Thursday, April 14, 2016

#0 Central Banks Are Printing to Avert a Global Meltdown – as Gold Miners Start to ‘Melt Up’


Dollar Vigilante Blog

This is going to be another exposé of that “you know nothing, John Snow” kind of ignorance that proliferates in the “financial press.” Berwick's remarks in blue, mine in black:

April 13, 2016 / Jeff Berwick

Yesterday we went over the state of the world and if you read the article you’ll find it’s not good. In fact, it’s downright disastrous. There are defaults and impending collapses all over the place, from China to Europe to South America and beyond.

What did the stock market do the very next morning? It went up 160 points for some reason.

Well, if you don't know, you should figure it out. The “plunge protection team” is always at work now, pumping unimaginable amounts of THEIR money into THEIR balloon corporate capitalist system to keep it afloat, if nothing more than to convince the elites themselves that they have “wealth,” when in fact in their portfolios they have nothing but virtual wealth. All the real wealth capable of producing a steady predictable monthly income, was all stolen from most people long ago. 

So let me try again to expose the reality of what’s happening. And then I’ll try to provide some actions you can take from an investment and savings standpoint. Hey, no matter how bad it is, someone is always making a profit somewhere. It might as well be us. In fact it will be us. The market is turning fast now, and we’re turning with it.

... and more fools are separated from THEIR money, the little they actually have to mess around gaming in THEIR rigged and rotten system, including precious metals. The psychopath induces the narcissist into that “you follow my advice I can make you rich” baloney and win or lose, they still sold subscriptions. 

News first. While the market was climbing some 160 points, the Atlanta Fed continued to downgrade the US economy. Since beginning the year with an announcement that GDP growth for the first quarter of 2016 would be above 1%, and calling for growth as high as 2.6% as recently as February, the Atlanta Fed has changed course immensely since March 15 and has called for growth estimates of .7%, .4%, and now .1% respectively since that date.

That’s just shy of a recession and I don’t believe the number anyway. Call the US’s economic condition whatever you want. I call it a depression, one that’s been taking place since at least 2008 and papered over with 8 years of 0% interest rates and waves of money printing that they are almost becoming like the Rocky movies. QE1… QE2… QE3. And QE4 is coming, but likely not until a few thousand points get shaved off the Dow in quick fashion… and even then the market will continue to drop as more people begin to realize what’s going on and begin to scramble out of stocks that are valued based upon a good economy.

... and then so what about gold mining stocks that are majority owned by the elites anyway? You'll see a chart farther down. That shows a “frying pan” pattern, where stocks were stuck along a bottom line of support for a time and then jump back to where they were when the pattern began. This is NOT an advisable place to trade into these stocks. Again, since real wealth is income by the month, quarter and year, when a stock shows a performance of rising revenue over many quarters without it's stock moving, that's the time to buy in.

I know a few things about this business too, all of which confirm our narrower view of wealth that it must produce an income or it's not wealth. But this is all capitalism and everyone who reads and understands capitalism should run not walk away from such games. Recall that I said (and others have supplied the proof so I wont bother to reiterate that here, you do your own research) that socialism is the evil sister of capitalism. It makes me wonder at the integrity of those who constantly complain about the various obvious socialist approaches to economic problems and still play the stock market (or the bond market).

Listen, if you play THEIR games, don't complain about THEIR socialism. It makes you look like an idiot (because you in fact are one since you probably don't know any better). Remember, whatever it is, if it's not on THEIR agenda, they don't even consider it of any consequence whatever. You play in their markets gaming your hard earned winnings from working for THEIR money and complain about the poor getting freebies? If you don't get it that socialism is tied directly to the stock market and yes even to gold itself, then ... “you know nothing, John Snow” and it would serve you better to find out. 

Then there’s the IMF. The IMF came out once again and admitted it had been too optimistic. In its just released quarterly World Economic Outlook report, the agency chopped its growth forecast by another 0.2% for 2016, down to 3.2%. At one point, the IMF was forecasting 4.0% GDP growth in 2016. It doesn’t matter though, GDP numbers have no bearing on the growth of an economy despite what everyone tells you. And those numbers are SO FAR out of whack with the reality on the ground in almost every country in the world it is laughable.

Don't you find it interesting for people to follow numbers from these sources even though they don't believe they are telling the truth? Who is fooling who here?

And yesterday, while the US market was climbing, Italian banks went limit down. They’re broke and so is the government. Over the past 12 months, the Italian market is down by 1/3 and the banks are doing so badly that they can’t raise more equity – not in Italy, not anywhere. The government has had to engineer a series of bailouts. And what was the final bailout? It was for a grand total of euro 5 billion – a ridiculous amount given that bad bank loans total something like euro 360 billion — and one bank alone has something like euro 80 billion in non-performing loans. 

So again, who is bullshitting who here? Recall please that any money in any of THEIR banks is THEIRS and any money you have in your possession that's THEIRS may at any time also be considered THEIRS. Intellectual property/copyright law and recent acts of Congress enable all of this, which is another reason NOT to have any of THEIR money on account in any of our independent exchanges (IEs). Under THEIR rules (not yours or mine) they may deem any of THEIR money on our premises to be THEIRS and that's another reason from the very beginning we knew we would not base any of our money on a direct exchange in dollars (or anything else) except precious metals. We know full well that there are nit wits like this guy out there who still “believe” in the myth of “backing” for money and “intrinsic value of money” which is all more clowns games to fool the intended victim. Think this chicanery started just yesterday and it was anything better within living memory? You better wake up. This has been going on for thousands of years. 

What say you then of a proposed monetary system that does not replace THEIR money, but stands alongside and separate from it? Your own rightful money in which more and more local business is done and eventually when THEIR system falls, yours will be left standing and will have preserved far more wealth and everything connected with it through free enterprise and the will of our members than anything THEY have to offer us to replace THEIR failure, which hasn't happened yet, but is inevitable and long overdue. 

Italy can’t print. Only the European Central Bank can print – and it won’t print nearly enough to debase the Italian currency to a point where those loans are manageable… at least not in time to salvage the ban.

And Italy’s problem is Greece’s problem, is Ireland’s problem – and who knows how many other countries as well. Remember, not long ago we quoted top Bank for International Settlement’s executive William White who made headlines in Davos with his blunt assessment of the world’s financial condition? 

“The situation is worse than it was in 2007. Our macroeconomic ammunition to fight downturns is essentially all used up … Emerging markets were part of the solution after the Lehman crisis. Now they are part of the problem, too … Debts have continued to build up over the last eight years and they have reached such levels in every part of the world that they have become a potent cause for mischief,” he said. “It will become obvious in the next recession that many of these debts will never be serviced or repaid, and this will be uncomfortable for a lot of people who think they own assets that are worth something. The only question is whether we are able to look reality in the eye and face what is coming in an orderly fashion, or whether it will be disorderly. Debt jubilees have been going on for 5,000 years, as far back as the Sumerians”

White knows what’s going on. Bank debt is a worldwide problem. Actually it’s a catastrophe waiting to happen… planned to happen… or even worse, a catastrophe that IS happening.

Too much debt owed for money lent at interest, all of which actually removes more circulating money from the money supply with every loan. What was the money spent for? What happens when you have a country that imports more than it exports and where all the “mom and pop” businesses are driven out by corporations and capitalism so that few work and more are on the socialist dole? Your country is a basket case thanks to the capitalists whose banks are now failing. In our system if a money lender is bust, the business folds and that's it. There is no tidal effect as there is in THEIR system because the money function and transaction clearing functions are separate from each other, by design. After all, if we advocate a new monetary system, shouldn't it be significantly better than anything else out there? Ours is. 

There’s plenty of speculation that the recent hush-hush meeting between Obama, Yellen and smilin’ Joe Biden was all about bank debt as well, specifically German bank debt.

The idea is that Wall Street has already been propping up Deutsche Bank, which despite its size and reputation must now be known mostly for its recklessness. With interests in every corner of the globe, Deutsche Bank has been melting down regularly. [What's that supposed to mean? Sounds interesting anyway.] It’s got plenty of unsecured loans to companies like Volkswagen, for instance and its stock price is a significant underperformer for the sector.

Why would anyone care except a capitalist and his “I want to be rich or stay rich” investor?

Now it’s already been reported that Deutsche Bank was negotiating with Goldman and JP Morgan on selling $1.1 billion gross “notional” distressed credit default swaps (LINK). And the speculation is that part of the high-level White House conversation concerned a further bailout of Deutsche Bank, perhaps via Goldman and Morgan, with the Fed securing the purchases in some way. If this sounds a lot like the plot for The Big Short, it’s because it is.

This kind of stuff happens all the time. It's called international settlements and it's a desk within the Federal Reserve and they have similar desks in every central bank. If you're playing a time advantage against your customers/prey, then you have to collude with one another to keep each other's ponzi game going or else the whole thing starts a chain reaction that leads to destruction. And the worst casualty of it all is public confidence. After 1929 it took until really the 1960's before investing in stocks and bonds was anything any middle class or lower class person thought of doing for a living. Come to think of it, it's still a pretty lousy pursuit as life pursuits go.

But, the idea here is that the West’s financial system is so fragile at this point that any single blow could prove devastating and that the Fed, among other prominent central banks, stands ready to provide the necessary liquidity. This liquidity of course will extend far beyond Deutsche Bank. As we’ve speculated before, various forms of quantitative easing are with us to stay, at least for as long as the powers-that-be want to prop up this collapsing system. How long that might be for is difficult to say. Remember the goal is ultimately to collapse what remains of economic health worldwide. The idea is to usher in another system, a global one, and this system has to break down irretrievably first.

Aren't they forgetting one very big point? Will the people in their tens of million (being conservative here) stand for any more of THEM or THEIR money or THEIR banks? Understood? There is the sense that THEY will use some kind of military FORCE to remain in power, but in what are those police paid? THEIR money? Can you even trust or guard someone who you know damn well doesn't give a shit about you? Then THEY have you gun down some people because THEY said it's OK? We already know some of our leaders have already said as much. It kind of makes one not care a lot about certain things anymore that are really out of one's control and none of one's concern.

Some people are waking up and are beginning to understand how badly warped their public school or even private school version of history was, that is, if they even bothered to pay attention. They're beginning to trace the origins of money and banking back into ancient times when the military industrial banking complex was born in ancient Babylon and is now resurrected. But it too will pass and what then of THEIR brands of money from the central bank issued (with or without interest still a violation of our right to issue our own money) to those pieces of gold and silver with various tyrants' heads stamped on them?

It may well be done via debasement rather than catastrophic market breaks, though we’ll surely have our fill of those. But ultimately, debasement can lead to the same place – a system that cannot be salvaged. 

So, who cares about it as long as you buy into the market and buy those recommended gold mining stocks? This is the appeal to the narcissist by the poacher who has no other intent but to get the narcissist's money. I've seen it over and over again in the real world.  

But debasement has one silver lining, pun intended, for those of us who are watching the current carnage aghast. And that has to do with the escalating price of gold relative to the dollar and the advance, as well, of mining stocks.

Here at TDV, we’ve already experienced the first flush of the advance of [gold and silver] mining stocks after over a decade of under-performance. Gold is up recently by some 30 percent and it is very possible that a good deal of this rise has to do with the perception that central banks are going to have to debase like crazy to support what’s left of the system’s solvency. Our own gold portfolio, managed by our resident genius Ed Bugos, is up over 50 percent in the past months. And some of Ed’s individual mining picks are up by nearly 200 percent in little more than a month.

Just look at this chart of the major gold miners.

Central Banks Are Printing to Avert a Global Meltdown - as Gold Miners Start to Melt Up - HUI - The Dollar Vigilante
They are up 100% in the last three months. Imagine if the tech sector, as measured by the Nasdaq was up 100% in the last 3 months. Or if the Dow rose 17,000 points since the start of the year. The headlines would be blasting so loud you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think.

But, gold stocks rose 100% in the last three months? Crickets. That’s because they don’t want people to know. [Direct appeal to the narcissists out there that they're getting inside information, from some guy named Bugos? Genius? Experience is what it takes and some other clear signals to spot true momentum plays. But again boys and girls it's all capitalism and it's all at the general expense of the entire economy which performs a “black hole” function of sucking all available returns form activity (income) toward them. None of these people has in any way earned your trust.] They might start asking silly questions like, “Why are gold stocks rising so much, so quickly?” The answer to that gets very uncomfortable for Janet Yellen. As for the metals themselves, gold jumped 16.4% in the first three months of 2016, its strongest quarterly showing since the third quarter of 1986.

We have of course watched this too. We use it to measure what the purchasing power of our Valun costs relative to today's money. We think there's a better possibility for gold to crash than to explode and the reason is that there is actually more gold sitting out there in hiding that's THEIRS that they can produce and use to topple the price anytime they want. Oh, they're always greedy for more, as from Libya or Iraq, or anywhere else it might be in easy enough reach. When gold falls below the cost of mining it, mines close and their stocks crash. I told you before that the “frying pan” chart pattern is well known. I explained why now is probably NOT the right time to buy into these stocks. I probably have twice the actual experience this guy has (in investment research I stand on the shoulders of real giants in the field) and it still doesn't matter. It's all THEIR money, not yours or mine.

It’s perfectly possible that central bank money printing can continue at least in the short term to salvage banks and lift markets (although I highly doubt it and I’ll be explaining to subscribers this week why). [He's fishing for some of THEIR money from you, same as any other “market maker” out there, so how much is it going to end if this guy is selling subscripts to get people to throw more of THEIR money that you happen to be holding right now back into THEIR market?] But, if the markets rise due to more money printing, this time metals and mining stocks may come along for the ride. [Of course they will as a general inflation raises all boats] If you want to track Ed’s successful picks and other TDV investment suggestions, please subscribe to our newsletter HERE  [I obliged by providing the link but I can't recommend what he's selling, because he isn't awake enough to know that what he's dabbling in is THEIR system and THEIR capitalism which benefits absolutely no one but the elites. Until he does, I expect he'll be miserable. Most stock jobbers are.] 

Of if you’d prefer to watch a series of video presentations from people like Ed Bugos on not only why to invest in this sector but what to invest in, this video library is a must-see (click here to view). [We'll again oblige without recommending what cannot be recommended.]

When the miners do take off in earnest, they’re going to move up spectacularly. Call it a “melt up”… And we won’t miss a minute of it – and neither will our subscribers.

Jeff Berwick

Fine. Now I'd like you to observe all the tags this guy uses as tip offs to where he's coming from:

Anarcho-Capitalist - Still a capitalist because he believes that corporate finance and trading fictitious pieces of legal fictions is better than doing any real work. He hasn't a clue about the difference between capitalism and free enterprise and has fallen for the subterfuge that they are the same thing. An anarchist? That's someone who doesn't believe in a ruling class. So how many of us are Anarcho-Free Enterprisers? 

Libertarian - Are they shills for the fake “Austrian” alternative which is nothing but a “gold standard” with more restrained banking practises on the same model used now? I don't know, but really I think they have been taken in by the elites to do some of their work for them whether they know it or not, because their solutions is directly in line with the bankers' dialectic: either their credit or their gold!

Freedom fighter against mankind’s two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks – No Jeff, you are clearly not. Facts are, you know next to nothing about freedom and you know nothing about money. I expect you to read this blog through thoroughly before I ever hear from you. Understood? 

Jeff Berwick is the founder of The Dollar Vigilante, CEO of TDV Media & Services and host of the popular video podcast, Anarchast. Jeff is a prominent speaker at many of the world’s freedom, investment and gold conferences including his own, Anarchapulco, as well as regularly in the media including CNBC, CNN and Fox Business.

So you see where he has aligned himself. Hope he enjoys the company he keeps.

[14 April, 2016: So Mr. Burton, would it be fair to say you were a defector from the insiders? Would you be a whistle blower? Sue NH

I have never been an “insider,” although I have worked for those who were as close as it gets without being one of them. The farther up the ladder of success in this system one gets, the smellier it gets. The whole system has its fair share of whistle blowers, certainly enough to help inform everyone who is paying attention out there. One of the best out there is Richard Grove. His Peace Revolution podcast series provides information that everyone needs to know and understand. It begins here.]
 

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

#0 Economic Collapse Is Erupting All Over The Planet As Global Leaders Begin To Panic


This will certainly give you a heads up. What we're going to do with this story is to examine it from the point of view of this blog's monetary proposal. Notice I did not say monetary “reform” proposal, because there's no reforming the present system; it is based on fraud, lies, deceit, chicanery and evil and it shall “go into perdition,” which is like saying it's the Titanic and it's headed down ultimately. The more awareness grows, the more this will become apparent to more people and our proposal will make more sense. As usual, Snyder's article appears in blue, my remarks in black:

By Michael Snyder, posted on April 10th, 2016

Mainstream news outlets are already starting to use the phrase “economic collapse” to describe what is going on in some areas of our world right now. For many Americans this may seem a bit strange, but the truth is that the worldwide economic slowdown that began during the second half of last year is starting to get a lot worse. In this article, we are going to examine evidence of this from South America, Europe, Asia and North America. Once we are done, it should be obvious that there is absolutely no reason to be optimistic about the direction of the global economy right now. The warnings of so many prominent experts are now becoming a reality, and what we have witnessed so far are just the early chapters of a crushing economic crisis that will affect every man, woman and child in the entire world.

Let’s start with Brazil. It has the 7th largest economy on the entire planet, and it is already enduring its worst recession in 25 years. In fact, at the end of last year Goldman Sachs said that what was going on down there was actually a “depression“.

But now the crisis in Brazil has escalated significantly.

I want to share with you an excerpt from a recent article entitled “Brazil: Economic collapse worse than feared“. I know, that title sounds like it comes directly from The Economic Collapse Blog, but I didn’t write it. It actually comes from CNN…

“Amid political chaos, Brazil’s economic collapse is worse than its government once believed. In the midst of rising calls to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s central bank announced Thursday that it now expects the country’s economy to shrink 3.5% this year. That’s worse than the central bank’s previous estimate for a 1.9% contraction. The darker forecast matches what the International Monetary Fund projected for Brazil — Latin America’s largest country — and what many independent economists have suspected.”

It is one thing for Michael Snyder to tell you that Brazil is in the midst of “economic collapse”, but it is another thing entirely for CNN to say it. And of course I have been warning about the crisis down in Brazil for quite some time now. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “The Economic Collapse Of South America Is Well Underway“.

This is a reasonably good video. Of course they have their own misinformed perspectives, only slightly. They were at least able to see what's actually going on down there.

Meanwhile, things are actually much worse in Venezuela than they are in Brazil. Food and basic supplies are in short supply, the inflation rate has hit 720 percent, and crime is completely out of control.

This sounds like a Weimar meltdown is occurring there; hyperinflation. Their “public” money has lost its purchasing power and trust almost completely. There's way too much of it around and nobody wants it because it isn't based on anything except debts to banks. We said that any excess money in any monetary system ultimately ends up with the government or in the trash. Are you beginning to get it yet?

The following is from an article in the Independent entitled “Venezuela is on the brink of complete economic collapse“…

“The only question now is whether Venezuela’s government or economy will completely collapse first. The key word there is “completely.” Both are well into their death throes. Indeed, Venezuela’s ruling party just lost congressional elections that gave the opposition a veto-proof majority, and it’s hard to see that getting any better for them any time soon — or ever. Incumbents, after all, don’t tend to do too well when, according to the International Monetary Fund, their economy shrinks 10 percent one year, an additional 6 percent the next, and inflation explodes to 720 percent. It’s no wonder, then, that markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future. The country is basically bankrupt.”

Once again we see a very respected mainstream publication using the phrase “economic collapse” to describe what is happening in South America.

You can find some stunning video of the “economic Armageddon” that is taking place in Venezuela right here.

I would encourage you to watch that video, because what is happening down there will eventually be happening here.

It could, if we do not have our monetary lifeboats in place first. Forget about “bug out bags” and “living off the land” and all that stuff. That's romanticized nonsense purposely intended to draw people away from the actual causes; THEIR money and THEIR banking system. Notice something please: where people themselves issue their own money, there will be less of it around than anything the government loans and spends into the economy. Do you know why? Because our proposal is designed that way and theirs is not.

Money is just a machine, an invention, to help us save time by splitting our barter transactions for us. What do we make then of capitalism, which makes money on money without working for it? We place that ism at the core of the reasons for Venezuela and other of
their social experiments collapsing. “But it's socialism that's causing it.” Yes of course it is dear boy, but you can't or wouldn't have socialism without the state and the state is the puppet of the central bank which in turn is connected with all its brother central banks, etc. and those folks are involved directly with capitalism in all its various, eh ... abominations.

I imagine that internet service down there is practically nonexistent, so how would anyone in Brazil or Venezuela know of this blog or its proposal? I check where my hits come from and far too few come from South America. Notice also folks that all this stems from “follow the leader” indoctrination of all kinds. Follow the leaders or “experts” rather than observing and drawing conclusions for yourself. It's time to wake up, people!

Meanwhile, over in Europe the collapse of the Italian banking system has entered a disturbing new chapter. Italy’s finance minister has called a meeting in Rome for Monday that will be focusing on a “last resort” bailout plan for the troubled banks…

“Finance minister Pier Carlo Padoan has called a meeting in Rome on Monday with executives from Italy’s largest financial institutions to agree final details of a “last resort” bailout plan. Yet on the eve of that gathering, concerns remain as to whether the plan will be sufficient to ringfence the weakest of Italy’s large banks, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, from contagion, according to people involved in the talks. Italian bank shares have lost almost half their value so far this year amid investor worries over a €360bn pile of non-performing loans — equivalent to about a fifth of GDP. Lenders’ profitability has been hit by a crippling three-year recession.”

Non performing loans? In our proposed system, such would just go under and that would be that. The money and the transaction clearing functions would remain intact because they are not dependent on the finance (money lending) functions but completely separate from them. How on earth would the loans have ever gotten that far has to do with matters of corruption and other ways money is destroyed. We're going to get into that subject soon enough.

As Italy descends into financial chaos, the rest of the continent better be paying attention. Do you remember how hard it was for the rest of Europe to rescue Greece? Well, Greece has the 44th largest economy on the planet. Italy has the 8th.

It would be hard to overstate the seriousness of what is going on over in Europe, and it is not just Italy we are talking about. All over the continent major banks are in deep trouble, and the chairman of France’s second largest retail bank recently told reporters that “I am much more worried than I was in 2009.“

And there is very good reason for concern. On Sunday, we learned that a major “bail-in” had just been announced for one of Austria’s most prominent banks. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

“And then today, following a decision by the Austrian Banking Regulator, the Finanzmarktaufsicht or Financial Market Authority, Austria officially became the first European country to use a new law under the framework imposed by Bank the European Recovery and Resolution Directive to share losses of a failed bank with senior creditors as it slashed the value of debt owed by Heta Asset Resolution AG. The highlights from the announcement:

'Today, the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) in its function as the resolution authority pursuant to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Act (BaSAG – Bundesgesetz über die Sanierung und Abwicklung von Banken) has issued the key features for the further steps for the resolution of HETA ASSET RESOLUTION AG. The most significant measures are:

* a 100% bail-in for all subordinated liabilities,
* a 53.98% bail-in, resulting in a 46.02% quota, for all eligible preferential liabilities,
* the cancellation of all interest payments from 01.03.2015, when HETA was placed into resolution pursuant to BaSAG,
* as well as a harmonisation of the maturities of all eligible liabilities to 31.12.2023.

According to the current resolution plan for HETA, the wind-down process should be concluded by 2020, although the repayment of all claims as well as the legally binding conclusion of all currently outstanding legal disputes will realistically only be concluded by the end of 2023. Only at that point will it be possible to finally distribute the assets and to liquidate the company.”

The dominoes are starting to fall in Europe, and I would expect even bigger announcements in the weeks and months to come.

Most people are completely unaware of the DIRECT connection between capitalism and socialism. They have been brainwashed into imagining that they are in opposition, when in fact the opposition has always been manufactured and manipulated for show, to fool the public into accepting capitalism and then requiring more socialism to offset the effects of the rampant stealing and corruption of capitalism. But alas for the people who imagined that the state would have all the answers and come to their rescue. Let it be understood and widely now too, that the powers that be only see one thing when given the opportunity to socialize any industry or anything at all; they see the possibilities for their monopolist friends to clean up at everyone else's expense. Understood? The purpose behind more state socialism as seen by the elites is further monopolization of the economy. Get it yet?

Plus you're dealing with a banking system, essentially everywhere and anywhere it is announced that there is some bank in operation, the fundamentals remain the same; usury, fractional reserve banking and above all the misappropriation of every human being's right to the fiat to issue their own money. We aren't blaming anyone, we're offering the only real solution there is, to walk out on them and create our own money. Face it, and grow up, it's the only realistic way forward!

Over in Asia, economic chaos is beginning to prevail as well.

In China, the stock market is already down more than 40 percent from the peak, Chinese exports were down 25.4 percent on a year over year basis in February, and Chinese economic numbers overall have not been this poor since the depths of the last global recession.

At the same time, the Japanese economy is really struggling right now. As I wrote about the other day, Japanese GDP has shrunk for two out of the last three quarters, we just saw Japanese industrial production experience the biggest one month decline that we have witnessed since the tsunami of 2011, and business sentiment has fallen to a three year low. The Nikkei has dropped by about 5,000 points from where it was last summer, and some analysts believe that Japanese markets “are being destroyed” due to massive intervention by the Bank of Japan.

Recall that I reminded everyone that
capitalism devours its own creations. It has to because of the nature of their finance models which rely on their fraudulent claims to exclusive control of credit, etc. Why don't people the world over walk out on these crooks? Because they still believe that their money is the only money and that the person earning it really owns it when none do but the banks.

Here in the United States, we haven’t been hit quite as hard as the rest of the world just yet, but there are lots of very disturbing warning signs all around us.

At the end of last week, we learned that it is being projected that U.S. GDP will have grown by just 0.1 or 0.2 percent during the first quarter of 2016. And on Monday corporate earnings reporting season begins, and it is expected to be a very, very bad one. The following comes from Business Insider…

“We are about to get confirmation that earnings growth for America’s biggest companies was negative in the first quarter, compared to the same period a year ago. When aluminum giant Alcoa releases its results on Monday, it will mark the unofficial start of the heaviest reporting season for S&P 500 companies. The final scoreboard is expected to show a 9.1% earnings drop for the quarter, according to FactSet senior earnings analyst John Butters. If these projections turn out to be accurate, it will be the fourth quarter in a row of earnings declines. This is something that we never see outside of a recession.”

And for a whole bunch more numbers which indicate that the U.S. economy is in very serious trouble, please see my previous article entitled 19 Facts That Prove Things In America Are Worse Than They Were Six Months Ago
 

Of course I am just another voice in the crowd when it comes to predicting that the U.S. economy is headed for rough times. For example, just check out what Societe Generale [a French bank] economist Albert Edwards is saying…

“A tidal wave is coming to the US economy, according to Albert Edwards, and when it crashes it’s going to throw the economy into recession. …the profit recession facing American corporations is going to lead to a collapse in corporate credit. 'Despite risk assets enjoying a few weeks in the sun our fail-safe recession indicator has stopped flashing amber and turned to red' … He continued: 'Whole economy profits never normally fall this deeply without a recession unfolding. And with the US corporate sector up to its eyes in debt, the one asset class to be avoided — even more so than the ridiculously overvalued equity market — is US corporate debt. [corporate bonds that will fall past due so it will screw bondholders] The economy will surely be swept away by a tidal wave of corporate default.' “

Something else that you should know, if you don't already; the reasons people at or near the top are so greedy for huge salaries, etc. (and this does not let them off the hook) is because they are aware of the frauds involved in building “too big to fail” corporate empires, so when (not if) their ships go down, they want those golden parachutes so they can retire in obscurity behind all their money. People at the top of the whole scam never really enjoy publicity; that's for all the lesser mortals that are unfortunate enough to have their pictures show up in newspapers or nowadays on the internet. But increasingly the common people are wising up.

As you can see, it isn’t just one nation or one region of the world that we need to be concerned about. Economic chaos is erupting literally all over the planet, and global leaders are starting to panic.

Unfortunately, they have had seven years to try to fix things since the last global recession, and they didn’t get the job done. Anyone that believes that by some miracle they will be able to pull us out of the fire this time and that everything will somehow be okay is simply engaged in wishful thinking.

“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.” So why beg for more of THEIR stinking, rotten,
blood soaked money? Every single “public” currency and every last cryptocurrency to boot are all THEIR money, as is all silver and gold, simply because THEY determine what it's worth in their galaxy of brands of their money and they control the mines!  None of it is legitimate and until people wake up and realize that life goes on even when one runs out of their money, and begin thinking about getting their own money and walking out on them and their rotten, stinking, criminal (that's why they want us all to stop discriminating – dis throw out or discard the criminal) system and their equally disgusting money. Everyone would certainly feel better about knowing exactly where the money in their wallets came from and a large share of basic human dignity would be achieved everywhere as well.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

#79 Self Financing of Labour & The Skilled Artisan

This one has the atomic number for gold on it and believe me folks, once you get the whole nature of this part of the proposal, you'll begin to see how the Valun is a vertiable gold mine of opportunities for just about anything. We are proceeding from our last paper concerning the proposed method and understanding whereby one gets paid for one's work with one's own money, because one issued it oneself by one's own rightful fiat! We've explained all this before, just check the previous numbered papers. It's difficult to tell where you are without knowing where you've been and where the people that brought you here, had gone themselves. None of them dared guess that their own fiat was what was required to set them free. This happens to be the ONLY known monetary solution that squarely addresses this mandatory requirement; the inalienable right to issue one's own money. We do not want what is not ours by right. There isn't going to be any “redistribution of wealth” solutions or anything even remotely like that, but we do want to recapture what has been quite erroneously and cunningly taken from us.  

So, in the proposal, there are fundamentally two ways one issues one's own money; 1) one works for it, or 2) if one is really needy and for whatever reason can't be the one earning a living, the community determines how much each month they can issue. As we've said many times, this is our answer to state socialism: we will take care of our own without the need for a state to do so. But in order to make a realistic decision concerning how many Valuns the indigent would be able to issue, the local community would have to take into consideration the standards suggested by the present “public” money and its price structure for necessities. We covered this aspect in this paper

The proposed Valun was designed to be heavier than any other money so prices would naturally seem low. Right now (4/11/16), the Valun is in a 1 to 2.76 ratio with the dollar: it would take $2.76 to trade for V1. But right now, we want to get back to discussing earning a living, contracts and the way artisans would understand how they would be paid.

An artisan contract is different from a normal wage or salaried labour contract. The whole cost of an artisan contract involves both labour and materials and a finish date for work that needs to be completed on time, by that date, else other work depending on it might suffer. Those are the sub-contractor kinds of jobs, where a skilled artisan is involved in the overall project, or at least enough to know where his work fits into the whole, and when the time comes, he/she gets in there, perhaps gets the materials too, and does his/her job and when done goes onto something else.

The kinds of artisan craftsmen/women I have in mind could be doing anything that is usually a one time only, short project kind of work. They might schedule their work out months in advance too. So we have any number of possible jobs that could be created having to do with the building trades, the demolition and repurposing of older materials to create new ones, some jobs involving earth moving and agricultural and other ground manoeuvring, and then there is the whole arena of anything having to do with motors, automotive work, truck engine rebuilding, etc. Many of these can be and are scheduled as specific date sensitive tasks that need to be done by people who know what they're doing and have built up a reputation, “good will” again, that gets other people to place their confidence in their talents and abilities; expressing the artisan's innate wealth.

Artisan contracts are of varying kinds and pay schedules. Most imply that if the job is not done on time, the artisan is docked pay for the cost of delay. Most artisan contracts also cover materials; the artisan is presumed better to know the materials required to do his job. Until a pure Valun market is achieved, however, it is understood that an artisan getting paid in Valuns is also getting paid in the local “public” currency. Some materials may not be available in the Valun market (the VEN), so therefore some considerations would play into the making of simple parallel contracts; one specifying the amount paid in “public” money and the other contract, one paid in Valuns.

But as we said before, no IE is going to care about the nature of the work being done, nor any contract in dollars or anything but Valuns. That's between the members that engage in it. All the IE needs to know is how many Valuns go to whose account at particular points in the project being achieved, according to the contract the members drew up before they started their jobs. Rather than being specifically identified, these points in the job could be referenced on the simple contract as Point A, Point B, etc. Likewise again, the IE doesn't need to know about any contract that exists in “public” money. There may be one or may not be one. Whether there is one in their money or not, In any case, the IE would need one and we'd probably call it something like an Artisan Labour Contract (ALC).

With ALCs, the usual procedure is to pay the artisan 50% of the total up front, which allows the artisan to acquire the needed materials and enough to live on until he's done, whereupon he gets the rest upon a timely completion and that part acts as kind of a bonus or a hold over until the artisan's next job. Artisan contract arrangements are very popular for those one of a kind or one at a time projects where the artisan isn't normally expected to return for any routine maintenance, etc.

Here's how the administration at the IE for one of these works: upon successful acceptance by the IE, the entire amount of Valuns gets transferred from the artisan to the account of the person or enterprise for which the contract job is being done, at least a few days before the artisan is scheduled to begin work. Again, the artisan is buying his job. The employer has the funds and so depending on the terms of the contract, the artisan is paid by the employer in money that he just previously used to buy his job; perhaps as much as 50% of it up front. The rest is held by the employer until the artisan has successfully completed his/her job and of course if the artisan fails his due date, some percentage of the remaining Valuns would be retained by the employer. These terms would also be all specified on a simple one page contract.

We'll prefer that these kinds of jobs didn't drag on for months or years. The idea is to have an idea of the scope and extent of the job going in and everything is done, not to keep doing something longer to get more money out of the employer (as frequently occurs under the present system), but instead to get done quickly, so as to go ahead and self finance the next job! Is all that clearly understood?

The cost to the employer for having an artisan do something for him might be surprisingly small; half the present cost, if borne by nothing but the “public” currency.

What everyone has needed is for others to work for them doing needful work, but there has never been enough money to pay workers to do them. Now with the fiat where it rightfully belongs, artisans can approach employers and offer to do many things to make needful improvements at far less cost than presently. See how that differs from the present system that actually treats labour as Ayn Rand's character deemed best; only give them enough money to feed them and nothing more? So much is really a matter of attitude and perspective; the position from which one comes at a particular skill, job or occupation.

Of course it's necessary for all employers of artisans to have closure, completion, real improvement, etc. The community may require artisans to form guilds as they used to which would enforce standards of competence and workmanship. Since the workers themselves determine their own valuation of the work they do, they would charge more than is customary in “public” money, but there would be an upward limit set by a few considerations: 1) income taxes; this “complementary money for the time being” business is never going to be a tax dodge and their taxes must be paid and in their money. If you make too many Valuns, at the end of the year you're going to have to pay the extra taxes and 2) if the employer is a B business, and most of these kinds of contracts would have to be because even though the money is called into existence by the craftsman's fiat, the payout is still from the account of the B member business and at the end of the day, all expenses must be met and exceeded by incoming revenue or the business is dead, bankrupt, a joke. Understood?

Artisans could be B member businesses every bit as much as sole proprietorships. They might approach other members of the community with clean up or fix up projects that make people who visit the community begin to know and understand that the people who live there really care about how their properties look, etc. In the process, a lot of skilled craftsmen can earn a living and earn their own money same as the salaried employee.

We could very easily imagine that the amount of work and the number of opportunities to come in and get something done and then move on are far more numerous than salaried full time or even part time jobs. Using an ALC is one more expression of displaying the legitimacy of your own money; in our examples, Valuns were created as money in the very act of buying a job and as the work is completed, the Valuns are cancelled by the employee taking back his Valuns. The monetary circle is closed; as many Valuns are received as were issued, thus cancelling out any possibility for inflation.

Everyone is actually very concerned with their money losing its purchasing power long term. They feel as though the system and its money are cheating them and of course this is so. This is one reason to adopt the Valun and eventually renounce as far as possible the use of their money: save THEIR money for taxes and anything that at this time must be paid in THEIR money. Spend your Valuns! That way, they get stronger; “good will” spreads as they are seen in public and their use benefits more people. Imagine magnifying this reach as the Valun is adopted by more and more communities!

Our next topic is going to deal with ways that all money is not just depreciated, but where it is squandered or lost completely. There is no “conservation of energy” theory associated with money, unless you're a blockhead who insists that everything is ultimately quantifiable (one can count it) and that therefore all is rendered nothing but commodities and that their interactions determine prices.  

Well of course they don't. People make choices based on how much value they have to measure in trade (how much money they have) compared with other possible products, services, activities, amusements, etc that could be paid for instead. There is an infinite variety of possible things to buy at any moment and there is never any possible upward limit to how much money might be required – HOWEVER- there are other natural laws in play, one of which is the “diminished returns to scale law” which varies form shop to shop and industry to industry.

This much we know; were money to be acquired as proposed in this blog, probably some would become rather rich compared with others, but the differences between rich and poor would be strikingly diminished. You see, without that monetary jet fuel they call capitalism, which allows the rich few to live in luxury they mostly don't deserve (sorry, but everybody knows it anyway, so I'm not stating anything that's not obvious to everyone here), the distances become more genuinely humane between the various classes of people, as it was perhaps in earlier centuries when people regardless of class, could actually be said to care about one another in ways that have become next to impossible today.

This is just one more reason we need our own money rather than THEIRS. We back our own money with our work and our lives. What do they back theirs with? Nothing at all but FORCE and the threat of blockades, sanctions and war.


David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

Current Hypothetical Value of a Hypothetical Value Unit

Monday, April 11, 2016

#0 How to Use a Cryptocurrency Exchange


We're posting this here as more evidence.  We do NOT advocate you use this or ANY of THEIR "cryptocurrency" because as we've been telling you, all of that is THEIR money, THEIR capitalism (not yours), etc.  All THEIR money is fraudulent and capitalism is THEIR game invented to scam the rest of humanity out of some of their hard earned labour and goods.  THEY suppose that if it were possible to entice all of the governments and half of humanity to participate in their "markets," it becomes normal and since everyone is participating in the fraud, it aint fraud no more.  How does any of that sound to you?  Here's something else, in fulfilling your barter arrangement, trading your efforts for things you really want, you could perhaps buy some tools that might enhance your wealth -production of income through their use, or would you rather play in the commodities chasing commodities markets (rackets) which THEY rig to suit themselves, not you?  I'd prefer sleeping well at night to always worrying what some phony commodity in some rigged market is going to do.  You want to "wish" your income were bigger?  "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride."  If you'd rather work for your livelihood, it should matter to you how good the means of splitting barter for you actually is.  You'd also like to understand and have your own money rather than some "public" money over which you actually have little control.  BTW, this would be a good time to get out of the market.  For the hesitant with larger holdings, I'd place put options at no more than 15% below current prices.  I'm not here to offer advice, I left the game years ago.  But habits are hard to break; I continue to follow the markets as long as they last.                

Sunday, April 10, 2016

#78 Self Financing of Labour & Cost Accounting

A real perception change takes place when one buys one's own job with one's own money, and gets paid in one's own money. The first thing to realize is that everyone who does this, places themselves into the position to proclaim that from henceforth, they can not be bought, that is, they determine their own wages based on the tasks asked. For the employer, the perception is that labour is paying him in advance to do a job for him. The balance is that of “good will” (intangible wealth) shared between the employer and labour; together, they make each other's eventual wealth possible. I hope everyone is following me, thus far. 

The employer is now faced with making the same decision about himself; his labour, his contribution, knowing full well that every Valun ultimately paid to labour (his included) is a liability against his balance sheet in his new Valun ledger. B member businesses are expected to maintain a positive balance on their Valun accounts at their local IE at all times, else they're bankrupt. What happens to a bankrupt? Their stuff usually gets seized and sold at auction for way below market prices; at a discount, to try and settle a debt. Can we prevent this from happening completely? Probably not. We'll have to devise our own methods of resolving such issues, should they arise. My guess is that we'd probably be wisest to be aware of public law on these points and counsel our members to avoid recourse to THEIR means of settlement.

But right here, we can emphatically say something about these situations. When a business can no longer function because it can no longer bring in enough money to pay its bills and run at a profit, it is dead. It isn't wealth anymore if it can no longer bring in income. It's just stuff. What can be done? Perhaps some fresh money can get the thing started again and it can become wealth again to whoever works for it. But sometimes not.

This is where we consider the emerging repurposing market. We have a bunch of defunct strip malls scattered across the country. What do we do with them? We offer to turn them into the next wave of innovation as workshop spaces and speciality shops where they can turn out smaller runs of high quality durable products, more than likely custom designed. Eventually, more exotic products could be made in these smaller shops too.

Rather than having them all mass produced under pressure in one massive plant and from thence transported all around the world, each place redundantly makes products that local people want. This marks the end of “one size fits all” and the re-emergence of micro-technical specialization from the consumer products level all the way through the heavy capital inventory products capable of doing heavy work or manufacturing; some of those vacant store spaces are pretty large.

We now have a consciousness that's building on the internet that we are all just scattered around on the surface of a ball spinning and gliding through space. Peer to peer networking brought about the internet. It can now also bring about a revolution in how we could be doing business with each other; becoming affiliates and getting paid to help each other sell products and services. Since the Valun is the Valun anywhere and everywhere all at once no matter how much of it is circulating, it becomes a de facto standard of value measurement. This allows trading partners in China and America to figure costs in one financial language. We don't want to leave anyone out, this applies to all countries around the world.

So you see, you could be free of bankers (and that sucking sound of usury) eventually, even if they still can use FORCE against you. As more is exposed (revealed) concerning their schemes (crimes) and how they manipulate governments like puppets, since they have turned every state they have ever conquered into a perpetual debt slave, more will turn away from them. Meanwhile, those who have better things to do with their lives will certainly want to know more about how our proposal helps them.

We remind you all, no one is helped by themselves in this world, the joke of complete self reliance should be clear by now. That's romanticism in the sense of fiction, that is. No, in order for us to get anywhere or do anything, we need each other. We need something that builds mutual trust among us, having money that we issued by our own labour, since that's exactly how by far and away most of it will eventually be issued.

Let's take another look at the issue. A labour contract between Ken (employer) and Mike (employee) runs for six months at V6 an hour ($16.62 as of 4/9/16) for a standard 40 hour week, etc. Let's say that's V5,000 ($13,850 as of 4/9/16). Now that amount will be paid to Ken's account, created by Mike's fiat, on or around Mike's first day of work stated on that contract. That amount in Ken's account (or more probably the account of his B member business) will be paid back to Mike on successive paydays that are also stipulated on the contract. This allows the IE personnel, who always have a copy of it, to know what they're supposed to do on certain dates.

Now, at the end of six months, Mike has earned and caused to be brought into existence V5,000 worth of purchasing power. Note something here please: Mike's fiat created/issued the money on the first day of work as stipulated on his contract with Ken. It became money on that date because Mike bought a job from Ken. Then on successive pay dates, Ken paid Mike back his loan at no interest, thus completing the money circuit right there because Mike accepted back money he paid for his job. From that point on, whatever value that represented that money has been factored into the economy of the system and is inflation neutral. One would expect a prosperous community to have more money in it than a poor one. That money would be busy doing work around the community rather than waiting to be paid from others paying back what was never created.

Our proposal is a system which honours everyone as a source of value. No other proposed monetary system (and certainly not the one we suffer under now) ever does that. Using the Valun really would make human life more valuable. Notice we aren't claiming anything particularly “green” about our proposed money, but if that's the way the world wants to go, and it needs to, then that will happen far more readily if we have the money ourselves to bring it about. Understood?

The products and services for sale in Valuns don't change, their cost accounting is the same, except for labour, which is rendered cheaper to the business (not free but cheaper), since the money to pay for labour would not originate with the employer. This means that the only things employers have then to concern themselves with, are the costs of the materials required to run their business.

A lot of the materials for rebuilding “mom and pop” establishments, since that's what we intend on doing, we might as well say so right here and now, would come from anything that's repurposed and recycled, from the disintegration of the present system (oh yeah, it's going down, has done already in many places) and the rediscovery of the old and useful where it can be found in each local community. We fully expect to see before as yet unseen variety in all kinds of products and services which could be readily traded if we all used the same financial language around the country and around the world.

Hey, what would you really like to do? How could you talk your friends into doing it with you? How much money would you need? OK, better yet, how much would the community allow you to have? Why do I ask? Well, if the sky were the limit, you'd want to build maybe some gigantic plant that would produce, well I don't know, perhaps the most expensive widget in the world that few would even care to buy, like a war plane, or even something that would have so major a consequence for the community, that it would be deformed forever after, like a strip mine or fracking. You see, we can't and wont make the same mistakes THEY do.

So let's think smaller, four guys get together and decide to form a band. They're going to play music and arrange to play at concerts and festivals (which we predict will become more numerous and popular especially if they have nothing to do with them). The band posts their music free on the internet, because they loathe the whole music copyright establishment (intellectual property law and its direct ties to THEIR money) and anyway if people don't get a chance to hear for free what they play, their band wont build a following, which is really what they want. Well, somewhere along the line, these guys walk into their local IE (they're all A members) and form a business (open a B member account) with their band's name on it (a partnership). Now the proceeds from their concert tour go back into this account. They can then pay themselves down to the minimum, but the account has to retain a positive account balance, even if it's ... 1 cend.

By the way, tickets for these events might be whatever they are in their money plus whatever they'd require in Valuns at the gate. The dollars go to pay the band's taxes and anything else that must be paid in THEIR money, like contributing to the production of the blank or unstamped V-Checks with ads on the back.  Imagine themselves featured there, their band on the backs of the people's money!  They want the Valuns to use to live in their own communities. They might keep an account in one of THEIR banks just to pay taxes. We see a lot of small businesses doing this moving forward. Hey, maybe people would ask for fewer of THEIR dollars if they also got paid in Valuns.

We have elsewhere and always want to make mention of certain real economic laws. One is the diminishing returns to scale law, which really defines efficiency as optimum at usually far smaller units of production than are utilized today. Causing “the production problem” to cease, may be fine in a “one size fits all” world and “if you don't like it be damned,” but it can't last. You flout natural law only so long and then when Nature has its way, more damage is usually done. Offering this proposal says there can be and is another way that's open to all people everywhere, if they would only see it and spread the word. 

I wont complain that this site has so few views for being up so long, because the subject itself is not just difficult, it's repulsive!  The subject of money IS repulsive and has been rendered so, simply because money itself has become repulsive to the vast majority of people out there and they don't even know why. Something that should be at least of modest interest to more people is held with some degree of disgust or apology even when it is used to do beneficent things for others. People are unaware of its taint or from whence it gets it.

Well as we've said, others than we are better at this aspect of understanding our situation. We're suggesting that everyone is really subconsciously aware of the taint of THEIR money and we are of course repulsed by the idea of our government taking from us in taxes, so we think. But there's a lot more to this: the money we've always used is not ours, it's the government's loaned from a bank. The bankers stole our fiat over money when they monopolized our money (that happened over a period of hundreds of largely miserable centuries when life for the vast majority was “nasty, brutish and short” and where most had no money at all). Then they told us that fiat money was no good to fool us into believing it. Then they also convinced us that the government was ours when it clearly is not. We were willing to put up with everything as long as we could maintain some sort of modest existence year in and year out. 

But is that really living? Is that really what any of us would like to be doing? Why don't we do anything different? Because we don't have the money. Weill why don't we have the money? E. C. Riegel observed what money is and what it does, with those observations we stand academic economics, the banking system, capitalism (and socialism, its evil twin sister), up against the wall of our current historical understanding and demand an end to lies, fraud and chianery; each living human being has value in and of themselves and from whence derives wealth capable of producing income for all. Therefore the money fiat is ours by right. Since that is so, not if or when or where, but since that is so, all THEIR money is fundamentally fraudulent whether it's digits on computers or has tokens made of precious metals or recycled cat poop, and it all has blood on it too.

Other natural laws apply to profit and business. Generally the newer and larger anything is, the more expensive it will be. Factors of natural rarity play into this as well. Businesses that perform needful personal services are probably unchanged since they came into socially fashionable existence many centuries ago. Their profit margins are generally generous enough to keep some people busy. Profit margins may be huge in the repurposing and recycling markets, because the material basis of product is generally the cheapest. People in used goods repurposing can perhaps achieve many hundreds if not thousands of percent profit for what they can do; finding something obscure and making it available and suitable to be sold ans a useful product.

Now imagine a self financing labour approach to some problems. We know that some environmental clean up nightmares will have to be dealt with or there's no future, it's really that simple. So what if everyone around the world got together and pledged whatever number of Valuns to any company or anyone capable of forever quieting and cleaning up Fukushima? We suggest there's probably a nanotech approach that would work. We don't even know if it can be done. Perhaps we are too late and living on the edge of the abyss and don't know it yet. But if it could be done, what would it take? Name your price in dollars and we'll raise it and pay it in Valuns. This would mean that everyone everywhere would need to organize and form IE's and support an IVES and begin using Valuns, etc.

It would mean that what we've now put off doing since 2011 or 2013 should be attempted again. Then the people of the earth would self-finance this mess out of our future. Then we can begin transforming the rest of the earth as well, since we will have the money to do it.

But before I leave off this subject, I've saved the heart of my message for last. It's a message to all the public employees out there who would want to be A members of our IE communities and earn Valuns. What does it take to join? Two A members you know recommend you and you can prove you belong where you live and you're in. We'll discuss the homeless problem in a forthcoming paper. This is for public employees for right now.

What you would do is to earn Valuns along with whatever you received in THEIR money. You determine what your likely added tax burden might be; you will be getting a raise, only it will be paid in Valuns. In order to do this, you'd have a labour contract directly with the community through your local IE (each and every IE is a B member of itself), since no government can at this point join any IE. Each contract cycle you'd purchase your raise from the IE. You'd pay/issue into existence to the IE the Valuns on the contract the first work day of the contract, bringing the Valuns into existence by your fiat, and they would be paid back to you on successive pay days as you fulfilled the requirements of your public job.

The first people we want to participate are local law enforcement, teachers, firemen and water and sewer maintenance personnel. You see where this is going. We also want to enlist any veterans and those on disabilities. When you are paid in your money and you intend on spending that money in your local community, or any local community that becomes part of the VEN, then they will become more responsive to our local concerns. Again, if our message is “come out of her, my people,” even public employees are in need of somewhere to come out into and many have or would have other business ideas they'd perhaps rather be doing.

I have a serious question: how would it affect average criminal behaviour if they realized that it paid to work for a living? What if they realized they didn't have to go to prison to have at least as nice a subsistence out of prison? A lot of things would automatically change, for the better with Valuns. Would political activism matter so much if you had plenty to do, plenty to eat and the future looked brighter? We still must deal with Fukushima. So please, spread this around so more know about it and think of the potential. Just don't take too much time because time may be running out.

David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

Current Hypothetical Value of a Hypothetical Value Unit

[11 April, 2016: Reading your blog, I think use of the Valun would be a protest. Gandhi would probably approve. Rehab

Why protest anything? Do you really think it accomplishes anything? They will do what they want to do regardless of what anyone thinks.

Re: “fraudulent whether it's digits on computers or has tokens made of precious metals or recycled cat poop:” Clearly gold is worth more than recycled cat poop, but imagine a piece of gold that could buy everything someone else had? If someone gave them that one gold coin in exchange for something, as long as he held that coin and was indebted to the man who gave it to him in trade for everything he had, he would be a slave. Ethan

That's putting it mighty well, thank-you.]
 

[14 April, 2016: Again, this is probably being dumb but I get how wealth makes income, but what about people who are paid for their work all in big lump sums like farmers, builders, etc. Their payment still represents income from wealth, right?   Ben, Iowa

Yes, you have it right, ANY income from wealth establishes wealth as a fact. We're going to get into all the ways that money is destroyed in a future paper.]

Friday, April 8, 2016

#77 Probable Courses of Valun Usage

We've narrowed the topic down to focus on what it would be like to use Valuns. When Valuns come into being in any community, that community will have a potential purchasing power that can be issued into being directly by fiat of each individual A member of that community. If you have read this blog seriously, you will understand this and have no trouble accepting it. By accepting the responsibility accorded the use of this purchasing power, you establish your own worth within the community.

We have already said, and this in perfect accordance with E. C. Riegel's observations; he did recommend that to get started each member be given some free money. We therefore propose every new A member gets V200. (Comparable values in dollars 4/7/16)

1 member = V200 ($554)
10 members = V2,000 ($5,540)
100 members = V20,000 ($55,400)
1,000 members = V200,000 ($554,000)
10,000 members = V2,000,000 ($5,540,000)
100,000 members = V20,000,000 ($55,400,000)

What would qualify you to be an A member? Approved by 2 existing A members and have a certifiable right to reside where you live; domicile. 


Could you be a child? We'd like to presume so, but there are public laws that may forbid it. For now, we'd say you have to be 18 years of age or older.

In addition to this pool of purchasing power, we'll assume that a certain number of these A members run a private business and those businesses would be B members with their own separate accounts. Some may be sole proprietors and some might be partnerships. Some might have one or two employees, while others may employ hundreds, but in each case they would be tightly owned operations.

No IE in the VEN: independent exchange operating in the Valun exchange network, is ever going to deal with any public laws concerning labour. Those matters run perfectly fine just the way they are, until they aren't. One reason for adopting this system alongside of THEIRS is because THEIRS is illegitimate and sooner or later it will fail and then we do not want to ever have recourse to another one of THEIR solutions to OUR money, since we'll have our own.

At each IE, an organization chart of each B member business is drawn to help determine, from an overall tax saving perspective, how much extra purchasing power the business is willing to accept on its new books, alongside its old books. Two sets of books? No, the new book is for new business alongside the old business. The new book would be an accounting ledger kept in Valuns and each business we enlist as a B member will want one of these, because it enables them to account for and build wealth in our own money, that is of all the A members that made their contributions to that business through labour, sales or trade. We expect that over time, everything except taxes and other old debt in THEIR money will not be in the old book, but in the new.


Notice our more specific and narrower use of the word wealth: it is understood that no money by itself will ever again represent wealth as is typical in THEIR system (because we will eschew capitalism as defined in this blog), but instead this new book would allow the free enterprise business to record and manage its transactions in Valuns that would describe the wealth of that business capable of generating revenue (income) to remain in business. We also expect that standards will be established that will greatly help streamline accounting for all asset and liability categories in Valuns. It would be a good thing for all VEN businesses to use the same accounting practises, numbering systems for accounts, etc. I believe that the French may have and use an accounting system that might be beneficial to look into.

Running alongside THEIR system, each A member of every B member business would get Valuns per payment period along with their “public” THEIR money. The payment period could be independent of the usual payroll, as long as it doesn't overlap a fiscal year, because of tax settlement issues.

With each succeeding week, in this process the number of Valuns in that community will grow. People will want to have places to spend their Valuns and therefore the first place Valuns are likely to be accepted in trade is to sell excess production or inventory in all factors of supply. This makes perfect sense in that something that was difficult to sell (and is sitting there depreciating) or where there were too many of some thing in a run that weren't sold, etc. these would be the first items to offer for sale in Valuns. We'd also expect to see them used in trade for anything second-hand, which should remain a growing market. It is understood that the Valun is accepted for trade because it is capable of commanding respect in its community in trade for something of like value.

For the time being, people will get used to two different price schedules for things based on their local “public” money; a price in THEIR money and a price in ours. Right now (4/8/16) the ratio between a dollar and a Valun is 1 to 2.77 which is close to 1 to 3. Because dollars and precious metals are all commodities that are actively traded as such, their exchange with Valuns will fluctuate between the Valun's inception at 1 to 2.16 and no lower and ... well gold would have to be absolutely worthless and then Valuns would be perhaps as much as $4.32 apiece.

But what could and probably will happen, is that the “public” stolen fiat currencies will fail first, precious metals will shoot the moon, maybe, and if and when they do the inception point for the Valun is raised, never lowered, and it's purchasing power in exchange for any other of THEIR money is preserved. It's really simple and unbreakable because it was designed to be exactly that (Riegel and Kitson hit upon the exact same device for accomplishing it; a single transaction at a moment in time). Because of the way the Valun is defined, it doesn't matter how much or how little of it is in circulation; all units of it are always exactly the same, there are never any volume discounts on Valuns.

Sales of excess inventory are a likely start, there will be lots of stuff that requires repurposing for other and better uses than war or playing games with figures on screens and imagining that you're working for a living. But eventually as time passes, and maybe not very much time either, the Valun will be recognized for its ability to preserve purchasing power. As that happens, even more business will be conducted in Valuns and since they would start as a worldwide money standard, as with any other internationally recognized standard measurement, anyone would be able to simply compute the transactions from any widely traded currency via silver or gold. Money is an invention, people; a tool, but where the means begins to be observed as secure (worthy of trust), even more business will be conducted using Valuns.

Another probable next place where Valuns would probably find easy acceptance is in the area of labour required to do jobs that are often left undone because of scarcity of THEIR money. These are usually needful maintenance jobs that may have been neglected for a long time for want of money and now that a proper vehicle upon which to build personal and community wealth would exist, more of this work will get done. It's unlikely that any of this work would be more than incidental and require any labour contract. Things like haircuts are likely to be among the first to be paid for in Valuns. Also any of the local food producers will eventually seek to be paid in Valuns. Remember, I told you that farmers and bankers were notorious enemies down through time. It will be quite different with the farmers actually manifesting their own money and becoming part of the actual money business themselves.

Understand though that it would become customary for people to carry two kinds of money, THEIRS and ours. Pay unto Caesar (or those that own Caesar) all taxes on any purchases in THEIR money, and anything else that requires THEIR money, the rest in our money. Notice that having your own money alongside theirs changes your spending patterns. Save THEIR cash which is purposely scarce for those things that MUST be paid in their money. Reserve our money for everything else, and those uses will grow once the advantages of dealing in Valuns are recognized.


It has been the customary experience of communities which adopted a particular complementary currency to experience some of the following problems:

Hoarding: If each A member gets V200, what are they likely to do? Go into their IE and cash out into V-Checks and put them all in a drawer for safe keeping? Well, wait a minute? You see what's on the backside of each of those V-Checks? Right, local businesses that honour your new money. So get out there and spend it! What happens is that our money tends to stay around in the community and becomes a resource to get needed work done that otherwise wouldn't be done, because there isn't enough of THEIR money to provide incentive enough to do much of anything ... and please, let's not hear any of the usual complaint about how much labour costs. What do you expect all the push for raising minimum wages is about?


Digression: a minimum wage in their money is a detriment to the economy but not so in our system, because there is automatically a floor beneath no one falls and all contract labour is self financing. Get that, all you socialists out there. We will take care of our own in each and every community and we do not need or even want any outside interference from any state that doesn't know us, our area or what's important to us, so can't really help us except to act like they're better and smarter than us and bully us around, etc. Nobody likes that, I don't care who they are or where they come from. And anyway, we don't want to have to keep paying them more and more taxes just so they can supposedly help us. There's that giant sucking sound again of more money taken out from a supply that's purposely scarce no matter how much money is created the way it is in their system.

One of E. C. Riegel's prime concerns from way back in the post war era was that most labour is fundamentally underpaid. Are any of you complaining because the people at the top of the present system don't work and get paid perhaps even hundreds of times more than the average labourer who people like Ayn Rand deemed only fit to be paid enough to feed them? Ridiculous. It is too, there's no excuse.  So expect labour to be paid more and financial factotums less in a Valun based system because frankly we don't need or want much of what Capitalism requires; fancier mathematics to fleece people out of what they earned through hard work at all those underpaid labour intensive jobs, etc.

Please understand, this demand for our own money is NOT one more “ready made” Marxist “class struggle” idea at all. It's rather class separation. We find some things about the present order repugnant. It's literally the method of earning a livelihood that we detest about capitalism and we're disgusted having lived so long being fooled into believing that capitalism had anything to do with free enterprise or much of anything that is really any good. We admit our indoctrination on this and many other things, but we are gladly recovering from our miseducation.

So the idea is sort of to give everyone a raise that's paid in Valuns rather than in THEIR money and the way it benefits people most in the most practical ways that matter is buying locally as much as possible what you need. So please, when they appear, don't hoard your Valuns, hoard your dollars, pay off your taxes and all your debts denominated in dollars. Cut your ties with their system at the roots; the use of THEIR filthy, stinking, blood soaked money. Incidentally, all of the silver and gold have blood on it too and so does most traded precious stones, especially diamonds. Just saying.


Redemption: Valuns are the money you keep, it's actually yours, so there's no redemption for your own money. You can buy things with it, but we will not be cashing in any Valuns for dollars unless you have a genuine tax bill that can be legitimately paid by liquidating Valuns. We don't and wont have any dollars on account in any IE.

Account preservation issues: Other drafts of a Riegel inspired system have described their institutions being ruled by a “board of governors.” We don't want that, but we demand professional competence because real money that's ours, is for once, not a game. Understood? Once procedures have been drawn up, we intend on operating a legitimate, competent and professional system that builds confidence as it builds ties to people around the community and gets things done that have been left undone for many years, because the bigs just had to have more of their money and their stuff, etc.

And guess what? We don't care! We don't need or want anything of theirs. There's no possible redistribution of anything that's theirs that's necessary to suit us. We'll get along fine among ourselves deciding what's important to us and we'll have the power OUR money gives us to prevail. Those around the world who read this will understand exactly what I'm saying. If you're reading this, I am speaking directly to you as if I were sitting across a table from you. Hey, I have something to tell you. Look in your wallet. What do you use as money? Is it yours? No? Then I guess you're a slave.

Understand one thing though, they can and do use FORCE, play dirty, everything else. Many have died trying to fight them. Are you afraid? I'm not advocating violence, but they, well many of them, are “murderers from the beginning,” if you get my drift and they usually employ (for being so neat and dapper in their fine business clothes) the stupidest louts and ruffians they can find. Look what they're doing right now. So, what a mission like this requires is the resolute stand of tens of thousands, nay MILLIONS of people, outraged at the conduct of the present system and its oligarchs. It's the economy, stupid? No, it's the money, stupid!

David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

Current Hypothetical Value of a Hypothetical Value Unit

Oh and by the way, the stock market has reached its current high water mark. Going any higher faces the headwinds of the long term moving averages, which set a curve above all the performance data. It will take lots of their money to keep it afloat, amounts of money so huge that you'd be speechless and spellbound to comprehend it all. A recent trading session recovered after losing a hundred points and more and only finished slightly ahead. Today a similar upside down pattern occurred where the market rocketed up a hundred points then floated down to a miserable barely positive finish. If you have any money in the market right now, best pull it out. This would be a good time to sell. 


Meanwhile some estimates of unemployment in the United States run as high as 90 million. It may be that high. Their money? Their banks and corporations? Their edifices of “stuff” that they say is wealth? Meanwhile more go without and their answer is a Scrooge answer; “less money for you, more for us, and in fact we prefer you'd just go off somewhere and die quietly, you know because we don't need you, so you're just useless eaters to us.” Think about how they really are and then look at their money and decide. You think they're glamorous and exciting? Really, you don't even want to know them! Are you going to work if you can for them until you're sick and dead (and be grateful too) or are you going to get yourself together and working along with others, build your own life? Having money you can honestly say is yours is where it begins.