25.1.52. --------------- SOME NOTES BY JOHN ZUBE, ADDING OR COMMENTING TO THE ABOVE SUMMARY: (15) FALLEN & FALLING PRICES: Fallen prices must not be mixed up with falling prices. The former tend to encourage buying and reduce hoarding. They do usually originate at the goods side and lead to corresponding additional turnover, to new orders and employment. The later tend to deter buying and lead to deflationary hoarding, sales difficulties, bankruptcies and unemployment. Moreover, the former tend to fall step by step according to developments on the goods side (technological improvements). The latter tend to occur more generally and evenly because they are due to a deflationary money shortage. This difference may be statistically indistinguishable but it is of great economic importance. Because of this distinction price levels cannot rapidly enough adapt to a deflationary reduction in the money supply - contrary to the expectations and predictions of most economists of the Austrian School of Economics. - (16) MARKET & MONETARY DESPOTISM: A market subject to monetary despotism isn't free. To prevent and end both, inflation and deflation (capital destruction and unemployment ), monetary freedom has to be introduced. - (17) GOLD STANDARDS, DIFFERENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT: A gold standard as an exclusive currency is very different from a gold standard as a permitted and preferred but competing currency. It is as different in its effects as a creditor's legal claim to payment in gold coins, even when a debtor has none and cannot obtain any, is from the right of debtors to pay their creditors in gold only whenever they possess it (or contractually obliged themselves to supply it) and otherwise and normally to pay only in gold-weight values, in any acceptable currency, by gold accounting or gold clearing. For the latter there need not be a single coin of gold in a country, although a few gold coins in circulation would be preferable and be it only to demonstrate that in practice e.g. sound shop currencies, with a gold weight clearing value standard are, in practice, accepted, at least by their issuers, as if they were corresponding gold coins. The former amounts often to torturing a deaf and dumb person in order to extract a confession from him. The latter payment method is, under monetary freedom, available to every productive person. - (18) COVER FOR MONEY ISSUES: As money cover can serve anything that is found acceptable by well informed acceptors of a paper money in a free market. - (19) ISSUE PRINCIPLE IN THE MONETARY SPHERE & IN THE CAPITAL MARKET: The right to issue and its principles can be applied not only in the monetary sphere but also in the capital market. There it can finance e.g. a libertarian take-over of a bureaucratic democracy, a libertarian revolution in a dictatorship, education, innovation and research, desert irrigation, even space exploration. Its monetary application is essential for the financing of a rightful defensive war and of a rightful revolution. - (20) REDEMPTION IN RARE METALS: Redemption in rare metals BY THE ISSUER OR A CENTRAL BANK is not required to preserve the value of a paper-money. It can be replaced by acceptability (for all kinds of consumer goods and services and for other due or soon due debts) under the control of a free market rate (against rare metal weight units). This would leave the discount possibility as a necessary feature but would, generally, lead to a par rate of the paper money, as a local currency, but at least to acceptance at par by the local issuer and his debtors. If it has a significant volume then it would also be accepted at par or close to it on a free gold market, for those who insist upon this kind of convertibility. It would not be a gold redemption by the issuer but a gold clearing standard. It would transfer redemption from the issuer to the free gold market - for whosoever would need it or would be doubtful or suspicious. At the very least, it would be accepted like gold coins by the issuer and his debtors. This possibility was not sufficiently discussed by the advocates of a 100% covered and redeemable gold dollar. - (21) GOVERNMENT SPENDING & INFLATION: Inflationary government spending is not "spending", no more so than private forgery is or official and forceful requisitioning. - (22) MONEY & CREDIT CREATION? - Nobody can create money or credit out of nothing, no more so than creating energy and matter out of nothing. What appears or is considered as "creation" is either a forced or fiat "value" or a replacement system temporarily substituting suitable bills or notes for unsuitable ones (for general circulation), clearing or fraud. - (23) DISCOUNT POSSIBILITY IS ESSENTIAL: The possibility of suffering a discount is a necessary feature of a free monetary system. It would draw depreciated notes quickly out of circulation. They would be rapidly paid back to the issuer, who has still to accept them at par. This discount would thus be welcomed by his debtors. The more the notes are discounted the more rapidly they would return. With the returned notes their circulation would end and also their discount. It is obvious that while the discount continues new issues will be hard to impossible to achieve. People will simply refuse to accept them - unless they owe the issuer something. - (24) LEGAL TENDER & GRESHAM'S LAW: Without legal tender and under free monetary competition, each exchange medium, being subject to free market rating and the right to refuse it altogether, the good types of exchange media and value standards would soon drive out the bad ones. At least in modern times the economists of the German monetary freedom school recognized this truth before most of those of the Austrian School of Economics and other economists, did. Inflation-proof money is not impossible - it is merely outlawed. Let good money drive out the bad: Repeal the note issue monopoly and legal tender! - J.Z., 77 & 97, 24.6.11.
GERMAN UNIFICATION & ITS "CURRENCY REFORM": The same "problem" might soon confront us in Korea and, hopefully, in Mainland China, too! - Among the mistakes of this German "currency reform" was the further centralization of two State socialistic central banks into one, all in the name of non-communism or even anti-communism and a supposedly free market or capitalistic economy. Furthermore, the East Mark, worth on the free market as little as 5% of the West Mark, was, nevertheless, exchanged at the rate of 1 for 1. That provided the recipients with unearned purchasing power to that extent. Fed up with inferior consumer goods, provided before in East Germany by themselves, under the "principle" of "production for use, not profit", and, at last, enjoying freedom to travel across the frontier and to buy West German goods or those already imported into East Germany, they boycotted their own shoddy and short-supplied goods and bought almost exclusively West German - or even European and World goods, with the West marks thus obtained as a gift - at the expense of the West German taxpayers and inflation victims. What did this mean for their own enterprises? They had to shut down or only very few could still work in them. The rest were then put on unemployment relief, also paid in DM, at the expense of the West German taxpayers and, sometimes, they remained nominally on the payroll, but received their full wage, while being told to go home, since there was no work for them. All this was quite wrongly called free market and capitalist economics! Who granted such wage credits? Again the German taxpayers, I suppose and all inflation victims. Since mostly husband and wives did work and their combined unemployment benefits amounted to about a full salary in DM for one, and this at the often high wages, due to the high productivity in West Germany, many couples took their cheap little East German cars and went on a grand tour through Europe, paid for by the West German taxpayers or current and future inflation victims. Did these owe them, collectively, this kind of indemnification, even to those who did not flee - when they did have the chance to do so, even to those who, for all too long, upheld the East German regime and its anti-economic "policies"? What all this amounted to was more State socialist and Welfare State redistributionism under the communist slogan: From the able to the needy! All this in the name of liberation and anti-communism! - The purchasing power of wages and salaries must ultimately be EARNED by productive efforts providing wanted goods and services at market prices. One can't get away, permanently, from that general rule. Thus the East German workers should have been paid in monetised assignments upon their own goods and services, i.e. in alternative, optional and non-coercive currencies, as the only rightful and honest solution. The East German paper money could have been gradually withdrawn via taxation. To force most of the old bureaucrats out of their offices and into productive jobs, most of them should have been "paid" with the old East German Marks. It should no longer have been legal tender or have been exchanged 1:1 for the legal tender of West Germany but left to whatever value it still could derive from tax-foundation and voluntary acceptance on the East German market. That acceptance and purchasing power would have become more and more limited, the more alternative and sound exchange media would be freely provided. Wage and salary level equality cannot be provided by decree - except at the expense of other producers and consumers. Wages and salaries in East Germany, paid in whatever optional currencies would be issued there or accepted there from other national, cooperatively or privately issued competing currencies, at their market values, and using whatever value standard would be found acceptable, should have found their own market levels. The lower productivity of a relatively underdeveloped country like Eastern Germany - or any other undeveloped or underdeveloped country - cannot be made up for, effectively, by burdening the more developed countries. That foreign aid notion has largely led only to further abuses, especially in government to government aid. Subsidies do only encourage further waste and inefficiency and low productivity and idleness. One can always have as much unemployment and poverty as one is willing to pay for. To add East Germans to the Welfare rolls of West Germans was not the solution. Nobody should be his brother's keeper when his brother is able to work for his own support. - The replacement of the forced and exclusive currency of East Germany should have been rightful and rational, by depriving it of all exclusivity and coercion and leaving it only legal tender power towards the tax authorities. The new East German State governments, under these conditions, need not even be under any prohibition against the further issue the East German Marks. The right to refuse their acceptance or to discount them, combined with the obligation to accept them at par in taxes, would have been enough. In the absence of the issue monopoly and legal tender, newly and freely issued sound alternative currencies, all optional, with juridical and legal tender power only towards their issuers, using any value standard acceptable to issuers and acceptors, would soon have driven out the governmental paper monies, including the West Mark, ultimately, in West Germany as well and would have enormously sped up the development of a free economy. Taxes, to the extent that they would have been continued, while full financial freedom would not yet have been introduced as well, should also have been payable with the new alternative currencies, but at their market value compared with the East German paper money. This old State paper money should have lost its monopoly for tax-payments, too. But note holders should remain "privileged" to get this money accepted THERE at par. - The West German DM and the East German mark should have been freely market rated against each other, while the East German mark still existed. - The West German DM should likewise have been deprived of its exclusive and forced currency status, in East Germany and West Germany. Liberation from the communist system in every respect! No more monopolies any longer, especially not for any exchange medium and value standard monopoly. No more coercive central banking powers in East and West. - Moreover, under state socialism there was an excessive bureaucratisation and manpower waste in most East German enterprises. E.g., bookshops of a size that were run in West Germany by 1-3 employees were often run by 12-20 in East Germany. I suppose that in most other State "enterprises" similar manpower wastes occurred and that the average productivity per employee was low and thus their earned wages correspondingly low, too. Under these conditions Western award wages could naturally not be rightfully and economically paid to all and not even to a few, if the few continued with their previous low productivity. Keeping up with Western productivity standards must have felt like "capitalistic exploitation" at its worst to them. The notion that they have to earn their wages by their own productivity is never very strong in East and West among any employees. But realistic steps towards genuine self-management within enterprises, in any of its numerous forms, could soon have helped to do away with this lack of insight and understanding. - Not only could East German output hardly be sold to previous East German customers but the productive capital was run down and frequently breaking down and no longer worth maintaining and repairing, especially when orders had largely disappeared. While in N.Y., in 1990, I met with an anarchist machinist and foreman, who was consulted regarding the value of an East German factory and its equipment. His respected judgement was: Both are worth only scrapping. They could not be made to pay their way under free market and free trade conditions. In some instances the infrastructure was even worse: For instance: some road surfacing consisted of tailings of uranium mining that were still radioactive but, the East German authorities had asserted that the radioactivity would be low enough to be safe. Even the West German authorities were not convinced of this and so they removed and replaces these road surfaces. Sometimes I wonder whether there are any limits to what government planners are capable of and their victims are prepared to put up with. Assume that cryonics would have succeeded in freezing and reviving human beings successfully, without damaging their tissues and that then we would be able to cure any diseases that might have killed them if their bodies had not been so preserved. Would we then have to expect that at least some governments, after their wrongful and foolish policies had once again, lead to mass unemployment, to freeze these unemployed and unfreeze them only when the government would see that there were jobs waiting for them? Would it be beyond any government to assert in such cases that it would act only in the public interest or even rational interest of its individual victims? - Enough of this: What should have been done monetarily upon re-unification? The East German workers should have remained dependent upon incomes from their own production. Thus they should have been paid in assignments upon their own goods and services, to the extent that these were still produced and sold. Towards quality goods and services provided by West Germany, Western Europe and the World, such token money would have had a low exchange rate and low purchasing power. Its power could have increased only gradually and naturally with the increased quantity and quality of products and services in East Germany. Payments in DM would only have become possible to the extent that DM - or better private currencies - could have been earned. The same was true for payments in other foreign exchange. Earnings and accounting in them should have been free. - However, compared with some of the more underdeveloped countries, East Germany would have been relatively developed. Thus it could have freely traded with them, using first of all assignments upon its own products and services to pay for imports from these countries. And in these countries East German inferior products might still have been acceptable at lower market prices, in preference to higher priced quality products from e.g. West Germany. Thus, while less East Germans might have bought their own products and rather, to the extent that they could afford to pay for them, with their own means of exchange, the better products of the somewhat free world, more trade with the Western World would have opened up or could have been opened up fast - by importers using East German and competitively issued clearing certificates that had only value in clearing against East German goods and services. But this kind of monetary and clearing and free trade freedom did not and does not exist in West Germany, either. But it could have been the fastest, most rightful and efficient way to induce East Germans workers to "pull their socks up" and become more productive. - Beyond that they should have offered tax exemptions for all new investments that would provide more jobs. Moreover, they should have offered the refuge capital of the world the option of value preserving clauses of whatever kind they wanted, for their foreign investments in East Germany, quite exempt from East German and West German existing legislation on this subject. - What was done, instead, was, at least temporarily, even more destructive and preventative to an increased productivity in East Germany than the East German regime had been. It put more people out of work and subsidised their unemployment at the expense of the remaining employed, especially those in West Germany. Moreover, I do suppose that the limitations to progressive income taxation, that existed in East Germany already in the late 50's (maximum rate 20%, i.e., what many libertarians in the West hope to achieve as the flat rate tax!), were probably abolished in East Germany, upon unification, which meant that the progressive taxation demanded by the communist manifesto of 1848 was increased for East Germans. In another rationalisation of East German production, under communism, at least the seniority system was largely done away with, so that quite junior but very capable people could no longer rise quickly into "senior" management positions. Indeed, often they might have been quite "capable" only within this system of a centrally planned and misdirected economy but this was certainly not always the case. To the extent that they were communist party people, its kind of seniority system would also have existed. But the traditional and, probably, still widely continued seniority systems of West Germany, often supported by trade unionists, with special lower rates and less positions open for younger people, might, through the "unification", have been introduced in Eastern Germany as a backward step. - Furthermore, before the reunification it had a managed trade with the Eastern Block countries, run largely for the benefit of the Soviet Regime. The disadvantages of this compulsory "trade would have disappeared. But they would have been at least partly replaced by whatever protectionist trade restrictions West Germany had put itself under. Foremost among these might be the prohibition of freely and competitively issued international clearing certificates, as proposed by Prof. E. Milhaud and Ulrich von Beckerath. - In other words, some market or capitalist or contract forces were allowed to operate in communist East Germany - but not in "anti-communist" West Germany and the newly united Germany - or only to an all too limited extent. Legalized and anti-economic interventionism and bureaucratic mismanagement went on and to some extent was even increased. The situation was somewhat similar to that of the "liberation" of the former Soviet Union and its satellites. This "liberation" went never far enough, especially with regard to monetary liberation. - If a full economic liberation had been achieved, for East and West - Germany, then we would soon have seen a new and much larger "economic miracle" developing in East and West Germany, much faster and more successful than the previous "economic miracle" of West Germany, based on a relatively stable currency and the ending of most price controls, all rationing, forced deliveries and many other war-time regulations, also upon many long term foreign loans or even subsidies, like those of the Marshall Plan. The latter could be more than made up for - by free private foreign investments on a stable currency and tax exemption basis, spreading fast through voluntary adoption, from the first free trade industrial areas, zones and ports to the whole country, but based only on voluntary free trade communities, with voluntary protectionist communities left free to compete as well as they could or believe that they could. - J.Z., n.d. & 28.6.11, 4.8.11.
GESELL, SILVIO & HIS STAMP CURRENCY OR SYSTEMATICALLY DEPRECIATED EXCLUSIVE CURRENCY: While he was correct in some of his basic premises, his solutions were incorrect. He saw that an exclusive currency can be insufficient supplied and often is. The effect of such a currency is also dependent not only on its quantity but also its circulation speed. As result of this he was aware that the official and exclusive currency does not always get to a sufficient degree into the hands of those who wish to pay or who wish to be paid and who would gladly redeem it with their goods, services and labour or debt payment certificates. However, the solutions that the offered were all too limited and flawed. Firstly, he wanted to retain the exclusive currency and its legal tender power. Thereby all sound alternatives to it would be prevented. He merely wanted to speed up its circulation by imposing a frequent penalty or stamp duty or depreciation upon such notes. Soundly issued notes, having a good reflux or clearing arrangement to assure their value, acceptance and return to the issuer, do not need such an acceleration factor and to impose it is wrong. He also imagined that he would provide a sound currency by measures to fix the general price level at its current level. That went against the general experience that as a result of numerous economic, scientific and technological development the price for goods and raw materials tend to go down while the prices for labour, including personal services, tend to go up, whatever effect that would have upon the general price level, lowering or increasing it. He had no ideas of the right to choose other value standards than those of an official and exclusive currency and no understanding of competitively issued alternative currencies without legal tender power, based upon readiness of the issuers to accept them in all payments due to them. In the case of the Wörgl experiment of his followers he did not understand the large role played their by the tax foundation for its stamp scrip. His followers, in the main, uphold his errors and proposed only slight changes. But they were right to often practise their views together with other volunteers. If only the adherents of better or quite sound alternative money systems had done this with the same determination and frequency as his Gesell’s followers practised his ideas, monetary knowledge and understanding would have been greatly advanced. Monetary freedom might be realized by now. Sound alternative local currencies could be issued by all who have, between them, enough of the locally wanted consumer goods and services to offer for it and those, who have enough other debt payments due to them, to keep the notes issued by them at par with their nominal value. – Silvio Gesell never explored these alternatives but remained stuck in the swamp of monetary despotism. – Not a new compulsion (stamp scrip and a fixed price level) but a new liberty is needed and brings the only quite rightful and efficient economic solution. In the main through competitively issued ticket monies and clearing certificates or accounts, issued by all kinds of suppliers of consumer goods and services, always also using sound and agreed-upon value standards in their prices, fees, dues, subscriptions, credit, debt, wage and salary contracts - J.Z., 4.5.10, 22.9.10.
GESELL, SILVIO, HIS ERRORS IN THE MONETARY SPHERE, WITH REFUTATIONS: Compare U.v. Beckerath writings on Gesell.
GESELLIANS: How many of them, apart from e.g. Paul Nagel, Karl Walker and Heinz Peter Neumann, advocated at least a degree of monetary freedom? Help me to compile an honours roll for them, preferably with a reference to those of their writings in which they uttered monetary freedom ideas. Since their prophet advocated only another form of monetary despotism, their independent minds towards him should be especially celebrated, in spite of the fact that most of them would still have expected Gesellian money to win in free competition. - J.Z., 20.3.97.
GIFT EXCHANGES, COERCIVE ONES & GOVERNMENTS: Governments are coercive "gift" "exchanges" that coercively transfer part of your property and income to others. - J.Z., 22.4.93. - See: TRANSFER PAYMENTS, WELFARE STATE, TAXATION, EXPLOITATION, PROPERTY RIGHTS, FINANCIAL FREEDOM.
GIFT VOUCHERS, ON THE ROAD TO MONETARY FREEDOM? Only yesterday, in Franklins supermarket store in Bowral, I saw a sign that indicated that Franklins issues gift vouchers in $ 10, 25 & 50 denominations, which are usable in all of 240 Franklins stores in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. These, too, could suddenly be transformed into loans for wage payments to employers. This might be a worthwhile monetary experiment. One of the other local shop association or chain store system like that of Woolworth or Coles, ought to take the lead in this. - Gift vouchers, properly issued, as loans, for wage payments, could become a very important "gift" to a whole depressed economy, one with close to 1 million unemployed as in Australia now. - Do look this gift-horse into the mouth. Do check out its teeth. You will find them to be sound. These gift vouchers, in the hands of consumers, have their full monetary value, even when they were not first paid for with the government's forced monopoly currency. - It is also obvious that no store could or would over-issue gift vouchers or could afford not to accept them like ready cash. - From day one onwards other local stores could declare that they would mutually accept their gift vouchers. Within a few days they might agree upon issuing a local shop currency which all of them would accept, and issue it only in short-term loans for wage and salary payments, i.e., for goods already produced and sold at least to the wholesalers, in most cases, or for services ready for sale. - The shopping centres could become the centres for new banks of issue. That would lead to a boom economy comparable to the limited booms for computer-, video- and mobile phone shops. - Allow good monies to supplement and finally drive out the government money - and, lastly, also all governments still imposing taxes upon involuntary victims. - J.Z., 25.4.97, 28.6.11.
GIFT VOUCHERS: Gift voucher schemes by individual firms could and should be locally combined into a local optional currency with which local and short term loans for wage and salary payment could be offered. To the extent that such loans would be provided, these uniform local gift vouchers, in money denominations, would soon be spent in the local shops, then used for restocking them towards the wholesalers. These could pay with them their manufacturers, the main employers, who received the loan and can then repay it to the common issue centre of the local shops for their loan of their gift voucher or shop foundation money. Such self-liquidating issues could be ever renewed, as required. Being refusable, i.e., not legal tender and if they are also using a sound alternative value standard, then they could not be inflated and be issued only to the extent that they are kept at par or close enough to par not to be refused. Gift vouchers are already customary and wide-spread. Issuers and acceptors are familiar with them. Their combined issue would not be too large a step to be comprehended and would make them even more acceptable to most people. They seem to be legal. Westfield shopping centres in Australia had by x-mas 1992/93 ca. 3400 shops, all of which accepted Westfield shopping centre gift vouchers. Franklin supermarkets, in 3 States of Australia, have ca. 240 branches, all accepting its gift vouchers. The way of least resistance might be to issue the gift vouchers to the own staff whenever any bonus payment is intended, e.g. for x-mas. The next step might be to grant any wage and salary increases in this form. The next one might be to make the new jobs available, e.g. to young people, or older people, who otherwise might remain unemployed, but only when they are prepared to accept their wages or salaries totally or largely in these local gift vouchers. Those prepared to accept all of their wages in these exchange media might also be offered a wage increase. Thus, step by step monetary freedom could be introduced - if the laws of monetary despotism are not enforced or can be as gradually repealed or ignored. Sudden and locally widespread such issues should only be tried, contrary to the existing legislation of monetary despotism, in times when the suppression of such issues would be politically inopportune, i.e. in times of high unemployment and shortly before an election. Pressure should also be exerted towards a free jury system to adjudicate any accusation by the authorities that their laws of monetary despotism would be infringed and that the public interest would have been harmed by these self-help steps, which would obviously be in the public interest by taking people off public relief roles and putting them into self-supporting jobs without the aid of any government program or measure. - J.Z., 4.12.92, 30.4.97, 28.6.11. - RAILWAY MONEY, SHOP CURRENCIES, GOODS VOUCHERS, PURCHASING CERTIFICATES
GILLESPIE, MARK, Anarchist Finance, or What Price Ancapistan?. - "A mutual savings and credit association (MSCA) is the perfect solution on many levels. For one, they are mostly unregulated. They are not banks. Secondly, they can operate using whatever currency they wish. Thirdly, because of the mutual aspect of the association, there is an emphasis upon shared responsibility and shared profits." - Roy Halliday, in section on Free Market Banking.
GILLIGAN'S CORNER: Fiat vs. Free Market Money « Gilligan's Corner - gilliganscorner.wordpress.com/2009/06/.../fiat-vs-free-market-money... - Cached - 9 Jun 2009 – If violence cannot solve complex social problems, why do we use it and pretend we don't?
GLASNER, DAVID, Free Banking & Monetary Reform, Cambridge, CUP, 1989, reviewed in CATO JOURNAL, Washington, Dec. 89, & abstracted in GREAVES, BETTINA BIEN, Mises Bibliography, II, p. 103. Apparently, he merely discussed some of the main crisis theories and comes out against the Austrian one. - J.Z., 11.5.97. - Compare the many other entries in my long but still incomplete and also flawed free banking bibliography: www.panarchy.org/zube/money.index.html - Perhaps it should be combined with this A to Z compilation. - J.Z., 28.6.11. - - Free Banking and Monetary Reform(ISBN: 0521022517 / 0-521-02251-7) - Bookseller: Stratford Books (United Kingdom). Bookseller Rating: Quantity Available: 1Print on Demand - Book Description: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Paperback. Book Condition: New. 8.98 by .67 inches. (296 pages) This item is printed on demand. Please allow up to 10 days extra for printing & delivery. The power of the state to issue currency and control the monetary system is so entrenched, and the presumption among economists that money must be supplied monopolistically by a central authority is so widespread, that the notion that money could be supplied competitively has rarely been taken seriously. The power of the state to issue currency and control the monetary system is so entrenched, and the presumption among economists that money must be supplied monopolistically by a central authority is so widespread, that the notion that money could be supplied competitively has rarely been taken seriously. This book boldly challenges the conventional view that the state must play a dominant role in the monetary system. Part I explores the historical evidence and examines how a well-developed monetary system might have developed without any special role for the state. Part II offers a theory for a competitive supply of money and uses it to shed light on the development of monetary theory and the course of monetary history over the past two centuries. In Part III the author outlines new proposals for monetary reform that will protect the financial system against instability and will ensure macroeconomic stability. Preface, Acknowledgments, Part I. A Theory of Monetary Institutions: 1. The evolution of money and banking, 2. Money and the state, Part II. The Uncertain Progress of Monetary Theory and Monetary Reform: 3. The classical theory of money, 4. The quantity theory of money, 5. The heyday of the gold standard, 1879-1914, 6. The Great War, the Great Depression, and the gold standard, 7. The Keynesian revolution and the monetarist counterrevolution, Part III. A Competitive Monetary Regime: 8. The competitive breakthrough, 9. Can competitive banking be safe and stable?, 10. Why we need a new monetary regime, 11. A proposal for monetary reform, References, Index. 'For nearly a century, monetary theorists have been searching for their Holy Grail: a way to figure just the right amount of money to keep the economy on an even keel. Now two more pilgrim-scholars, David Glasner, an economist at the Federal Trade Commission, and Earl Thompson, a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, are hot on the trail. It is too early to say whether their clever variation on a long forgotten proposal of the great pre-Keynesian economist, Irving Fisher, will stand up to critical scrutiny. But the idea, described in readable detail in Mr. Glasner's new book, Free Banking and Monetary Reform should intrigue anyone who thinks that even the Federal Reserve Board can make mistakes.' Peter Passell, The New York Times' Glasner provides an excellent review of monetary history, insightful discussions of such monetary innovations as the development of the Eurocurrency market and money market mutual funds, and incisive analyses of recent monetary problems like the deregulation of savings and loan associations and the insurance of bank deposits. This timely and lucid book on such a controversial issue deserves a wide audience.' Choice' . important new book .' Lawrence H. White, JOURNAL OF MONETARY ECONOMICS (Paperback). Bookseller Inventory # AA0521022517. Bookseller & Payment Information | More Books from this Seller | Ask Bookseller a Question - Price: US$ 46.86 - Convert Currency - Shipping: US$ 15.98 - From United Kingdom to Australia - Destination, Rates & Speeds - Email of 7.7.11: Free Banking has a new post by Kurt Schuler. David Glasner is now blogging: David Glasner has just begun his own blog, Uneasy Money. Glasner wrote the worthwhile book Free Banking and Monetary Reform (1989). The publisher, Cambridge University Press, wants £72 for it. Amazon sells it at about half as much new, $58, and AbeBoooks.com has used copies starting at $15. Readers who want to acquire the book will presumably minimize their costs. Read the full post and join the discussion at: http://www.freebanking.org/2011/07/06/david-glasner-is-now-blogging/ There was a later edition of 2005 and there are now several print on demand editions as well. - J.Z., 7.7.11.
GLOBAL CURRENCY INITIATIVE: ARE MONETARY AND BANKING CRISES INEVITABLE IN THE NEAR FUTURE? - www.globalcurrencyinitiative.com/.../... - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - political versus free-market money was exhaustively examined by Ludwig von Mises, in his treatise The Theory of Money and Credit, first published in the ...
GOLD & CONSUMER PRICE INDEX, CPI: Porter Stansberry - Stansberry: CPI numbers are bunk... this is ... - www.thedailycrux.com/content/3302/Porter_Stansberry - Cached - 5 Nov 2009 – Gold is the free market's money. The U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency – the government's money. You can either participate in the ...
GOLD & DEFLATION: What About Gold and Deflation in the Greater Depression? - www.deflationeconomy.com/gold-and-deflation.html - Cached - Only gold should back only private enterprise free market money. Don't trust any government sponsored and controlled fiat money. They always play financial ... - Why confine ourselves to gold and gold-certificates, under full monetary freedom, even though this would lead to the continuous degree of deflation that prevailed under exclusive rare metal currencies? E.g. free clearing does not require the possession of ANY rare metal and yet could media ANY volume of exchanges quite freely and efficiently. So could all kinds of competitively issued exchange media, all using alternative value standards agreed upon or even rare metal weight units, ONLY as value standards. To use them also as EXCLUSIVE means of payments for all, would lead us into extreme troubles, seeing the current volume of exchanges. If only a few confine themselves to such exchanges, then the might manage with the available gold. If not, only they would suffer. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD & FREEDOM: Gold and Freedom - www.sovereignlife.com/essays/gold-and-freedom.html - Cached - There have been many suggestions as to how one could move forward to a free market money system - one where the government has no control over the money in ... - Full monetary freedom does offer much more than gold options as value standards, exchange media and clearing possibilities. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD AS A MEASURE FOR PAST & CURRENT PRICES: An ounce of gold in 1935 bought a good suit. An ounce of gold today still buys a good suit. 200 ounces of gold bought an average house in 1935. 200 ounces of gold still buys and average house. - Pointed out by Prof. James L. Green, in MM, 1986.
GOLD AS MONEY, A MATTER OF CHOICE: The man concerned with justice does not aim to force others to use gold as money. Rather, he insists that government has not right to prevent him and other men from using gold as money if they choose. - Paul Stevens, THE FREEMAN, 1/75, 3/4.
GOLD BONDHOLDERS PROTECTIVE COUNCIL, P.O. Box 2283, Seattle, Washington 98 111, Tel. (206) 622 4960. - I found this address in 1990 and have not contacted them as yet. - As long as governments are authorised to wipe out any monetary and financial rights merely by an act of legislation, no mere council can offer much protection. Monetary and financial rights as well as particular other economic rights have first to be compiled, then fully discussed, then become widely enough recognised to become part of effective and protective human rights declarations and then for rightful constitutions for communities of volunteers, all only exterritorially autonomous. Ultimately, they would not only have to be upheld by governmental courts, which are independent of politicians and their ambitions, frauds and false pretences but also by volunteer militias, well trained, armed and organized to uphold all individual rights. - We are still very far from such an awareness. Just another lobby group for gold clauses is definitely not enough, although it might do some good by educational efforts and lobby pressures. - J.Z., 26.4.97, 28.6.11.
GOLD BUGS & THE ERRORS THAT ARE BUGGING THEM: They are still to be comprehensively compiled and refuted, to my knowledge. - J.Z., 28.6.11.
GOLD BUGS OR ADVOCATES OF A 100% GOLD REDEMPTION BY THE ISSUER: Gold bugs, as well as their opponents, have still not taken a sufficient stand towards the technical, voluntaristic and competitive alternative of an optional gold standard in which a gold weight unit is merely used as a value standard, not as an exclusive exchange medium, for accounting and clearing purposes, in the payment of all debts, prices, wages and salaries, taxes, rents, interest payments, dividends, fees, subscriptions etc., where this value standard is freely agreed-upon and adopted. This could but need not be combined with the right of debtors, who do have sufficient gold metal weight units, to pay with them, as means of exchange. But creditors should never be granted the general authority to demand payment of debts owed to them in gold metal unless such a payment has been explicitly contracted. Even then, since a trade in futures is involved, i.e., money, in form of an exclusive currency, not yet in one's possession to the require amount, withdrawal premiums should be agreed upon in case a debtor cannot fulfil such a contract. To impose gold weight units as the only permitted value standard and as the only permitted means of payment is not only wrong but harmful, too. Under these conditions the economy does not fast or in the long run sufficiently adapt itself to the shortage of a rare metal. In proof I want to point out that the tax foundation money in form of wooden split sticks of tallies was used in a country like England even to 1826 - for centuries. Surely, there had been enough time for all prices and wages to adapt sufficiently to the existing low quantity of gold, by corresponding low prices and wages, as the Austrian School writers believe they could and have been? If so, then the tallies would not have been invented and used as supplementary means of payment and clearing - issued in anticipation of taxes to be paid and then circulated and finally used in tax payments. - Nor would a large degree of barter exchanges have been continued into the 20th century, if the coin- or metal certificate supply had been sufficient to achieve a fully developed monetary exchange economy. - J.Z., n.d. & 28.6.11, 13.8.11. - OR CLASSICAL GOLD STANDARD, TALLIES & OPTIONAL GOLD CLEARING STANDARD
GOLD BUGS, EXCLUSIVE GOLD STANDARD, GOLD COINS & CERTIFICATES: The kind of monetary despotism advocated by gold bugs is not very kind or morally and in principle any better than that of advocates of an exclusive and compulsory State paper money with its forced value. Indeed, the latter, if well administered (which is rarely the case but has, sometimes, happened - for a short period) can be superior in avoiding depressions than an exclusive gold currency could be (Austrians would deny that, believing in instant and sufficient price and wage adaptations under freedom, which would avoid, in their opinion, any currency shortages.) If well administered, they have, sometimes, even avoided large scale inflation for a year or more (e.g., in post WW II Germany), keeping the price level stable or inflating it only as much to "achieve" the prevention of a fall in the general price level resulting from naturally occurring fallen prices, due to e.g. technical and scientific developments or better management or better transport systems. Contrary to their expectations and as a result of Gresham's Law, their favourite currency, under free market rating, voluntary acceptance under the refusal option, would be driven out by currencies without gold cover and gold redemption by the issuer but, nevertheless, as good as gold, being kept at par with their nominal gold weight value via a vast readiness to accept them for daily needed goods and services (including labour), by other debt and clearing foundations, while still reckoning. for value standard purposes, e.g., in gold weight units, but without any obligation by issuers or reckoners to supply these gold weight units in physical gold metal coins. The suppliers of gold clearing currencies could refer any wanted gold convertibility to the free gold market, which has all the gold in the world for those able and willing to pay for it with their competitively issued or accepted notes. They could pay for it with alternative exchange media standing at par or close to par with their nominal gold weight value, subject only to some of those fluctuations in value that the currencies of national governments are subject to, as foreign exchange, but to a much lesser degree, since gold-weight value clearing is involved as a value standard, rather than a fictitious and all too manipulated governmental paper "value standard". Thus the "gold reserve" of those, who are not gold bugs, would be much larger than the combined gold reserves of the gold bugs, whose banks issued gold certificates upon their gold stocks. - The issuers of gold-weight value clearing currencies would not have to cover the costs of the issuers of 100% or fractionally covered and redeemable gold certificate banknotes. - Thus they could offer their "as good as gold" banknotes much more cheaply than the gold redemptionists could. Without being redeemable in gold coins, in their shop- or debt foundation they would stand at par with gold coins, for goods, services and debts priced in gold weight units. - J.Z., 4.12.92, 30.4.97, 28.6.11. - AS EXCLUSIVE MEANS OF EXCHANGE; ENFORCED GOLD REDEMPTION BY THE ISSUER, UPON DEMAND BY THEIR BANKNOTE HOLDERS
GOLD BUGS: Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology - Google Books Result - books.google.com/books?isbn=0520035003...Max Weber, Guenther Roth, Claus Wittich - 1978 - Business & Economics - 1469 pages. With regard to its chartal form, an effective standard money may be metallic money or note money.56 Only metallic money can be a free market money, ... - These are the kind of people who seem to believe that they would be blind without gold- or silver-framed glasses. Moreover, they do not seem to be aware that free clearing does not require the existence or use of ANY other exchange media but merely sound value standard reckoning. - J.Z., 25.7.11. - RARE METAL ADDICTION OR DOGMATISM, MYTH OR PREJUDICE, SILVER ADDICTS.
GOLD BUGS: Englands Freedome, Souldiers Rights: Richard Murphy; almost correct - englandsfreedome.blogspot.com/.../richard-murphy-almost-correct... - Cached - 17 Jun 2011 – As I commented (currently awaiting moderation) "free market money isn't created out of thin air, it's dug out of a mine". ... Obviously a gold bug. - J.Z., 21.7.11.
GOLD BUGS: Should e.g. all those people, who do not possess gold or silver coins or certificates to them or have not credit with those, who do, thereupon give up trying to exchange their goods, services and labours, at least among themselves, in a monetary way or via clearing, just because they lack sufficient rare metals coins or claims to them, to cover with them all the transactions they desire? Their own labour, services and products can be all the cover they do need for themselves, for their exchange media and for their clearing transactions. Without possessing a single gold or silver coin they could still price out all their goods, labours and services in rare metal weight units, used merely as value standards (if they prefer them for this purpose), not as exclusive exchange media, and thus clear their exchange values with a gold- or silver-value standard which is merely a rare metal accounting or clearing standard and, as such, can mediate quite soundly many more exchanges than an exclusive gold- or silver currency COULD. Why should e.g. every petrol money token, gas or electricity money, railway, bus or tramway money have to be "covered" by gold or silver - when there is more than sufficient service potential to cover their value expressed in such rare metal weight units - but not paid in them? Those who can't think of any better monetary and clearing arrangement than those via rare metal pieces or certified claims to them, should never be put into a position where they can outlaw all other transactions, as e.g. the otherwise great and admirable Murray N. Rothbard would have been inclined to do? - J. Z., 16.3.97, 28.6.11. - Q., THE EXCLUSIVE & FORCED GOLD STANDARD CURRENCY OR A SOUND GOLD STANDARD ALTERNATIVE & FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS & EXCHANGE MEDIA AS WELL AS CLEARING AVENUES?
GOLD BUGS: They believe in gold almost as others do believe in Jesus Christ as the one and only redeemer. – J.Z., 9.2.10. – Unfortunately, they do not sufficiently distinguish between gold coins and gold certificates covered and redeemable in them as means of exchange, a sphere in which they are insufficient and gold coins or sound gold certificates as standards of value. As the latter they can soundly serve for an unlimited number of free and wanted exchanges that could not all be paid for with gold coins or redeemable gold certificates. This is a simple oversight but still all too ingrained in all too many money reformers with good and honest intentions. – J.Z., 9.2.10, 24.9.10.
GOLD CLEARING STANDARD: That gold redemption is NOT NECESSARY to give a paper money at least SOME value (mostly an all too fast depreciating one), is proven even the present State paper monies from the best of this kind to the worst ones, all under their central bank system mismanagement of these exchange media and their “value standards”. That this is possible at all should be explored and clarified, on the road to find alternative methods to preserve the value of a value standard and to provide a sufficient quantity of sound or sound enough exchange media, to supplement all already existing clearing options. At least theoretically, all exchanges could be paid for or settled via comprehensive clearing, using paper accounts, paper clearing certificates or mere electronic data transmissions. The monetary and currency abuses of central banking can be continued only through their constitutional, legal and juridical protection, which upholds the central bank’s note issue monopoly and its monopoly paper-“value standard” and this by means of legal tender legislation, which enforces the acceptance of this monopoly money and also gives it a forced and fictitious value. A gold-weight clearing standard would stabilize the gold-weight value on a free gold market much more so than the gold-redemption standard could. For it would make large metallic gold movements unnecessary and unlikely, also large degrees of gold-hoarding and stockpiling, temporarily or for considerable periods. It would make exchanges of all commodities, all labors and services, all payments of debts, independent of the quantity of metallic gold coins accessible to all the debtors and their debtors. But it would not make it difficult or illegal for debtors to pay in gold coins to the extent that they do have them for this purpose. However, a non-contractual right or authority of creditors to demand payment in gold weight units should be abolished, as are speculations in futures without any withdrawal clause option. Creditors should only be automatically entitled to be paid in gold-weight-values, using other and optional means of payment that are market rated on free gold markets, and acceptable to the creditors at a market rated or at an otherwise agreed-upon discount rate (corresponding to any inconvenience involved) and also efficiently available to the debtors. Then and thus most debts could be paid and be it only by the debtor’s own IOUs or clearing certificates, covered by accepting them at their nominal value for all his goods and services or labour. A sufficient discount rate could make them attractive enough to the creditors, provided a good enough banking or clearing system would exist that would return these IOUs or personal or firm or business clearing certificates fast to these debtors, for acceptance by them at their nominal value. Otherwise, by insistence upon being paid in gold coins, rather than in gold weight unit values, the creditors would risk remaining unpaid and the debtors would risk becoming bankrupt. The usual mark-up of the debtors upon the sale of their goods and services would give them a wide discount margin. They would also have to take into consideration, that for their sales thus achieved they would not have any advertisement expenses. These note holders, or those, to whom they were passed on, will inevitably and mostly rather soon, present them to him for this kind of “redemption” – in his goods, services or labour. The more he could successfully issue, the more certain would his sales become. Nothing would, under full monetary freedom, hinder many debtors to combine their “readiness to accept” in notes or clearing certificates issued by their association, to make these means of payment at least locally more widely acceptable. The system could, theoretically, function, without a single gold coin changing hands between creditors and debtors. Used merely as value standards, gold weight units could mediate the free exchange of an unlimited number or quantity of commodities, services and labour, all under sound and agreed-upon value standard reckoning. Only non-interference by governments and legislators would be required, free gold markets and sufficient publicity for issues and reflux of notes, clearing certificates and digitally mediated exchanges. The absence of all compulsory taxation would also greatly help. Under tax tributes many enterprises and employees are naturally, hesitant to subject their payment details to publicity. So would most private note issuers and participants in clearing transactions. However, black or free markets have to a large extent succeeded even under totalitarian regimes – although not as well as free markets would under full economic freedom, including full monetary and financial freedom. The issuers would strive to keep their notes and accounts as close to their par gold weight value as possible, in general local circulation. Elsewhere they might get a “foreign exchange” rate. If they would not do this, in their own interest, then they would greatly reduce, possibly even to zero, the number of their voluntary acceptors and the volume of these obligations that would only oblige themselves to deliver what they can and want to sell. Only the issuers would always have to accept their notes etc. at all and this at their nominal value. - (Ticket money, clearing and service certificates, goods warrants, purchasing vouchers etc. It would be difficult to impossible to over-issue them, since their acceptance would be optional and they would be market rated, i.e. discountable.) – Unknown, suspect or locally already discounted exchange media and value standards would be widely refused - by all but the issuer. On the other hand, checking the “shop foundation” of such exchange media and clearing certificates, essentially shop currencies, would, in most cases, be rather easy – at the nearest shopping centre. Any discount of such means of payment in local circulation or in foreign districts or countries would speed up their return to the issuers, who would have to accept them at par. - Redemption or convertibility of alternative exchange media or clearing certificates in metallic gold would occur only on free gold markets, at their current market rate, a market which would tend to return these notes or certificates fast to their issuers – for their redemption at par with their nominal gold weight value - in their goods, services and labour. This is the only “redemption” that they would need. The local issuing associations would also see to it that the short-term turnover credit debts of their members, would be repayable with their notes. – The ultimate limit for the issue for such currencies would not be the total stock of gold in the hands of the issuers but, rather, all the ready for sale goods, services and labour that they have to offer and that are wanted or needed by their potential customers. – The balance between the exchange media and the goods and services they represent would be kept automatically, like it is with e.g. ticket money, railway money, bus money etc. - J.Z., n.d. & 18.10.10. - GOLD COVER, GOLD REDEMPTION, 100 % OR FRACTIONAL, REFLUX FOUNDATION, ACCEPTANCE FOUNDATION, CLEARING FOUNDATION, DEBT FOUNDATION, REFLUX FOUNDATION, SHOP FOUNDATION, READINESS TO ACCEPT FOUNDATION, GOLD-VALUE RECKONING, ACCOUNTING & CLEARING
GOLD COINS AS MEANS OF PAYMENT: If you insist on being paid in gold coins, for your internal and external transactions, then, in the medium and long run you would be paid in gold - but only by those able and willing to do so. Which means that the monetary demand for your services would decline and you would be paid less than others, who only insisted upon being paid e.g. in gold weight values (or other value standards acceptable to them and their trading partners) with whatever exchange media are suitable locally and only at their exchange rate against the agreed-upon e.g. gold weight unit chosen, either at par or close to par. But you should not expect to able to be paid in gold immediately or in the very short term future by most of the potential customers for your goods or services, within your country or in other countries. They simply aren't sufficiently supplied with gold coins. (Do you know enough people who are sufficiently supplied with them to be able to sell all your goods, services and labor to them? - J.Z., 28.6.11.) You would also be burdened by the extra charges involved in building up, storing, transporting and insuring gold coin payments. Moreover, you should become aware that the value of every gold coin spent by you, in all cases that you find ready acceptors for it, will not with certainty or soon enough return to you, in form of other gold coins paid for your goods and services. Only your own goods and service warrants or clearinghouse certificates, when made out in gold weight clearing or accounting units, are bound to return to you, in payment of debts owed to you or for your goods and services, and this rather fast and with great certainty. Most importantly, they would not limit your purchases to the amount of gold coins that you can manage to accumulate as means of payment or that you currently receive in your sales. Then only your own productive capacity would limit your spending. You would be independent of your own gold hoard and that of others. If you made yourself dependent upon what has been called, for the trade between countries, "the law of fluctuating gold quantities", which, over periods, sometimes extended periods, tends to balance out the spending of gold coins with the receipt of gold coins, then you might have to wait for a considerable time - and in the meantime you might get broke or unemployed. - However, you should be free to choose the exchange medium and value standard that you do prefer for yourself. But beware, you might get them, with all their inherent limitations! - J.Z., 28.7.91, 27.8.02, 28.6.11. - GOLD MARKET, GOLD PRICING, GOLD WAGES, LAW OF FLUCTUATING GOLD QUANTITIES, INSISTENCE UPON BEING PAID IN GOLD COINS OR CERTIFICATES THAN IN GOLD WEIGHT VALUES
GOLD COINS AS TICKET MONEY: Counters representing commodities and services. - Charles Moran, Money, p.21. - This they would have in common with length, weight and volume measures. Neither an over-supply nor an under-supply of these measures should be feared when they can be freely produced - and rejected. But, obviously, these measures need not be made out of gold. Nor need purchasing claims for commodities and services be made out of gold, if only they can be issued and maintained at par with their nominal gold weight value, i.e., for their purposes, made as good as gold. - J.Z., 22.4.97. - Anything readily accepted in payment as if it were a corresponding gold coin, for goods, services and labour marked-out in gold weight units, is for that purpose as good as a gold coin - and much easier to produce and to obtain. - E.g., cinema, theatre, opera or football tickets or shop foundation currencies to do not have to be covered by or redeemable in gold coins to be as valuable as the market prices of these services or goods, expressed e.g. in gold weight units, indicate. - J.Z., 28.6.11. - GOLD CLEARING OR GOLD ACCOUNTING STANDARD.
GOLD CONVERTIBILITY OR REDEMPTIONISM AT THE ISSUERS: If this obligation were a natural law of economics then no sound other banknotes could ever have existed. In reality, there were a multitude of alternative currency issues, emergency monies, primitive monies, truck monies, canteen monies, local currencies, street monies, monies of single enterprises, token monies, all of which did sufficiently satisfy their users, i.e. did not defraud them. Indeed, official and private issuers, too, have ignorantly or carelessly - and in some cases wilfully - made many mistakes in the issue and reflux arrangements for their alternative currencies. Can one blame them seeing that even in our times not all questions on monetary freedom were and are quite clear among rightly famous scholars like Mises, Rothbard and Hayek? Not to speak of the multitude of the average "economists". Even these named great scholars did not know all of the literature of monetary freedom and all of its historical precedents but were often and for all too long periods mislead by their own wrong assumptions and hypothetical concepts. But all these negative opinions do not refute historical experiences with sound and honest competing currency issues that were not convertible into gold or silver by the issuers but were, e.g., merely accepted by the issuers and their associates, especially their debtors, as if they were gold (or silver or platinum) coins or certificates. Their real foundation was, instead, the readiness to accept them, like e.g. gold coins, for goods and services which are in daily demand by consumers. If one does not accept the blinkered historical model, limited to a few countries, of gold value notes as gold-smith and later gold-bank certificates of deposit, if one does not ignore all other historical and contemporary experiences, which occurred without this metallic redemptionism by the issuers, then one will concentrate on other forms of stable value reckoning, including e.g. gold weight accounting and clearing, and redemption of exchange media in all kinds of daily wanted consumer goods, services and debt payments or clearing settlements, up to a stated and agreed-upon sound value standard, i.e., the debt- or readiness-to-accept foundations, and their great variety, mostly amounting to what Prof. H. Rittershausen called "shop-foundation". It could also be called "clearing foundation". Even gold coins are, essentially, clearing tokens, but rather expensive ones. One would then welcome instead of condemn all voluntarily agreed-upon value preserving clauses, in one's prices, wages, rents, fees etc. and exchange media, using one or the other freely chosen value standard and one or the other means or payment or form of clearing, to carry or use that self-chosen value standard and that exchange medium or clearing method for all of one's free economic and monetarily and soundly settled exchanges. - J.Z., 24.2.89, 28.6.11. - As for those, who really wanted or needed to get metallic gold for their exchange media, there would be or should be no difficulty in acquiring them on a free gold market, especially when one pays for it with exchange media especially which, at least locally, are circulating at par or close to par with their nominal gold value and which are always accepted at par with gold coins by their issuers and their debtors. Precisely the possibility that on a free gold market they might not be accepted at par, if there were flaws in their issue or reflux, will tend to keep most of them at par or close to par with their nominal gold weight value (or other value standard chosen by their issuers). - J.Z., 28.6.11. - THE CLASSICAL GOLD STANDARD REQUIREMENT FOR GOLD COVER OR RESERVES, 100% OR FRACTIONAL GOLD COVERS & THE LEGAL, JURIDICAL, CUSTOMARY OR THEORETICAL OBLIGATION OF THE ISSUERS OF BANKNOTES & THEIR DEBTORS TO ACCEPT THEM AS IF THEY WERE GOLD COINS OR REDEEMABLE GOLD CERTIFICATES.
GOLD CONVERTIBILITY, REDEMPTION, COVER OR RESERVE FUND: Gold-convertibility could and should be realized via the greatest redemption fund at all, namely the free gold market. Anything that passes there at par with gold is, by definition and in practice, as good as gold in value, has the value of gold - but is much more portable and less risky than the equivalent gold-weight units would be, if physically present. - J.Z., 3/97. - It is also much cheaper to produce and it could exchange many more goods and services, including labour, than a rare metal currency and its certificates could. - Possibly, the only way to persuade "gold bugs" of this possibility would be the freedom to practice it by and among those not addicted to metallic redemptionism. - J.Z., 28.6.11.
GOLD COVER & REDEMPTION OBLIGATION? Should e.g. railways, bus- and tram companies, electricity, gas, petrol, telephone, water and sewage service suppliers, shop associations, supermarkets and department stores issuing and accepting their own private goods and service warrants in money denominations, all optional exchange media with self-chosen and acceptable value standards (E.g. gold weight units for accounting and clearing purposes only, expressing prices, wages salaries, debts), all only optional and competitive local exchange and clearing media, all without legal tender power, be forced not only to redeem them daily or periodically by accepting them at their full nominal value in payment for their bills, as they would accept e.g. an equivalent number of gold coins, but should they or need they, on top of this, keep a corresponding quantity of gold coins and redeem their notes issued in them upon demand? Does that make any sense at all? Aren’t the wants and needs for their services strong enough to keep their note issues at par with their nominal value, just like compulsory taxes or contributions to contracted-for insurance and protection services could keep their exchange media issues at par with their nominal value standards? At most they could be put under the obligation, if they would not do so already anyhow, in their own interest, to use any gold coins received to purchase any of their own note issues that stand below par in local circulation. – J.Z., 25.2.10, 24.9.10. - METALLIC REDEMPTIONISM? OR A SUFFICIENT READINESS TO ACCEPT FOUNDATION OR A CLEARING FOUNDATION? TICKET & SUBSCRIPTION MONIES INSTEAD OF GOLD CERTIFICATES.
GOLD COVER & REDEMPTION OR CONVERTIBILITY: There is no inherent reason why each exchange of labour, goods and services or any or even every exchange medium or exchange process, in a free exchange economy, should be "covered" by an equivalent amount or value in form of rare metals. This compulsory gold or silver "licence fee" for every exchange should be abolished - at least as a wrongful and unnecessary imposition. Likewise abolished should be the equivalent "licence" requiring a "cover" of each transaction by or conversion option upon demand by the creditor into, legal tender cash - i.e. any forced and exclusive currency. Free trade in any form for any free exchange, using any medium or process, at least among all consenting adults. Gold and Silver as exclusive means of exchange and as exclusive standards of value should be no more than options for the believers in them, not obligatory for those who do not believe that they are the only or best options available. - The cover-, redemption- or reserve-spleen demanding rare metal covers, 100% or at least fractionally behind every monetary certificate, is so popular, even within "scientific" writings, that the few exceptions to this few and counter arguments and references should be combined and published together and so should be all the alternative cove-, reserve-, and convertibility-proposals, experiences and practices for all kinds of alternative "transport tickets" or "ticket monies, purchasing vouchers etc. - J. Z., 3/97, 28.6.11.
GOLD DISCOVERIES & INFLATION: Back in the time of the autonomous gold standard no one would have blamed John Sutter for starting the 1849 California gold rush. Still economists agree that the mid-century inflation of world prices had to be attributed to the burst of gold mining in California and Australia. The price rise after the turn of the century had to be attributed to Klondike and South African gold discoveries. - Dr. Paul A. Samuelson, THE NATIONAL TIMES, 26.4.71. - A very popular error this! - This easy "explanation" has been parroted for over a century by people who never closely watched the development of prices, expressed in gold weight units, over the decades. The gold discoveries were not only followed by great price increases but also by long periods of great price decreases, without gold suddenly disappearing from the Earth. Other explanations of the prices rises that did occur, e.g. bad harvests, natural catastrophes, wars and inflationary policies by governments, also the great expansion of national and world markets, e.g. through better transport systems, are simply ignored by such people. See e.g. OTTO SCHMITZ, Die Bewegung der Warenpreise in Deutschland von 1851 bis 1902, Berlin, 1903, Franz Siemenroth, 443pp plus a large table. This book was very much recommended by Ulrich von Beckerath. Once I learned one of its gold price statistics by heart, but only temporarily. (I have not yet got around to microfiche or digitize it as well. - J.Z., 4.9.02.) There was no gold weight unit price inflation corresponding to the additional gold production. Nearly 150 years later and after enormous further gold production, prices expressed in gold weight units have, probably, in most cases, not risen at all and in some cases fallen. E.g., an alarm clock costs probably less in grams of gold now than it did 150 years ago. A pencil, likewise, and a can of beans. But the governments' paper money prices have risen, almost always, sooner or later, in proportion to its "production" of additional paper money. - J.Z., 2.4.97, 28.6.11.
GOLD DISCOVERIES: They have often been wrongly blamed for price increases due shortages in the supply of goods and services, e.g. to produce scarcity after bad harvests, revolutions, natural catastrophes etc. If one compares the price levels for subsequent periods, then one will soon find out, that the added gold, remaining accessible or in circulation, has not correspondingly and permanently driven up prices and, upon further researches, one will usually find the real causes of the temporary price increases, reckoned in gold units, that did occur. Even in my youth and in a relatively developed country like Germany, the monetary economy had not yet completely penetrated and some exchanges were still made by payments in goods or produce. Gold and silver coins were never available in sufficient quantities to mediate all possible and desired exchanges, especially after the industrial revolution when the goods production had been greatly increased and the world market was much more opened up for them. To that extent even large new gold and silver finds did not and could not affect the price levels much. Moreover, the added annual production of gold and silver constituted only a small fraction, as a rule, of the accumulation of these metals over thousands of years. - J.Z., 3/97, 28.6.11.
GOLD EAGLE.COM: Lessons From The London Gold Pool - www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_01/judge052101.html - Cached - 21 May 2001 – Almost without exception, gold and silver have always appeared as the "free market money" of choice. No other form of money has functioned ... - A German proverb says: Some people have a horizon with a zero radius and they call it their point of view. - J.Z., 25.7.11.
GOLD EAGLE.COM: Reply To Gary North On Silver - www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_05/watson020806.html - Cached - 8 Feb 2006 – I understand Gary North is a free market money man, so he would concur with me that what government says about money doesn't make it so! ...
GOLD ECONOMY WORDPRESS: The Life Cycle of Money « A Gold Economy - goldeconomy.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/the-life-cycle-of-money/ - Cached - 12 Apr 2008 – ... represents fairly the stored value of man's past labour naturally develops in the free market, what we like to call 'Free Market Money'. ... - FREE MARKET MONEY
GOLD IN "THE" GOLD STANDARD: Gold has a unique usefulness as a value standard. Even as an exclusive and forced value standard it could not do much harm, except to the sensibilities of those who do hate gold with an almost religious favour. But as an exclusive and forced means of exchange it would be costly, cumbersome and all too limited. It would limit trade to those transactions that it could mediate and outlaw or reduce to barter all others. To that extent and although its purchasing power would then be much increased, it would rather be harmful than helpful. We would all have to wear "chains of gold" and be correspondingly restricted in our productive and exchange efforts. For many centuries, when gold and silver coins were almost the only permitted and customary means of payment in many countries, prices expressed in gold and silver coins were, indeed, very low. But not yet low enough to mediate all desired and possible exchanges in a monetary way. Even into the 20th century and in spite of the availability of many other means of payment and clearing options, degrees of barter still persisted in developed countries and in previous centuries they were quite extensive. Moreover, people depending on trade, desperately tried to provide money substitutes or clearing avenues and non-cash payment methods, to get away from their all too large dependency upon gold. To grant a debtor, who does possesses sufficient gold coins, the right to pay a creditor with them, is one thing. But to grant a creditor the right to demand payment in gold from a debtor, who does not possess it or not enough of it and who could only offer an equivalent gold weight value in form of his goods and services, all expressed in their gold weight values, and in transferable corresponding certificates issued by him, in suitable denominations, amounts to destructive and bankrupting monetary despotism, which causes sales difficulties for goods, services and labour. Even if gold coins, used only as gold weight value units, were the best or at least among the best value standards, to force them upon all, as exclusive value standards and as exclusive means of exchange, would be no more rightful than insisting that all who want to drive automobiles must not be allowed to drive in the cheap cars they could afford but only in a Mercedes or Rolls Royce, even though they could not afford them. A free market - for exchange media of all kinds and also for all kinds of value standards - would not insist upon a monopolized exchange medium and its forced acceptance and this with an exclusive and enforced value standard. It would not do this even for the best kind of exchange medium, clearing certificates and value standard. It would respect subjective value choices and consumer sovereignty, freedom of contract, free enterprise, free choice of jobs and professions, free trade and property rights - in the monetary and currency sphere as well. - J.Z., 16.4.97, 28.6.11.
GOLD MARKET: Rare metal markets should be completely freed from all government restraints, laws, regulations, subsidies, prohibitions, taxes, confiscations, jurisdictions and other controls. They all interfere with the free choice of value standards, which is an important part of monetary freedom and of the right to issue money tokens, to make contracts, to take steps to employ oneself or provide oneself with sales of one's goods and services. After thousands of years of governmental abuses no kind of monetary and value standard despotism and monopolism must be permitted any longer. The price to be paid for it, in mass unemployment, bankruptcies, impoverishment, inflations, deflations, stagflations and in political despotism, wars, civil wars, revolutions and terrorism, in suicides and sicknesses and despair - is just too high for the single benefit of having a "uniform" currency, "guarded" and guarantied" by one's government. Already for all too long we have put up with governmental powers, lies and frauds in this sphere, based upon their and our ignorance and prejudices. We were rendered powerless to undertake rightful and rational self-help actions this sphere. At last we must become monetarily emancipated, too. Our very survival may be at stake. For our misrulers are now armed with mass murder devices or anti-people and anti-city, even anti-country "weapons". - J. Z., n.d., 29.4.97, 28.6.11. - FREE GOLD MARKET, FREE RARE METAL MARKETS, QUITE UNRESTRAINED & UNREGULATED. FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS & EXCHANGE MEDIA. FREEDOM TO ISSUE ALTERNATIVE CURRENCIES, OPTIONAL & MARKET RATED.
GOLD MONEY NEWS, The Market Situation: Overvalued and Overdue a Correction - Video - www.metacafe.com/.../the_market_situation_overvalued_and_overd... - Cached - 4 Jul 2011 – The Euro Crisis and Gold As Free Market Money 07:34. The Euro Crisis and Gold As Free Market Money. Rated 0.00 | 7 Views. By GoldMoneyNews ...
GOLD PRICE: Ulrich von Beckerath frequently pointed out that one ought to distinguish, in the managed "gold standard" between the central bank's purchase price and its sales price for gold. For many years there was no sales price for gold at central banks, because they did not sell any. All they did was PURCHASE gold at a price, expressed in national legal tender, that tended to be considerably below its market price, at least that on the black market. They pretended that their PURCHASE price established a par value for their paper money. But that par value can only be achieved when there is not only a purchase price but also a sales price for gold and this not only at the central bank but on a free gold market, that is world-wide. - Likewise, for some years there was also a sales price for gold from the central banks - but it applied only to other, i.e. foreign central banks and thus was not a proper sales price, either, because all others were excluded as bidders. - When any paper money, one that is not legal tender and is an optional or competing currency, stands at par, with its nominal gold weight value in a free money- and gold market, then this means that its price consists of a free purchase and a free sales price - different only by the "gold points". This profit margin for gold traders is rather small but has to cover transport costs and risks. Sales and purchase prices for other commodities vary, usually, much more. - J. Z., 22.4.97, 28.6.11. - DISTINCTION BETWEEN PURCHASE & SALES PRICES OF A CENTRAL BANK FOR GOLD EIGHT UNITS.
GOLD PRODUCTION & INFLATION: Gold production leads to inflation. - Popular opinion. - One might as well assert that steel production or KWH production leads to inflation. - To assert that supposed connection and this after the classical gold standard was abolished already for decades and when, during most inflations, there were severe penalties upon the possession and smuggling of gold, and upon the pricing of produce, goods, services, labour and debts in gold weight units, is absurd. - The current gold production is always only a small fraction of the total accumulated gold. Moreover, the total gold treasure tends to increase slower than general productivity and population. In other words, the per-head and per unit of other goods equivalent in gold weight units tends to decrease rather than to decrease. If there were no paper money inflation, we would see decreases rather than increases in the gold weight unit prices of goods, while services and labour, due to higher capital investments per head and technical, managerial and scientific advances, would be increased in gold weight units and purchasing power towards other goods. The gold "inflation" effect is entirely imaginary. It is an unjustified put-down or slander by upholders of monetary despotism. They can't produce anything better, so the malign the use of gold as a value standard. The ever increasing use of gold e.g. in industry and arts would also see to it that the value of gold would not decline. We do also bury more and more of the gold production with the gold crowns of the teeth of our dead. - J.Z., 2.4.97.
GOLD REDEMPTIONISM & ITS AUTOMATISM: When monetary "experts" focus only on the automatism of gold redemptionism or gold convertibility, then they do tend to overlook the automatism resulting from free issues of optional alternative monetary issues, free market rating of such issues, the right to refuse to accept them or to discount them, the various methods to give them a value at least in local circulation, by their reflux or debt-payment foundation. Only in the absence of an issue monopoly and of legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and a forced value) are the exchange media, including clearing certificates and accounts, sufficiently separated from their chosen value standard, while also being rated against their value standard. Even if under monetary freedom an excess of exchange media could be issued and would be accepted at par, instead of being refused or discounted, the reckoning in sound value standards for all debts, goods, services, labour, rents, etc. would go on, i.e. the excess circulation could not drive up prices so determined but would merely depreciate these exchange media in general circulation and drive them fast back to those, who issued them and would still have to accept them at their nominal value, ultimately, with all of their possessions and future earnings - if they had really been able to over-issue their notes to that extent, which is rather unlikely. Freedom to issue notes, clearing certificates or conduct clearing accounts does, naturally, require free choice of sound value standards, even free choice of unsound value standards for those foolish or ignorant enough to adopt them for a while. Full monetary freedom requires also the right to clear ones debts with one's goods, services and labour, when offered in the form of soundly issued alternative exchange media, clearing certificates or accounts, using a sound value standard all being optional and discountable, i.e. market rated, for all but the issuers, who would always have to accept them at par with their nominal value. That right or freedom exists quite regardless of whether oneself or one's trading partners do possess any gold coins. The continuous strong demand exerted by wanted consumer goods, services and labour for competitively issued exchange media, using a sound value standard, can and does give them a value that is mostly at par or close to par in local circulation and always at par upon their reflux to the issuers, who do have wanted consumer goods, services and labour to offer for them. For instance, shop-, tax-foundation or other debt- and clearing foundation for any kinds of notes and clearing certificates, can give such alternative currencies a par value with their nominal gold weight value - without any of the participants possessing any gold or promising its delivery upon demand. With all their attention focused merely on gold coins or gold covers and gold redemption funds of gold certificates, too many people, those called "gold bugs", tend to overlook the other securities, covers, redemption, reflux or convertibility options and limitations involved in the issue of banknotes, especially the short-term turnover credits of note-issuing banks, issued in their discount policy for real commercial bills or their equivalents, with banknotes issued by themselves. Or they do tend to regard these alternatives as insufficient, although they have sufficed and would still suffice to preserve the par value of competitive issued bank notes, issued e.g. under the Real Bills Doctrine, upon sound commercial bills, for goods already produced and sold to their first stage, the wholesalers (paying with such a bill), on the road to the retailers and from them to the final consumers, employees paid in banknotes issued on this basis in the discount of the Real Bills, in the short-term turnover process and circulation, in which the banknotes issued - are finally redeeming the bill upon which they were based or similar bills. Naturally, the shop foundation, which the retailers do offer, is also involved and the productive labour for which the employees were paid with such banknotes. Likewise, sound value reckoning is required, e.g. in the weight units of gold- or silver coins, if that is the preference of the participants. But the whole process does not require and is rather disturbed when the holder of the real bill and the holder of such a banknote are legally or juridically entitled to insist upon redemption in gold coins, rather than in wanted consumer goods or services. The whole process amounts to a short-term and complete circle of the daily turnover process and is self-liquidating without any metallic redemption. In it gold- or silver coins or other value standard units are ONLY required as sound enough value standards, not at all as exclusive means of payment that anyone is entitled to demand or that anyone would have to promise to supply. - It hasn't helped to achieve full comprehension of the "real bill doctrine" or of what might also be called the pure and classical free "banking principle", that commercial bills are nowadays no longer extensively used, largely due to the severe penalties upon infringing their metallic redemption rules. They are largely replaced by other and easier to use short-term securities, or current account debts. Nor did it help that most of the commercial bills and banknotes issued upon them did promise metallic redemption upon demand. That promise expectation and attempts to fulfil that promise distracted many to most observers from the sound issue and reflux practices and the short-term turnover credit clearing process that is involved. They were distracted by this classical model from or did not appreciate the sufficiency of the debt- and clearing foundation the banknotes and the commercial bills had, even when gold coins were not stockpiled, promised and offered in redemption. However, the Real Bills Doctrine did require "sound commercial bills" (real bills as opposed to mere financial bills, speculatively issued by people short of cash and hoping that by they day they would be due they would, somehow, have acquired the rare metal coins to redeem them, as promised in these bills. It also required sound value reckoning but not redemption in the value standard units. That "commercial bills of exchange" were largely discontinued may also have been due to the fact that the central bank got a monopoly to discount them or had to supply its notes for such discounting by other banks, without being involved in examining the business of the bill debtors. The "art" of note-issuing bankers consisted for a long period largely in his ability to distinguish a sound commercial bill from a mere financial bill, or sound turn-over credit bills from prolonged loan instruments. By establishing a centralised bureaucracy - for the issue of monopoly money with legal tender power - this art became largely lost. By now it is largely unknown to most of the remaining bankers and their employees, no longer being involved with sound and self-liquidating note issues and their security, reflux and clearing arrangements. Instead we got despotic currency "policies" that have led to unsound exchange media, unsound value standards and numerous economic crises, especially inflations, deflations and stagflations, with their sales difficulties, depreciations and mass unemployment. Governments had pre-empted and thereby largely destroyed freedom and rights that sphere, even though, in their monetary legislation, they still paid considerable lip service to the sound banking tradition, more in e.g. Germany than in the US, where the "asset-currency" spleen largely prevailed, apart from notions of metal redemptionism. - The "gold bugs" also tend to overlook the disadvantages involved in any exclusive currency and, seeing that they believe their exclusive currency is a good and quite sufficient one, they have often no hesitation to demand not only an exclusive status for it but also legal tender power - a monopoly and a power which they do rightly condemn for all other media of exchange and value standards. They ignore the vast possibilities of all kinds of ticket monies or clearing certificates or account credits, with some or the other readiness to accept, shop- or debt foundation and one or the other preferred value standard. They believe with such religious fervour in gold-weight units as ideal value standards and that this value standard can be maintained only by 100% or fractional redemption of all banknotes (issued as redeemable gold certificates), by their issuer, upon demand by the note holder, that they quite ignore the gold clearing, gold accounting and gold pricing options, in which all kinds of means of exchange that are as good as gold (at par with their nominal gold weigh value) are accepted at par in all payments to the issuers and their debtors, mainly for wanted or needed consumer goods and service, also priced out in e.g. gold weight units, and that are, therefore and largely accepted in local circulation by other producers and traders, employers and employees. - Their preferred metallic redemptionism makes them overlook the greatest redemption fund of all, that consisting of the ready-for-sale and wanted or needed consumer goods and services, and also the greatest gold convertibility options that exist, namely those on the free gold market. Free gold markets offer much more gold for the conversion of sound exchange media into gold coins or gold bullion than all the issuers of gold certificates could offer between them. That vast gold market convertibility reserve or cover is available to all those who hold ticket money, goods and service vouchers and clearing certificates that stand at par with their nominal gold values and, fractionally, even to depreciated notes, that no one but the issuer would still have to accept at par with gold. A free gold market trader might still accept them at their discounted value for gold, provided only its issuer is not already bankrupt and out of business. If one appreciates sound value standard reckoning and among all its possibilities especially a gold weight unit or a silver weight unit as a value standard, then the important thing is to maintain that value standard as a value standard and not to maintain a monopoly for that value standard unit, in coined form, also as an exclusive means of payment. Perhaps a thousand times as many goods and services could be exchanged when using e.g. gold coins merely as a value standard but not as an exclusive exchange medium, than could be exchanged with gold coins not only as a value standard but also as an exclusive exchange medium. - When will the "gold bugs" finally recognize that fact? - The Misean kind of "free banking" is very different from that of e.g. Henry Meulen or that of the "free banking" period in U.S. monetary history, which granted a blanket permit for currency issues upon the "security" of all kinds of capital assets or securities. (Raw materials, land, buildings, large machinery, mines etc.) Even government debt certificates were considered acceptable! Today, sometimes, even the securities of already or nearly bankrupt foreign governments are considered as "securities" for the issue of a national "asset" currency that has exclusive status and legal tender power in the own country. - While e.g. the Austrian School of Economics has gone far in exploring property, trade and market relationships, free pricing, free enterprise etc. - but it has not yet sufficiently applied its insights, principles and recommended institutions to the sphere of money, credit and finance. Gold bug, or gold redemptionist notions still spook around in its heads and texts, misguided by ancient errors, prejudices, traditions and beliefs, that do not even fully liberate at least all gold-contract options, not to speak of all the other sound options that their users would prefer for their transactions. Those not addicted to gold-redemption for all kinds of paper monies do have much more to offer in redemption or clearing options and free market issue and acceptance limits, and in alternative value standards than have the advocates of gold redemption by the issuer of banknotes. However, as fellow fighters against despotic, exclusive and legal tender paper money of governments, the "Austrians" are welcome allies on the road to general monetary freedom. One simply does not have to accept all of their proposals for alternatives. One should also strive towards the day when they, as well, can freely practise their principles, ideas and proposals in voluntary payment communities or in exterritorially autonomous communities of volunteers. Full experimental freedom for volunteers to practise the principles, theories, institutions and methods of e.g. limited constitutional governments among themselves. Monetary freedom advocates and panarchists would not want to outlaw such experiments by true believers, but would rather welcome them, as free experiments, useful to teach lessons not yet learned by their participants. - To each his or her own system or school. None to be legally and territorially imposed upon dissenters. - Mutual tolerance in the spheres of economic, social and political systems as well as in that of religions, philosophies and in the arts, crafts and hobbies spheres. - J.Z., n.d. & 29.6.11. - PANARCHISM, TOLERANCE, CHOICE, COMPETITION, FREEDOM TO EXPERIMENT, MONETARY FREEDOM, RBD.
GOLD REPORT, THE, The Gold Report - CNBC Clueless About Gold - www.theaureport.com/pub/na/9023 - Cached - 23 Mar 2011 – "The USD and Treasuries are Ponzi schemes; gold is free-market money." Whether on purpose or pure accident, CNBC (the U.S. Version at least, ... - It is certainly not the only sound money or the only free market money, as many of the "gold bugs" believe. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD REPORT, THE, The Life Cycle of Money, The Gold Report - The Life Cycle of Money - www.theaureport.com/pub/na/10188 - Cached - 11 Jul 2011 – After a barter/exchange economy is well-established, a society progress to the concept of free market money and a currency system emerges. ...
GOLD RESERVES OF CENTRAL BANKS: Objectively, they are quite unnecessary to preserve the value of a currency which is well managed in its issue and reflux, e.g. via tax foundation or being used only in the discounting of sound commercial bills or equivalent short term debt certificates (that represent goods already produced and sold and on their road to their final consumers) and thus keep standing at par with their value standard (e.g. a weight unit of gold of something else) and this without a note issue monopoly and legal tender power (compulsory acceptance and forced value) for them. They are particularly wrongful and absurd when gold redemption is not even promised any more or practised. Those who want gold could buy it on a free gold market. This excess gold tock, which also represents excess taxation, should be dissolved, either by reducing taxes correspondingly or distributing it to the tax victims. I would prefer the latter. – Historically, a gold stock was considered as a war chest by monarchs. As such they have long been replaced by governmental forced and exclusive legal tender currencies, with all their wrongs and flaws. – Democratic governments would hardly dare to argue that they accumulated a gold treasure for the conduct of a future war. Anyhow, the wrongful and wasteful ways in which they conduct their territorialist wars, under the “principle” of holding the victims of a foreign and criminal government, collective responsibility, e.g. by bombing them and by treating its conscripts as volunteers or military slaves, rather than recognizing and using them as their natural allies, as captive and exploited nations, would use these gold reserves up very fast. – If they believe that a physical gold stock is necessary to preserve the gold value of their currency, rather than gold-weight accounting and clearing, then they simply reveal thereby their ignorance. Yet they pose as guardians or protectors of the national currency, which, in the vast majority of cases, they have managed to greatly deteriorate over the last century. – Actually, not a single exception comes to my mind. Has any of the national currencies of the world at least kept its purchasing power? Actually, it should, rather, have been increased - due to the greater productivity which was achieved during the last 100 years. – Central banks and their policies should no longer be imposed upon their dissenters. They should be confined to their voluntary victims. Then, in free competition with competing internal other currencies, their flaws would finally become obvious to most people and even the number of their voluntary victims would thus tend to shrink, fast. - J.Z., 1.11.10.
GOLD RESERVES: Does it really matter if the US government sells its gold? - www.goldmoney.com - Gold Research - Cached - 30 May 2011 – No system is perfect, but free market money offers Americans a much better chance of retaining their purchasing power than what is currently ... No exclusive exchange medium, clearing system or value standard can be good enough or even perfect. - J.Z., 25.7.11.
GOLD RUSHES: The proverbial "cursed hunger for gold" or "greed for money" or riches has been expressed not only by numerous beggars in the street or long lines of unemployed, queuing up for jobs, by slum areas around cities, by involvement of many poor people in smuggling, drugs, gambling, betting, lotteries, prostitution, pyramid schemes and crimes with involuntary victims, but also in land and gold rushes. The latter two have led to suddenly exploding population figures in areas opened up for settlement or open to gold mining claims. These rushes do not only indicate a quest for adventure and for easy and large riches but also an insufficient supply under the then and still persisting production and exchange conditions, that confined people to sell their labour only for an exclusive and insufficiently supplied currency, which made it hard to impossible for many people to earn a living. It also meant underpaid jobs, sales at emergency sales prices and many business and enterprise failures and much less choice in jobs for job seekers. Gold and silver coins were never quite evenly distributed all over the world, nor were 100% or fractionally covered gold and silver certificates. An uneven supply of exchange media and jobs can even now be found between country areas and city areas. The centralisation of much of the world's population in cities has as one significant and mostly ignored contributing factor, namely central banking, which manages to supply city enterprises better with its currency than country enterprises. Some little country towns do not even have a bank, far less do villages. Further: Any currency once acquired in country centres of trade and production does not necessarily stay there but tends to flow off, into the cities. It would be different for their local currencies, only locally issued and accepted. If the system of monetary despotism or of an exclusive currency as good as a gold coin or gold certificate currency, had managed to supply everybody willing and able to produce, trade, serve and work, to the limits of their capacity, with ready cash, i.e. rendered them to that extent able to pay, then e. g., State socialism, welfare statism and totalitarianism would have lost most of their supporters and unproductive get-rich schemes, zero sum games and crimes would be much rarer. But in spite of the fact that there are numerous indications of an insufficient supply of exchange media, advocates of central banking and those of an exclusive gold currency as well, do still assert that their systems would be able to supply any legitimate demand for currency and that "currency famines" and "currency shortages" are merely imaginary. - It is so easy to forget even the experiences of one's youth, with insufficient pocket money - or of none at all, for many years, as in my case, and quite insufficient earnings opportunities for most young people. It is also easy to ignore all those, who have given up registering as unemployed or under-employed and all those who do not bother to register that they would be ready and willing to work part-time. All the unused production capacity, unused labour forces, ready for sale goods, still remaining unsold, even when there is a great need and want for them among hundreds of millions of people, the great urge to get overtime jobs and payments when one is employed, all these indicate, at least to me, a shortage of sound currency. More of an inflated and monopolised and coercive currency does not help. It is offered all the time but does not improve but rather worsen the situation. To recommend to all people to become merely "gold diggers" or traders in gold and gold users for all their exchanges, is not a great or sufficient help for them, either, in their persistent currency shortage. There are only a few who seriously assert that we do already live in an age of affluence for all or most people in a country. It is easy for a well-paid and world famous professor like Galbraith to assert this and to ignore hundreds of millions of unemployed. The very existence of a single unemployed, able and willing to work and yet unable to get a job, at market rates, although seeking it for a long time, would indicate already some sort or barrier that prevents him from exchanging his labour capacity for the labours and goods that others would like to sell him. Obviously, exchange media, value standards and clearing avenues or their lack of them are involved in this and minimum wage laws or collective bargaining with trade unions and the rules of protectionism. All kinds of flawed notions, especially regarding economics, do still predominate in most heads. But then we still live in an era which asserts that, in spite of the cruelty of man to man and of nature to man, we all are children of a God and that he is a loving and caring creator and father. Similarly, the faith in central banking and in an exclusive gold standard currency does persist, in the face of all contrary evidence. Regarding money, too, religiously upheld dogmas do exist and the supposed experts on money are, as Ulrich von Beckerath used to say, just the high priests of the popular religion on money. We are still all too church-, faith- and priest-ridden in this respect. Just think of the over 200 million human sacrifices due to the ideologues territorially misruling whole populations during the last century. In the monetary and financial spheres the non-conformists, dissenters and reformers have not yet gained their independence, self-government and self-management and self-help options, rights and liberties. We are not yet monetarily emancipated but we need to be. The sooner the better, for the enemies of liberty have now access not only to conventional but to ABC mass murder devices. Thus all the animosities raised by monetary and financial despotism and their inherent consequences, against foreigners, immigrants, minorities, other ideologies and religions, ethnic or racial groups and the collectivist thinking engendered by territorialism, can still lead, at any time, to a general holocaust, even to the extinction of the human race, via nuclear, biological or chemical "weapons" or anti-people "weapons" or mass murder and mass destruction devices. Perhaps only rabbits and cockroaches might survive. The latter can stand a thousand-fold or even a hundred-thousand-fold as much radiation as can human beings. - We are still forced to pay tributes to our future mass murderers and mad enough to praise them for their "defence efforts" or "deterrence" policies. - J. Z., 20.8.86, 15.5.97, 29.6.11, 9.8.11. - CURRENCY FAMINES, GREED, GET RICH SCHEMES, ABILITY TO PAY, MONEY SHORTAGES, CRISES, UNEMPLOYMENT, DEFLATION, MONETARY DESPOTISM & MONETARY FREEDOM, AURI SACRA FAMES (THE CURSED HUNGER FOR GOLD), POVERTY, SUPPLY OF MEANS OF EXCHANGE
GOLD SAVINGS PLAN: Money - The Greatest Wealth Transfer in the History of Mankind ... - www.goldsavingsplan.info/money.html - Cached - Free markets require free market money. Fifty percent of every transaction involves currency. You have to allow the market to pick what money is and what ...
GOLD SILVER COM: GoldSilver.com - Capitalizing on Ignorance - goldsilver.com/article/Capitalizing-on-Ignorance/ - Cached - 19 Jul 2010 – Free markets require free market money. Fifty percent of every transaction involves currency. You have to allow the market to pick what ... - Those, who recommend only rare metals as value standards and as exclusive exchange media do also capitalized on ignorance. - J.Z., 23.7.11.
GOLD SPECULATOR, Gold Speculator - View Single Post - Is Jim Cramer crazy ... - www.gold-speculator.com/10179-post1.html - Cached - 1 Sep 2009 – Eventually, we believe, we will arrive at the safe harbor of a free-market money standard. Now that's a story we'd like to see written in ...
GOLD SPECULATOR: Gold Speculator - View Single Post - Keynes versus Friedman - and ... - www.gold-speculator.com/10573-post1.html - Cached - 5 Sep 2009 – Austrians of various colors wish for the return of true free market money, gold and silver, within the context of a free-market money ...
GOLD STANDARD & MONETARY FREEDOM: Today's free-market advocates of the gold standard differ from past advocates. For example, free-market advocates do not exclude silver or other commodities from their concept of a gold standard. Indeed, they do not even insist that gold MUST be money. - Paul Stevens, referred to as a freelance writer, in THE FREEMAN, 1/75. - Alas, some have not yet forgotten anything about "the" old standard - except the bad experiences with it - and have not learned anything about its other options and are not willing to listen, or study, either. - J.Z., 21.3.97.
GOLD STANDARD CURRENCIES: As proposed by Mises, Greaves, Rothbard et al, as exclusive and forced or monopoly currencies, with or without legal tender power, they should become permissible but only for their voluntary followers and within their exterritorially autonomous communities. The Austrian economists, too, should not be given any constitutional, legal or juridical powers to impose their own favourite system upon all others territorially, whether they like it or not. To that extent, too, their limited government should be much more limited than most of them dreamed of. - J. Z., 4.12.92, 30.4.97. - AUSTRIAN ECONOMISTS, TERRITORIALISM, MONOPOLISM, LEGAL TENDER. ANY SYSTEM - BUT ALL ONLY FOR VOLUNTEERS!
GOLD STANDARD, CLASSICAL, AS EXCLUSIVE & FORCED CURRENCY: If all of you insisted upon being paid only in gold coins or gold certificates (100% covered and redeemable in gold coins), by their issuers, upon demand, then you would very soon be close to bankruptcy or prolonged unemployment. By all means, try it, after first achieving the legal and juridical freedom to do so, or engage in a monetary revolution or limited monetary experiment, if you can and wish to, hoping that you will not be interfered with by the government, but do not try to impose your supposed ideal means of payment and value standard or clearing system, computerized or not, upon any dissenters. – J.Z., 27.4.05, 5.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD, CLASSICAL: How much could you raise in gold coins or gold certificates for your next shopping trip? How much could your employer raise in this form for his wage and salary bill? How many of your customers and debtors would be able to pay you in this way? – J.Z., 27.4.05. – The flawed assumptions involved in the suggestions of the classical gold standard advocates are better only with regard to the use of gold weight units as value standards, but not for their use as exclusive means of payment or as 100% and redemption obligation for gold certificates. As exclusive means of payment even the presently inflated government currencies are not as restrictive as the classical gold standard is. Both systems assert that they are good enough for both purposes, exchanging and value standard reckoning. Upon criticism, Mises followers like Rothbard and Huelsman merely assert that there is no danger of deflation. Any quantity of exchange media would be good for all exchanges, through price adaptations that would be sufficient, fast and frictionless enough. The possibility of catastrophic currency shortages or currency famines, of deflations, with lastingly falling prices and great sales difficulties for goods, services and labour is simply denied by the “automatic adaptation” model, which they have in their minds but which is a poor consolation for masses of unemployed, bankrupts and close to bankrupt employers in times of real deflations. In an extreme and assumed case, all goods, labour and services could, obviously, not be turned over by a single gold coin. (Unless we could handle them in sizes of millions of billionths parts of ounces. How redeemable would they be then?) Anyhow, all the gold accumulated over thousands of years (which was never fully coined) amounts only to a tiny fraction of the value of all goods, services and labour turned over every year, months or even week, if they are expressed in gold weigh value units under present conditions. Compare the figures offered by Simon under GOLD. – J.Z., 5.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD, CONVENTIONAL FORM: If I were forced to sell my labour, services and goods only for gold coins or gold certificates then I would be in very great trouble and so would most of you be. However, you should be free to so limit your exchange options. To attempt to drive all exchanges of millions of goods and services, in huge quantities, for billions of people, through the bottleneck of the supply of a single and rare commodity, as an exclusive exchange medium, not only as a value standard, is simply absurd. The value of all the other goods and services turned over even in a short period does already far exceed all the gold stocks accumulated over thousands of years. For some relevant figures see the entries on GOLD, taken from Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996. – J.Z., 27.4.05, 5.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD, MONETARY DESPOTISM & POLITICAL MONEY: The old standard functions with the force and inevitability of natural law, for it is the money of freedom and honesty. Society may temporarily depart from it in the vain hope of replacing it with political money that is managed and manipulated for political ends - used and abused as an instrument of public plunder. - Dr. Hans Sennholz, THE FREEMAN, 2/75. - When gold payment, in gold or gold certificates with gold redemption is legally and juridically imposed upon all debtors then this gold standard becomes monopolistic, very restrictive and harmful, too, for all non-cash and clearing transactions cannot be so covered, nor, by their very nature, need they be so covered. A single gold weight, used as a standard of value, would suffice for all these transactions. The imposed obligation to deliver gold instead of the required gold weight value via other exchange media or clearing has often led to panics and economic depressions. It should be replaced by an optional and individual obligation and even then withdrawal premiums ought to be included in the contract, as they are in most other dealings with futures (Trades that promise to deliver what one does not yet possess but only hopes to attain.). -J.Z., n.d. & 30.6.11.
GOLD STANDARD, REDEMPTIONIST: The Broken Window Fallacy: Why Government Spending HURTS the ... - www.informationliberation.com/?id=31602 - 1 Aug 2010 – Gold is free-market money, has been for ages, the free market determined it. Private industry needs to coin the currency just as it used to, ... - We never had a quite free and informed market in this sphere. The silver standard lasted longer than the gold standard. Both, and all other value standards and means of payment should always only be competitively supplied and optional for their acceptors, except for their issuers, who would always have to accept their own exchange media at their nominal value. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD STANDARD, THE: Free exchange and free clearing via the tokens (exchange media) and value standards of monetary freedom do not require a metallic cover or even redemption for their debts or accounts but merely soundly administered issues and short-term reflux arrangements for their competitively issued and optional as well as market-rated and refusable exchange media and accounts, which are using a sound value standard, acceptable to issuers and acceptors alike, rather than a territorially and legally imposed as well as unsound one. And sound value standard reckoning and accounting or clearing do not require a gold reserve by the issuer or by a central bank. In case a gold weight unit has been accepted as a value standard, it merely requires a free gold market, one that is sufficiently published. The free gold market can make much more gold available than can the largest gold hoard of a central bank to those who want to convert their exchange media into gold. - J.Z., 8.4.01, 26.8.02. - Used merely as a value standard, not as an exclusive exchange medium, gold coins can mediate an unlimited number of transactions that reckon in gold weight units. For this purpose they can be used also in numerous diverse exchange media, clearing certificates and accounts, as long as there is no obligation for the issuer or account-keeper, to supply these value standard units themselves, upon demand, instead of offering the nominal gold weight values in form of wanted consumer goods and services and this at free market prices, which are also marked in gold weight units. - J.Z., 29.6.11. - FREE GOLD MARKET, GOLD COVER, GOLD REDEMPTION
GOLD STANDARD, THE: It is wrong to speak and write as if only one kind of gold standard were possible, did occur historically or had been proposed. - Ignored are e.g. the various forms of option clauses and the gold clearing or gold for account value standard. Both eliminate, in their way, the redemption risk and this without having to accumulate a 100% gold redemption fund. Even a fractional reserve redemption currency can be frankly offered as such and run, without false pretence, as long as it can be. Its runs and moratoria can be foreseen and anticipated by clauses for gradual settlements that are satisfactory for the bank and its voluntary customers. - J. Z., 16.3.97.
GOLD STANDARD, THE: Most of the advocates of "the" gold standard do not sufficiently distinguish between gold a) as an EXCLUSIVE and FORCED value standard AND as an EXCLUSIVE and FORCED exchange medium and b) Gold as either an EXCLUSIVE and FORCED value standard or merely as an OPTIONAL, COMPETING and MARKET RATED value standard, in combination with gold as an OPTIONAL, COMPETITIVE & MARKET RATED means of exchange, one that is supplemented by numerous other optional means of exchange and value standards, that are all competitive and market rated e.g., also against gold weight units, but not covered by or redeemable into them and c) gold as a means of exchange that a debtor may pay, when he is well enough supplied with it, as distinguished from gold as a means of exchange that a creditor may demand from a debtor, although the debtor is not well enough supplied with it. When gold metal payment is optional for a debtor then no difficulties arise, as a rule (apart from the transaction costs for large rare metal payments) for debtor and creditor. When it is compulsory, upon demand by the creditor, for a debtor, then the difficulties that arise from this for both, debtor and creditor, are large. - Moreover, advocates of "the" gold standard do usually assume that the market for goods and services of all kinds can and will rapidly and fully enough adapt to ANY, even RAPID changes in the quantities of rare metals coins readily available as exclusive exchange media and value standards in any developed economy, so that the quantity available would not matter at all. That expectation or prediction or "rule" is not sufficiently born out by the facts. Rare metals have been used as exchange media and value standards for thousands of years but still have never managed to make all desired monetary exchanges possible. Barter exchanges and currency famines persisted to some degree, even in boom times and spread widely during crises. And this in spite of the fact that numerous clearing exchanges did supplement those exchanges which were made possible by the available quantities of rare metals, used for exchanges. As a result of the prices of goods, labour and services not immediately falling far enough to restore the equilibrium between the suddenly reduced (in circulation) exclusive rare metal exchange media on the one side and of the goods, services and labour on the other side, even primitive emergency monies gained currency for awhile, at least locally and dozens of millions of involuntarily unemployed found it impossible to exchange their labour even at emergency sales prices for labour. - In this connection it is often overlooked that falling prices deter from buying and encourage more hoarding, while fallen prices encourage buyers and reduce cash hoardings. Deflations tend to induce falling prices. Technical improvements and better harvests tend to bring about individually fallen prices. - Generally speaking, monopolies are never very good at fast adapting to any changes. But gold bugs assumed that their favourite monopoly currency could and would. - J.Z., 16.4.97 & 22.4.97, 30.6.11.
GOLD STANDARD, THE: The “unadulterated gold standard” is all too much “adulterated” by itself. – J.Z., 28.9.10. – See: REDEMPTIONISM, GOLD VALUE CLEARING, DIS.
GOLD STANDARD: An enormous and lasting deflation would result if all payments for goods, services, labour and other debts had to be done in future with gold coins or 100% covered and redeemable gold certificates only. Such an imposition would be particularly wrongful and absurd, since all transactions could, at least theoretically and if well organized, be done via clearing, using not a single gold coin, but, if one wanted to, using for all these transactions still gold weight units as their value standard. Luckily, other exchange media and other value standards are possible and should be allowed via freedom of contract, freedom of association and freedom to exchange, combined with property rights. – J.Z., 26.9.10.
GOLD STANDARD: As an optional value standard, even as an exclusive one, all communities of volunteers should be free to adopt it for themselves. Likewise as an optional or exclusive exchange medium. But neither as an exclusive value standard nor as an exclusive exchange medium should it be forced on any group, society or community opposed to it. They must have given their contractual approval to such acceptance to make it rightful for them. Then they alone, such volunteers, would have to suffer the consequences. Others would remain free to adopt alternative exchange media and value standards for their transactions, if they want to. Even gold is not good enough to be turned into exclusive legal tender for the population of whole countries. – As an optional value standard only, not as an exclusive exchange medium, it could still do much good now and in the future. – As an imposed exclusive exchange medium that a creditor may demand and a debtor must pay it, it could do much wrong and harm. – Presently, I could not pay any of my debts with gold coins. Could you? To what extent? - J.Z., 26.9.10.
GOLD STANDARD: As optional value standards gold weight units are rightful, useful and harmless but as an exclusive exchange medium or cover and redemption means by issuers, upon demand, for their banknotes, outside of such voluntary and competitive payment circles, they are wrongful and often harmful, for the supply of this rare metal is all too limited and not all of this supply is coined out and in steady and sufficient circulation. (See under Gold.) We should consider, though, trying to make other exchange media, clearing certificates or account credits as acceptable as gold coins are, when debtors are able and willing to supply them in payment. That could be achieved by accepting them at par with their nominal gold weight value in payment of salaries, wages, rents, and for consumer goods and services as well as for other debts, by freely agreed upon contracts or even one-sided readiness-to accept declarations made on the notes themselves, by their issuers. Then all prices, wages, debts, if that is desired by the participants, could be expressed in gold weight units but would not be payable only in gold weight units but in all kinds of other means or methods of payment, at their market rated gold weight value. Only the issuers would always have to accept their own notes and clearing certificates at their nominal gold weight value. By contracts they might oblige their debtors to do the same and to sufficiently state this readiness publicly, e.g. in their shop windows. - J.Z., 27.4.05, 4.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD: Assuming a quite hypothetical and extreme case: Superior alien technology would be able to teleport all of the Earth’s gold away from us, for unknown purposes of their own, somewhere in space. Should we then give up all free enterprise production and division of labor and free exchange between us? Or should we be free – as we should already be now, seeing the messes the central banks of territorial governments have produced in this sphere, to realize free choice of value standards between us, using any of the hundreds of alternatives that have so far been proposed and at least partly already experimented with? – J.Z., 24.1.10. – FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS
GOLD STANDARD: But, as the as the aggregate of products and of exchanges enlarged, it was found that gold and silver were inadequate for the transaction of business, and the social genius produced the bill of exchange and the banknote.(*) This was a great invention, whose benefits are not generally understood, whereby commerce and, consequently, both production and consumption were vastly increased, and with them human well-being. - Charles A. Dana, Proudhon and His Bank of the People, in Henry Cohen, Proudhon's Solution of the Social Problem, New York, Vanguard Press, 1927, pp. 15-31. Reproduced in: Leonard L. Krimerman & Lewis Perry, Patterns of Anarchy, Anchor Books, 1966, p.331/32. - - (*) And other clearing options! - J.Z., 11.5.11. - RARE METAL REDEMPTIONISM, BILL OF EXCHANGE, BANKNOTES, CLEARING, REAL BILLS DOCTRINE
GOLD STANDARD: Even if one had to concede that at present a gold weight unit would still be the best value standard, which it might still be, this still does not mean that it would also be the best exchange medium in the form of an exclusive currency, supplemented only by 100% covered and redeemable gold certificates in monetary denominations. Precisely because gold has been accumulated for a long time and built up such a large stock that the current gold production increases it only very fractionally, makes it suitable as a value standard, at least an optional one, but one unsuitable as an exclusive exchange medium for the millions of goods and services that are currently offered for sale, often in quantities that are rapidly increasing. However, those still believing that it could also be used as an exclusive exchange medium should be free to do so, if they wish and could even rightly obliged themselves to use it as such for all their transactions. Here we should never forget the "cursed hunger for gold" for much of recorded history, which existed while there were largely only exclusive rare metal coins, which were so insufficient as exchange media (just like the exclusive and forced currency of governments and their central banks) that even within the lifespan of my parents, in relatively developed Germany, there were still extensive barter exchanges for lack of suitable exchange media. Barter transactions are mostly not noticed by statisticians. If there were an extensive statistics of them, they would probably show a surprising and long continuing degree of barter transactions in all countries, which had only an exclusively metallic currency (supplemented or expressed in 100 % covered and redeemable paper notes). Since barter transactions are also, as a rule, tax-free and even unknown to the tax authorities, it will probably be difficult to impossible to get reliable estimates on them, which would show their extent and their decline to the extent that exchange media became more easily to obtain. Moreover, for all clearing transactions and all non-cash payments, e.g. gold-cover stocks and the gold-redemption obligation are obviously unnecessary. Only sound value reckoning is required for them. By now most turnovers are paid in this way, possibly already most salaries and wages as well. However, for all honest exchanges, fair to all the participants, sound value standards are required - but they are still everywhere outlawed. - We should become free to choose them for ourselves (from their multitude already used in the past or experimented with or proposed) or to offer ourselves value standards in our transactions which our trading partners do find acceptable. Once again: those insisting on using e.g. gold- or silver-weight units for all their exchange media and as their value standard in all their transactions should be free to do so. Some people learn fast from historical experiences and others only very slowly. Merely used as a value standard, gold weight units could still soundly measure turnovers that would be increased by, let us say, 50% p.a. But for as rapidly increased turnovers, due to population and productivity increases, gold coins could hardly be increased in volume by 50% p.a. Wherever and among whoever they would still be an exclusive means of exchange a corresponding deflation would result. - J.Z., 20.12.10, 27.4.11.
GOLD STANDARD: For the sake of clarification, one should always speak of “gold standards”. How many different ones did exist and were proposed? Is there already a complete list, with all pros and cons added to each of them? – J.Z., 18.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD: Gold and silver feed and clothe and shelter no man; they are good to the mass of people (only to the extent that they are provided with them! - J.Z.) merely because they can be exchanged for food and clothing and shelter. If we, then, can discover anything which shall be equally or more portable, equally certain of being everywhere (at least in one's usual shopping area! - J.Z.) received in exchange for all products and at the same time safe from being monopolized, we shall accomplish a great good, and the precious metals may be dispensed with (at least as exclusive exchange media and as exclusive value standards! - J.Z.) except for their original uses. - Charles A. Dana, Proudhon and His Bank of the People, in Henry Cohen, Proudhon's Solution of the Social Problem, New York, Vanguard Press, 1927, pp. 15-31. Reproduced in: Leonard L. Krimerman & Lewis Perry, Patterns of Anarchy, Anchor Books, 1966, p.332/33. - The turnover of goods, services and labour CAN be achieved without them as exclusive exchange media and exclusive value standards, with them being reduced to optional and competing exchange media and value standards, thus permitting many more sound and free exchanges and value measurements by other means, agreed upon. - J.Z., 6.5.11. - GOLD-WEIGHT VALUE CLEARING STANDARD & FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS VS. EXCLUSIVE GOLD-CURRENCY & GOLD REDEMPTIONISM UPON DEMAND.
GOLD STANDARD: Gold coins, precisely because they remain valuable and widely acceptable, do not always circulate steadily and sufficiently but are often hoarded, especially during crises, thus making crises worse – if they had been an exclusive means of payment, one that a creditor may demand from his debtors. Cheaper substitute means of payment, when still using gold weight units or another sound unit as their value standard, are much less likely to be hoarded and much easier replaced, through new issues of the goods and service providers, as long as they are temporarily hoarded. To that extent they are superior to gold coins as exclusive means of payment. – Goods- and service vouchers, in money denominations, will always tend to return soon to their issuers, to fulfill their function, i.e. become redeemed in the goods and services they offer and their combination, in any large retail shop or association of local shops, which has acted as their local issuing center. – They have not only a readiness to accept foundation but also a good reflux foundation, especially when they are issued only in short-term turnover credits, e.g. for wage- and salary payments, on the RBD, and may also have a limited validity of, say, 3 to 12 months at most. – Their ready for sale goods and services have been described as the real and main working capital needed at any time for continuous production. Governmental monopoly monies do not fully mobilize that capital wherever it is needed. Producers and retailers could and should. – The printing costs can be quite insignificant, especially since there is little risk of forgery for such local currency. They, with other costs for a single issue and reflux and then destruction or cancellation, have been estimated to be only ½ to 1 ½% p.a. – However, for the short-term loans, in which they are issued, or in the discounting process of their issue, higher interest rates might be charge to help assure their rapid repayment. – Those, who are repaying them earlier, in such exchange media or others, at their market rate, might be given an attractive discount. - J.Z., 26.5.0.5, 4.10.10. – GOODS WARRANTS, PUCHASING VOUCHERS, SHOP FOUNDATION, SHOP CURRENCIES, SERVICE VOUCHERS, ISSUE PRINCIPLE, CIRCULATION, REFLUX, WAGES & SALARIES, CURRENT PRODUCTION & SALES EXPENDITURES, RBD
GOLD STANDARD: Gold standard advocates become “gold bugs” when they wish to territorially and legally impose the kind of gold standard that they prefer upon a whole country and its population. They are moral and rational people only to the extent that they advocate their particular money and currency policy as an option for volunteers. They, too, would have to constantly prove, in free competition with all other exchange media and value standard systems, their assertion that gold coins are the best means of payment, would always be in sufficient supply and would always constitute a better value standard than all other value standards so far practised or proposed. Then they could do no harm and could even do some good. Then they would leave all dissenters independent of their preferred systems, trying to produce and continue to use even better exchange media, clearing certificates (or accounts) and value standards. In the means of exchange sphere or of free clearing this would be relatively easy and could be done fast and cheaply. But there should also be free choice of value standards for all. For just as there are true believers in gold as the one and only true and reliable value standard, there are also true believers in alternative value standards. These should be free to practise them among themselves, at their own risk and expense, either setting successful or deterrent examples. – Only territorial governments, as long as we still allow them to exist, should no longer be permitted to pursue any monetary and currency policy. Even the issue of sound tax foundation monies (as long as we permit tax-slavery to be continued) should be taken over by private institutions, subject to full publicity and utilizing the long experience with sound currencies of this type. – To the extent that all “public institutions” will become replaced by private, mutual and cooperative ones, these tax-foundation-money institutes would become issuers of contribution monies of various kinds, not only of insurance companies but also of protection and defence companies and of juridical services. - J.Z., 2.11.10. – VALUE STANDARDS, EXCHANGE MEDIA, MONETARY FREEDOM, GOLD BUGS, MONETARY & CURRENCY INTOLERANCE, TAX FOUNDATION MONEY, CONTRIBUTION FOUNDATION MONEY
GOLD STANDARD: I do not favour "THE" gold standard imposed upon all people in a country but only the kind of gold standards that people would voluntarily apply among themselves, in their own payment communities. But I do also favour any kind of other value standard that people agree to adopt between themselves without making any attempt to politically impose it upon any dissenters in any territorial State. - J.Z., n.d. & 30.6.11. - FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS. NO MONOPOLY FOR ANY OF THEM.
GOLD STANDARD: It is neither necessary nor advantageous that banknotes are convertible upon demand by the issuer into either gold coins or gold bullion, although such banks have been set up and could be set up again. - Firstly, such a provision of exchange media is expensive. Secondly, by limiting exchange media thus to the availability of a single product for all exchanges of millions of different products and services, an unnecessary and unjustified bottleneck is established, one that will prevent many exchanges or it might make the sales of goods, labor and services possible only at emergency sales prices. - 3.) It does not sufficiently distinguish between value standard and exchange media and limits the exchange media supply to the supply of the value standard medium. 4.) It does not take note of the fact that numerous exchanges took place in the past and take place now without such gold cover, furthermore, 5,) that clearing transactions, i.e. the mutual cancellation of debts, does not require any physical exchange media at all, not even paper money cash. 6.) Theoretically, the number of exchanges is unlimited - except for the productive and service capacity of people and their willingness to produce and consume. 7.) Most of them do not want to produce, sell and buy gold but, instead, goods and services. Their exchange media should represent that reality and allow them to monetize what they have to offer in goods and services, in optional and market rated money, whose issue is thereby self-regulated and will serve to achieve the sale of whatever they have to offer in wanted goods and services. Beyond that, under competitive conditions, with a free and well publicized market for competing exchange media and their value standards, they could not successfully and for long issue any exchange media at par, no more so than a theatre could for long sell many theatre tickets at par beyond its seating capacity. 8.) We do not need a central bank to determine or regulate the value of all tickets issued and used. Currency or cash notes are best perceived as tickets to the goods and services offered, issued by the providers of the ready for sale goods and services. 9.) Who else would be rightly entitled to issue claims to what they have to offer? 10.) That means e.g. shop currency, based on shop foundation. Indeed, it is based on debt. The issuer has obliged himself by his notes. Whoever he lends them to has to repay him, with some interest, covering at least the costs and risk of the process. The issuer also owes the holder of his IOU's the goods and services he offers - up to the value of the shop currency he holds, to the extent that it was issued by him or associates. 11.) Prices and notes are best expressed in sound and agreed-upon rather than government-determined and mismanaged "value standard" units. Historical experience speaks overwhelmingly for this change. Consumers are in the market, generally, to buy consumer goods and services, not gold coins or bullion. Their exchange media should represent that fact and facilitate the turnover of goods and services rather than that of gold coins and bullion only. 12.) Indeed, a gold certificate or gold coin would be widely acceptable - but not universally, by all people, in all situations. And we should never be made dependent upon them as exclusive exchange media and value standards. When monetary freedom is introduced, a few such banks will be established - but I doubt that they will last long in free competition with sound other exchange media providers who might e.g., use gold weight units only as their preferred value standards, without promising redemption in them. 13.) Likewise, in clearing and in debt contracts gold weight units might be used only as value standards or accounting units. Issues of "shop currency" would merely oblige themselves to accept their notes as if they were gold coins. Thereby they could keep them at par or close enough at par with their nominal gold weight value. For many purposes such notes, not only redeemable gold certificates, would even be preferred to payments in gold coins and in gold bullion. 14.) Independence from gold holders, gold mines, gold coin mints and the gold stocks accumulated by banks, in gold markets and by the population! 15.) Free choice of exchange media and value standards - for the gold bugs as well. 16.) But no one should have to become a gold bug or a victim of the beliefs of gold bugs. - 17.) The gold redemption by the issuers can be replaced by the gold redemption on a free gold market. That gold hoard embraces all the gold that is on the market, not merely the gold that the gold standard banks have been able to accumulate. 18.) Moreover, it can indicate the gold weigh value not only of classical gold standard certificates but of all alternative currencies, even those using other than gold weight values as their value standard. - J.Z., n.d. & 24.8.02, 30.6.11. - GOLD REDEMPTIONISM, GOLD RESERVES, GOLD COVER, GOLD CERTIFICATES, GOLD CLEARING, GOLD MARKETS AS GOLD RESERVES & CONVERTIBILITY OPTIONS.
GOLD STANDARD: Practical Transition to the Gold Standard | Facebook - www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=36496893934&topic=12065 - Cached - Specifically, redeemable for the gold stored at the Fed's vaults. I think free market money is preferable, but that's really a separate discussion. ...
GOLD STANDARD: Rare metals, as an exclusive and quantitative limit to the volume of exchange media issued and accepted, do create an unjustified and unnecessary bottleneck for free exchanges, which could also be conducted by other exchange media or by clearing options. However, as optional value standards such weight units can still be very useful for many people, all preferring them for this purpose. But they should never be given a monopoly in this sphere, either. Free choice of value standards as well as of exchange media and clearing options is the only rightful and rational demand in this sphere. It would wrong nobody and would leave no room for complaints. People would then suffer under their own bad choices in this sphere. Large-scale frauds in the monetary and currency sphere would then become difficult to impossible. They could and should be more effectively prosecuted than happens under a territorial State monopoly for jurisdiction. – J.Z., 18.10.10.
GOLD STANDARD: While all other goods and services could be produced in ever increasing quantities with increasing population, science and technology, gold, as rare metal, could always only be produced in rather limited quantities. Even if all of these were accumulated and coined out, their quantity could not rise as fast as the total value of all the goods and services produced and consumer by mankind and its increasing population. In this connection it is also important that FALLING prices would deter people from buying. Only FALLEN prices encourage buying. Thus, as an exclusive means of exchange it would lead to a lasting deflation. One that would be wrongful and absurd since all debts could, in theory and in practice, become settled by clearing, perhaps using a gold weight unit as a value standard but not as an exclusive one, either. For that purpose any quantity of gold coins and a free gold market for them and full publicity for it would be sufficient. – J.Z., 26.9.10.
GOLD STANDARDS, DIFFERENCES THAT ARE IMPORTANT: A gold standard as an exclusive currency is very different from a gold standard as a permitted and preferred but competing currency. It is as different in its effects as a creditor's legal claim to payment in gold coins, even when a debtor has none and cannot obtain any, is from the right of debtors to pay their creditors in gold but only whenever they possess it (or contractually obliged themselves to supply it) and otherwise and normally to pay only in gold-weight-values, in any acceptable currency, by gold accounting or gold-weight-value clearing. For the latter there need not be a single coin of gold in a country, although a small gold coin circulation would be preferable. The presumed right to demand payment in gold coins amounts often to torturing a deaf and dumb person in order to extract a confession from him. The gold-weight clearing or accounting value standard and its various payment methods in competitively supplied exchange media or clearing avenues is, under full monetary freedom, available to every productive person. - J. Z., 77 & 97, 30.6.11.
GOLD TO WEALTH COM: Gold to Wealth- Wealth Sense Program | - goldtowealth.com/wealth-sense-program/ - Cached - Life Cycle of Money PT2 - Free Market Money Emerges. Title: Life Cycle of Money PT2 - Free Market Money Emerges; Runtime: 4:57; Views: 158 ...
GOLD TO WEALTH.COM, Could your GOLD be rendered worthless ? take the maximum benefit ... - goldtowealth.com/could-your-gold-be-rendered-worthless-take-the-... - Cached - 6 Feb 2011 – Fit the description of 'free market commodity' (sometimes referred to as free-market money). - Ownership rights: 100% private Gold, ...
GOLD WARS.BLOGSPOT.COM: Gold Wars: The Life Cycle of Money - goldwars.blogspot.com/2011/06/life-cycle-of-money.html - Cached - 27 Jun 2011 – After a barter / exchange economy is well-established, a society progress to the concept of free market money and a currency system emerges. ... - Gold Wars: June 2011 - goldwars.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html - Cached - 27 Jun 2011 - Gold Wars - www.goldwars.blogspot.com/ - Cached - 13 Jul 2011
GOLD, AS EXCLUSIVE COVER FOR EXCHANGE MEDIA & AS AN EXCLUSIVE VALUE STANDARD: Why should only the owners of particular and rare commodities, like gold and silver, have the right to circulate the value of these in form of standardised and typified certificates for local circulation? Why should only such weight units be permitted as standards of value? Most people want to buy many other things and services, among many millions of different ones, rather than gold or silver. Moreover, hundreds to thousands of alternative value standards have been proposed. Many of them have also been used for a long time. All other goods and services and all capital goods are also worth very much more than all the gold and silver accumulated in the world, for thousands of years, and still available on the rare metal markets now. Why should all trade have to be mediated only through these 2 commodities, i.e. all of millions of commodities, services and capital assets only through 2 commodities (3 if one includes platinum.)? If this is a voluntary choice of some people, that is one thing. If it is constitutionally or legally imposed upon all, that is another. Instead, all producers and traders, tradesmen and service providers should be at liberty to offer their ready for sale goods and services in their own ticket money, which only they would have to accept at par and they should also be quite free to use them with whatever sound (or unsound) value standard they would like use among themselves, among volunteers, e.g., a gram of gold. - Used merely as an optional value standard, gold would be plentiful to mediate, as a reckoning unit - for the free exchange of any quantity of goods, services and labour. - J.Z., 26.6.85, 9.45.97, 30.6.11. - Q.
GOLD, DEFLATION & DEPRESSIONS: Gold And Deflation In The Greater Depression - gold and deflation ... - www.free-press-release.com/news-gold-and-deflation-in-the-greater... - Cached - 6 posts - Last post:3 Feb - Only gold should back only private enterprise free market money. Don't trust any government sponsored and controlled fiat money. ... - An as important topic deserves much more than a mere 6 posts. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD, IN THE OPINION OF THE GOLD BUGS: … people … are asking that gold come out of the depositories and vaults of the central banks and return to the pockets and purses of private individuals, for gold is the only really sound money with intrinsic value. The desire for a return to gold is understandable, and we hope to see it realized some day, although the argument in favor of the gold standard is not always stated in a valid way. The distinctive function of gold money does not consist in its intrinsic value or in the constancy of that value, which fluctuates even in the absence of government intervention. The excellence of metallic money in free circulation consists in the fact that it renders impossible the abuse of the power of the government to dispose of the possessions of its citizens by means of its monetary policy and thus serves as the solid foundation of economic liberty within each country and of free trade between one country and another. - Faustino Ballvé, Essentials of Economics, 1956, published by FEE, in English, since 1963 - He seems unaware that the abolition of legal tender and of the central bank's issue monopoly would do this even better. If one can force the gold standards upon the government, then one can also force it to give up legal tender and its money monopoly and its abstract paper value standard, leaving it to the competition between currency producers and currency acceptors, discounters or refusers which currencies will continue to exist. - The gold bugs are right only in demanding the dissolution of the gold hoards of the central banks, which are a great expense and do not fulfill any sound economic function there. But they manage to insist on gold hoards for note-issuing banks, which is also an authoritarian imposition. Without a monopoly or oligopoly for such banks they could not persist for long. Their cover and redemption costs for their note issues would be too high and they would reach their inbuilt issue limits all too soon, without being able to supply all the exchange media which free markets need. They would have to transform their redemption gold standard into a gold clearing or gold-accounting standard to become competitive. - J.Z., 27.8.02, 30.6.11..
GOLD, PEACE & PROSPERITY: Gold, Peace, and Prosperity - mises.org/books/goldpeace.pdf - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - Free Market Money. 44. Legal Tender Laws. 45. An Historical Precedent. 46. The End - or the Beginning. 48. About the Author. 53. About the Foundation ...
GOLD, THE CURSED HUNGER FOR GOLD: Auri sacra fames (the cursed hunger for gold). This often cited quote is connected to the limited monetary views of those who see in it the only possible or desirable means of payment. But it does also indicate that difficulties arise when gold has the status of an exclusive means of payment. It is then, usually, quite insufficiently supplied. A gold-hunger or a famine exists then, that can, supposedly, only be abolished by an increased supply of gold. In recent centuries this limited view of monetary options was expressed by royal mint prerogatives and later by the obligation of paper money issuers to redeem their issues in gold upon demand. Paper monies as good - or even better than gold - and still reckoning with gold weight units as their standard of value and their accounting and clearing standards, were considered only by a few and the practice of such issues was so rare that it has been overlooked by those only considering the most wide-spread practices. - We should not let the primitive or underdeveloped monetary and clearing ideas and practices of the past centuries determine all our monetary and clearing transactions of today and tomorrow, also all our theories on money, currencies, value standards and clearing. A single instance of a successful gold accounting or gold clearing contract or acceptance of a paper exchange medium, not convertible by the issuer into gold, but accepted nevertheless at par with such a gold weight value, as if it were gold coin of that weight, should be considered enough to overthrow or at least throw into doubt and controversy all gold redemptionist assumptions and assertions of the currency school. - It is high time to think of currencies and value standards in other terms than merely those of the gold certificates of the early issuers, the gold smiths. - That was a more or less accidental or inevitable discovery of ONE monetary option. We should not confine our thinking and practice, our business, our production, or exchanges, our whole economic options to that single option as if it were the only possible and desirable one. - Even primitives knew, appreciated and used for long periods other options and some may still do so. What they can imagine and practise, somewhat enlightened and civilized human beings should be able to imagine and practice, too, but without committing themselves to THEIR primitive solutions of the payment and value standard accounting problem. - J.Z., 12.2.86, 15.5.97, 13.9.02, 30.6.11.
GOLD: According to the CPM "Gold Yearbook 2010", despite 10 years of rises, gold constitutes only 0.7 per cent of the world's financial assets. Indeed, in the late 1960s gold comprised 5 per cent (*) of assets, and in 2000 it was 0.2%. - Michael Trifunovic, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 13, 11, BUSINESS DAY, p.8. - (*) Misprint? Should it be 0.5%? - J.Z., 5.5.11.
GOLD: Although it is a good or good enough value standard, for most purposes, objectively considered, as long as it is voluntarily adopted as such, it is not good enough as an exclusive and forced exchange medium or currency, one that a creditor may demand in payment and a debtor is obliged to pay with, regardless of how insufficiently an economy is supplied with gold coins or gold certificates that are 100% redeemable in gold, upon demand by the holders of such certificates. Only within voluntary payment and accounting communities should such a monopolism or monetary and currency policy be tolerated, because then it could wrong and harm only these volunteers. Naturally, they should also be free to derive whatever benefits they are able to gain from it. – J.Z., 20.2.10, 25.9.10. – VOLUNTARISM, FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS & EXCHANGE MEDIA OR CLEARING CERTIFICATES, FREE BANKING
GOLD: Billions of people produce millions of different goods and services, many of them in huge quantities, frequently turned over. They should all be quite free to exchange them with any exchange medium or clearing method that they like, using also any value standard they like or agreed upon. They should not all be forced to pay only in gold coins, or authorized to demand payment in gold coins, which were and are produced only by a relatively few people in the world and with which all earners, customers and debtors could never be sufficiently supplied, in spite of the fact that gold has been accumulated for thousands of years and is currently probably produced at a higher total weight than ever before. They should also be free to choose for their transactions other value standards than gold weight units, which they believe to be better for this purpose. As an exclusive value standard gold coins constitute a quite wrongful and unnecessary bottleneck. As an exclusive value standard it could help to turn over any quantity of goods and services and help to pay any amounts of debts. But as such it would still be a wrongful imposition. – J.Z., 26.9.10.
GOLD: buy bullion - goldcoinsgold.org/tag/buy-bullion/ - Cached - 6 Jul 2011 – You can't have a “free market” without free market money! Visit Wealthcycles.com for more …. Share. Tags: buy bullion ... - As if bullion were already free market money cash! - J.Z., 9.8.11. - BULLION VS. GOLD COINS, CURRENCY
GOLD: David Potts, in an article "Greed feeds a gold rush", sub-heading: The bubbling price of the precious metal bears no relationship to the realities of the international economy. THE SUN HERALD, 26.9.10, pp. 4 & 5, makes a number of wrong and a number of correct and interesting statements. Firstly, the wrong ones: 1. & 2.) The heading and the sub-heading: It is not greed to fear that the governments will furthermore inflate their currencies, particularly with their kind of bail-out and stimulation spending financed directly or indirectly with the note-printing press and by increasing the public debt, i.e., the "investments" in tax slaves, still further. These investments do not bear a gold clause, i.e. they can be repaid, if at all, then in further inflated government money. Or they are used, wrongly and uneconomically, as the cover for the issued of more of the government's forced and exclusive currency. The reality of the international economy is that all governments inflate and otherwise mismanage the currencies entrusted to them and do so quite legally. As a rule they do at least inflate it slowly and in a few cases very fast, e.g. Zimbabwe, in recent years. (Even after having, finally, adopted the US dollars, itself also slowly to fast inflated, as its currency, it is still largely back to barter, with e.g. hospital fees paid in peanuts, simply because US dollars are scarce there.). The justified fear of further inflation made the gold price, expressed in governmental inflated money, rise faster than the goods and service prices expressed in the governmental currencies. (At the extremes of inflation the prices can even race ahead of the capacity of note-printing presses, even when they print notes in huge denominations, so that deflationary phenomena do appear. The savings threatened by inflation are in their total much larger than the accumulated gold stocks. Thus a rush into gold as one of the few relatively safe investments, even if they are, thereby, temporarily over-valued. Then speculators step in, who see this rise as a pretty certain thing, for a while yet, and increase it further. They do so rightfully with their own money, risking a fall in the "gold-price" as happened in the 1980's at the end of a similar run on gold, caused by the "currency policies" of governments. - 3.) No sign of inflation. - How wrong can one be? Has the author never gone shopping in recent years? 4.) No return because there's no interest paid. - Indeed, not for gold one holds in metal form. However, one can invest in interest-bearing securities that do also have a gold clause. At least in countries whose governments permit such investments. Sometimes governments themselves have issued such securities. 4) … the demand for bullion bears no relationship to the need for it. - That is correct only if one defines "need" as need for industrial purposes or as "need" for jewellery. The "psychological" as well as economic need to have some of one's savings in a stable form, even if they do not bear interest, also in a concealable form, suitable for black market deals, is considerable under governmental "currency policies". - Now some of his correct and interesting points: 5.) The bull run threatens to morph into a bubble on the so-far misplaced fear of hyperinflation. - He stressed this quote in the middle of his article. I would stress the "so-far". At the end of this "bull run" the gold price (expressed in governmental and inflated paper monies) is likely to be higher than it was at the beginning, in spite of the greatly increased current gold production, stimulated by the high price. - 6.) It needs to double to $US2316 an ounce just to maintain its 1979 price in today's dollars. The longer this takes, the higher it needs to go because other prices would also be rising. - 7.) … the central bank in the US, the Federal Reserve, last week said inflation wasn't high enough … - To such legalized criminals and powerful idiots we have entrusted the preservation of the value of our national currencies! - 8.) Official interest rates are at virtually zero and the banks are awash with funds. This allowed e.g. some corporations to take up huge loans which they do intend to invest very profitably, as soon as they can, i.e. once normal turnover credit is restored again, unemployment is greatly reduced and sales are relatively easy again - to the extent that monetary despotism permits either to happen. - 9.) The total volume of gold ever mined is about 163,000 tonnes. - 10.) Most of the industrial demand for gold isn't for tooth fillings but electronics. - 11.) Central banks and the IMN hold just under one-fifth of global above-ground stocks of gold as reserve assets. - As such they are superfluous, under stable value reckoning and amount to an additional burden upon taxpayers, who should get their share in this gold stock as a tax refund. 12.) The world average mining cost per troy ounce is about $US235, plus $US30 to $US40 to cover exploration and head office costs. - Does this cover e.g. taxation and insurance costs? Here I would like to see a comparison with the cost prices of various mass-produced consumer goods and services, compared with their retail prices. - J.Z., 28.4.11. - DIS., PRICE FLUCTUATIONS IN TERMS OF GOVERNMENTAL PAPER MONEY, INFLATION
GOLD: Does it Really Matter If the US Government Sells its Gold ... - www.resourceinvestor.com/.../does-it-really-matter-whether-the-us- ... - Cached - 26 May 2011 – No system is perfect, but free market money offers Americans a much better chance of retaining their purchasing power than what is currently ... - GOLD STOCK, GOLD RESERVE, REDEMPTIONISM
GOLD: Even a gold weight unit should not be used as an exclusive and forced exchange medium or value standard. – J.Z., 25.9.10. - VALUE STANDARDS, FREE CHOICE OF VALUE STANDARDS VS. EXCLUSIVE & IMPOSED VALUE STANDARDS.
GOLD: Gold And Deflation - ezinearticles.com - Investing - Cached - 3 Feb 2011 – Only gold should back only private enterprise free market money. Don't trust any government sponsored and controlled fiat money. ... - Not even gold coins and redeemable gold certificates are rightful, rational and economical as exclusive means of exchange and as exclusive value standards. Our total output in goods and services is increasing much faster than our total gold stock. Thus giving them legally or constitutionally an exclusive status as exchange media would assure an ever worsening deflation. As optional value standard gold weight units are still good enough, also as optional and contracted for means of payment, if such dealings in futures are also having the withdrawal premium option of dealings in futures. Any kind money (exchange medium or clearing certificate or clearing account system is rightful and good enough for those, who choose it or issued or provided it for themselves, at least as long as they do. Even the supposedly ideal gold coin means of exchange and gold coin value standard should not be pushed upon dissenters as their only option, especially if they know of better exchange media, clearing and value standard system or with to use gold coins ONLY as their value standards. - To each his own monetary and value standard utopia. - J.Z., 24.7.11.
GOLD: In a 1966 essay, "Gold and Economic Freedom", Greenspan argued that gold stood in the way of welfare statists (*) using the banking system for an unlimited expansion of credit (**) - (*) Not only the welfare statists, any despots or tyrants or militarists, any bureaucrats! - (**) It is not the whole banking system that is involved but the central banking system. Moreover, there are limits for it, too, e.g. in the printing costs involved for the notes even in very high denominations and by the fact that ultimately the prices, in anticipation of further inflation, tend to race ahead of the printing presses and their capacity, leading to deflationary phenomena in the middle of a very rapid inflation. - J.Z., 5.5.11. - DIS., REDEMPTIONISM, INFLATIONS, PRINTING COSTS
GOLD: In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations last September, … Alan Greenspan … describe[d] gold as a canary in a coalmine. - Michael Trifunovic, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 13, 11, BUSINESS DAY, p.8. - INFLATION
GOLD: In Gold We Trust. - Is that trust quite justified for gold as an exclusive means of payment rather than merely an optional value standard? - Only a week ago I read something in Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996, which confirmed my long-held views on the subject: Page 385: "In 1948, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invented the transistor. If a person or a corporation were able to collect the money value of that invention in just a single year now, the net value of the goods made with that invention (a calculation that involves the cost and value of similar products that would have been made with technology that does not utilize the transistor) is greater than the value of all the two billion ounces of gold that now exist in the world, worth now perhaps a trillion (a thousand billion) 1996 dollars.” - - "Furthermore, the salary of Bardeeen, in the last year before he retired in the mid-1970s, was $46,500, and in the year when the transistor was invented he earned much much less. The difference between what society pays people like Bardeen, Shockley, and Brattain, and the benefit we get from such people, is a measure of the gain to the rest of us in our standard of living due to the advance of knowledge caused by the growth in population those inventors represent.” – Page 388: "We can extend the illustration a bit. The present value of all the gold that humanity has accumulated since the beginning of time is equal to the income of perhaps one-fifth of the U.S. work force in just one year. And the cause of that income, being as large as it is - rather than the mere pittance it would be if the same number of people still worked at a primitive economic level - is the accumulation of knowledge by people who have gone before us, and which we do not pay them for; it is an externality they bestowed upon us." "To repeat, the income of perhaps fifty million Americans equals the worth of all the world's store of gold, due to the knowledge that we possess. In earlier centuries, the stock of gold would have been worth the incomes of many more people. This shows both the diminishing relative value of physical goods such as copper and gold, and the increasing relative value of the knowledge we have gained as an externality of the labors of those who have gone before us. Nor should this be surprising in light of the fact that the proportion of the world's work force that is employed in mining gold or copper - one measure of the relative importance of a good - is miniscule relative to the production of other goods. If there were more people alive now to produce more knowledge, the value of any given number of persons' incomes in any future year would be larger relative to the value of gold than it would otherwise be." - Don't even trust in gold! Far less in any "leader" or territorial government. Doubt everything, at least once. I.e., examine it closely enough with your own mind. - Beware of slogans! Most of them are flawed or even false. That induced me to compile my SLOGANS FOR LIBERTY, now online but still very incomplete, waiting for your input. – J.Z., 3.10.10.
GOLD: INVESTOR RELATIONS: Gold: MOney & Mining through the Ages - www.almadenminerals.com/.../gold_money_mining.html - Cached - Join us for a mini-seminar on the origins of free market money and the current state of government money, a history of gold in periods of authoritarianism, ... - Just another advertising stunt? - J.Z.
GOLD: Israel's Financial Expert: When Gold is Money- The Complete Set of ... - israelfinancialexpert.blogspot.com/.../when-gold-is-money-complete... - Cached - 7 Feb 2010 – On the pristine free market, money does not and cannot mean the names of paper tickets. Money means a certain commodity, previously useful ... - Judging by the history of Israel's currency, I doubt that there exists a single genuine monetary and financial expert in Israel. - Please, point out any exceptions to me! - The primitive notion that gold coins and gold certificates would be better does not make anyone an expert. This notion does not even distinguish between gold weight units or as exclusive value standards and as exclusive means of exchange. In neither form should gold or silver be by law the only option for exchangers. - J.Z., 23.7.11. - ISRAEL, EXPERTS
GOLD: People have the right to own and trade gold and to use it as a value standard and as a means of payment, but they do not have the right to demand that others, too, use it as a value standard and as a means of exchange, far less as an exclusive value standard and an exclusive exchange medium. Seeing that gold weight units are still pretty good value standards, at least compared with most of the “value standards” imposed by governments, such and other gold use should not be taxed or otherwise officially regulated or restricted. But its acceptance should never be compulsory, unless this has been contracted for and a creditor, without such a contract, should never be authorized to demand payment in gold or redeemable gold certificates and a debtor should never be officially obliged to pay his debt in gold metal coins or redeemable gold certificates. Under these conditions the monetary use of gold is not only harmless but rightful and useful. – J.Z., 29.5.10, 24.9.10.
GOLD: Rather than arguing that gold is rising and in a bull market, a more appropriate argument is that it is not rising at all, but that the fiat cash currencies are collapsing versus gold. - Michael Trifunovic, THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 13, 11, BUSINESS DAY, p.8. - A large print insert, possibly by an editor, states it thus: "It is not that gold is rising, but that the fiat cash currencies are collapsing. - One of his wrong conclusions is: Cash is no longer functioning as a store of value. - That should be qualified: It is no longer mainly or exclusively so used, by those using alternatives to it. - J.Z., 5.5.11.
GOLD: The London Gold Pool | Rapid Trends - Gold and Silver Bullion - www.rapidtrends.com/the-london-gold-pool/ - Cached - Almost without exception, gold and silver have always appeared as the “free market money” of choice. No other form of money has functioned as well or as ...
GOLD: The US has the largest reserves by a long shot, assuming Fort Knox actually has the $137billion in gold bricks it purports to have. … Ron Paul has been trying to drum up support for a congressional bill to find out what is really there. No independent auditor has had access to Fort Knox in 50 years. - Michael West in THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 9-10, 2011, p.2 of Weekend Business. - How many paper dollars are in circulation now? Is any of that bullion required to give the US $ tax foundation value, using a gold weight measure only as a value standard? Then it should have legal tender power only towards the tax authorities, for taxes also determined in gold weight units. In general circulation people should be free to discount the paper dollars as much as they like, following the indications of free gold markets. I deny the rightfulness and necessity or usefulness of this "reserve". I hold it to be objectively unnecessary and one of the indications of the excess tax burdens imposed upon the subjects of the US government. Each of these subjects should get their share of ca. $ 456 in gold, or, upon the sale of this gold, their tax burden should be correspondingly reduced. Admittedly, many other unjustified tax burdens are much higher still. E.g. the recently imposed costs of the various bailouts. Can one trust any territorial government with as much in gold - or with anything? - J.Z., 5.5.11.
GOLD: Utah's state legislature recently passed the Utah Sound Money Act, which would recognize federally minted gold and silver coins as legal currency.(*) There are similar moves in Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. - Michael West in THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, April 9-10, 2011, p.2 of Weekend Business. - (*) At what rate against the paper dollar? At its current market value against gold or silver? Or at another fictitious legal tender value, like that of $35 per ounce of gold, which was upheld, legally, for all too long, even while no one was so foolish to offer it any longer at that value only in payment? Legislators should not longer have any say on means of payment, clearing or value standard. Their record in this respect is all too bad. They should simply repeal all the relevant laws and let a free market finally produce, offer and use sound alternative exchange media, clearing and credit avenues, as well as value standards. Numerous, probably most of the present economic problems would thereby rapidly disappear. At least those with the courage of their convictions in this sphere should become free to opt out of all the laws, regulations and institutions of monetary and financial despotism and also agree upon a better human rights declaration and juridical system for themselves and upon whatever kind of governance, personal law and social, economic and political system they can agree upon among themselves. - Would it recognize any privately issued sound currencies or, rather, uphold their further suppression? - J.Z., 5.5.11. - FREE BANKING, MONETARY FREEDOM, PRIVATE COINAGE
GOLD-REDEMPTIONISM OR A COMMODITY RESERVE STANDARD? Competition would provide better money than would government. I believe we can do much better than gold ever made possible. Governments cannot do better. Free enterprise, i.e. the institutions that would emerge from a process of competition in providing good money, no doubt would. There would, in that event, also be no need to encumber the money supply with the complicated and expensive provision for convertibility which was necessary to secure the automatic operation of the gold standard and which made it appear as at least more practicable than what would ideally seem much more suitable - a commodity reserve standard. - Hayek, Denationalisation of Money, p.83. - MONETARY FREEDOM
GOLDSHOP 101.COM: YOUnique™ Gold Shop 101 Home - www.goldshop101.com/gold4free/ - Cached - ... Money Cycle #1 - Free Market Emerges, Money Cycle #2 - Free Market Money Emerges, Money Cycle #3 - Govt. Regulates Free Market, Money Cycle #4 - Govt. ...- ALSO: GOLDSHOP102.COM, Gold Shop - YOUnique™ Gold Shop 101 Home - www.goldshop101.com/knowledge/ - Cached
GOOD OLD TIMES: The time when inflation was just something you did to a balloon. - Anon. - JOKES
GOODS WARRANTS WITH SHOP FOUNDATION: It would be largely a matter of local shopping conditions and of the participation rate in a local shop foundation bank to determine whether such issues could form one or even several local currencies. When there is a very large supermarket in a district, then its participation would be essential. But it should not have to "carry" all other and much smaller local shops with its vast readiness to accept. The credits to the smaller shops by the local shop association banks should, naturally, not exceed the readiness to accept capacity of these shops and the readiness of local consumers to spend their earnings in them. At least under present conditions many new small shops do fail and do fail rather soon. Ill planned and ill managed new local shops should no more be subsidised under monetary freedom than under any system of monetary despotism. To the extent that their shop foundation capacity for the issue of shop foundation money is still in doubt, they might find themselves left out by the main local shop association bank and thus induced to combine, with other such local shops, into an issue centre of their own. Perhaps, initially, they could issue their notes only at a discount that would make them acceptable to those potential buyers only who are always on the lookout for discounted prices. These issuers would, naturally, have to accept their notes at par, which amounts to their buyers, who got these notes at a discount, to the same as if the shop had granted them a discount price. In this way this separate issuing centre may get its goods and services more widely known and accepted, until it could, finally, issue its notes at par, too, and might merge with the major local centre of issue. In a situation of mass unemployment already a single local general store might already find ready acceptance for its store currency through the willingness of enough of the local unemployed to accept it in payment for jobs which they could not get otherwise, i.e., if they insisted on payment in exclusive legal tender currency. If, as a result, this shop multiplied its turnover, then other local shops would soon come to consider the potential benefits of monetary freedom for themselves, too. - To prepare local public opinion for such issues, local papers and radio stations should explore the size of the ready-for-sale shop foundation that exists in the local retail shops and service centres and should publish this figure, together with an estimate of what percentage of this total ready-for-sale offer could, in any particular period, e.g. 30 to 90 days, be issued, probably, according to past experiences with "real bill" banknotes, at par with their nominal value, expressed in their value standard. With these figures published and widely known, discussed and appreciated, many of the local shops and service suppliers might then come to wish to mobilise this potential for alternative money circulation and sales options for themselves - as soon as they can. Enlightened unemployed, asking for jobs, might also tell their potential employers that they would find payment in a local shop currency, in full or in part, acceptable. When traditional unionists would object to such "truck payments" then they should be invited to make proposals not to outlaw such voluntary and self-help steps but, rather, how to improve them, i.e., how to make local private or cooperative issues of shop foundation money more widely acceptable than they are already. Alternatively, they should be asked, how they would increase the supply of exclusive and forced currency of the central bank, to the local community, and assure its reflux to it, once it is spent somewhere else. As major potential acceptors and users of local shop currencies, representatives of local employees should also participate in the setting up and management of local centres of issue. The retailers should apply their maxim: The customer is always right! - here, too. They do generally depend on customer satisfaction and feedback and should arrange for it initially and continuously for their issuing centres, too. - J.Z., 5.12.92, 30.4.97, 30.6.11, 4.8.11. MINIMUM READINESS TO ACCEPT REQUIRED TO TURN THEM INTO CUSTOMARY LOCAL CURRENCIES.
GOODS WARRANTS: See: WENNING, EDWARD, Universal Prosperity. According to Tandy, Voluntary Socialism, p.205, he proposed a giant coop company to issue scrip redeemable in its goods. - I have never seen that text. Is it not high time to finally publish all such texts online or on a disc? - There are today 33 hints to it by Google, if search is put in quotation marks and even almost 5,000 hints if done without quotation marks. It is offered second-hand or in a reprint. But I did not succeed in downloading it from any site that I tried for this. - If you are more successful with your downloading effort, please, send me a copy! - I would gladly offer several of my files in exchange. - J.Z., 97, 30.6.11. - SHOP FOUNDATION MONEY, COOPS, SCRIP ISSUES, GOODS WARRANTS, PURCHASING VOUCHERS, HISTORICAL PRECEDENTS.
GOOGLE.COM/BOOKS: Economy and society: an outline of interpretive sociology - Google Books Result - books.google.com/books?isbn=0520035003. - Max Weber, Guenther Roth, Claus Wittich - 1978 - Business & Economics - 1469 pages - With regard to its chartal form, an effective standard money may be metallic money or note money.56 Only metallic money can be a free market money, ... - A really free money, that deserves the term free market money, is not confined to metallic coins, not even those made of rare metal. - J.Z., 10.8.11.
GORDON, DAVID, Not Good as Gold - "The case against global currency schemes, whether Chinese or American." - Roy Halliday
GOLD REPORT: Turk, Boehringer & Murphy Field Questions in Munich - Got Gold Report - www.gotgoldreport.com/.../turk-boehringer-murphy-field-questions... - Cached - 11 Jun 2011 – They explain the importance of sound, free market money to human liberty and how central banking and centrally planned fiat currencies are ... - The good can be the enemy of the best: Those, who want to confine themselves and all others in a country to an exclusive gold currency are still unaware of the best options of full monetary freedom, which offers many other forms of exchange media, clearing certificates and accounts, not made up of expensive materials like gold and silver and not even covered and redeemed in them, although, they might use gold and silver weight units as optional value standards, in free competition with other value standards, under free choice of value standards. - Primitive and simple-minded notions, superstitions, prejudices, beliefs and errors are not the exclusive characteristics of primitive men of ancient history. - J.Z., 10.8.11.
GOVERNMENT & BANKING: Some believe that "government has been forced to interfere with the business of banking." - What has happened, rather, is that much meddling by governments with banking has led to many abuses, which the government tries to cure and in reality makes worse by further meddling. - REGULATION, DEREGULATION, CENTRAL BANKING, MONETARY DESPOTISM, MONEY POLICY, CURRENCY POLICY, CONTROLS, LIMITS. - J. Z., 3/97.
GOVERNMENT & JOBS: The government destroys more jobs than it creates - inevitably. - J. Z., 21.10.93. Moreover, the political and bureaucratic or monopolistic jobs that it does create, at the expense of the tax-payers, are unproductive or even counter-productive. - J.Z., 30.6.11.
GOVERNMENT MONEY WITH TAX OR CLEARING FOUNDATION: Even government money used to be similar to privately issued clearing certificates or turn-over promoting and self-liquidating banknote issues. They were issued in anticipation tax claims due or shortly due and were thus rapidly streaming back from their limited circulation in payment of taxes. Usually the taxes for up to the next 3 months could thus be "anticipated" by issuing and spending these kinds of clearing certificates. Ideally, this kind of tax foundation (if there is anything ideal about coercive tributes) was practised without legal tender and using a sound value standard, to avoid over-issues and the cheating of any creditor. Such clearing-issues of "tax foundation money", or clearing certificates for the clearing of government- spending against its tax claims, and anticipating near future tax-payments, persisted for a considerable period. Alas, territorial governments do not tend to remain honest for long, if they can get away with using fraud and coercion instead, to their short-term advantage. Even Adam Smith, in one of his neglected passages, in The Wealth of Nations, realized that tax foundation money does not require a gold reserve but merely sound accounting. Knapp, too, in his famous The State Theory of Money, recognized the possibility of tax-foundation money and its clearing nature, as the essence of government paper money issues. But he realized as well, in a short passage, the possibility and clearing nature of private payment communities and their certificates. He merely did not develop the private options in this work, since it was, by its title, dedicated to the other and supposed "ideal" clearing option for a country-wide and uniform paper money. When governments extort payments from their victims, then they should at least provide the victims with sufficient sound exchange media to facilitate these payments. Otherwise they do act like inquisitors who torture deaf and dumb persons in order to extract confessions of them. - J.Z., 3/97.
GOVERNMENT MONEY: Government money has now no redeemable feature at all except that you can pay with it the government's tribute extractions and the charges for its monopolised and usually over-priced public services or disservices and that you can buy investments in tax slaves with it, in form of government insecurities. Formerly, its convertibility in rare metals and the absence of legal tender for it were its only redeemable features. - Its uniformity counts as nothing when compared with the deflationary, inflationary and stagflationary wrongs it commits and damages it does to people's lives, earnings, properties and liberties. - J. Z., 6.7.91, 28.4.97.
GOVERNMENT MONEY: There is no such thing as government money. - Prime Minister, U.K., Margaret Thatcher. - Did she really consider the paper money of the Bank of England to be a PRIVATE and not a governmental institution? It becomes a somewhat sound money (combined with the unsound financing method of taxation) only as a clearing medium for taxes (tax-foundation) and has in general circulation otherwise only a forced value, as a monopoly money and one with legal tender. - J.Z., 16.4.97. - The term "fiduciary money" still seems to hint at that somewhat sound origin of State paper money - if one can ignore the wrongfulness of all compulsory taxation. - J.Z., 30.6.11. - The Cadillac Modern Encyclopedia says, under "fiat money": 2.) the government accepts it for taxes. Under: "Fiduciary money is money backed by trust in the government rather than by gold or silver, i.e. money not fully backed by gold or silver." - Well, you can always trust the government to levy taxes but mostly cannot trust it to issue money soundly or on a sound value standard. - J.Z., 30.6.11.
GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY ISSUES: Can they be honest, non-abusive, non-coercive? Such issues happened but they were the exception rather than the rule. When all powers of monetary despotism are granted to a government or its central bank then they are usually abused, sooner or later, more often than not. - J.Z., 3/97, 30.6.11. - Q.
GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT: Government programmes can only coercively shift employment opportunities from the unknown and ignored numerous forgotten men and women, to themselves and their favoured few. The jobs previously sponsored privately, with the funds the government steals for its job programme, cease, although they were wanted by consumers and thus productive ones, and are thus replaced by a lesser number of unproductive ones, which do not earn or produce the artificial wage rates paid for them at the expense of tax payers. To the extent that taxes are used to expand the bureaucracy, these levies are even counter-productive. Naturally, government statistics, bookkeeping and public pronouncements will not show these negative effects. To some extent the governments will act like the Soviets or the Imperial Japanese Army did. They will point out the length of e.g. railway tracks built by them but not the number of deaths caused by their construction methods and treatment of their forced labourers: prisoners of war. Thus they not only managed to "employ" thousands, correspondingly diminishing unemployment, they even managed to greatly reduce the number of workers, like pestilence did in former centuries. - J. Z., 10.1.94, 24.4.97, 30.6.11.
GOVERNMENT PROMISES: All government promises ought to be either outright refused or greatly discounted, if experience is to be any guide. - J.Z., 6.7.91, 26.4.97. - See: TAX STRIKES, PAPER MONEY, LEGAL TENDER, REFUSALS TO ACCEPT GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY, DISCOUNTING, GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY
GOVERNMENT PROVISION OF JOBS? Governments can "create" only wasteful, oppressive, make-believe jobs but not any additional real, productive, consumer-wanted and supported ones, at market rates, except, naturally, by the government getting entirely out of the way. But it can, indeed, destroy many jobs and prevent many from coming into existence. - J. Z., 25.11.93, 24.5.97. - EMPLOYMENT, JOBS
GOVERNMENT RESOURCES: A misnomer if ever there was one. All governments are, essentially, without any "resources" of their own, unless they adopt the stance of King Louis XIV, who once impertinently claimed: I am the State! - Like many kings and despots he claimed a country and his people as his private property, to do with them as he pleased. Somewhat enlightened people should not recognize such claims, not even when transferred to parliaments or elected rulers, in democratic or republican or constitutionally (more or less) governed countries, that do, likewise, still rule wrongfully and territorially over peaceful involuntary subjects, who have not given them their individual consents. What governments are physically in control of are the assets remaining from their former and recent robberies, the extorted monopoly profits from their self-proclaimed and maintained monopolies, e.g. the telephone, postal and central banking money issue monopoly, their legal and juridical and administrative monopolies, the remaining assets from their conquests and confiscations. But none of them are, by rights, the property of any territorial government and all of them should, as far as possible and as soon as possible be restored to their victims. Including e.g., their "reserves" in gold, silver and foreign exchange, without economic justification or common sense accumulated in their central banks. - J.Z., 17.8.94, 17.4.97, 30.6.11. - DIS.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING & INFLATION: Inflationary government spending is not "spending", no more so than private forgery is or official and forceful requisitioning. - J. Z., 77 & 97. - DIS.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Government "spending" is really indicating a form of confiscation, via direct or indirect taxation or the inflation tax, and of distributing this loot to favourites or corruptible people as political bribes. Legal tender and the monopoly of the central bank for note issues and the popular and academic belief (among most economists) in monetary despotism, makes this abuse not only possible but likely. - J. Z., 8.4.97., 30.6.11. - DIS.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Government "spending" is still considered as proper and honest spending, although only stolen funds or fraudulent and coercive requisitioning certificates are involved. From the budgets of their "spending" policies some kinds of miracle cures are expected. To me that merely resembles expecting economic miracles from the "spending" activities of a community of thieves, robbers, con-men and organized criminals, while completely ignoring the correspondingly decreased spending of their victims and also outlawing the free issue options for sound competing currencies and "self-regulating" or "self-controlling" issues of and trades in capital certificates. - J.Z., 11.4.97, 5.9.02, 30.6.11. - DIS.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: I'm not sure just why it costs our government so much more to buy or to provide a service or product than it costs you and me. I just glance around me (anywhere and everywhere) and observe that I does. Thus I know beyond any doubt that we get fewer goods and services (and thus fewer real jobs) when the government spends our money. - Dean Russell, Government and Legal Plunder. Bastiat Brought Up to Date, FEE, May 85, ISBN-0-9106614-70-9, 116pp, p.68. - DIS., BUDGET, HANDOUTS, JOBS, EMPLOYMENT, SERVICES, TAXATION, MUTUAL PLUNDER-BUND, ZERO-SUM GAMES, WORSE EVEN: GUARANTEED LOSS GAMES. TERRITORIALISM, COMPULSORY MEMBERSHIP & SUBORDINATION. SUPPRESSION OF EXTERRITORIAL COMPETITION BY VOLUNTEERS, BUREAUCRACY, REPRESENTATION INSTEAD OF SELF-RESPONSIBILITY.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: Issuing a monopoly money and forcing it into circulation through this monopoly and legal tender, thus enforcing its acceptance by every creditor, at par, when it has already been much depreciated by the government, does hardly deserve the term "spending". Spending is a voluntary act and it involves using only what rightfully belongs to oneself in voluntary exchanges with others, for mutual benefit. - J.Z., 12.5.95, 16.4.97. - DIS.
GOVERNMENT SPENDING: When you permit the government to decide what your money will be spent for, your individual freedom to choose and your personal responsibility for your own actions goes down in proportion. The end of that road is more than economic disaster, it is death. - Dean Russell, Government and Legal Plunder. Bastiat Brought Up to Date, FEE, May 85, ISBN-0-9106614-70-9, 116pp, p.68. - - Alas, we are not yet free as individual to permit or to deny that spending and that decision-making to territorial governments. - J.Z., 26.4.11. - SELF-RESPONSIBILITY, DIS., TERRITORIALISM VS. VOLUNTARISM, PERSONAL LAWS, EXTERRITORIAL AUTONOMY, TAXATION, DECISION-MAKING MONOPOLY, GOVERNMENT BUDGETING, WARFARE STATES, NWT.
GOVERNMENT: Bastiat dwelled at length on the disastrous consequence stemming from the actions of the only institution that can plunder legallythe government. - Dean Russell, Government and Legal Plunder. Bastiat Brought Up to Date, FEE, May 85, ISBN-0-9106614-70-9, 116pp. p.35. - Actually, it legally authorized quite a few other institutions to do so, the trade unions, the armed forces, in occupied countries and a few other privileged boards and "authorities", e.g. the police force, with its forfeiture laws, the organization of the "drug czar", the formally "independent" central bank. Moreover, to the extent that the government depends upon legislation and sticks to it, and to the extent that parliamentarians are the representatives of the majority of the people, the people, as voters, do largely plunder themselves. Naturally, all these groups and people can also be loosely defined as "the government". The whole caboodle is even misnamed "self-government", although under this form of it non one does fully govern himself or herself. - J.Z., 26.4.11. - PLUNDER-BUND, TAXATION, REPRESENTATIVES, PEOPLE, VOTING, TERRITORIALISM
GOVERNMENTAL INVESTMENTS IN JOBS: Government funds, stolen from the taxpayers or inflation victims, or robbed from future tax victims as government "security" investments in tax slaves, lead usually to less jobs than would be invested in without this amount of taxes being levied and also to the funding of less productive jobs. To call such schemes "employment schemes" is a misnomer, another political lie. - J. Z., 1.11.93. - I heard of a local road building programme, paid for by one of the numerous governmental provision of work schemes, at tax payer expense, running under a confusing number of different names, fast forgotten, at least by me. (REA, Rural Employment Agency?) One local supervisor of unemployed, by the scheme as road-workers, expected to get a fair day's work for an average wage. He got instead a lot of slacking and loafing, which has, almost everywhere, made the "men at work" signs as standing joke. When he cracked down upon a particular lazy fellow, the whole work gang ganged up upon him. They did so physically intimidate him that in future - I do not know for how long - he could not get any productive work out of them at all. But on pay day they all still turned up to collect their pay. Another anecdotal story that I remember was that of a flood indemnification scheme for which an office was established in Paris. The last flood victim was paid off by 1917. But the office had great longevity. It was only closed down some time after World War II! Admittedly, these are only extreme instances of government-paid jobs. But mass media and books are full of other instances. Observe, e.g., how postal rates have gone up while postal services have gone down. Some of my air mail takes 20 days to reach me. The faster the jets, the slower the mail, it seems, under government management. A second-hand book dealer in West Germany told me that bookshops that are run in Germany by 2-3 people were, in State socialist East Germany run by 12-20 people. So much about the productivity of government organized and paid jobs. ("Production for use rather than profit!") There were numerous other reports about East Germans having to relearn proper work habits and self-discipline, after having taken their work obligations very easy for years to decades. Yet, after the unification they wanted to be paid standard wages and salaries in DM and, unfortunately, they often were - or remained unemployed and unemployable under these conditions and the continuing communist totalitarian central bank regime of Germany. - J. Z., 1/11/93, 24.5.97.
GOVERNMENTS & TOKEN MONEY: Governments can't even provide a decent token money, in the best possible forms, shapes, sizes and quantities. - J. Z., 6.7.91, 28.4.97.
GOVERNMENTS AS INFLATION FIGHTERS: Governments should fight inflation. - Popular opinion. - "... the control of inflation and cost of living rises a job for the Federal Government" - said the Queensland Premier Mr. Bjoelke-Petersen. - The buck should, indeed, be passed to the federal government and its responsible federal institution, the central bank, the Federal Reserve System in the U.S., the Bank of England in the U.K., the Bundesbank in Germany, the Reserve Bank in Australia etc. These institutions would not need to fight inflation if they were not causing it in the first place. And once it has happened, it cannot be fought, and defeated and reversed. At most governments can slow it down and end it temporarily. They cannot restore the value of a currency which they have depreciated. - To entrust this task to monetary despots, who caused the problem in the first place, is like asking criminals and gangster leaders to fight and control crime. - J.Z., 2.4.97. - DIS.
GOVERNMENTS AS MANAGERS & REGULATORS OF MONEY, CURRENCY & CREDIT: Having been mostly and for most periods wrong to dishonest in the administration of exclusive and forced currencies and wrong and mistaken, mostly, in their monetary despotism, by now, all territorial governments should be deprived of any powers, monopolies and privileges in this sphere. Without a coercive government backing even the worst privately or cooperatively issued currency could not do as much wrong and damage in any country as even the best government-managed currencies have usually done so far and are likely to do in the future. The worst mercenaries do not do as much wrong and damage as the government's conscript armies do. All the private criminals do not rob citizens of as much as the government regularly does. No one can cause as much mass unemployment or inflation or as severe crises as governments have often been culpable of and still are. - Decentralise, minimise and voluntarize damaging systems - and let the good systems drive out the bad ones - not only by collectivist and very restricted political voting rights but by granting full consumer sovereignty and free enterprise, including individual secessionism, to individual citizens and exterritorial autonomy to their media, standards, clearing processes and credit arrangements, also in their voluntary payment and political communities. - J.Z., 10.7.91, 22.4.97, 30.6.11.
GRADUALISM OR RADICALISM IN THE ABOLITION OF THE CENTRAL BANKS: Like with the abolition of price control, and enforced delivery quotas and rationing, the radical solution is morally the only correct one, economically the best, the most beneficial, the least harmful one. However, a central bank that can manage to continue to exist on its merits, without any privileges and legal tender powers for general circulation, is welcome to its remaining voluntary customers. And legal tender of all kinds of IOUs towards the issuer of each type ought to remain, as an obvious self-responsibility. No one but the issuer is morally obliged to accept his notes at par with their nominal value or at all. The juridical defence of legal tender, namely that there ought to be one or the other means of exchange by which a debtor can always discharge his debts, can be replaced either by private contracts on the kinds of means of exchange to be used in settlement, or, in case such agreements have been omitted, by the juridical assumption that a debt can be settled by any local currency that stands locally at par with its nominal value. Since, in these cases, nothing to the contrary has been agreed upon, this must then be a judicious assumption. No creditor has any reason to complain when he has not contracted some other payment and when local currency, standing at par, is offered to him in settlement. Since the local currency stands at par, he could change it locally into any other currency he desires, at is par value - less the transaction fee. As a rule creditors do not tend to resist debtors prepared to pay them on time and in a sound currency. When debtors and creditors live in different locations and again, both were foolish or careless enough not to state the means of payment required in the settlement, then the presumption would be that either the local currency of the creditor, as long as it stands at par, could be used in repayment or that of the debtor's location, or the kind of currency in which the loan was granted. So I do not expect any difficulties in this sphere, never mind the apprehensions or pretences of lawyers. - Whenever debtors have difficulties in meeting their repayments then, before driving them into liquidation or bankruptcy and in the interest of both sides (if necessary adjudicated by previously agreed-upon arbitration avenues), the debtors should be free to offer settlement in assignments upon their own goods or service delivery capacity, in suitable denominations, freely transferable, at a discount to be agreed upon or arbitrated, up to the full value of the debt. - J.Z., 10.4.97. - ISSUE MONOPOLY & LEGAL TENDER POWER?
GRAHAM'S LAW: Grahams law...or hoarding notes - www.politics.ie/forum/.../42064-grahams-law-hoarding-notes.html - Cached - Another good reason why free market money should make its return!! To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. ...
GRAPHIC PRESENTATIONS: money market vector graphics Free vector for free download (about ... - all-free-download.com/free.../money-market-vector-graphics.html - Cached - ... guarantee graphics money graphics free market money bag vector graphics euro money stock market vector graphics car free vector graphics of money money ... - Compare my digitized circulation charts. So far only available from me via an email attachment, upon request, until it appears online or on a CD, hopefully much improved and supplemented. - J.Z., 23.7.11GREAT DEPRESSION, THE: Nobody had any idea how it would end and whether it would end. - From an ABC-TV ad for one of its coming-up broadcasts, 14.4.97. - That is a typical journalistic statement, quite contrary to many facts. While this might have applied to ignorant and disinterested and prejudiced men in the street, to journalists - and many others, numerous proposals for a solution were made, at least during the Great Depression in Germany: Ulrich von Beckerath, THE PRACTICAL REALISATION OF THE MILHAUD PROPOSALS, 1934, 1935, reproduced in PEACE PLANS 9, page 5: "… during the last few years the German Government received some 50,000 proposals and the Reichsbank over a thousand during the first months after the 13th. of July, 1931. In former days, too, there was no shortage of projects. In his article "Property and Law", published 14.4.1848, Bastiat reports that by that date over 500 proposals for the organisation of labour and as many for the organisation of credit had been submitted to the French Government. … The total number of post-war proposals aiming at combating the general trade depression, either published or submitted to Governments, exceeds almost certainly 100,000." - As far as I know, all of these were never systematically published, discussed and evaluated. Naturally, most would have been statist or other nonsensical proposals but they would have indicated at least that many people believed they had the solution and that it differed from the monetary policies pursued by the government. At the same time, thousands of monetary self-help experiments took place, mostly rather flawed and almost all were rapidly suppressed by the government, which had no solution to offer. Whether the private and cooperative alternative exchange media and value standards were honest and efficient or not, all were officially condemned and suppressed, regardless of the basic self-help rights involved. Probably, hundred-thousands of articles and pamphlets were published, all supposedly offering some of these solutions, but they were mostly considered and discussed only in small circles. Monetary despotism had the floor and still does, even when it frankly admits its ignorance and helplessness to cope with the monetary problems. It will not admit or even know that it has caused them in the first place. - J.Z., n.d. & 1.7.11.
GREAT DEPRESSION: The depression ended. But it did not end because of the New Deal. It ended in spite of it. The nation had experienced a period of government manipulation, regulation and interference unprecedented in U.S. history, and in 1938 unemployment stood at ten million; higher than it had been in 1931. - Richard W. Grant, The Incredible Breadmachine, self-published, n.d., indexed, 286pp, p.68/69. - NEW DEAL, UNEMPLOYMENT, PUMP PRIMING ETC., F. D. Roosevelt
GREAVES, BETTINA BIEN, Market Money and Free Banking - October 1999. - "The monetary problem that the advocates of free banking are trying to solve, as described by modern monetary economists, is very complex. But this complexity is not a consequence of the economics of money. Rather it is caused by governmental, not economic, factors—especially the designation of government’s notes as legal tender for the payment of debts. The complexity of the monetary situation is the outcome of many regulations and controls." - Roy Halliday, in section on Government-Regulated Banking
GREAVES, BETTINA, BIEN, How to Return to the Gold Standard - November 1995. - "Let's consider possible ways for transforming our present paper and credit monetary system, based on fractional reserve banking, into a gold standard. There may be better ways and worse ways. Unfortunately the science of economics cannot prescribe a correct, scientific or “right” way. It can only help us choose among alternatives by analyzing their various consequences. A review of monetary history will also be helpful." - Roy Halliday, in section on gold. - Leave that, too, to individual free choices! - J.Z., 9.8.11.
GRECO, THOMAS H., Jr.: When I visited him in April 90, had just given his second edition of his booklet MONEY AND DEBT: A SOLUTION TO THE GLOBAL CRISIS, to the printer and has now a book-length treatment out: NEW MONEY FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES. He is looking for a book on scrip by Cohrssen. Title not known. I never heard of it but know that there were many scrip issue experiments in the U.S. of the 30's. Some of them were described in Milhaud's Annals. - On Hans R. L. Cohrssen I only found now, with Google, that a) together with Irving Fisher he wrote a book on stamp scrip. Thus he was, probably, only a follower of Silvio Gesell. - J.Z., 1.7.11. Stamp scrip, by Irving Fisher; Hans R L Cohrssen; Herbert W Fisher, Book, English, 1933, New York, Adelphi Co. - References and Articles - Depression Scrip.com - www.depressionscrip.com/ref.html - Cached - b) Wara by Hans R. L. Cohrssen, article written in 1932 about the "Wara" scrip issued in Germany ... (It should be Wära. - J.Z.) Very detailed paper on the Alberta Prosperity Stamp Scrip. ... Google's cache of http://www.depressionscrip.com/ref.html. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 19 Jun 2011. The current page could have changed in the meantime. - This page by "Rod" offers the best survey of this literature that I have seen. It includes the Hans R. L. Cohrssen title: Wara, an article written in 1932 about the "Wara" scrip issued in Germany. - All content on this site is © 2005. If you see anything that you think should be changed, or if you have anything to contribute, just email me at Rod@depressionscrip.com. - J.Z., 1.7.11. - Greco, 2.7.11: As you will note from my data below, much contact information goes quickly out of date. I'm back in Asia for an indefinite amount of time, presently in Thailand. I long ago read Irving Fisher's book, Stamp Scrip, which contributed to my early understanding of money and exchange. That book seems to be the only available source for Cohrssons' article (excerpted) on WARA. Thomas H. Greco, Jr., thg@mindspring.com - Mobile phone (Thailand): +66 84 373 5645, Mobile phone (USA): 520-820-0575, Beyond Money: http://beyondmoney.net - Tom's News and Views: http://tomazgreco.wordpress.com - Archive Website: http://www.Reinventingmoney.com - Photo gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/tomazhg - Skype/Twitter name: tomazgreco - My latest book, "The End of Money and the Future of Civilization" can be ordered from Chelsea Green Publishing, Amazon.com, or your local bookshop. - It should be Wära & Cohrssen. - J.Z., 2.7.11.
GREED FOR GOLD OR LEGAL TENDER PAPER MONEY: This greed ought to be replaced by a greed for sound and competitive private or cooperative currencies. And these currencies ought to be based on sufficient knowledge of their sound issue and reflux techniques and the clearing foundation that is involved. Now, in extreme cases, some people are prepared to gamble, cheat, defraud, steal, rob and kill for scarce currencies. In future, some of these criminal responses will be disappear as a result of the issues and acceptance of sound alternative currencies. (However, at least in somewhat developed economies it is not poverty that causes most crimes with victims.) Each could turn his short term, medium-term and long-term productive capacity into the corresponding currency, clearing certificates and capital security assets. Those who have so far unsold labour power, service potential and goods could mostly monetize them, i.e., turn them into liquid purchasing power against themselves, obliging thereby only themselves to deliver upon their promises. Thus these of their presently illiquid assets could be turned by them into a suddenly discovered treasure chest of local alternative currencies or clearing certificates. - J. Z., 27.12.85, 9.5.97, 1.7.06. - GREED? DIS.
GREED, PRICE-MAKING, PROFITEERING: The present "attacks" on inflation are not directed in any way against the greedy among the price-makers. These are people in the community who set their prices by "WHAT THE TRAFFIC WILL BEAR" rather than by reference to their real costs... Inflation is a measure of the greed of some price-makers. The next step is to identify the greedy among the price-makers. The most ready identification is by their rapid increase in wealth. - Popular opinion in some pop journal. - If the "greed" were directed towards some sound alternative and competitive currencies, then honest alternative monies would long ago have driven out dishonest, exclusive and forced currencies. No matter how greedy some supposed "price-makers" are, they cannot, presently and between them, acquire more currency than the government's central bank provides. Otherwise, each of them might demand more for his output than the total note circulation. Obviously, such amounts could not be paid to everybody who demands as much, whether he is an "greedy" employer or a "greedy" trade unionist. Only nominally can greedy price demands be satisfied - by flooding the market with legal tender currency. The force of the greed of consumers is also underestimated. They tend to look around for the cheapest or best offers and to boycott those who charge excessively for goods and services that are no better than those of their competitors. - J.Z., 2.4.97. - WEALTH & INFLATION, COSTS, MARKET PRICES VS. "COST PRICES".
GREEN, JAMES L., Prof. of Ec., Univ. of Georgia: Investments & Sound Money, article in MM, 1986. Green opposes "credit creation" & fiat money but has no notion of tax foundation money. Well, at least he favours free coinage (p.49). In practice, according to the quoted Gold Coinage Act of 1983, submitted but not passed by Congress, he favours a parallel standard (silver & gold coins circulating in parallel, with a free market rate between them), which I could only approve IF it were just ONE of the permitted options. But he still wants the government Mint to "meet the needs of trade", i.e., does not advocate free PRIVATE coinage. Step 4 of the same bill asks only for the repeal of the legal tender MONOPOLY of Federal Reserve Accounting Unit Dollars. According to p.57 the Federal Reserve Note is to continue as a legal tender, apparently towards the public, too, not only towards the Treasury in payment of taxes. - Step 8 of the bill directed that the government gets completely out of the paper money business. This would preclude any note issue monopoly of the central bank and any general legal tender and leave only the legal tender of notes towards the issuer. - Green does, indeed, at one point, state also: "The SINGLE answer to our money problem is freedom - freedom for the individual, freedom for the market, freedom for banks and freedom for government (i.e. not for individuals and voluntary associations!) in all aspects and uses of money and credit." But on free coinage, free note issuing banks and other monetary freedom options, on legal tender and an exclusive parallel currency standard he seemed still muddled to me. Any monetary disaster is still possible as long as any government money (including even its honest gold, silver & platinum coins, best in common weight units) retain any exclusive and legal tender powers. - J. Z., 18.10.87, 30.5.97, 1.7.11.
GREENE, WILLIAM B., The Theories of Beck and Proudhon. – In: Greene: … Fragments, pp, 59-78. On Green he says: “Mr. Beck thought out a Mutual Bank by generalizing credit in account; Proudhon, by generalizing the bill of exchange.”
GRESHAM’S LAW: Bad money legalized drives away good money. – Mr. Atkinson, quoted by William B. Greene, in: “… Fragments, p. 269.
GRESHAM'S LAW & LEGAL TENDER: ATKINSON, EDWARD, Pamphlet, title unknown, referred to by Tandy, Voluntary Socialism, p.103: "... an act by which bad money may be forced into use so as to drive good money out of circulation." - All correct versions of Gresham's Law, with their author, title and date of publication, preferably also page references, are wanted by me - towards a monograph on this subject. - J.Z., 12.4.97, 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: According to the gold bugs, banknotes without gold cover are a bad kind of money and banknotes 100% gold covered and convertible are the only good money in paper form. They have not considered that without possessing legal tender the other kinds of the supposedly bad money would tend to drive out their own and, supposedly, only good paper certificates, much against their expectations and predictions, simply because e.g., gold-weight value clearing certificates, using gold coins only as a value standard, not as an exchange medium, cover or redemption good, could be provided much more cheaply. Only if their kind of favoured money would be given legal tender power and the privilege of an exclusive currency, one that a creditor could at any time demand, could it drive out the cheaper but also sound alternative currencies and clearing options. Cheap and sound money issues would find it easy and cheap enough (compared with the costs of a gold stock and convertibility into it for its notes), to keep its notes at par with their nominal gold weight value standard units. Why should people prefer only gold-certificates, 100 % covered in gold, when competing issuers can, much more cheaply, supply turnover credits in paper notes, freely issued, freely accepted or refused or discountable, that stand, nevertheless, at par with their nominal gold weight unit, i.e. they are, for all practical purposes, not only as good as gold but even better, because more convenient and much cheaper to provide and maintain. Should the holders desire gold convertibility - then the whole gold market would be at their disposal, through free purchases, not only the gold treasures of the issuer of gold certificates. Nobody would be obliged to supply them with gold, at par with their nominal value, for exchange media that had been depreciated and stand below the par value with their gold weight accounting or clearing unit. - J.Z., 8.12.92, 29.4.97, 9.9.02. - It is precisely the refusal and discounting option that would keep most competing currency issues at par with their nominal value, at least towards the issuer and his debtors, if not also in local circulation. - J.Z., 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: Bad money drives out the good. - Pop version of this law. - Yes, if the bad money is privileged, i.e. an exclusive currency and a forced one through its legal tender, with compulsory acceptance at a coercive and fictitious value. - I, too, could cause an inflation if my play money were turned into the country's exclusive currency and would be given a forced value. Under freedom the contrary is true. The good money would be readily accepted. The bad money would be fast rejected and thus the good money would drive out the bad or, the potential acceptors would simply not allow much bad money it into circulation or not for long. Moreover, they would hold its issuers responsible with all their earthly possessions and with their personal liberty. - The moral system, here, too, is the most beneficial one. The immoral one, under full freedom and the recognition of all genuine individual rights - is self-defeating via inflation, unemployment, depressions, poverty, stagflation and, ultimately, bankruptcy, even revolutions, putsches, military uprisings, all kinds of despotism, civil wars and international wars. - J.Z., n.d. & 2.4.97, 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: Bad money legalized drives away good money. - Edward Atkinson, quoted by W. B. Greene, Fragments, p.269. - All correct definitions and their dates may still have to be anthologized and also the flawed and false ones, together with their refutations. - J.Z., 4.8.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: FALSE & CORRECT VERSIONS: A complete survey seems to be still missing. However, a review of the, probably, all too numerous hints by Google to the use of this term, might uncover many sound articles, essays and books on the subject. - Under Gresham's Law + definition + legal tender I got today 30,700 results. Under Gresham's Law & definition: 197,000 results. Under Gresham's Law + legal tender: 27,600 results. - An individual can hardly check all these hints for the truthful and the best entries, unless he is willing to spend months to years on this job. - Division of labour among enough participants would make it easy for each. - J.Z., 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: Gresham's Law applies only to legal tender currencies or any accounts based on forced and exclusive currencies or to the customary acceptance of a free market currency whenever competition and market rating for it is insufficient, i.e., when a situation exists that is comparable to the situation of a legalized, forced and exclusive currency. Sometimes customs and habits are stronger than laws. But that does not mean that legal tender and money monopoly laws are harmless and ineffective - but merely that they do not have absolute power, either, especially towards the end of a severe inflation. Then, sometimes, even the government's threat with the death penalty can any longer assure its general acceptance. When, finally, even soldiers and policemen refuse to accept it, because they find it all too useless to them, who is to enforce its acceptance? - J.Z., 21.7.89, 29.4.97, 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: If government "services" did not have "legal tender", namely forced value and forced acceptance, if individuals could freely negotiate them (by contracting e.g., voluntary taxation alternatives) or refuse them altogether (by individual and minority group secessions) then, here, too, Gresham's law, in the popular version of "Bad money drives out good money", although it applies only to forced (legal tender) currency, i.e. to currency with compulsory acceptance at a fictitious and forced value) would be reversed and so far enforced public payments and services (single convenience relationships, wrongly advocated as "public or welfare services"), would be replaced by mutual convenience or mutually preferred currencies and services, whose voluntary aspect would make them moral and honest ones. They would thus, step by step, individual by individual, minority group by minority group, replace the bad, non-competitive and so far enforced and authoritarian ones. - J.Z., 3/97, 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: Let good private currencies and all current account and clearing systems, all competitive, well publicised and market-rated, drive out the bad ones, which under freedom would not enjoy any legal privileges and cover-up options or, in practice, immunity from prosecution, altogether or for all too long. - J.Z., 3/97, 1.7.11.
GRESHAM'S LAW: The popular misunderstanding of it has been summed up with: Bad money drives out good money. That misunderstanding is still largely a part of public opinion and even of academic opinion, I believe. However, Google offers so many references, that among them are bound to be quite a few correct ones. Alas, what individual or group of individuals has the time, energy and interest to extract the correct definitions or interpretations from as many references as Google offers now? I remember the correct statements on this of the Swiss, German and Jewish school of monetary freedom from the 1930's, but have not yet got around to put all of them together. Writings by this group, mainly Ulrich von Beckerath, Dr. Walter Zander and Prof. Heinrich Rittershausen, can be found on www.reinventingmoney.com - In the absence of legal tender and the money issue monopoly of central banks, which are not natural but artificially imposed conditions, the true version comes to: Good money drives out the bad money. Alas, the possible good money is now still outlawed everywhere and the bad monies of governments and their "independent" central banks are legally enforced. - Lord Keynes is also to be blamed for that. He was, so to speak, the courtier of the monetary despotism of governmental and provided it with plausible sounding excuses or pretences. There are already many books criticizing central banking and Keynesianism but not yet enough to describe all of the sound alternatives to it. I also remembered a correct article on it by V. Orval Watts, who found his position on this still so rare that it was then called "Watts' Law", in an article in THE FREEMAN of FEE, Jan. 66, which is online as are all articles of this journal. 516 Google results refer to it. - 67 results refer to Gresham's Law + THE FREEMAN. - When looking for Gresham's Law of politics and books, one gets 170,000 results. At least some of them might be interesting for panarchists. If one merely looks for Gresham's Law of politics, one gets 4.86 million results. Who or what group can cope with as many references? Under definitions more than 1 million are offered. HELP! - Could one build up a fund for e.g., the best definitions and the best articles on it? - I am prepared to offer A $ 50 towards it. - Once an attractive fund has accumulated, the contributors ought to agree on who or which editorial group is to make these selections. - I think that the best definitions, descriptions and essays on this ought to become combined in an online anthology and also referred to in a handbook on monetary freedom. - That the forced and exclusive currencies of governments still drive out, or, rather, are possible only under the outlawry of the better currencies, is still all too widely overlooked. - Once the proper formulation of Gresham's Law is generally recognized, the advance to full monetary freedom will become much easier. - Another obstacle to monetary freedom is e.g. the popular opinion a) that private banks are already free to create money and credit and that they do so, and b) that if anybody were allowed to issue money, then anybody could create and inflation. - How many other flawed, false and prejudiced views on money do exist, which make the present monetary despotism possible? - Are they as numerous as those, which make the territorial warfare States possible? - J.Z., 27.1.10. 27.4.11. - DIS., MONETARY DESPOTISM, LEGAL TENDER, OUTLAWRY OF GOOD MONEY, INFLATION, DEFLATION, CENTRAL BANKING.
GRESHAM'S LAW: the proposition that if coins containing metal of different value enjoy equal legal-tender power, then the 'cheapest' ones will be used for payment, the better ones will tend to disappear from circulation - or, to use the usual but not quite correct phrase, that bad money drives out good money. This phrase recurs in the Royal Proclamation 'decrying' base silver coin in 1560, when Gresham is known to have been the government's chief advisor in such matters. There is also a memorandum of his (1559) which argues this case. The so-called 'law' can be found in many earlier writings. (Page 343n) - Page 297: "... the essential point about the legal ratio of the two metals does not seem to have been noticed: theorists realised, or course, that the metal which this ratio overvalues with respect to the other will tend to drive out the one it undervalues; they had discussed this phenomenon at least from Moline's time - one may in fact, if one so desires, subsume it under Gresham's Law; ..." - Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analyses.
GRESHAM'S LAW: The so-called Gresham's Law, in its popular version: "Bad money drives out good money", is a wrong generalisation, possibly first uttered by MacLeod. - J.Z., 5.4.85. Money that is bad through legal tender (with a market value below par, but with a full nominal value through legal tender) drives out good money, that has a full market value but is not legal tender. It drives the good money to where it is more appreciated, into private deep pockets or into other countries. While in the absence of legal tender the bad money tends to be refused or discounted and becomes thus less and less acceptable, while the good money is widely accepted and finally drives the bad money out of circulation. - J. Z., 5.4.85, 14.4.97, 1.7.11.
GRIGG, WILLIAM NORMAN, Of Paper 'Money' and 'Paper' Terrorism - "'Terrorism,' as the term is commonly used, refers to the privatization of the lethal political violence carried out by way of government monopoly. Those accused of "paper terrorism" are following that logic in bureaucratic fashion. They emulate the behavior of the Federal Reserve and its seraglio of fractional reserve banks by creating worthless but official-looking financial paper, and they mimic the behavior of the banking system's enforcement mechanism by filing legal documents intended to punish those who don't play along in the scheme by exchanging valuable goods and services for worthless paper." - Roy Halliday
GROWTH, ECONOMIC: Under complete monetary freedom annual real growth rates between 10% & 20% could be achieved. - S. Schwenke, n.d. - Whether these rates or other ones would apply, under full economic freedom, including full monetary and financial freedom, genuine economic growth rates or standards of living would certainly grow faster than they are now, in spite of all governmental interventions, only due to technical and scientific progress. - J.Z., 1.7.11.
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HALBROOKS, JACOB, Money for Nothing - "Austrian economists have demonstrated that there is no benefit for an increasing money supply. No benefit, of course, to the majority of people who use the money, but much benefit to those who create the money. Money is the medium of exchange for nearly all trades, and it is the very lifeblood of the economy. The government that controls the money supply therefore has great influence on the economy, and the result, aside from a continuously devalued dollar and wealth confiscation, is a cycle of booms and recessions. If the country operated on a sound currency, it is likely that prices for goods would actually decrease over time, and there would be no way for any entity to silently steal from the people. Interest rates, which reflect the time-preference of capital formation versus consumption, would be dictated by the natural forces of the economy, and the business cycle would die out. Instead, we are saddled with a system that distorts the true wishes of millions of people voluntarily interacting and enriches a few privileged bankers and politicians at the expense of the people. The Federal Reserve must be abolished." - Roy Halliday
HALBROOKS, JACOB, The Rise of the State and the Decline of Coins - "Coins were once valuable because of their contents, the artwork on them, and the fact that they were minted into specific weights; now they are valuable because the government tells us they are." - Roy Halliday, in section on Coinage.
HALLIDAY, ROY, Banking - - Central Banking - - Fractional-Reserve Banking - - Free-Market Banking - - Government-Regulated Banking - - International Banking - - Coinage - - Counterfeit Money - - Genuine Money - - Gold - - Silver - - Banking in General - - Central Banking - - Fractional-Reserve Banking - - Free-Market Banking - - Government-Regulated Banking - - International Banking
HALLIDAY, ROY: Money and Banking - royhalliday.home.mindspring.com/money.htm - Cached - 6 Aug 2010 – ... for replacing fiat money with free-market money – money that is produced by the free interplay of the supply of and demand for money." ...
HANDBOOK ON MONETARY FREEDOM: This compilation of alphabetized notes towards such a handbook is my own working copy only, with some quotes and references that I managed to include so far. It indicates the limits of my knowledge and reading and my limited time and energy input. I can only indicate its aim and purpose but cannot, on my own, reach them by my own efforts: A free opinion and ideas, reference and knowledge market or free trade centre or clearing house or free exchange for monetary freedom ideas, terms, arguments, facts and experiments, past and present, also an archive, library and information centre, starting with a growing encyclopaedia, with open entry, on the whole subject of monetary and financial freedom. In it, I hope or predict, if only enough interested and sufficiently enlightened contributors do turn up, the best arguments, ideas and proposals will finally drive out the bad and worst ones, because none of the latter will have legal tender power or any monopoly or privilege. - J.Z., 11.4.97, 5.9.02. - Compare the diverse websites mentioned at the top. - J.Z., 1.7.11. - Compare the work bench towards a digitizedatabank on monetary freedom: www.monetary-freedom.net - J.Z., 9.8.11.
HARD & SOFT CURRENCIES: This is a case of false and misleading alternatives. Hard and soft currencies are not necessarily and in all respects opposites and between them they do not cover all possibilities except merely verbally and conceptually, as opposite poles which do not indicate all of the reality between them and outside of this polarization. More significant are distinctions between honest and dishonest, sound and unsound, monopolistic and competitive, forced and optional, stable enough and all too unstable currencies, whether any of them are "hard" or "soft" by any definition. And what does hard or soft mean with regard to any of thousands of different ways to determine or to try to preserve the purchasing power of an index currency? Physically one of the hardest currencies would be one of diamonds. But they are not malleable enough to be coined. (In future, when artificial diamond production becomes quite cheap, at least for diamond coatings, we might e.g. come to diamond-coat pure gold coins to prevent them from wearing down too fast. In the meantime, to the extent that we would still bother to use them, we might mostly keep each of them in a cheap small plastic and transparent pocket or pouch. A gold currency is usually considered a "hard" currency and yet it is made out of one of the softest metals and also of a metal that has been more than any other subjected to legal interventionism. Coins made out of harder and cheaper metals, copper or iron, were often not kept hard, judged by their par value with better standards, but depreciated against them. While soft materials, like wood, bamboo, paper and plastic, have often been used in quite sound private money tokens. The distinction merely between hard money and soft money is as insufficient as that merely between rare metal exchange media and paper means of exchange, with the misunderstanding that the latter would always have to be fiat money or legal tender money and depreciating, unless 100% covered and redeemed by gold coins in the possession of the issuer. - J. Z., 26.4.97, 1.7.11. - Here, too, our language, our terms, definitions and notions, our choice of words, more or less careless and injudicious, leads to and maintains most of our remaining problems. How many innocents will die because the war against terrorism and against Saddam Hussein, with his aspiration to acquire and use a stock of ABC mass murder devices (or anti-people "weapons", all to be used under the "principle" of "collective responsibility", has suddenly, via thoughtless journalists and politicians, become a planned war against "Iraq", "Bagdad" and the people of Iraq, requiring massive military forces and sacrifices, possibly leading to WW III? While people are organized, think and act only in territorialist terms, rather than in terms of individual sovereignty, individual secessionism and exterritorial autonomy for volunteer communities, such misjudgements and mistakes are almost inevitable, on both sides, among men on the street as well as among the monopolistic and centralistic top decision-makers. Obviously, the terrorists, to whose mass murder this and the previous war were supposed to be rightful and rational responses, also acted upon the "principle" of collective responsibility and under territorialist assumptions - and with these wrongful dogmas and institutions the slaughter goes on, almost everywhere, at least on a small scale, e.g., via racism or the war against the rich. - J. Z., 8.9.02. - Perhaps, before e.g. American and UK English fall too far apart, an agreement should be reached on which spelling to use generally. - J.Z., 4.8.11.
HARD CURRENCY: The essence of hard money is that it has precise limits to its supply." - A value standard like a gram of gold is not depreciated proportionately to the numbers of grams of gold available. Compared with the accumulated gold stock even the largest additional annual gold production does not amount to much - and industrial use of gold is ever increasing and takes a larger and larger share of current production. The value of all other goods and services offered for sale does, certainly, grow much faster. The value of meter and kg measures is not depreciated by the number of meter and kg measures being increased. And the same relatively stable value standard can be used in an ever increasing money circulation that corresponds to the ever increasing flood of goods and services offered for sale. The precise limit for any competitive private or cooperative currency is the same as that for any other product or service. As long as it can be honestly offered and sold at competitive prices, it does not exceed its limits. But any considerable and lasting discount of a free and market-rated currency, measured in any sound value standard, will induce the issuer to stop issuing and his potential acceptors to refuse or still further discount his money tokens - and then to force them upon the issuer, as soon as possible, at par. In one's thinking on issue and reflux practices one should always clearly distinguish between exchange media and value standards and between forced acceptance and forced values as against optional acceptance and free market rating. Otherwise one will inevitably arrive at wrong conclusions. - It indicates soft-headed "thinking" to class all other currencies but gold or silver metal or 100% gold or silver covered certificates as "soft" currencies. - J. Z., 16.3.97, 1.7.11.
HARD MONEY VS. SOFT MONEY: Money needs neither to be hard nor soft but, rather, optional and should, preferably, be sound. - Then the good money will be preferred by potential acceptors and thus drive out the bad money, which can, in the absence of an exclusive currency status and legal tender powers, no longer be forced, at par, upon unwilling creditors. - J. Z., 4.9.92 &15.4.97. - Whether a ruler is made of wood, plastic or metal does not matter much, if anything, for its usefulness. Only its relative accuracy and stability, convenient size, availability and easy applicability does. Even mass produced and very cheap, thin and flexible rulers are accurate and stable enough for most purposes. - The marking of goods prices, service charges, wages, salaries, debts, fees, subscriptions, taxes, interest etc., can be done in supposedly "hard" value standards, in form of gram or ounce weight units of an agreed upon fineness, of rare metal according to its value on a free market for that metal. Only some trading in such units is needed, e.g., for gold coins on a free gold market, to establish and confirm its market value with regard to other metals, value standards, currencies, goods and services. The "hardness" of this standard does not require that the issue of any exchange media or clearing certificates has been covered by its units, either 100% or fractionally or that the issuer is under any obligation to redeem his notes or certificates in physical value standard units upon demand. It might even be harder for him in some ways, but still possible, and much easier in other ways, to simply preserve the par-value of his paper note issues with their nominal gold weight value, primarily by accepting them himself at par with their gold weight value, and, perhaps, obliging his debtors, by corresponding contracts, to do the same, as long as they still owe him something, which they can repay with those of his notes which they would accept, at any time at par. The free gold market of the world would provide the greatest possible and safest "redemption fund" for all notes reckoning in gold weight values and kept at par with them. Such notes should not be dogmatically classed as "soft" money, as if they were as depreciated or valueless as government paper money often becomes. Those who, who do provide cheap, plastic, cardboard or wooden rulers do not have to have them fully covered, each single one of them, by their equivalent in a platinum ruler, either. Most people do not aim at purchasing gold - if they do, they could, on a free gold market. Mostly they rather want to be sure that their notes and certificates are readily accepted at par at least on the local consumer goods and service market. That kind of cover can be almost indefinitely expanded (e.g. in a large city, whose shop associations issues shop foundation money.), with the growing demand for it among its producers, earners, traders and spenders, without depreciating the value standard unit used. Only the value-carriers, i.e. the exchange media, expressing a certain number of value standard units, would have to be correspondingly increased, temporarily - only to flow back again to the issuer, upon their redemption in the ready for sale and wanted consumer goods and services. - It is very misleading to call all monies not 100 % redeemable in gold mere "soft" money. - J. Z., 22.8.92, 1.7.11.
HARD WORK OR EVEN HARDER WORK, MORE PRODUCTIVITY, MORE SAVINGS & INVESTMENTS & LESS CONSUMER SPENDING ARE THE BEST MEANS TO FIGHT INFLATION: Popular opinion. - As experience has shown, one can increase the money circulation a billion-fold. Can one also, in the same period, work a billion times as hard or productively, in all spheres of the economy? - Why should I work even harder to give the inflated currency, issued by someone else, in this case "my" government, some more purchasing power? Why should government scrip or chits have any purchasing power at all towards my own goods, services and labour? Why should I not be free to out-compete the government's depreciated or credit-restricted currency - by my own note issues or clearing certificates within my sphere of payments and receipts? - Why should one work harder and not be paid more, not even in depreciated currency? Even if, now and then, one's wages are somehow adapted to the inflation that has taken already taken place, in the recent past, one would have lost out in purchasing power up to the time of the newly indexed wage settlement. Consumer prices race ahead while wages limp behind. Neither the governmental arbitration process nor its CPI can be relied upon to be just and fair to all concerned, even on day one of a new and imposed new "agreement" or "settlement" (which all too often and usually intentionally, excludes any value-preserving clauses). - Harder work and inflation adjustment of wages, now and then, would not help pensioners on a fixed nominal pension, either, i.e., which is payable at par in depreciated paper money. Nor would it help other medium or long term creditors, fobbed off with depreciated paper money, destroying much of their rightful payment claims. Just allow all producers, traders, employers and employees, to contract in sound alternative currencies of their own and to boycott or reject or ignore that of the government altogether. Let the governments try to work hard to give their paper monies some work value if they can. I doubt that they could supply as much in wanted values and services as free competition could supply. We are not the slaves or serfs or debtors of governments, or of their central banks, although they try to turn us into such or treat us as such, e.g. via taxation and monetary despotism. - Conveniently overlooked here is also the fact or expectation that, due to inflation, full employment does, supposedly, occur, i.e. that all of the nation does work harder or more in the average. Does this stop inflation? - When such nonsense is uttered, again and again, mostly in the mass media, the mass media fail to counter it with any or enough truths on the subject, i.e. they fail in their enlightenment role. - J.Z., 2. 4. 97 - Not only monetary fallacies are still popular but even as primitive and obviously flawed notions as: "Buy Australian" or "Buy American!" - as if such advice, if followed, could achieve additional sales and jobs for all. - J. Z., 2. 9. 02, 1.7.11. - WORK, PRODUCTIVITY, LABOUR, DISCIPLINE, RESTRAINTS, GOVERNMENT SPENDING, SAVINGS, INVESTMENTS, INFLATION, WORK, OFFICIAL CONSUMER PRICE INDEX, CURRENCY POLICY, MASS MEDIA, ENLIGHTENMENT, DIS.
HAYEK VS. ROTHBARD: Hayek vs. Rothbard on Free-Market Money - Thrica - thri.ca/archives/546 - Cached - 13 May 2011 – Rothbard on Free-Market Money. Hayek vs. Rothbard on Free-Market Money. Within Austrian economic theory, there is a fundamental ...
HAYEK, F. A., A Free Market Monetary System. - Free Market Monetary System, A - mises.org › Home › Shop all Books - Cached - Here are two of Hayek's greatest essays in one small and beautiful volume at a very low price. It is a perfect way to introduce yourself and others to this ... - ALSO: HAYEK, F. A.: A Free-Market Monetary System - Friedrich A. Hayek - Mises Daily - mises.org/daily/3204 - Cached - 21 Nov 2008 – If we ever again are going to have a decent money, it will not come from government: it will be issued by private enterprise, ... - HAYEK, F. A., A Free-Market Monetary System - "A lecture delivered at the Gold and Monetary Conference, New Orleans, November 10, 1977." - Roy Halliday, in section on Genuine Money. - NOW ALSO OFFERED AS AN E-BOOK. Mises I. news, 12.8.11.
HAYEK, F. A., Toward Free Market Money, Twitter / feeonline: Toward Free Market Money b ... - twitter.com/feeonline/status/75268344009330688 - Cached - Toward Free Market Money by F.A. Hayek: Wall Street Journal Article from August 19th, 1977 by F.A. Hayek called ... http://bit.ly/m8l8EY. - ALSO: Toward Free Market Money by F.A. Hayek | Bastiat Institute - www.bastiatinstitute.org/.../toward-free-market-money-by-f-a-hayek ... - Cached - 30 May 2011 – Wall Street Journal Article from August 19th, 1977 by F.A. Hayek called Toward Free Market Money. The article is about ending the government ... - ALSO: Toward Free Market Money by F.A. Hayek | Foundation for Economic ... - www.fee.org/doc/toward-free-market-money-by-f-a-hayek/ - Cached - Wall Street Journal Article from August 19th, 1977. The article is about ending the government monopoly. - [PDF]
HAZLITT, HENRY, End the IMF - November 11, 1963. - "It is amazing that this system, jerry-built at Bretton Woods in 1944, is not only still tolerated but regarded as practically sacrosanct. Its paternity was not auspicious. Its two fathers were Harry Dexter White of the United States and Lord Keynes of England. White, who later served as US executive director of the IMF, was reported by the FBI in 1945 (as revealed in an announcement by Attorney General Brownell in 1953) to be a Russian spy." - Roy Halliday
HEDGING & INFLATION: The best one can do against inflation is to privately hedge one's fortune or income against it, by e.g. going into a partnership, buying land or shares instead of nominal and fixed income securities (payable in depreciated legal tender paper money) or by buying gold or silver or other non-perishable or long lasting goods and storing them safely. One might also go into debt, preferably on long terms, so that, in essence, one becomes enabled to cheat one's own creditors, including the government, when the loans become due. - Popular opinion, in my own words, even the opinion of opinion makers like Harry Brown, Ralph Borsodi etc. - Indeed, one can try to minimise the effects of the inflation of a government's legal tender upon one's own affairs. But one can still not escape many general consequences of inflation, e.g. the difficulty to obtain credits on long terms, the high interest rates one has to pay, the effects of price controls and the rationing it ultimately brings. Moreover, in many countries some or all hedging methods are outlawed or punitively taxed if uncovered. Under German law, every wage settlement paid otherwise than in governmental legal tender is ignored and the already paid employee can demand payment again, in legal tender. Gold transactions have often been penalised, sometimes with death, and so have private foreign exchange transactions that were not government licensed. One finds oneself in the same position as e.g. a deserter or conscientious objector in times of war. One is not free but rather hunted or incarcerated and in some cases killed for refusing to participate in governmentally organized mass slaughters. Massive disobedience and desertion, armed and well organized, with quite rightful aims and methods, is another matter. - J.Z., 2. 4.97, 1.7.11. - MILITIA, RESISTANCE, GOLD MARKET, BLACK MARKET, LEGAL TENDER, EXCLUSIVE CURRENCY
HEINLEIN, ROBERT: Discussion of his monetary views in his fiction. (He shares most of the views of the Austrians.) - J.Z., 1.7.11.
HIGHBEAM.COM: In a free market, money doesn't grow on trees: supporters of big ... - www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-189871693.html - Cached - 24 Nov 2008 – In a free market, money doesn't grow on trees: supporters of big government have been blaming the current economic crisis on the free market ... - It is the details that matter, not such generalizations. The details should be offered in form of a digitized alphabetized handbook, like I try to initiate, and an electronic databank, like Klaus Falke initiated: www.monetary-freedom.net/ - J.Z., 26.7.11.
HIRE PURCHASE AGREEMENTS & INFLATION: The finance houses are a key factor in the level of sales in the consumer durable fields such as motor vehicles and household appliances. The growth of hire purchase and spending on durables played a major part in the previous inflationary booms in the 1950s. - THE AUSTRALIAN, 11.2.71. - The spread of hire purchase agreements indicate rather a low purchasing power among the consumers, who cannot afford to pay cash. - On the one side it increases for them the total purchase price by fees and interest charges. On the other hand, as debtors, they benefit from any inflation that takes place during their repayment period, which makes the instalments easier for them to pay. And during stagflations like the present, we have cases where desperate sellers offer their goods at discount prices, on no deposit, with the first instalments months away and interest free for 6-12 months. So that, in these cases, even the nominal purchase price is not increased but, rather undercut and zero interest credits are offered. Thus, from the goods side, the prices are not inflated but, through many forced sales, even when paid-for interest free and on instalments only, rather deflated. - Like any other credit and debt arrangements, hire purchase agreements rather suffer under inflation, deflation and stagflation than benefit from them or cause or increase them. - Almost everyone and everything is blamed except the real culprits, wrongful but legalized monopoly institutions and despotic monetary policies. - J.Z., 2.4.9, 1.7.11. - DIS., INFLATION
HOARDING OF MONEY AS A LOAN: Hoarding of money tokens for goods or services that are ready for sale does also provide a corresponding but rather generalised loan to the local economy (the local issuers) since these tokens are not being redeemed during their hoarding period. They issuers received some values for them but had not yet to give their counter values in exchange. All they had to offer so far are paper tokens. As owners of perishable goods or as people hoping for a more regular turnover they might, naturally, not be too happy about this kind of anonymously granted and interest-free loan from a multitude of their note acceptors, holders and hoarders. To ensure a more regular turnover, a clause in such private exchange media could give them a limited period of validity only, to speed up their reflux and prevent their excess hoarding for long periods. Cheques are likewise, at least in some countries, already under a time limit for their presentation. But with them it is not expressed on the cheque forms. Tickets have often only a daily or hourly value - unless they are weekly, monthly or yearly subscription tickets. People are already accustomed to "use by ..." inscriptions on many of their consumer goods. - It would not be a tax or stamp imposed like on Silvio Gesell's money alternative. Whenever notes are permanently hoarded, e.g. by coin- and note-collectors, the issuers could simply issue correspondingly more of them. Trade would not depend on the hoarded notes. The distinction between turnover exchange media and value-preserving and interest-bearing capital securities would thereby be made clearer than it is at present. Gold and silver coins did not help to make this distinction, nor did legalized legal tender power (compulsory acceptance at a forced value) that lasted for years or decades. - This time limitation was recommended by Prof. E. Milhaud and Ulrich von Beckerath made it part and parcel of his very detailed monetary freedom system. - J. Z., 17.9.91, 28.4.97, 1.7.11.
HOGG, KIRSTY, Kirsty Hogg: REAL MONEY - 'The Life Cycle of Money' — A ... - acelebrationofwomen.org/?p=58988 - Cached - 6 Jul 2011 – After a barter / exchange economy is well-established, a society progress to the concept of free market money and a currency system emerges. ... - ALSO: Oldtent Archives 2011 » The Life Cycle Of Money by Kirsty Hogg - arch11.goldtent.org/?p=70757 - Cached - 29 Jun 2011. - ALSO: HOGG, KIRSTY, The Life Cycle of Money by Kirsty Hogg - www.24hgold.com/english/contributor.aspx?article...Kirsty... - Cached - 30 Jun 2011 - ALSO: The Life Cycle Of Money by Kirsty Hogg « Selected Paradise Posts ... - rss.goldtent.net/?p=241536 - Cached - 29 Jun 2011 –HOGG, KIRSTY, The Life Cycle of Money, The Life Cycle of Money - GOLD SPECULATOR, - Gold Speculator - www.gold-speculator.com - GS Database - Kirsty Hogg - Cached - 4 posts - 4 authors - Last post: yesterday.
HONEST MONEY BY PRIVATE & COMPETING ISSUERS: There ought to be full freedom to provide honest money, i.e. money that is soundly covered by wanted goods and services, in daily demand, soundly valued by a freely chosen value standard, optional, that is without monopoly or exclusive currency status, without legal tender, money, which may be freely refused or market rated or accepted at par and which only the issuers themselves - and by contract their debtors - would have to accept at any time from anyone at par in all payments due to them. Publicity, note exchanges, clearing, local circulation areas, limited time periods for their validity, voluntary acceptance, the possibility of a discount and a sound distrust towards all suspicious and unknown and not easily evaluated or certified means of exchange and value standards, would contribute to keep these issues limited and uninflated. At the same time, freedom of issue and clearing would keep exchange media well enough supplied to serve to bring about all desired and possible exchanges of goods, services and labour. - The dishonest, forced and monopolized, paper money of the government, with a mere paper value "standard" and nevertheless the power of compulsory acceptance and compulsory value for every creditor, so "paid" by his debtors, ought to be done completely away with, at least for all territorial States. Likewise the legal or juridical "right" of creditors to demand e.g. gold coins or legal tender in the settlement of debts, rather than any honest and full settlement by acceptable forms of clearing. Only within the panarchistic or merely exterritorially autonomous communities of volunteers, if they are ignorant, foolish or prejudiced enough to remain true believers in monetary, financial and other despotism, should such abuses be allowed to be continued, naturally, at the risk and expense of their adherents only. They still have to learn their lessons from these despotic and dishonest practices. - J. Z., 3.7.93, 25.4.97, 1.7.11. - VS. DISHONEST MONEY & FORCED CURRENCY BY TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENTS
HONEST MONEY: an honest money system; i.e. one where the currency is backed by something of true value (usually gold or silver)." - David F. Nolan, LIBERTARIAN PARTY NEWS, March 95. - If it were backed ONLY by gold or silver but not by consumer goods and services - then how acceptable would it be to most people? Imagine a city that is blockaded or a lifeboat situation. - J. Z., 16.3.97, 1.7.11.
HONEST MONEY: The fifth and final key test of anyone's claim to being a libertarian is their support for an honest money system; i.e. one where the currency is backed by something of true value (usually gold or silver). Fiat money -- money with no backing, whose acceptance is mandated by the State -- is simply legalized counterfeiting and is one of the keys to expanding government power. - David F. Nolan. The previous quote is from The Essence of Liberty by David F. Nolan, (Copyright, 1995, 1996, David F. Nolan) - Can a State really counterfeit its own money or merely depreciate it, by forcing an excess into of it into circulation, made possible by Legal Tender and the issue monopoly for its central bank? - J.Z., 13.5.11. - INFLATION, COUNTERFEITING, DIS., DEPRECIATION OF STATE PAPER MONEY, BACKING, COVER
HONOUR: A system of monetary despotism, that establishes a legalised issue monopoly for the central bank and legal tender for its notes, i.e., compulsory acceptance and a fiat or command value for the notes, regardless of their market value or depreciation in internal and external markets, can hardly be called an honourable one. - J. Z., 11.5.97.
HOOKER TOKENS: … noted that the payoff was in hooker tokens, the only hard currency that still circulated in New York Free City. You didn’t have to spend them on whores. People traded them back and forth, exchanged them for favors, bought unique personal mementos with them. There was a famous artist down on the Deuce who sold his canvases for them. Rumor had it that he could get laid a million times, whenever he wanted. They were little three-centimeter silver-plastic coins, the reverse embossed with the legend ONE FUQUE, the obverse bearing a tableau of two mating pigs. The pigs were smiling.”– William Barton & Michael Capobianco, Iris, Bantam Books, 1990, p.240. – The “value standard” they used in this SF novel is at least somewhat more equal and standardized than the “labour hour” standard, which can vary a million-fold. However, there are many other goods and services, which could provide a better and much more comprehensive readiness to accept foundation for local currencies issued by such providers, organized in suitable associations for such issues and also using a locally accepted sound value standard in their notes, clearing certificates, accounts and in their prices, fees and subscriptions. – J.Z., 22.8.10. – JOKES, ALTERNATIVE CURRENCIES, READINESS TO ACCEPT FOUNDATION
HOPPE, HANS-HERMANN, Politics, Money and Banking. Everything You Need to Know in 30 Minutes - May 2011. This is a video recording of a speech given at the Property and Freedom Society Sixth Annual Meeting Bodrum, Turkey, 26-30 May 2011. - Roy Halliday, http://royhalliday.home.mindspring.com/
HORNBERGER, JACOB, Gold, Freedom and the Fed - November 27, 2009. "With the possible exception of the Internal Revenue Service, the federal agency that is the greatest threat to the financial well-being and freedom of the American people is the Federal Reserve. This is the agency that has the power to wipe you out. It can destroy all your savings and the value of your income. Worst of all, it can do all this secretly and surreptitiously." - Roy Halliday, in section on gold.
HORNBERGER, JACOB, Why Statists Hate Gold - June 26, 2010. - "Amidst the increasing calls among statists for increased federal spending, one can practically feel the deep, visceral hatred for gold arising within statists. The reason is that statists know that gold is a communications vehicle that tells people what government officials are doing to their money. That's the last thing that statists want people to find out." - Roy Halliday, in section on gold.
HORWITZ, STEVEN, Commercial Banking in a Free Society. - "Banks in a free society will be literally nothing special. ... If they are fraudulent or use force, they need to face the consequences. ... The result will not only be a more free banking system, but a more efficient, safe, and productive one." - Roy Halliday, in section on Free Market Banking.
HORWITZ, STEVEN, Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace - Freeman | HighBeam Research - www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1448295551.html - Cached - 1 Jan 2008 – When I teach money and banking, I begin the section on the history of the American monetary... | Article from THE FREEMAN, January 1, 2008. - ALSO: Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace - www.docstoc.com - DocStore - Periodicals - Social Sciences - Cached - 22 May 2010 – Guaranteed Bond Market The stated rationale for the bond-collateral requirement was that it provided safety in case the bank failed and ... - A well constructed and issued free market currency, with sufficient reflux to the issuers and redemption in the goods, services and labour that they do offer for it, does not need any OTHER guaranty, like e.g., in form of bonds, shares or mortgage letters. We have here the analogy to cinema-, theatre- and sports-tickets. They, too, do not need any capital guarantees but merely the performances that they promise and sell entitlements to, in form of tickets to seats at their performances. It would be absurd to demand e.g. a gold- or silver cover for each of these tickets. - J.Z., 26.7.11. - ALSO: - Free-Market Money:A Key to Peace - www.fee.org/pdf/the-freeman/0801Horwitz.pdf - File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View - 13. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008. Steven Horwitz, sghorwitz@stlawu.edu - is a professor of economics at St. Lawrence University. ... ALSO: Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace | Freeman | Find Articles at BNET findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7541/is_200801/ai_n32265372/ - Cached - Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace from THE FREEMAN, provided by Find Articles at BNET. - ALSO: Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty - www.thefreemanonline.org/.../free-market-money-a-key-to-peace/ - Cached 26 Jun 2011 – When I teach money and banking, I begin the section on the history of the American monetary system by asking my students what the following .. - ALSO: Steven Horwitz - Wikiberal - www.wikiberal.org/wiki/Steven_Horwitz - Cached - “Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace,” THE FREEMAN, 58 (1), January-February 2008, pp.13-15. - ALSO: HORWITZ, STEVEN, Free-Market Money: A Key to Peace - January 2008. "For hundreds of years governments have intervened in monetary institutions in order to use them to raise revenue through the manipulation of money and credit, and most often that revenue has been used to make war." - Roy Halliday, in section on Genuine Money.
HORWITZ, STEVEN, To the Opponents of Fractional Reserve Banking It's not what you think. - December 2, 2010. - "There’s nothing wrong with fractional reserve banking that getting rid of central banking and its various interventions can’t cure." - Roy Halliday
HOSTE, RICHARD, Fiat Money: The Fuel of Government - "According to Paul, the best case against the Fed is simply that it’s immoral. When government prints a new dollar, the value of each one in circulation goes down. The government shouldn’t be allowed to print money for the same reason you or I aren’t allowed to counterfeit." - Roy Halliday
HOUSING MARKET: Rent or Own? What a Free Market Would Do to the Housing Market. - www.nolanchart.com/article7799_Rent_or_Own_What_a_Free_Ma... - Cached - 1 post - Last post: 20 Jun 2010. - In a true free market, with free market money, rising prices simply boost production which lowers prices, the exact opposite of what rising ... - - In such market e.g. rent money would exist and builder's labourers could be paid with local shop currency. Under monetary freedom, including free choice of value standards, long-term investments in buildings would be much easier to obtain. Not to speak of the voluntary taxation which financial freedom would lead to. - J.Z., 23.7.11.
HUEBERT, JACOB, Book Review: Paying With Plastic — Jacob Huebert - jhhuebert.com/articles/book-review-paying-with-plastic/ - Cached - And although the authors don't consider this implication, their discussion of this issue made me think about how the use of free-market money (say, ...
HÜLSMAN, JÖRG GUIDO, Banks Cannot Create Money - "Central banking and related institutions were not created de novo but as responses (however misguided) to prior problems caused by fractional-reserve banking. Contrary to Selgin, the only permanent beneficiaries of fractional-reserve banking are the bankers themselves." - Roy Halliday, under Fractional-Reserve Banking. - The advocates of truly free banking assert the opposites, as far as exchange media, clearing certificates and clearing accounts are concerned. The adopt or create and agree upon an alternative value standard, together with their customers. However, without a monopoly and coercive legal tender powers, they cannot creat fiat money, i.e. establish monetary despotism and produce inflations, deflations and stagflations. - He seems to have had only gold coins in mind. These they cannot create out of nothing but only out of gold, privately minting it. Problems were created not only by fractional but also by 100% gold reserves, by confining exchange media to their volumes, fractionally or 100%. - J.Z., 11.9.11.
HÜLSMAN, JÖRG GUIDO, The Ethics of Money Production, a digital book offered by the Mises Institute, Aug. 11, for only $ 5. - At least it discusses legal tender and the issue monopoly in connection with inflation, in part 2, on inflation, according to the detailed contens list offered by the Mises Institute. - I still don't know what he understands in part 3 under "Monetary Order." and "The Natural Order of Money Production." but suspect that we would disagree on that. - I applied for a debit card, so I may be able to orer that book soon. - J.Z., 9.8.11.
HUMAN RIGHTS & MONETARY FREEDOM: See especially the long letter by Ulrich von Beckerath on this, reproduced in PEACE PLANS 589/590, which was later enlarged and digitized by me. It is an anthology of over 130 PRIVATE Human Rights drafts, on the road towards an ideal declaration of this kind, embodying all the insights and wordings on genuine individual rights and liberties that are still missing in most of the governmental declarations of human rights, especially that of the UN, while excluding all their wrongful claims against others, which do not express a genuine individual right but rather infringe those rights in others. - J.Z., n.d. & 1.7.11.
HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECTS IGNORED BY MOST MODERN AUTHORS, See: ECONOMIC & HUMAN RIGHTS ASPECTS IGNORED BY MOST MODERN AUTHORS.
HUMMEL, JEFFREY ROGERS, Privatize Deposit Insurance - July 1989. - "Only one solution can overcome moral hazards in the banking and thrift industries: private deposit insurance. The government must dissolve the FDIC and FSLIC and remove all remaining regulations upon depository institutions. The first step would permit the competitive forces of the market to arrange actuarially sound insurance that protects depositors without subsidizing insolvency. The second step would help depository institutions gain the geographical and asset diversity necessary to shore up liquidity during runs." - Roy Halliday, in section on Government-Regulated Banking
HUNGARY: In 1946, according to Julia Brophy, on radio, 8.10.93, the worst inflation ever occurred in Hungary. No more is known to me at this stage. - J. Z., 16.3.97. - A Thousand Pictures Is Worth One Word: Worthless | ZeroHedge Bulukani Mlalazi Some modern history for y'all... take the challenge, see how many currencies bit the dust in your lifetime. - Email of 28 July 23:03. - This site offers excellent illustrations, and also dates and countries of the worst inflations, simply by depicting some of their largest denominations. A display of the dishonours of national currencies under monetary despotism. - J.Z., 4.8.11. - INFLATION
HYPERINFLATION: Hyperinflation.net - Essays - www.hyperinflation.net/essays/englund7.html - Cached - In fact, the opposite is true in that a central bank is an institution that usurps a free-market's money supply (such as gold and silver), and destabilizes ... - INFLATION, CENTRAL BANKING, MONOPOLY MONEY, LEGAL TENDER, FIAT MONEY