#0: BTC Founder Losses $10 Billion BTC

BTC Founder Losses $10 Billion BTC

This is the smoking gun story behind Bitcoin, exactly as we have always maintained.  What can be said about Bitcoin is certainly true of ALL cryptocurrencies.  As we have always said, these are just more brands of THEIR money and none of this CON GAME baloney belongs in anyone's serious asset portfolio, period!  Now, it's time to call things by their proper names.  BITCOIN IS A GIANT KINGSIZED FRAUD and so are ALL THEIR cryptocurrencies, period!  We're thankful to Thomas and Betsy for doing this deep research to uncover more of the truth behind this gigantic FRAUD.     

#57.18: Perspective – The Sales Pitch

1) Why do we need more money?

Those among the 2% who have on average 97% of the all the financial resources on earth, don't need more money. The rest of us are expected to subsist on the remaining 3%. Most of us need more money. One hears all kinds of pronouncements from economists, all beating the same drum; THEIR system is fair and just and works the way it does and woe be to any outsider whoever tries to displace THEM. Again, just who are THEY? Broadly, globalists, bankers, elitists, technocrats, satanists (those who have an entitlement complex to be predators on others), pedovores (the whole range of abuse here), scribes (writers and lawyers) and Pharisees (politicians and their sycophants). We need our own money so that we can and will be able to move out from under THEM and away from THEM as THEY face ultimate oblivion.  We, the people, by our work and our will, choose not to follow THEM.

2) Why should we accept the Valun?

The proposed Valun (international standard value unit) does not change. It is based on a specific piece of purchasing power defined by an ounce of gold bullion for $2,160 on 11/2/11 a specific point in TIME. We divide this by a thousand and get our Valun at inception at $2.16. But today, the price of gold is 12% lower than at inception. So the present value of the Valun is $2.43. The Valun can never fall below $2.16 nor rise higher than $4.32 should gold all of a sudden become worthless, which is not very likely.

E. C. Riegel made many contributions to our understanding of monetary reality. He seemed to sense that defeating the “commodity theory of money” would be absolutely necessary, though he didn't state it quite that way. Riegel was an autodidact. We need more of them. There were others who saw this flaw in THEIR monetary understandings. Arthur Kitson was one of them. With a solid unchanging reference point, we can tell right away whether precious metals or US dollars (THEIR primary brands of THEIR money) are gaining or losing purchasing power compared with ours. Right now, precious metals are gaining purchasing power and dollars are losing purchasing power.

What happens should our inception point ever be surpassed by gold prices forcing our initial $2,160 per ounce higher? We raise the inception point and all Valuns assume this new higher valuation. It will never be possible to lower the inception, therefore Valuns will retain their purchasing power over all THEIR money. Should US dollars no longer buy gold, the US dollar, after years of constant economists prattling, is probably done for as functioning money, much like what happened to the Venezuelan Bolivar.   This provision ultimately results in a harder and heavier Valun moving forward against all of THEIR money.

For example, let's say that gold surpasses $4,300 per ounce spot price. That makes our bid price up to 25% higher, $5,375 per ounce. That new inception point is recognized by IVES (everyone should be able to explain the relationship between IVES and the local exchanges) and the Valun is now $5.38. Now what happens when the price of gold falls from there? The new valuation is going to make it more expensive in gold in present dollars and therefore the Valun goes up further. It may be necessary when that happens, because it's probably going to happen, to have V-Checks representing V¼. At the new inception, at $5.38, the quarter Valun would be at $1.35 and the cento or fen would be a bit above five cents American. 

3) How does this help us build wealth?

Since our goal for everyone is individual-sufficiency, individual-actualization, individual-attainment, etc. we recognize that we will need to interact with each other, through exchange of our work for goods and services, we will need to organize to actually own together that which helps us all toward our individual goals. That's one reason Riegel called the new organizations we would require, “exchanges.” The present monetary system cannot and will never be sufficient to our needs. THEY already know that we seek ways out of THEIR system, so THEY devised cryptocurrencies, so that THEY can eventually put up their “social scoring” technology against us. We are also flatly opposed to more reliance on the internet, which also belongs to THEM. Our proposal understands these realities and seeks ways out of and away from THEM and THEIR systems and solutions.

Wealth to us, must provide an income, or it isn't wealth. Each one of us has acquired some interests and skills that are capable of providing us an income, therefore our work, the time out of the rest of our lives spent earning money (barter), constitutes our individual innate wealth, just waiting for expression as income to us. That extra income, from undeveloped or expressed innate wealth, is used to maintain and build more wealth opportunities, all intended to provide income to us. Having the Valun as a supplementary currency allows us to grow our wealth apart from and beside THEIRS. Eventually, as THEIR fake STOLEN fiat, unbacked credit and “commodity money” systems are seen for what they are, more people will want out into something else. The Valun will be worth having and saving as well as spending and investing in projects that actually benefit people rather than stealing from them. 

4) How does this help us ensure that our children have a future? 

Valun accounts are inheritable assets among all our members. Our children will be the normal and natural inheritors of our assets. There is little or nothing about the present monetary system that can be relied upon long term and anyway, none of it actually belongs to us. So we need our own that can eventually belong to people of our choice, usually our families and our children.

5) How does this proposal help local businesses?

In our proposal, an individual gets an A member account with V200 in it. They can set up a B member account for their own business for free as long as they put Valuns into it. Any business can put Valuns into their business account by submitting transactions to increase the Valuns in their Equity balance. Any tools, inventory, supplies, fully paid for in THEIR money can be added for their value in Valuns. There are no transaction fees for making changes to the Equity balance, as all the changes occur in one account. You would be building the value of your business in Valuns. Some businesses that are already in existence can apportion a percentage of their inventory for sale in Valuns or some other equipment that is fully paid for that would be included in their business.

The proposal intends to limit the competition from “public” corporations and “public” institutions. No B member business may be an absentee owner, “limited liability” corporation. No government organizations may be B members either. The intention is to limit the Valun market to actual producers as far as possible. A B member business intends to make money as a for profit operation. They must have identifiable owners. An A member opening a B member business is the actual owner of that business. Otherwise many A members can form partnerships and all family owned and operated businesses are encouraged to become B members.

6) How does the Valun defeat price inflation?

Another of Riegel's contributions was the recognition that price inflation was directly influenced by government spending over taxation; deficit spending. The only break on this, as we have maintained, ignored by most of THEIR economists, is the role of depreciation of assets in the destruction of money. The second hand markets for all goods and services actually provide a hedge against general price inflation.

Let's examine THEIR fundamental explanation for inflation; too much money chasing too few goods. This idea has a fundamental flaw, which means that it's a lie. It concerns something very simple, the observation that not all units of exchange (money) can or will be bid on the prices of all goods at the same time. Not everyone shares the same interests, has the same perceptions of economic decisions, including whether to make or buy something, whether to expand or contract business based on risks, etc.

Our contention is that the stability of the Valun over time, designed specifically to beat all of THEIR money, will tend to bring prices into whatever the correct balances between offered products and services will be and over time these prices will become more stable. Conversely, any differences in price, from a longer term average, will be easily identified as caused by either temporary or permanent changes in buying habits, the results of real physical shortages, etc. rather than the relentless march of higher prices brought about deliberately by THEM to steal more and more from us.

7) How does advertising help sponsor our money?

We need to identify ourselves to each other in ways that improve our bottom lines. We proposed that the actual tokens in our proposed system, the six month open Valun-Checks (V-Checks), would be the most attractive advertising we could make it, cheap enough to circulate among us and provide necessary account clearing information. Businesses that can afford it, would be encouraged to buy advertising from their local exchange, that would appear on the backs of these V-Checks. To begin with, they would be issued in V½, V1, V2, V5 and V10 denominations. They will require paid advertising on all their reverse sides.

8) How is usury defeated?

The rent of money is the particular subject associated with gaining income from wealth, in the form of money. Wealth to us must produce an income, so besides each one of us having innate wealth, which is free enterprise, the acquisition of more money would enable us to practice capitalism, the making of money on money without work.

But unlike THEIR system, all the rent for any borrowed money must be paid up front, and very importantly, paid out of already existing money, not as in THEIR system, from money that was never issued over and above the issued money supply. We have also determined that THEIR fractional reserve system allows certain special people the authority to loan money they don't actually have. We forbid this practice. We have also deliberately separated the transaction clearing function from the money lending function.

Since none of the money in the accounts we will maintain belongs to anyone else but the owners, there is no need for deposit insurance because there will never be any outside lending claims against any of this money as any kind of reserve. If someone intends on becoming a financier, they would have to acquire the necessary Valuns to lend from those who have the most of them at the opening of the exchange, and pay those people up front as well for the rent of their money.

If anyone needs to borrow money in our proposed system, they will pay the rent for it up front out of already existing money and all compounding of interest, allowing claims upon claims for money that never existed, thus causing a “musical chairs” economy everywhere; this is also forbidden.

We further make borrowed money work for the communities it is raised within rather than some other communities with one of our 80% rules; if a lender raises the money within a particular exchange area, then 80% of that money must be lent within that same area. This simple rule helps eliminate capital flight away from where it is produced and invested. Obviously the more productive a community is, the more financing it will have and conversely.

No matter where one is, our proposal upholds and supports the work ethic, which begins with our perception that all work is the time out of the rest of your life to produce or provide something for payment in money to satisfy the terms of barter. The erroneous assumption, another lie, is that transactions using whole barter are different from those using money. But in truth, barter never goes away. We just use money to set up and clear our terms of barter, splitting the terms of the trade between buyer and seller.

We have other practical rules for ensuring that everyone stay out of onerous debt. The practical goal for our system is that everyone operates in the black, not the red

9) How is poverty defeated by this proposal?

E. C. Riegel observed that only the poor should be able to issue money without producing anything. He was referring to the indigent. How do we determine indigence among our prospective members? Let's begin by saying that any business that is running in the red is not fit to remain in business. So businesses may come and may go, but individual people, their needs and aspirations, remain. Our proposal benefits any who are disabled, veterans, unable to work, retired or homeless.

Within the United States, and eventually everywhere else, we only have one simple question; are you really an American citizen and can show proof of it? Many of our citizens are chronically homeless, unemployed, etc. and we'll be honest, for some of these people, perhaps nothing but some form of extended stays in sanatoriums for remediation of longstanding difficulties, is likely to produce beneficial results. In other words, this powerful tool, important as it is, may not be sufficient in and of itself to help the most needy.

Nevertheless we have as part of our proposal that indigents would be eligible to issue Valuns based on some predetermined policy, backed by a form of credit contract between the indigent and the exchange. Since it takes two sponsors for each A member, the indigent member will know and be known by other members of the community. Perhaps their ability to issue Valuns will change, perhaps not. An indigent might decide to spend as few of his Valuns as he can, saving sufficient Valuns, so that when he has the means, he opens a B member business and begins the process of sliding out of indigence.

Who benefits from any extra Valuns that enter the system? The poor will likely spend most of theirs. So who gets them? The producers. And unlike any of THEIR money, none of the extra Valuns can contribute to inflation directly, because the exchange value of each and every Valun is never determined by speculation (speculators) concerning the amount of money available to lend, nor in calculations of the financier's take, the interest out of money that was never created/issued.

We suggested a long time ago that probably the first segment of the population to attract to our proposal would be law enforcement, both active and retired, and their grandmothers. Likewise veterans and their grandmothers. Let's look at a few details from our proposal that have specific meaning for these segments of our population.

We cannot operate anything without adequate law enforcement. We need and want these people to be part of our private economy. Whether retired or not, we can help them. Any A member begins with an Issuance balance of V200. Any active law enforcement may become A members and while earning THEIR money, earn up to 80% more in Valuns. Since their employer is some government that can't become a B member, each police officer has a labor contract with the exchange itself operating as a proxy. These contracts are simple one page affairs that specify how many Valuns at what times are deposited into their Income balances.

Now then, their grandmothers, retirees, veterans, etc. We have another policy that says that these A members can issue as many Valuns as the accumulated proceeds received from any and all pensions, retirements, etc. since Valun inception on 11/2/11. If you received Social Security since that time, you can begin stacking your yearly statements because when the exchanges start near you, you can take those into our offices and find out how many thousands of Valuns you will be entitled to issue. If someone has retired from some skilled job having its own pension, whether paid or not (as some have gone broke through incompetence or corruption), as long as they have documented proof, they will be able to issue 100% of all that value in Valuns.

We hence have three ways that Valuns can enter the market using them; by work (labor contracts), by will (credit contracts) and by indigence. The way Valuns disappear from the system is the same as in any other money, through depreciation of assets.

This is a simple idea and doesn't take any advanced degrees to understand. If anything is sold for less than it was purchased for, the difference in terms of money, disappears, dies, is gone forever, never to return. The quickest way to a continual recession would be one where nobody ever bought any used goods. Then, inflation would behave according to THEIR economic rules, and happen much faster. We'd also be buried in used junk before too long. But of course, nobody follows this because used goods are everywhere and nobody is FORCED to buy brand new of anything. The same economic rules affect recycled materials. Any work to recapture discarded value, can still produce an income, but comparisons between the brand new and the slightly used, well worn or obsolete, surely affect the prices asked and any differences between an item being sold as brand new and one sold as obsolete, always involve the destruction of money over the useful life of the asset.

All of which illustrates how far off THEIR limited quantity of some scare commodity theories about money, pricing, etc. really are, since money is created and is destroyed. There is no conservation of energy theory here or any other such nonsensical idealism. Legitimate money, not THEIRS, always begins when someone buys something and is always destroyed in the process of asset depreciation. In fact, there are many cases where the superlative quantities of stuff, great mansions, great estates, luxury automobiles, etc. are no longer economically sustainable, since they often do not provide or produce any income. Many of these items become so top heavy in relative valuations, that they become practically worthless. Remember that the next time you think to expand your holdings too far. There will always be taxes to pay in THEIR money. Consider it a protection racket or a FORCE of Nature as you will, taxes will always present a limitation on what any of us may do.

Since the proposal is nether a tax dodge nor a money laundry, all prospective A members would be aware that in joining and owning come tax responsibilities that can only be handled in THEIR money. And very important, we have a way into exchanging THEIR money for Valuns, but there is no way back to THEIR money. Money laundering is eliminated in this way.

We say today (8/17/19) that a Valun is worth approximately $2.43 and that's what we'd expect a member to pay in dues if collected today, but they can't cash out of Valuns back into any of THEIR money, because the Valun is intended to be the rock bottom for all money everywhere eventually. Of course some scoundrel might try and operate within the Valun system trying to produce something that would be sold only in dollars. But none of that sales would ever show up as transactions representing income to that B member business. It would show up on the rest of the accounts representing their business, not the B member account. Were such practices to be attempted, we assure you that they would fail pretty badly, especially since before one got anything to sale, it is likely that THEIR money would have inflated more and reduced their expectations of reward. So, it's best to stick with Valuns.

Now we have indicated three groups of people with respect to Valun issuance, because only money that is issued by individual natural persons in the act of settling their barter is legitimate money to us; THEIR money is still money all right, but it is illegitimate, entirely because of who issued it, either some government or some bank. These three groups of people are the employed, retirees and the indigent.

We fully expect the indigent, not all but some, will decide to start businesses and begin acquiring assets in furtherance of those businesses and that they will all begin by establishing a B membership and adding to that business's Equity balance. Eventually, these self-employed formerly poor people may well slide off their indigence contracts with their exchanges and begin to become self sustaining. The rest will furnish the only free money to anyone in the system.

Retirees are given their entire accumulated pensions since Valun inception on 11/2/11 in Valuns to issue. These do not represent earned income because they aren't actually money until they are spent into existence. But they are assets that can be inherited by another member. That information is part of the membership contract everyone will have with their local exchange.

Example: Joe, a retired Army officer, has an initial V45,000 in his issuance balance. He does nothing but spend down his issuance and upon his decease has V25,000 and has bequeathed this asset to his niece Judy, who is an A member. She gets her uncle's V25,000 issuance and might be subject to whatever taxes this implies. Right now, 25,000 x 2.43 = $60,750.

If taxes are required, what's the surest way to raise money? I'm suggesting that the precious metals dealers we associate ourselves with, will be willing to hold some Valuns. They would actually need to, in order to hold a B member account open. If you have a valid tax receipt and this would probably be the only exception we would ever allow, you would take however many Valuns it takes, buy gold or silver coins with your Valuns from one of our reputable B member business engaged in dealing in precious metals, and then reselling them for the money required to pay the taxes. This will probably be the only way any of our money becomes transferable back into theirs and will presume that any and all precious metals dealers understand the role and value of the Valun moving forward.

How would a precious metals dealer be able to sell their wares for Valuns? The same way any other business would, by setting up as a B member and allocating a certain amount of inventory for sale in Valuns into their Equity balance. Right now (8/17/19) an ounce of gold trades for V875.25 and the dealer will probably want slightly more to effect the transfer.  As the recent rise in precious metals indicates, their purchasing power is increasing relative to dollars.  Were the price of gold to reach our bid price of $2,160, making each Valun $2.16, then an ounce of gold bullion would trade for 1,000 Valuns as it did at Valun inception.

We presume that precious metals dealers are just like any other mortals and would want the benefits of local trade wherever they are operating. From the very beginning, we steadfastly recommended that there would be a place for precious metals dealers in our system. They would be the only effective means of converting THEIR money into ours or vice versa. But unless to raise money for taxes, there won't be any means of exchanging out of our own money into THEIRS.

Now then, how does one go about selling this proposal? Best to go out by two. Both should be signed up as putative A members. That way the two of you can sponsor any you sign up. Since there isn't an exchange as yet, you would be forming a local steering committee and signing up for the exchange that shall be. You would accept the V1 yearly dues, whatever that is, from each who signs up. You will have to keep all these funds separate, so I recommend as a temporary expedient only, that three of you decide to form a DBA (doing business as) and secure a regular checking account under that DBA until the DBA is re-established as a local exchange up and running and open for business. Then that DBA goes away and the assets of the defunct DBA now belong to the local exchange.

Tell everyone that this is something you are building that will require at least a year to bring into existence; they are being asked to pay it forward. Let them know what will be required, the software, hardware, etc. Describe what the local exchange is supposed to be like and how it is expected to function. Let them know that for some of them, you would be looking for advertising that would appear on our money. Tell them what they need to know, as though you were selling an investment opportunity, which this is, except it will always be outside THEIR system and not exposed to it in the usual particulars; speculators, grifters, grafters, liars, etc.

Don't forget to tell them that such a thing as we envision cannot be accomplished with fewer A members than 40,000 or fewer than 500 businesses willing to participate as B members.  Let everybody know that these are our goals for membership drives.  Above all, establish TRUST in all your dealings with anyone.   

If you cannot establish TRUST between yourself and those you approach, something may be very wrong with your approach. Remember, this isn't about everybody going it alone, this is about people helping other people. Approach your efforts with the attitude of bringing relief to everyone you meet, rather than saddling them with more baloney. Read and reread this blog often, so as to be familiar with all important aspects of the proposal.  Stick to the facts and build TRUST. Without that, no constructive purpose is ever achieved.

Thanks and best
David Burton
dpbmss@mail.com

[8/18/19: Many questions come to mind after this. What about insurance? What about fire-fighters? Could they earn Valuns in another state other than where they live? The answer is that any fire-fighter or primary medical service provider, while they may be working for someone else that cannot be a member, may still have labor contracts allowing them to issue 80% of what they earn in dollars in Valuns, as long as they meet the other requirements and are able to cover the additional taxes.

Let's say Ted is a fire-fighter who often works in Oregon, Washington or Idaho, but who lives in California. Ted would be an A member of his local exchange in California and establish B member accounts in Washington, Oregon or Idaho. His labor contracts would involve his personal business as a fire-fighter or service provider, operating in states other than his home state. Obviously, all these exchanges would have to be established, up and functioning, for any of this to be possible. Otherwise, Ted might be able to secure a labor contract through his home exchange in California, with the exchange operating as a proxy, as long as Ted's pay for services comes directly from some public source, like a local, state, regional or Federal government agency.

This brings up a point; anyone currently working for any government agency, as long as they meet the other requirements, can certainly become A members, once their local exchange is established, up and running. In all their labor contracts, the local exchange acts as a proxy for the Valuns they earn while earning dollars.

Can someone working for a public corporation also do the same? Their employer cannot be a member, but they still have a will and work and as long as they meet the other requirements, may become A members. They can even set up B memberships as long as they have Valuns in these accounts. Many might choose to do this in order to start a business on the side so that they can eventually leave the corporate rat race, etc.

As for insurance in a Valun system, this would require a far longer answer. Best.]

#57.17: Perspective - America's Opportunity

 

AMERICA'S OPPORTUNITY (from Chapter IV of Private Enterprise Money by E.C. Riegel)

Today, I had the opportunity to share this passage from the end of chapter four in Riegel's Private Enterprise Money with someone who is committed to the vision this proposal represents. In celebration and as a reminder concerning what this proposal is about, I decided to repost this passage here now:

America gave to the world the greatest political document ever conceived by man. America now has the opportunity and the challenge to give to mankind - through a universal, non-political money system - the greatest of all charters of freedom. That charter will liberate society's vast wealth producing forces, unify the peoples of the world on the economic plane, preserve and effectuate democracy – and banish war and poverty from the earth. Such a charter can be written only in terms of money freedom.

All the issues of the great war in which the nations are now engaged, all the problems of postwar planning, all the hopes of humanity for a better world, resolve themselves into but one question: can man in this crisis master money? Our whole thinking on this subject must be revised. The obvious lack of a science of money, after centuries of experience with it, should suggest to everyone that there is involved in past thinking and practice, a basic error. One may go to the parliaments, to the academies, to the counting houses, to the market places, in search of an understanding of money and it cannot be found. Instead of mastery, we find mystery.

No one need feel any inferiority in confessing lack of comprehension of this subject, for ignorance is universal except among those who dare to challenge the orthodox concepts. There is not lack of sufficient intelligence to master the problem; it requires only the courage to break with the old concepts and open the mind to new. If we have not this courage in this grave crisis, we are lost. If we cling to old ideas while men are sacrificing their lives, the dead shall have died in vain. The blood of the dead cannot requite the brains of the living.

Money freedom is a new cause in human progress. It has as yet no clarion. Ours is but a thin small voice in a world clanging with steel. But all the greater is our responsibility. We are custodians of an idea - and ideas are more powerful, more enduring than steel. The inscrutable wisdom that inspires men to undertake new causes, often, and in fact usually, commits to humble and obscure persons the task, the honor and the privilege to nurture the struggling cause, and, by so doing, not only serve humanity but become lifted out of their obscurity.

Let each of us assume leadership in the circle of our contacts no matter how limited, with the devout purpose of bringing to our fellows a new gage of freedom, a new inspiration and a new hope of a better day. And this day and every day can be bettered by devoting the mind to a constructive cause, rather than leaving it prey to the depressing thoughts of war and destruction.

Let us not ask despairingly, "what is this world coming to?" Rather, let us assert confidently, "this is what the world is coming to and I am part of the great constructive power that moves it." If we here and now resolve to grasp the opportunity that fate has brought to us, we shall have recollections of this day that will pay dividends of satisfaction and pride as long as memory lasts.

#57.16: Perspective - Membership and Business Accounting

People have asked me whether some natural people (not organizations, etc.) would ever be forbidden to join our exchanges. In answer, we have all become vary well aware of certain kinds of “business” which are less than honest. Again, for the awake, two words; gift and graft. 

Most have heard of graft. That's where someone enters into a contract with some “insider” for the intended purpose of defrauding a third party: two parties/entities agree to defraud a third party. That's graft in its simplest form. In our common parlance, graft is described as a form of political corruption, being the unscrupulous use of a politician's authority for personal gain. Our definition tells you exactly what graft is and shows you exactly how it is usually accomplished. Those engaged in such activities we'll call grafters from now on, not to be confused with anyone engaged in agricultural grafting of trees or plants. 

Following our definition, graft includes all kick-backs, payoffs, all inflation and cost overruns, everything that increases the bottom line for the third party, the intended victim, usually some government. It's commonplace to regard money stolen in this way as from the taxpayers. That line of argument assumes wrongly, that taxpayers' contributions to their government(s) implies that taxpayers deserve some sort of accountability or influence over policies, etc. As George Carlin said, you don't. You can't reasonably deserve or expect any accountability or influence, because none of the money you have ever used actually belongs to you. Besides which, you are not willingly paying your taxes, you are FORCED to do so and part of the reason this coercion works so well is that the taxpayers are cajoled into believing that political participation really means something while those doing the tax collecting know exactly whose money it is and where it's going. Our position must be to regard taxes, THEIR money, everything to do with THEM as FORCES of Nature that must be endured while they exist. Meanwhile, we must go about our own lives and businesses, helping each other, since this is not anything anyone can do all by themselves, to build our own grass roots economy. When THEIRS falls apart and THEY come after us with some new scheme, we can say, “sorry, we won't need you any more, in fact we won't have you any more.”

Grift is the general term for a swindle and a grifter is a swindler, pure and simple. The usual kind of fraud is to promise something and then deliver an inferior product or service, or even nothing at all, taking the majority of the proceeds directly into the fraudster's accounts, whether they be foreign or domestic. 

Beware. Many private and public non-profit organizations, various so called charities, etc. fall into this category, as grift. We have every reason to regard these organizations generally as tax dodges for the rich, or money laundries, where money comes in from some illicit trade, is socked into one of these foundations and then distributed to those who made the money through illicit trade, attempting to cover their tracks and avoid taxes. 

Our proposal has nothing to do with such arrangements and that's why no non-profit organization can ever be B members of any of our exchanges. This proposal is neither a tax dodge nor a money laundry. All so called “publicly held” corporations are also excluded from our membership. We jettison a lot when advocating for a complementary monetary system that actually belongs to us. We do not see fit to include businesses whose owners are anonymous and own something without the liability or direct responsibility for owning it. Shares in any “public” corporation are under limited liability protection, which means that THEIR corporations can literally get away with murder. 

Every potential natural person A member must fulfill certain basic requirements; must be 18 years of age or older, must be legally entitled to live where they are (domicile within the boundaries of the exchange), must be sponsored by two other A members. But I can assure you that every exchange will be asking in addition whether any prospective A member has ever been convicted of a crime. Obviously, we can ask such a question and will probably be legally required to do so. One could just say no and if one is later discovered to have been a convict, can be thrown out of the exchange and a prohibition placed on their ever being a member again, or for a sufficiently long time, perhaps five years. Of course some have made mistakes and paid for their crimes and that's fine. If you admit it and explain yourself adequately, you're probably in. 

We have as well to consider the needs of the tremendous homeless population. There are some who literally live on the road and these people need to be helped to have their own too. But most places require some residency requirements, in most states it's six months. If one has been homeless, but is a real citizen of the United States, one can try and move somewhere else where meaningful work is available and rent for lodging is still cheap. Stay there for six months, establish state citizenship in that new state, etc. and go on with one's life. But few will be doing this. There may be many reasons. We suspect that drug abuse and mental illness, stress disorders, any number of things, contribute to this situation. Our message to any of them who are still able bodied and mentally capable, is that real wealth begins with you. We call it innate wealth, since you by your own efforts are capable of producing an income. If you have certain skills that can help anyone else live better, your chances for finding a place in society are better. 

Another group we will watch carefully are people claiming to be what they aren't, fake professionals without valid credentials, required licenses, insurance, etc. If you're a fake professional and are caught, you're out. But we'll want sufficient proof of your right to practice where that is required by law. OK students, in which category of scoundrels do we class fake professionals? That's right, they're grifters. 

How many other attempts at a complementary monetary system ever address these kinds of issues? Did you guess none? That's right. The basis for any and all money is TRUST! Ask yourself how much trust is assumed or disregarded when buying into any of THEIR cryptocurrencies. It's all on THEIR internet and there are numerous terms and conditions that limit liquidity that those advocating their use never mention. Again, this is all just more of THEIR money, not yours. It's economic basis is FALSE too so don't be deceived. They all follow the WRONG limited quantity of a fixed commodity as a basis for money. It's a fine basis for a “buy and hold” asset perhaps, but not for a unit of exchange. Besides, most people don't want it! 

Again, this proposal involves people, people to people in action. Normal people live in the PERPETUAL EXPECTATION OF CONTINUING PEACE and are usually aware of anything that causes a disruption in that flow. We're not talking about natural or other tremendous disasters. We're discussing ordinary day to day interactions among people. Yes, it involves an implicit trust, just the same kind as most people observe at traffic lights. Concerning our proposal, let's break it down: 

We begin with E. C. Riegel. Everyone reading this probably needs to read all of Riegel's works, posted on this blog. He observed that money springs into existence to settle barter using credit instruments instead of actual goods and services. Barter never goes away even though money is used. We have by now all heard of economics prattlers trying to convince us that trade by whole barter and trade using money are somehow different. The primary usefulness of money is to split barter. Barter itself never goes away and settling terms of barter is completed when services or goods are finally exchanged for goods or other services. Money is used as the go between and is able to assume this role because its ability to measure value in any sale is trusted by all who use it.

Right now, we all use money that, those of us who have read and fully understood this blog would know, is illegitimate. It's money all right, in that it still settles the terms of barter for billions of people a day, but its provenance, where it issues from, is not legitimate, because it was all issued by non-producers! Legitimate money proffers something in exchange for something else, either a service for a good, a good for a good, a service for a service or a good for a service. 

What do you have? You have something you can do for someone else that they would pay you to do if they had the money. What if they don't have the money? The work doesn't get done and you don't have a job. Who has control over this? Right now, that would be the point of issue of all that money, the central banks and the governments that are their perpetual best customer debt slaves. The central banks lend what they do not have and charge interest from uncreated money. That automatically makes it impossible to pay all the debt at once in such a system and results in a “musical chairs” economy; someone else might have gotten the money to do the needful work and the jobs went there instead. Who decided? The bankers. It's THEIR money, stupid! 

So you still have that innate wealth inside you and someone needs your help, but they don't have the money, until now. Well, everyone gets two hundred Valuns to begin with, but we've been talking lately about how the various accounting nuts and bolts fit together to make it all work. 

So now, we get down to the nitty gritty. Here's something THEY never taught you in school because THEY didn't want you to be self-aware, self-actualized, self-assured, any of that. You were all kept from understanding the basics of simple accounting and why it's absolutely essential to all of you. Some of you may not be that smart, might be terrible with numbers, but someone else among you is naturally very good with numbers and probably would not mind as much the effort involved in helping others to get themselves properly set up to run on their own. How many of you were ever taught how to balance a checkbook? Not many. Most in fact use running balances on their bank accounts without doing much account balancing. But to stay “in the black” one usually uses some form of intuitive balancing anyway. 

The new understandings that come from the new accounts we have described are that everyone has assets and liabilities. One has assets that are fully and partially paid for, the remaining debt is considered a liability. In standard double entry accounting, there is an equality between assets on one hand and liabilities plus capital on the other, outlined thus: 

assets = liabilities + capital 

Accounting considers anything that can be determined in terms of money. In our case, Valuns. Every A member has three balances on their account with an exchange; Issuance, Income and Escrow. Issuance is an asset and also capital. If one listed one's Issuance, it might look like this: 

Asset: Issuance V200 = Capital: Issuance V200 

If one had a debt of V30, it would show up as 

Asset: Escrow -V30 = Liability: Escrow -30 

Were this all there was to balance, the result might look like this: 

Asset: V170 = Liabilities: -V30 + Capital: V200 

Now, you still need to raise your issuance balance, which means you will need to issue Valuns for something to buy. We allow you to issue Valuns through a labor contract. This does something automatically to every single Valun issued in this way; it is all backed by the work performed by the A member. You issue it to either a B member employer or to the exchange itself as a stand in for those employers that cannot be B members. You buy a job with your own money, you get paid back with the money you issued. That money is now backed by your work and your ability to pay the extra taxes if required. 

How much money are you allowed to issue? What are your restrictions? Income taxes is one. You will need enough money of THEIRS to pay taxes. The more Valuns you issue, potentially, the more taxes you will be required to pay in THEIR money. So in conducting business using Valuns, your prices for goods or services would be in Valuns and however much of THEIR money you will need to pay taxes. Your labor contract will not include anything about THEIR money, so you will have to determine what that percentage of your income in THEIR money will be required of you to cover taxes. 

Now, each dues paying A member gets an account with V200 in it. They also get to do something else, to set up as a B member as well. Most exchanges will want to see a DBA 'doing business as” usually from the county the exchange serves. An A member with a DBA can open a B membership account without charge. The exchange will still collect one tenth of one percent of all transactions from one account to another and there is no difference between accounts as far as transaction fees go. 

The B member account also has three balances, Equity, Income and Escrow. The key element to begin with is the Equity that can be assigned to the account; what tools, accessories, etc. that are fully paid for, without extenuating debt in any of THEIR money?  These are listed as assets and added to the Equity balance. As well, you can take all of that and add 10% of it as goodwill. You would be determining what all this is worth in Valuns on a particular date. If you have product you intend selling for Valuns, you list that and give your approximate purchase price in Valuns for the items and these are listed among the assets in the Equity balance. 

Now you also consider that you're just starting and have no income. So we allow you to project six months of income in Valuns in the Income balance. We may decide that income for this purpose can't be any more than 10% of the total Valuns in the completed Equity balance. 

Now the 80% rule that says you can't have Escrow more than 80% of your combined Equity and Income balances. Let's give you some ranges to consider: On 8/2/19 a Valun was $2.51 

Company ABC 

Equity: V1,000 = $2,510.00

Income: V100 = $251.00

Escrow: V880 = $2,208.80

Company DEF 

Equity: V2,500 = $6,275.00

Income: V250 = $627.50

Escrow: V2,200 = $5,522.00

Company GHI 

Equity: V10,000 = $25,100.00

Income: V1,000 = $2,510.00

Escrow: V8,800 = $22,088.00

Company JKL 

Equity: V50,000 = $125,500.00

Income: V5,000 = $12,550.00

Escrow: V44,000 = $110,440.00

Company MNO 

Equity: V100,000 = $251,000.00

Income: V10,000 = $25,100.00

Escrow: V88,000 = $220,880.00

These examples will cover the range most encountered for single proprietorship businesses. The amounts in Equity are permanent or subject to changes effecting inventories, depreciation, etc. Those in Income are for six months.  Those in Escrow, including your job, could be for any contractual duration.  Most labor contracts would coincide with a tax year and be renewable or not as required.  Pay particular attention to the Escrow balances because these limit how many Valuns you may issue to buy a job in your own company. 

Your Issuance balance now has V200 in it and you decide to leave it there, but it can be increased right away with a labor contract you have with your own company. Let's say you're ABC. Let's say you have no existing credit contracts requiring regular payments so the entire ABC Escrow balance may decide how many Valuns you presently want to earn. That's V880. Carried over twelve months, that's V73.33 per month. 

Your Issuance balance V880 

to ABC Escrow balance

Your issuance balance V0.88

to local exchange

Congratulations! You just raised your Issuance balance from V200 to V1,080 and each month as you collect your Valuns on whatever payday you choose, your Issuance balance is reduced back to V200 and you increase your Income balance by V880. That might be something like $2,208.80 over a year, hardly enough to rock anyone's boat. BTW, you pay the transaction fee of eighty-eight cento / fen to the exchange and that is paid back to your Issuance balance as you get paid in your Income balance. 

Now you can look where you might fit into this design. What size is your projected business? Whatever you earn in Valuns you will also need to earn some of THEIR money to pay all those things that must be paid in THEIR money. But these examples give you some kind of framework from which to proceed. 

What are you building in the Equity balance? The actual value of a business in Valuns; what someone else might be willing to pay for your business in Valuns. You might be of a kind that starts something, gets it up and running and then sells it off to someone else and moves on to do something else. Doubtless there are other ways of figuring out what your business might fetch in THEIR money. You would merely add the Valun basis into the basis in THEIR money and come up with what it would cost someone else to take over your business. Of course the larger your Equity and certainly your Income balances become, the more debt you can take on as included in your Escrow balance. 

Another thing you can do is advertise with your local exchange. These matters are expected to be conducted in THEIR money and all advertising with an exchange would be tax deductible because advertising is certainly to be one of the primary businesses of each and every local exchange. 

Figuring how much you will need to take in, in THEIR money as well as Valuns, is based on THEIR local sales tax percentages and any other taxes which apply plus whatever figure is needed to cover overhead that must be payable in THEIR money. 

Let's say that the sales tax is 8% and the item(s) for sale are V100. So that's V8 required for taxes. Today a Valun is $2.51 so that's $20.08 on a sale of $251.00. You'd be asking for V100 plus $20.08 for your trade. 

We have presented here a framework to better understand how to visualize, set up and get running your own business, when the time comes. It's actually pretty simple. But one thing you'll notice which is quite different from anything THEY have to offer; you are really doing everything yourself and it all belongs to you. These Valun based businesses are not some “build it and they will come” concept by some nameless faceless corporation that has officers and other responsible people far away in some city you never intend to visit. These are businesses that you build yourself, with less of THEIR money and more of your own. You pay your way in THEIR money and make your own money in ours. It's really the only way forward because there is something I just saw called “Stein's law.” Herbert Stein, yes, one of THEIR economists said, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." That applies to ALL of THEIR money for a variety of known reasons. It's not a new idea, but the issuance of our money belongs to us, is the only truly legitimate money and we used Riegel's fixed basis point of time determination of our unit of purchasing power to beat all of THEIRS in fair trade over the long run. All of this takes organization, as described, and will involve, in issuing our own money, retrieving our rightful fiat (OUR will) from the gross liars and fiends behind contemporary economics, none of whom bothers to challenge the underpinnings of the old existing corrupt machine, what they must do to rid themselves of delusions and false paradigms. You know what?  To Hell with THEM! We expect most of THEM will be going there anyway. But we won't care because we will finally have our own. 

David Burton

dpbmss@mail.com

#57.15: Perspective - Local Exchanges and 80% rules

Did you know that nothing has gotten done in this world for the past, since forever, without money? Money had many forms as students of money know. In England, the era of the excheckers ended with the fire that destroyed the first Houses of Parliament. The Spartans used strips of stamped leather until they were FORCED to deal in Athenian silver. And so on. The tokens may change, the accounting is where all the money actually resides, which is why we've spent so much time explaining it on this blog.

Nothing got done without someone paying someone else to do things. So in particular at the present moment, it's basic knowledge that Karl Marx and his pal Fred Engles didn't just come up with it and spin it out there freely for “the masses” to grok to and understand “the progressive way.” No, Marx was no natural genius of the type at all. Neither was Engles. Marx was a creature of British intelligence as it was back then, as was Engles. They had come to the cabal's attention through the catastrophic events of 1848, which had been a banker attempt at out and out hegemony over society, later realized in the Third Reich, the USSR, China and to some degree followed today through the EU. 

Marx had an intelligence handler, which means he paid him, who was a good old boy Scotsman, of some minor league nobility. But as anyone would know, who really knows these things, just go back to the 1950s and before that and check the names listed as the boards of directors of most British corporations. For a long time, before the recent foreign influx, the names were predominantly either Jewish or Scottish. These days one sees many more that are of Near Eastern or South Asian origin. My point is that a hungry Scotsman with proper political and financial connections back in the mid nineteenth century could always find pay in “public service” from whence most of the weaponized venom comes from. It did then and it still does.  

Fair warning to ALL academics and their dutiful and brilliant students who reflectively pass along the ideas of their professors, you have all been had! You dutifully accepted the doctrines of the elite paraded about as the answer to poverty and wantonness in this world and you have been always and forever just their willing dupes. “Useful idiots,” they call you behind your backs. Marxism is nothing but weaponized ideology intended to overthrow society and overturn the American Revolution, the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights. BTW, that makes all Marxists potential enemy combatants.  As well, the international banker imperium decides against any other sensible nationalist moves against them. These days we have the mockingbird mainstream media that fewer pay any attention to whatsoever. Other institutions have fallen sway to THEM. Anything from the UN down into your local communities has money, THEIR money, dangling from unseen chords of influence pandering and other inner circle deceits intended for absolute control. THEY invented the term “stakeholders” a while back to decide whose interests would take prevalence in THEIR scheme of things. There is no reason to trust that any of these people have your best interests at heart. All of that was just to make sure you were among the awake.  So, let us proceed.

What do THEY have that we don't have? MONEY and organization. The ability to organize people to do things for comparatively little money is an amazing thing. But is THEIR vision for your street, your neighborhood, your village or town, your city, your county, state or nation your vision or for that matter does it really have you in mind? Or is this another age old con job of someone with the money getting to dictate all the tricks? You bet it is! That's why we need to get off all the political bandwagons; let THEM do what THEY will do. Meanwhile, we need our own money and we need to organize ourselves sensibly in order to make that happen. 

I had a few conversations over the years with some that might have shown some interest, and they often asked me to describe what a local exchange would be like. Many thought that membership / ownership in a local exchange was sort of like joining a secret society. A secret society? No, a PRIVATE society! Yes!  Different. A members/owners have paid their dues of under $3 per year and they get an account with no one's money in it but their own. There is never going to be any risk placed upon any of it for backing loans, none of that. All of everybody's money is in the accounts! The public display tokens we use are short duration checks against a cash account maintained at the local exchange.  As the number of exchanges grows, we would see many different designs among the circulating V-Checks, all verifiable by the numbers on them, through a master list kept ultimately by IVES and distributed to every local exchange. 

This may seem an old fashioned approach, but we are discussing something that is at a relatively efficient scale of technology and has proved to work everywhere it has existed; paper instruments obey the substance of Gresham's observation, that when it comes to the circulating tokens representing money; the cheaper the token, the more easily it circulates. 

The local exchange is a PRIVATE business catering to PRIVATE members / owners. One can become an A member if one is recommended by two prior A members and is otherwise eligible. The premises for a place like this would best be wherever it is convenient to have offices, but they need not be very large and perhaps, as E. C. Riegel thought, there would be branch offices scattered around. These PRIVATE offices, open to members only, would also post ads for employment and offers to rent Valuns for needful finance handled by the exchange's B member business community. 

A business community implies a bunch of people who live and work in the same area and know one another. Pretty simple. From a business standpoint, the argument runs something like this: many businesses have cost overruns and other unforeseen abundance they cannot sell. This inventory becomes an instant asset capable of redemption in Valuns. A certain percentage of sales is sought. We apply standard accounting principles, the Assets = Liabilities + Capital (from a good old 1938 classic) and begin to construct a parallel and complementary set (NOT separate from the whole of the business's books) computed in Valuns with some indications of tax liabilities in THEIR money along the way. I'm sure there would be many open source software candidates to use for all of this. If it can be run on a laptop with thumb drives and away from the internet, all the better.

The complementary monetary system proposed by this blog means moving away from the internet, moving away from technology for its own sake without considering the surveillance always implied. Some termed it an “Andy from Mayberry” solution. But I was thinking about my fellow men and women, most of average intelligence who can at least count their money when they have it. I was thinking of the millions out there who not only don't want anything to do with computers or the internet, but couldn't properly benefit from contacts in that way at all. No. We must have reason and a place or a few places, where we can come to meet each other that isn't like a bank, but is in its way, more like a club, a place we ourselves would build up and enhance as we wanted. I mentioned a long time ago, that such premises were best situated in privately owned space.  Better if the people exchanges rent from are themselves members.

We have our 80% rules. They are made this way to make certain safeguards simple to grasp. 

Our first rule regards the number of Valuns one may issue if one already has a paying job in THEIR money. Our rule is that no more than 80% of your remuneration in THEIR money can be issued as Valuns by you. If you make $100,000 per year, we only allow you to issue up to $80,000 in Valuns. Right now, with a Valun at $2.54, that's V31,496.06 per year or V2,624.67 per month. Most will be issuing far fewer than that. We all must pay taxes on our income. Would this safeguard be dropped if income taxes went away? Perhaps. It depends on what happens with THEIR money. 

OK, really new concept for all businesses paying employees in Valuns; you don't pay them out of your money. They buy their jobs from you and based on performance, you pay them back using their money. That way everybody freely labors for whoever can afford them, to be explained, and none can ever claim that they were bought by another. This does not mean that the accounting for labor as a factor in costs changes very much at all. It is just applied differently. 

We said above that an employer would have to afford the employees whether he was paying them in his own Valuns or not. Elsewhere we described the procedures and transactions whereby someone buys a job. But how is the employer's job worthiness determined? The employer is faced with the following 80% rule: 

A B member business account has three balances; Equity, Income and Escrow. Equity includes inventories as well as capital assets belonging to the business. We require that the Equity balances contain any capital asset wholly appraised in Valuns not a percentage of some holding in THEIR money. The income balance in Valuns obviously pertains to the business's revenue in Valuns. The Escrow balance pertains to recurring debt obligations including payroll. The second 80% rule is that the Escrow balance can never rise higher than 80% of the other two balances. So if Equity plus income is your 100%, your total debts outflow for the same period can't be more than 80%. Understood? 

In helping B members, we will work ourselves backward through all the businesses we set up and construct for them balances in Valuns that make sense. In no sense are any of these businesses creating Valuns. To begin with they will not have any income in Valuns. E. C. Riegel admitted that a little free credit at the beginning is enough to fire the engine and get the rest running. We will approximate the comparable values in Valuns, set up these business accounts, ask them to buy advertising from us, because we need to cover the costs of printing our V-Checks. We remind them that advertising is a tax deductible expense. 

The other 80% rules apply to financial businesses organized within each local exchange. The people with the most Valuns to issue will be the elderly and retired segments of our population. Their Issuance balance is to be considered a personal estate asset that can be inherited by another A member within the exchange or eventually to another A member in some distant exchange, or divided up among A and B members, whatever the A member decides when he joins up. 

Anyway, these elderly A members with their thousands of Valuns they may issue, can rent their money to a financial business within the exchange and earn a modest income because the financial business will probably be charging more for carrying the debt. 

Example: Stanley is an elderly A member with V46,000 who can easily rent V20,000 to ACE Distributors for 2% per year, figured as simple interest not compounded, but is paid up front as follows: 

ACE Distributors Equity balance 

-V400 to

Stanley's Income balance

Stanley's Issuance balance 

-V20,000 to

ACE Distributors Equity account 

This results in a net gain in assets to ACE of V19,600. It's actually slightly less because ACE pays the exchange one tenth of one percent for moving the V400 from one account to another. That's V .40 or forty cento / fen more. Stanley pays more too as he pays for moving the much larger amount of money to ACE; he pays V20. So at the end of the first transaction to set up this loan: 

Stanley's Issuance balance 

V46,000 – 20,000 = V26,000 -V20 = V25,980

ACE Distribution Equity balance 

We don't know what its balance was before this transaction but it had something because rent for money cannot be paid but from already existing money.

-V400 + V20,000 = V19,600 – V.40 = V19,599.60

[8/10/19: I had to add this so there would be no misunderstanding.  Stanley's Issuance balance contains potential money, not actual money.  All money is issued to buy something.  What is Stanley buying?  He's buying a legitimate passive income opportunity and he's doing it through a credit contract with ACE.  Stanley's money becomes real when it shows up in ACE's account.  You will notice that there is always a contract involved with any Valun issuance.] 

Now here's the deal. A financial business or one having a financial branch handling their business in Valuns may borrow from other members within a community served by the local exchange, but 80% of that money must be loaned back into that community. Only 20% may be sent out of the community in hopes of earning higher rents. Of course all rents must be paid up front using already existing money. No financial business gets to issue any money. We don't determine the percentages for rent because we want the free market to determine these limits and respect various risk considerations. Obviously the riskier the deal the higher the rent will be, but at least with this 80% rule, the money stays active where it was generated. This can have tremendous benefits to every local area regardless of geography or population. 

BTW, at the end of the year contract Stanley has with ACS, he is paid his V20,000 back into his Issuance balance.  ACS must pay the V20 to perform this function which further adds to their finance costs, which means that ACS will of course be charging higher rents than they paid Stanley.  That's how finance must work.  But Stanley gets a little passive income and together with half a dozen or more Stanley's ACS has increased its Equity balance, from which to make loans.

I can imagine the exchanges of the future being like private clubs, perhaps with sports, concert or museum venue attractions associated with them. These places would be PRIVATE and allow people to hold PRIVATE meetings within. We need to form bridges to those areas of society with skills that need to be utilized for the smallest public investment possible. Pay them whatever in THEIR money, but add a percentage in Valuns and let a supplementary economy take root and take off. You are reading this here on the internet, but eventually we may not have it. What then? Will we be plunged back into one of THEIR ready made barbarisms? Or do we start NOW and decide the future looks a lot brighter for ourselves and our posterity if we actually owned the money we use? 

Best 

David Burton

dpbmss@mail.com

PS: I just heard a story about a certain 501c(3) organization that had trouble paying its employees. Yes, we will have A members that work for these kinds of organizations, which cannot be B members. The 80% rule still applies, but even so, consider someone who may be paid $5 per hour for a 40 hour week. That's $200 a week before taxes. Most people in these organization, but not all, are paid using regular wage and job descriptions and are given W2 forms at the end of a tax period. We would allow an additional 80% of their wages in dollars to be paid in Valuns. Using this example that's an additional $160 a week in Valuns. Right now, with a Valun = $2.54 it works out to be V62.99 or V63. Again, an A member begins with at least V200 in their Issuance balance. The V63 is paid into their Income balance and at the end of each tax period, a 1099 is issued to cover this additional income, always reported in THEIR money of course. In many cases the combined remunerations from their employer plus what they issue in Valuns, is going to total so far under the yearly income requirements, that income taxes may not require filing and anything paid in may be subject to remittance to the employee. But we are only considering a local exchange's legal obligations for operating a complementary monetary system in the United States. Essentially though, the more people we can get as members, the better.