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I have decided it is time to capitalize on the declining value of the dollar and to help organize and facilitate trade between individuals and business in an increasingly regulated world.

I have decided to pursue becoming a Community Trade Coordinator for the American Open Currency Standard. 

I first learned about the AOCS at the Campaign For Liberty Seattle Regional Conference. I have been intrigued since then at the prospect of using silver and gold as a barter mechanism to facilitate trade- trade that would hold its value at a much more stable rate than that of the Federal Reserve Note.

The goal of the AOCS is to establish a private and voluntary network of individuals and business who wish to utilize the asset preservation power of gold and silver to facilitate trade amongst themselves. Many city-specific currencies have sprung up since this depression began and long before that merchants have opted to provide their customers with the convenience of gift cards. But what if that local currency loses its luster? What if the store from whom you have purchased your gift card goes out of business?

The AOCS seeks to remedy this problem by providing a barter token that is by itself a valuable commodity- 1 Troy ounce of .999 silver for every ‘fifty’ barter credits (and to a lesser extent gold). There are over 26,000 merchants nationwide who have agreed to be listed that they accept transactions based on barter- and given the current state of affairs that number will surly rise.

Many people purchase Gold and Silver to hoard it for use at some date in the future when our fiat currency system fails (as historically everyone has). But consider this- we are two generations away from when the last remnants of the gold standard were severed from the American financial system. When the collapse of the Federal Reserve note comes, will your local grocer be ready and have the knowledge to trade value-for-value? What about the local gas station or restaurant? How about transactions between businesses themselves?

The reality is that despite the massive awaking to sound currency as a result of the efforts of Dr. Ron Paul and the Campaign For Liberty, very little progress has been made in restoring the role of Gold or Silver in the marketplace. The AOCS seeks to be the force that provides support and education to local merchants who desire a better way to do business in an increasingly command-and-control economy.

First things first: I am looking to place the initial order of AOCS Silver rounds as soon as possible. Given the increasingly top-heavy threats from the Obama administration, we must act in all prudence and seek to organize our private, voluntary currency networks as soon as possible. If this concept interests you, or if you desire a better way to capture your customers’ loyalty, please feel free to contact me. As soon as I get the details worked out with AOCS I will open an online store of sorts to facilitate the purchase of AOCS Silver rounds.

In the meantime, take a look at the American Open Currency Standard website to decide if this is right for you.

Also, take a moment to learn about Dr. Ron Paul’s efforts to Audit The Fed and repeal Legal Tender laws. 

With the right amount of innovation, the Free Market will never be defeated.

From Rasmussen:

Ben Bernanke begins the formal process tomorrow for confirmation to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, but 41% of Americans think President Obama should name someone new to the post.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 21% of adults believe the President should reappoint Bernanke to another four-year term. But a sizable 39% aren’t sure what the president should do.

Fitting then, that Senator Jim DeMint, the main sponsor of S.604, would place a hold on the re-appointment of Chairman Ben Bernanke until a simple up-or-down floor vote on the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act takes place.

From Senator DeMint’s office:

“Mr. Bernanke has been one of the chief proponents of the Fed’s easy money policy that created the current financial crisis. He ignored asset bubbles, dismissed concerns about the weakness of the dollar, and helped encourage the credit mania that led to the financial panic. Even worse, Mr. Bernanke has refused to accept any responsibility for his role in these actions prior to financial crisis.

On July 6, 2009, Senator DeMint attempted to get a vote on S. 604, which would remove restrictions on auditing the Fed’s discount window operations, funding facilities, open market operations and agreements with foreign central banks and governments. The vote was blocked but Senator pledged to keep fighting to force the Senate to vote on the measure.

“I will also object to floor consideration of Mr. Bernanke’s nomination until the Senate votes up-or-down on the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act. This bipartisan legislation, sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has over thirty cosponsors and would allow the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full audit of the Federal Reserve. Americans deserve to know how their money is being managed so these mistakes never happen again.

And now, my dear readers, we have a war. Let us not tire, falter or fail in our efforts to End The Fed. We know they will use their abilities to craft monetary policy to make this bill appear as a threat; we must stand ready to educate and reach out. The real enemy is not Bernanke, but the Creature From Jekyll Island that has brought us wars, centralized government planning, inflationary monetary polity and the destructive boom-and-bust cycle that interferes with the free market.

Contact your Senators TODAY, make it clear: We demand an up-or-down vote on the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act!

From Politico.com:

Is libertarian rock star and Texas Republican Ron Paul going mainstream?

He’s got everyone from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint to Minnesota moderate Democrat Collin Peterson to California liberal Barbara Boxer on his side in his audit-the-Fed crusade. He’s drawing liberal support in his push to rein in the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Senate candidates like Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire are finding Dr. No’s populist economic anger to be useful in the campaign, echoing Paul’s criticism of the Federal Reserve.

Even Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is delivering backhanded compliments, taking credit for merely allowing a vote on Paul’s amendment to audit the central bank.

This convergence of odd bedfellows, and the economic angst that’s driving it all, is yet another signal that President Barack Obama is going to have more and more trouble keeping his traditional Democratic allies on his side as the economic debate continues. It seems that everyone is looking for something new to latch on to in the economic debate - even if those ideas belong to one of the more eccentric members of Congress.

“This brought people together [from] the whole political spectrum, from progressives and liberals and libertarians and conservatives. … they all came together. That, to me, is what is really so important,” said Paul, who has been introducing his audit-the-Fed measure since the early ’80s.

After so many tries, this time Paul’s measure attracted 313 co-sponsors in the House, representing every possible point on the political spectrum. It also scored a strong vote in a key committee and has a companion in the Senate that’s supported by a bipartisan coalition of senators.

And Paul’s economic views, long dismissed by the political establishment, seem to be resonating more broadly than just the audit-the-Fed measure, both in the larger financial reform debate and the growing concern about the cost of continuing the war in Afghanistan.

To be sure, Paul’s bill to abolish the personal income tax or to end the United States’ membership in the United Nations still puts him well outside the mainstream.

But lawmakers - and, more important, the voters they represent - are starting to believe that the financial meltdown and the dramatic government rescue effort seems to have gotten Wall Street back on its feet quite nicely while leaving regular folks on the curb, analysts say.

“On financial regulation matters, most Americans sympathize with Ron Paul’s outrage,” said Cook Political Report House analyst Dave Wasserman.

From the Mises.org:

The zero-interest-rate policy of the Fed is sold to the public as a benign economic rescue in the public interest. The stark reality is that this policy is a disguised tax implemented by the Fed. It takes income from savers and hands it as a subsidy to borrowers. It also facilitates and funds the fiscal deficit policies of central government. Such a well disguised tax is a boon for governments. The cruelest tax of all is this 100 percent tax on interest income, disguised and rationalized as “good” policy. 

The zero-interest-rate policy deserves closer scrutiny. Would a saver willingly agree to an economic environment of zero interest rates? Certainly not. Would a debtor prefer a zero interest rate? Absolutely. The saver and the debtor would, under normal, willing-economic-participant conditions, negotiate a “price” for the use of money saved. That price for the use of funds is interest.

The central bank enters the negotiation between saver and borrower, and by counterfeiting money it destroys the negotiating base of the saver. Counterfeiting money through policies of unlimited liquidity provision is a “price control” over interest rates, instituted to force interest rates down and eventually spiral them downwards out of control to zero. The interest income of the saver is eventually taxed to extinction at zero interest rates.

It is basic economic theory that price control actually reduces the availability of the item subject to the control. It should therefore come as no surprise that available credit is falling despite unrestrained liquidity provision at zero interest rates. Banks have no direct cost implication when they hold funds at zero (apart from opportunity cost). Thus there is no direct cost penalty for doing nothing.

Not exploiting a lending opportunity in a high default-risk environment, where the margin between a zero-interest cost of funds and the lending rate is insufficient to protect bankers against default risk, is an entirely rational choice for bankers. While the intended consequence is to increase the availability of credit, the ultimate “zero-rate” intervention actually reduces credit availability. One wonders how significant this unintended consequence would be in the absence of Cash for Clunkers, the now-expanded subsidy policy for housing purchases, and the constant Fed, Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency support for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. We shall find out when fiscal deficits can no longer fund such excesses.

From Gary North, as seen on LewRockwell.com:

Gold does not have intrinsic economic value. No resource in history does. History is the realm of change. In such a world, there is no intrinsic economic value.

There is imputed economic value. There is historic economic value. Neither of these concepts of economic value rests on a theory of the supposed autonomy from free market pricing.

In a free society, final users of any asset have authority over its free market pricing. Owners of gold possess uncommon authority, for gold allows people to invest on the assumption that the larceny in men’s hearts focuses on money, and central banks in turn control the supply of money. Those who do not trust the wisdom, motivation, and tools of central bankers have a way to express their lack of trust. They can buy some gold coins.

This upsets politicians. It also upsets court economists, who are well-paid sycophants of central bankers. The more unreliable the decisions of the central bankers, the more upset the economists are with owners of gold. They do not want the price of gold to rise. Such an increase would signal a voice of protest by a small group of private citizens.

If you would like to protest the extension of centralized government power over your life and society in general, buy a few gold coins. I like protests that can turn a profit. This is such a protest.

This just came from the Campaign for Liberty:

October 20, 2009

Dear Friend of Liberty,
 
Earlier today, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced “The Federal Reserve Accountability Act,” an attempt to kill HR 1207/S 604 by passing a bill that prevents a full audit and full transparency from America’s secretive central bank.
 
While language in this bill would permit a limited audit of the Fed’s actions in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and similar high profile bailouts, it would not allow an audit to review the Fed’s inflation of the money supply or its agreements with foreign central banks, among other shortcomings.
 
Additionally, the names of the institutions who received the funds would not be available until one year after each “emergency” program ended, and you know how quickly the federal government likes to end programs.
 
Click here to get the contact information for your senators and urge them not to support this attempt at stopping our historic effort to force the Fed into a full scale audit.
 
You see, you and I have the FED and their internationalist supporters in the Senate running scared.
 
We’ve seen it time and time again in recent months.
 
Now, this is how they will fight back — by having establishment senators who oppose a full audit the Fed, proposing watered down compromises in an attempt to sabotage our real goal.
 
We knew this moment would come.  Now you and I must fight back.
 
Seventy-five percent of the American people, over two thirds of the House of Representatives, and over a quarter of the Senate support Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation.
 
With those historic levels of support, there is no excuse for settling for anthing less than a full Audit the Fed bill.  Anything less is merely an attempt to stop our efforts as we get closer to passage of a real bill.
 
The freedom movement will not back down on requiring transparency and accountability from an institution that has helped to destroy our economy.  This is another test of our strength and will.
 
Let’s finish what we’ve started.  Take action to stop this dangerous attempt to stop the real Audit the Fed bill TODAY!
 
Find contact information for your senators here and read more at CampaignforLiberty.com.
 
Let your senators know you expect them to support the American people’s demand for full transparency, not some watered down measure designed to stop a full audit!

In Liberty,

John Tate

President

From Breitbart:

The dollar’s position as the world’s leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said.

A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency’s future. The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily’s controversial report.

“The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world,” said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group.

“Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. “Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies.”

And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar’s underlying downtrend will remain in place,” added Juckes.

From Bloomberg:

Gold rose to a record on speculation that currencies will depreciate, spurring inflation and boosting the appeal of the precious metal for investors seeking to preserve their wealth.

Gold futures climbed as high as $1,045 an ounce in New York, topping the previous record of $1,033.90 in March 2008. The spot price is headed for a ninth straight annual gain, the longest rally since at least 1948. The dollar fell as much as 0.7 percent against a basket of six major currencies.

“Gold is acting like the ultimate currency,” said Chip Hanlon, the president of Delta Global Advisors Inc. in Huntington Beach, California. “Central banks are following the same monetary course and trying to stimulate and inflate their way back to growth. Everyone’s concerned about the dollar, but it’s not like you can hate the dollar and fall in love with the euro or the yen.”

U.S. President Barack Obama has increased the nation’s marketable debt to an unprecedented $6.78 trillion as he borrows to spur the world’s largest economy. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicts the country will sell about $2.9 trillion of debt in the two years ending next September.

Gold futures for December delivery climbed $24.40, or 2.4 percent, to $1,042.20 an ounce at 11:16 a.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices may reach $1,400 within six months, Hanlon said. Gold for immediate delivery in London gained as much as 2.6 percent to a record $1,043.78. The metal has climbed 18 percent this year.