This is a temporary page taken from a larger work in progress. It has been uploaded in part as a reply to another post by another liberty minded human.
The Concept of Money
You have become accustomed to the concept of money as shaped by the Ruling Class.
I
assume most of you have never been exposed to a reason to examine your
understanding of your concept of money as shaped by the Ruling Class.
Relying heavily on G. Edward Griffin's The Creature From Jekyll Island:
Quote from: G. Edward GriffinMoney is anything which is accepted as a medium of exchange
and it may be classified into the following forms:
1. Commodity money
2. Receipt money
3. Fiat money
4. Fractional money
Commodity money
Salary has its roots in relation to salt. From Latin salarium "an allowance, a stipend, a pension," said to be originally "salt-money". Pecuniary has its roots in relation to cattle. From Latin pecuniarius "pertaining to money," from pecunia "money, property, wealth," from pecu "cattle, flock,"
Commodity money is any item that is used to measure relative values compared to other items.
Salt
has an unlimited shelf life (so long as the shelf it's on doesn't get
flooded). Once sources of salt were found that didn't need extraordinary
effort to mine and transport, salt's value disappeared making it no
longer an item with a high value suitable for use as money.
Gold
and Silver have unlimited shelf life, are easy to assay, are just rare
enough to hold their value, and have other uses thus giving them
intrinsic value as a commodity.
Receipt Money
Silver is heavy. Gold is heavier. A Receipt (Silver Certificate)
for 5.3 pounds of silver is much lighter in your pocket than the 5.3
pounds of silver. The receipt can also be folded. The exchange value of
the receipt is the same exchange value of the 5.3 pounds of silver.
Possession of the receipt is ownership of the receipt, and thus
ownership of the silver and the value it represents.
Fiat Money
Fiat is an "authoritative sanction," from Latin fiat "let it be done". Fiat Money is a currency you have been commanded to accept in payment of a debt that another owes you. Fiat Money has another name: Legal Tender. Legal Tender means you must accept whatever the Legal Tender currency being tendered (offered or given) in payment for a debt. Fiat Money has no intrinsic value. Its only value is that you have been ordered to treat it like it's actually money and not the IOU note it actually is.
A normal IOU note does have the value of what is owed. For instance, "I Owe You one dozen extra large eggs" has exactly the value of a dozen extra large eggs. The note can be redeemed, that is, exchanged for one dozen extra large eggs.
Have you ever taken a good look at the green paper you use to get things? See where it shows, Federal Reserve Note? With knowledge of what a note is, you can translate in your head; what is written across the top of that green paper states: Federal Reserve I Owe You.
So what, exactly, does this note specify that you are owed? What, exactly, is the value of one Federal Reserve Dollar?
When you are forced to accept this note, this Federal Reserve Dollar, because it is Legal Tender, you don't really know what value you are being given. This is deliberate by design.
If you don't understand how money works, you will assume that "inflation" is the price of everything increasing. If you ask Why is the price of everything increasing, you are asking the wrong question. You would then be blaming the merchant for the price increase.
You are not asking Why is the value of this green paper decreasing? Even though those in Government don't want you asking " Why is the value of this green paper decreasing?"
because it is those in Government forcing the value of this green paper
to decrease. How this is done is readily and easily discernible. The
answer, without explanation, is Fractional Money.
Fractional Money
Fractional Money is in essence, fraudulent Receipt Money in circulation. This is an image of the actual Receipt Money that used to be in circulation in the United States of America.
Please note what is written on this green paper:
- SILVER CERTIFICATE
- THIS CERTIFIES THERE IS ON DEPOSIT IN THE TREASURY OF
- THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
- ONE DOLLAR
- IN SILVER PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND
What value does this Silver Certificate present? One Silver Dollar. One Silver Dollar is specifically a "Constitutional Dollar". One Silver Dollar is specifically 371.25 grains or 0.053 pounds of silver. I can personally attest to the fact that I was never taught about a Constitutional Dollar during my 12 years of incarceration in a Government (public) school. Oversight or deliberate?
One
hundred Silver dollars would be 5.3 pounds of silver. One hundred of
these Silver Certificates would be the value of 5.3 pounds of silver.
This "note", to inaccurately label this particular piece of green paper, clearly states what its exchangeable value is. This note is attached to a specific amount of silver.
A Constitutional Dollar
is 0.053 pounds of silver. A Federal Reserve Dollar is NOT equated to
any item of value. A Federal Reserve Dollar Note with George
Washington's face on the front is as empty of value as calling it a One
Unit Note. Each One Unit Note is only equal to 1/5 of a Five Unit Note,
1/10 of Ten Unit Note, or 1/100 of a Hundred Unit Note with Ben
Franklin's face on the front.
For a comparison perspective, the dozen egg IOU created above for illustration of concept, Would be: "I Owe You a dozen units." No actual value given. Units of what, exactly?
Fractional Money, Inflation, and Currency Debasement
I will explain, from the perspective of a greedy immoral Bankster (sic), with the Government's blessing and backing, how I am going to steal from you.
I
will create and open a bank. You will deposit 5,300 pounds of silver
with me. I will give you an IOU for that silver. I will then loan out
90% of that silver. The person I loaned 4,770 pounds of silver to
doesn't want to carry it around so this borrower deposits the 4,770
pounds with me for safe keeping. I give an IOU for the 4,770 pounds of
silver. I do this a few more times so that with 5,300 pounds of silver
actually in the vault I have issued the following IOU's for silver in
the vault: 5,300; 4,770; 4,293; 3,864; 3,477; 3,130; 2,817; 2,535;
2,281; 2,053: For a total of 34,520 pounds of silver. Were I forced to
payout the silver to all the folks holding my IOU's at once, they would
all only get 15.3% of their IOU's value.
I issue simple IOU's, simple notes,
for what you have given me to keep safe for you. Unlike the Certificate
Receipts with the exchange commodity value printed on them, my IOU's
only say they are good for a specified number of units. The units
specified are only a measure of the number of units with no connection
to any actual, exchangeable value. What one Federal Reserve Note (IOU)
is worth is unknown.
Unbeknownst to you, I managed to get Government to create the Federal Reserve System and create Legal Tender forcing you to use my IOU's as money. I even managed to make my notes, my IOU's look like Silver Certificates. Fooled you. Ha ha.
Take
my IOU's to my brother's bank and deposit them in an account with his
bank, he can then turn around and loan 90% of those IOU's to a borrower
repeating what I just explained above. Scroll back up and take another
look at that Federal Reserve Note image. What value does it present as
having? Certainly NOT the 0.053 pounds of silver that is a Constitutional Dollar.
Inflation is a correct description of what is happening as more and more Federal Reserve Notes (FRN's)
are put in circulation, inflating the number of units of notes in
circulation, chasing the same amount of value of goods and services.
If
every FRN in pockets and accounts magically and suddenly doubled, the
prices of goods and services would double. If this doubling of FRN's
only happened to a select few, they would have more purchasing power
because the have more FRN's to spend. You, on the other hand, would have
less purchasing power because the value of the FRN's you possess would
decrease. This is Governments and banks stealing from you.
If one
FRN has a value of X, adding 9 more will give each of those ten FRN's
the value of one tenth X (X รท 10). The value of the original is now
divided and spread over all the FRN's in circulation. Each additional
FRN gets its value from the FRN's already in circulation.
This is how the currency in circulation is debased and devalued.
Where Do the Extra FRN's Come From?
The above image of a Silver Certificate has a Serial Number. I hope you understand that any item with a Serial Number is unique and different than any other like item with its own, different SN. The Silver Certificate certifies 371.25 grains of silver as the amount attached to that certificate.
Silver Certificates are uniquely Serial Numbered. When the holder/possessor/owner of a specific, numbered Silver Certificate loans it and its value to another, then that other human will hold and possess that specific, numbered Silver Certificate and will be free to use it and its certified value. The original holder/possessor/owner of that specific, numbered Silver Certificate can NOT use it because it is no longer in that human's possession.
When
you deposit my notes at my brother's bank, he can loan out 90% of the
deposit. Yet 100% of what you deposited is still available for you to
use. The extra FRN's are created out of thin air when they are loaned
into existence. They are loaned into existence and the borrower pays
interest to the bank for borrowing a resource created out of thin air.
The value of that resource comes from taking value from all the other
notes in circulation. When a bank takes possession of your FRN's. What
is loaned out is NOT what is held and possessed by the bank. When you
get a loan from a bank, the bank creates a line in a ledger, adds the
value of what you have been loaned, then writes you a check for the
amount, in "dollars". That is: Federal Reserve Note dollars, not 371.25 silver grain Constitutional Dollars.
Circulating Currency Stores Your Labor's Value
Since
the way that most (U.S.) humans acquired FRN's (U.S. currency) was by
exchanging their labor for FRN's. Each FRN held has the value of the
labor exerted to acquire them. The devaluation of that stored value, the
diminishing of that stored value while you hold the currency, is the
stealing of the labor exerted in giving them their original value. In
other words, you worked for free for the amount of time-value stolen
from you by inflation. In other, other words, you were partially
enslaved for the amount of that loss.
Remember, You are
exchanging your labor, your life time, your life essence, for the
currency of the realm; So that you can exchange the currency of the
realm for life maintaining resources. Food, clothing, shelter, energy to
heat your shelter, and in this modern age, required transportation. The
more currency you have, the more life maintaining resources you can
attain, the more choices you can make, the more freedom to choose how to
live your life you have.
Per the earlier question: If taking 100% of someone's labour and free will is slavery, at what percentage is it NOT slavery...? If you are not 100% not a slave, then you are a slave. If you are one of those idiots that wishes to argue this point, go look in a mirror if you want to see a human with a Slave Mentality, who doesn't care if their life resources are stolen from them.
The
rest of you who would choose liberty and freedom have just been shown
how, unbeknownst to you, the Ruling Class is literally leaching your
life resources away from you.
This theft by inflation is a deliberate initiating of harm.
If you have an emotional reaction and disbelief of what I just
presented, Then you are a text book example of how effective the Ruling
Class has been in deliberately making deliberate harms invisible. If you
have an emotional reaction and disbelief of what I just presented, then
you have a Slave Mentality. This information is readily available if one knows where to look. Slave Mentalities have been trained to never question
and never look at information the Ruling Class doesn't want you to
examine. This information will NEVER be taught in the schools the Ruling
Class controls.