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Vin Suprynowicz: In support of the Liberty Dollar
By Vin Suprynowicz
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Sunday, June 19, 2011
http://www.vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=796
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/in-favor-of-annual-flooding-and-the-liberty-...
The Garden Club had a rummage sale last weekend. When we arrived, we were handed handy color-coded cards to help us figure out the pricing. Big plastic pots with red stickers were a dollar; the prices of things bearing blue or yellow tags could be decoded just as easily.
We are not merely "at risk" for inflation. The inflation of the money supply has already been accomplished, in a (probably vain) effort to bail out malinvested megabanks that otherwise would have faced some serious problems with their reserve requirements.
Ironically, as the economy "gets better," that money will start to move, and this inflation already purposely created by Washington will start to send prices through the roof. As that happens, watch for this "priced by color code" approach to become far more common.
... Dispatch continues below ...
Prophecy (TSXV: PCY) Secures Russian Far East Seaport Allocation
and Updates Ulaan Ovoo Mine Production
Company Press Release, June 14, 2011
VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Coal Corp. TSX-V: PCY)(OTCQX: PRPCF)(Frankfurt: 1P2) has arranged with the Port of Sovgavan in the State of Khabarovsk, Russia, so the company will have initial access to port allocation of 25,000 tonnes of coal per month starting this month, potentially expandable to 50,000 tonnes per month, representing 300,000 to 600,000 tonnes annually. Prophecy also will be assigned a coal storage area at the port.
This arrangement provides Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo thermal coal mine with immediate access to the Asian seaborne export coal markets. Sovgavan is strategically located on the seaboard of the Russian Far East. The port is privately owned and can accommodate seagoing vessels of up to 160 meters in length, with the depth of loading site of 9.5 meters. The port has loading capacity of 6,000 tonnes per day and direct connections to Trans-Siberian railroads and uncongested Russian state highways.
Securing the port opens Prophecy to a significant number of coal buyers, and the company is placing top priority to conclude rail transport within Russia and coal offtake contracts.
Prophecy's Ulaan Ovoo mine commenced production in 2011. So far this year the mine has produced 200,000 tonnes of coal, which are being stockpiled. The average quality is 4,200 kcal/kg NAR with 5 percent ash and 0.5 percent sulphur. Those attributes compare favorably to the coal being purchased by local Russian and Mongolian power plants.
For the complete company statement, please visit:
http://www.prophecycoal.com/news_2011_jun14_Prophecy_Secures_Russian_Sea...
The "red tag" items that cost $19.95 last week can easily be repriced to $24.95 this week, and $29.95 next week without churning out thousands of new individual price tags, simply by changing the master "color code identifier" on the wall.
In fact, because most retail establishments are now online, there's no reason said list couldn't be an electronic readout, specifying that a "red tag" item now costs, say, one ounce of silver, or 1/40th of an ounce of gold, with such prices updated electronically every day or even every hour, shifting as the commodity prices shift against each other.
This would eventually allow us to bypass the cumbersome and increasingly worthless "dollar" altogether.
Of course, since people have always sought an alternative to carrying around weighty leather purses full of jangling gold and silver coins, anyone could start issuing paper notes readily exchangeable for ounces of gold and silver on demand. Heck, we could even carry plastic debit cards that would delete, say, 1.39 ounces of silver from our accounts when making what we would previously have called "a 50-dollar purchase."
There are only two obstacles to public acceptance of such an arrangement:
1) "Fractional reserve" banking would have to be outlawed as fraud in regard to the issuance of such "certificates of hard money deposit."
2) As soon as they threaten to gain any wide acceptance, the federal government now actually treats such helpful "honest money" systems as criminal. Witness the recent criminal prosecution of Bernard von NotHaus for minting his "Liberty Dollar" one-ounce silver coins.
I was always somewhat doubtful of the "multi-level" aspects of Mr. von NotHaus' business, in which he tried to establish a "face value" considerably higher than melt value for his coins, allowing a profit for those who agreed to operate his "redemption centers." I make no plea for the ethicality of that aspect of his business -- though plenty of legal multi-level marketing operations still prosper in this country, and that's not what they prosecuted him for anyway.
I myself am perfectly willing to accept "Liberty Dollars" in private barter at current melt value for an ounce of silver, and welcome the fact that no one can force me to accept them for more than I consider them to be worth -- unlike paper "Federal Reserve Notes" backed by nothing.
But the idea that the government would prosecute this fellow (and seize millions of dollars' worth of gold and silver he legally owned) for the "offense" of circulating one-ounce silver rounds worth more (not less) than any generally circulating coin they mint is appalling, just as appalling as the fact that I can no longer bypass the government's purposely created inflation by entering into a contract -- agreeable to both parties -- to lease real property for a monthly rent of "one ounce of gold."
Given what our dollars will soon be worth, they should have given this character an award, saying, "Thank you, Mr. von NotHaus, for providing Americans a more solid currency and store of value than our increasingly worthless paper Monopoly money."
What do they expect us to use for barter when our once-proud American dollar finally resembles something out of Zimbabwe or the Weimar Republic? Cowrie shells?
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Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of the novel "The Black Arrow" and "The Ballad of Carl Drega."
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Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem
Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program.
Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust.
Lehrman says: "Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy.
"We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals and working people, 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them
to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust."
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