Last weeks speaker, Kirk MacKenzie got me thinking about the problem we face in being the Federal Reserve's milk cow. He outlined the progressive building blocks that began our plight in being owned and manipulated by the banking cartels and briefly described the need to focus our strategy towards their foundations.

He also seemed to imply that each time a central bank was confronted with their fraud and when presidents attempted to intervene, they would conveniently wind up assassinated. While history may not bear that out in every case cited, it would be foolish to believe for a second, that those in power will allow someone to dismantle a carefully orchestrated plan to fleece millions of their wealth and perpetuate an unending treadmill of slavery and servitude without extreme resistance.

In other words, if Ron Paul were elected and made any progress with ending the Fed, there would be little doubt that media would be announcing another presidential obituary. The Fed would go on as if nothing had happened, and another figurehead would reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This gets to the meat of my post- We must have a plan to end the Fed without a president, or a legislature, or the judiciary on our side. We have to do it on our own.

What the Fed has is the illusion of legality and legitimacy, With this, they have the full force of the United States Code of Federal Regulations, the Treasury Department, the courts, and unlimited legal resources to enforce their hegemony and stamp out efforts to circumvent their monopolistic, monolithic system.

With the deck stacked against us, what can we do?

The answer is very simple, in my view... Stop participating.

The system counts on our willingness to accept and trade in dirty green pieces of paper and our complacency in accepting abusive usury for the privilege of taking up space in a ledger entry. If you don't participate in their system, they lose their ability to milk their cattle and fleece their sheep. It also may break the system with uncontrollable inflation.

 

• Stop using Federal Reserve Notes- This perhaps is the toughest suggestion, since all of our commerce is driven with the exchange of paper backed by the full faith and credit of the United States for goods and services.
• Stop taking out loans of any kind- Consumer credit is the creation of more phoney money. Credit cards, bank loans for cars and property all add to our problem and are as damaging as rolling the printing presses.
• Utilize alternative mediums of exchange- Barter or alternative currency fosters commerce outside the scope of the banks influence and builds wealth into our local economy. This, however requires more planning and trust within the community and competing currencies have already come under fire.
• Use 'Constitutional Currency'- The Constitution prohibits the states from using anything but gold or silver as tender for payment of debts and prohibits paper money. While congress has the power to regulate money and its value, the Coinage Act of 1792 has never been repealed and a dollar is still a fixed amount of silver regardless what the Fed issues as money. By offering and accepting constitutional money- (legal tender coinage issued by the United States mint) we can both restore silver as money and offer real value in exchange for goods and services.

Making Constitutional Money the Goal...

Marketing is in part what made the Liberty Dollar successful. They also had a merchant handbook and other literature that one would do well to imitate - It would need to be developed along with other POP materials, so the concept and goals can be explained in a brief, easy to digest format.

The problem with these extra materials is that this adds cost to a project which the LD was able to recoup in seigniorage. This made the cost of the LD greater than a typical bullion round and the added cost was used to put LD in a negative light (ie: being called a rip-off, sold at nearly double spot price). In order to provide this kind of advertising support, the cost of making and distributing this stuff would either need to be donated or paid for by the merchants or program members.

LD also made a couple of mistakes; 1) their money was not strictly constitutional. It's value was pinned to the FRN through the spot price of silver and was never a fixed amount of silver. 2) Their medallions were, according to the government too similar to the coinage produced by the United States Mint.

Using legal tender coinage makes it nearly turn-key alternative currency since there is no manufacturing involved- but this creates some things to think about-

Like;

• 10 cents is the lowest denomination. Today that equates to about $3.00FR. Will this cause issues in making change? Are merchants and program participants going to be okay with 'rounding' or setting a separate price schedule for FVS (face value silver), or are they going to want to calculate the exchange rate for each purchase? Either of the latter two will require them to monitor the market price or be updated daily by someone in the program.
• Gresham's Law - No, its not a new legal thriller. It's a problem that might stifle the intent of what should be accomplished here. Given two currencies, the lesser valued is circulated in favor of hoarding the other more desirable one. How do you encourage commerce when the natural inclination is to squirrel precious metals away?
• Mistaken Identity- 'Mercury' dimes, walking liberty quarters, half-dollars, Peace and Morgan dollars, are all easy to spot. Roosevelt dimes and Washington quarters are easy to confuse with cupro-nickel slugs minted today. This doesn't make it easy for businesses to use, because the first time someone drops a quarter in the wrong place, they will have made a $7.00FR mistake out of the till.

By using pre-1964 silver coins, which are legal tender, you do not get into the same snare as the LD did. The problem executing this though is two-fold. First, since the minting hasn't changed significantly in the past 45 years, it would be easy to mix up the 90% silver with the cupro-nickel slugs coined today. Second, it would be challenging to re-establish the perception of honest values by offering constitutional dollar denominated compensation.

For instance; Buying a sandwich and beverage at a local eatery they would ring you up for $11.50 in FRN. Imagine what an affront it would be to place $.45 in face value silver on the counter. Or buying gas at $3.85 FRN a gallon and offering $.15 face value silver per gallon.

Technically, this also reduces the taxable event of every transaction, but the IRS has already made it clear that they don't agree. This would require businesses to either accept the coins at their market value or claim the capital gains on the silver that are accepted at face value when you 'sell' the silver for FRN. This extra step is a deal breaker for most businesses, including the power company.

I know the bank money will fail and it doesn't need a concerted effort to use silver as money to bring it down. But once it does fail, it will only be replaced with something worse absent any real alternative. Creating a separate medium of exchange could be a fail-safe, at least at the community level, that hyperinflation or a monetary devaluation doesn't rob us all blind.

While it is always good to discuss history, theory, and compare monetary philosophies, our founders came to a point where practical application was essential for change. All I am asking is if there is any practical application for us to begin using silver as money and how we might take on this challenge against debt money. Any thoughts on that concept?

One person doing these things will not have any effect. Repeated in sufficient numbers and frequency, I think it could change things. Maybe not nationally, but at least at the community level. I open the floor to debate and strategies to make this possible.