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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.

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 Lew Rockwell:

Reporters at the Wall Street Journal have uncovered something very intriguing while they were combing through the billing records of Jenner and Block, whose chairman, Anton Valukas is currently moonlighting as the examiner of the Lehman Bankruptcy Case. In J&B’s August fee statement, the firm discloses information that as part of its estate recoupment process, it has been contemplating suing none other than the Federal Reserve.

During its final days Lehman was a revolving door for Fed cash coming in (and promptly leaving) as the situation demanded. Whether borrowing at the Fed’s discount window against garbage collateral (no doubt consisting of worthless toxic commercial real estate – yet, we will never know: the Fed has just appealed the decision to disclose who/what/why got access to its processing of taxpayer bailout funding, which likely means that unless some Second Circuit/SCOTUS judge finds it deep in his/her soul that representing the American public is more important than siding with Wall Street as always, that information will never see the light of day), using the TAF program, or otherwise, Lehman ended up gobbling an ungodly amount of cash from the Fed which was subsequently improperly yanked by the Chairman, instead of being used to satisfy pari passu creditor claims. According to the WSJ:

 The New York Fed lent Lehman $46.2 billion in cash and Treasury securities for $50.6 billion in collateral, according to Federal Reserve affidavits filed in bankruptcy court. As a result of Lehman’s sale to Barclays PLC following its bankruptcy, the New York Fed was later paid back in cash, with the Treasury securities returned. Lehman’s broker-dealer also borrowed tens of billions of dollars from the Fed in the period from Sept. 11 through Sept. 15 last year.

From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve filed a notice it will appeal a judge’s order requiring the central bank to identify the companies that benefited from its emergency loans.

The filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York today was authorized by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the Obama administration’s top courtroom lawyer, according to Charles Miller, a spokesman for Kagan.

“Public disclosure is likely to cause substantial competitive injury to these financial institutions including the loss of public confidence in the institution, runs on banks and possible failure of some institutions,” the Fed said in its notice, which asks to put the lower court’s order on hold until the appeal is prepared.

Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued the Fed on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit, demanding details about the Fed borrowers and the collateral they put up. That information is “central to understanding and assessing the government’s response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression,” Bloomberg said in the suit.

“One way or the other, the Fed is going to have to come clean,” Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, said today in a statement delivered through his spokesman, Matt Stoller. Grayson helps oversee bailout programs as a member of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.

Extending Credit

“There is not a single American who does not have a stake in how the Federal Reserve and other major banks operate,” Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said an interview. “To deny American taxpayers simple information about how their money was used and by whom is inexcusable.”

Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska had set today as the deadline for the appeal of her Aug. 24 ruling ordering the Fed to disclose information. Fed lawyer Kit Wheatley asked Preska on Aug. 27 to halt enforcement of the order to give the central bank time to get Kagan’s consent.

From Bloomberg:

The Federal Reserve Board has rejected a request by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner for a public review of the central bank’s structure and governance, three people familiar with the matter said.

The Obama administration proposed on June 17 a financial- regulatory overhaul including a “comprehensive review” of the Fed’s “ability to accomplish its existing and proposed functions” and the role of its regional banks. The Fed was to lead the study and enlist the Treasury and “a wide range of external experts.”

Some top central bank officials, after agreeing to the review, saw a potential threat to Fed independence after the Treasury released the proposal, two of the people said. The Obama plan said the Treasury would consider recommendations from the review and “propose any changes to the Fed’s governance and structure.”

…

U.S. lawmakers have also called for a review of the Fed’s power and structure, saying Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke overstepped his authority as he bailed out creditors of Bear Stearns Cos. and American International Group Inc. while battling a crisis that led to $1.62 trillion in writedowns and losses at financial firms.

No Work Done

While the report requested by the Treasury hasn’t been formally scrapped, no work has been done on the project, which was due Oct. 1, the people said. Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams declined to comment, as did Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith.

The central bank is performing its own reviews of possible operational changes following the financial crisis. Fed Governor Elizabeth Duke is leading an internal study of the roles of the directors that serve on each of the boards at regional Fed banks.

“The institution is trying to keep a low profile,” said Vincent Reinhart, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington and the former director of Division of Monetary Affairs at the Fed Board. “To publish a report now invites comment on that report.”

‘Associated Costs’

The Senate passed 96-2 a nonbinding budget amendment in April supporting “an evaluation of the appropriate number and the associated costs” of the district banks. The measure was sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, and Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, the senior Republican on the panel.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, has also called for more scrutiny of the central bank, saying last year he aims to probe how the 12 regional Fed presidents are appointed and their role in setting interest rates. The Fed banks are semi-private entities, each overseen by a nine-member board of directors.

Legislation in both houses of Congress would allow for audits by the Government Accountability Office of the central bank’s monetary policy and other operations. Bernanke opposes the measure, which was introduced in the House by Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a Republican. Frank has scheduled a committee hearing on the issue for Sept. 25.

From The WSJ blogs:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired a shot at the Federal Reserve in her coming-out speech in Hong Kong today, blaming the central bank for the current crisis and disagreeing with the idea that the Fed should have a greater role in preventing the next crisis. It was an echo of fellow Republican and Texas congressman Ron Paul, who has led the charge in Congress to perform an audit of the Federal Reserve with an eye to eventually eliminating it.

“How can we discuss reform without addressing the government policies at the root of the problems? The root of the collapse? And how can we think that setting up the Fed as the monitor of systemic risk in the financial sector will result in meaningful reform?” she said. “The words ‘fox’ and ‘henhouse’ come to mind. The Fed’s decisions helped create the bubble. Look at the root cause of most asset bubbles, and you’ll see the Fed somewhere in the background.”

More generally, Mrs. Palin took the tack that the financial crisis occurred because government got in the way of free enterprise.

“Lack of government wasn’t the problem, government policies were the problem. The marketplace didn’t fail. It became exactly as common sense would expect it to,” she said. “The government ordered the loosening of lending standards. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. The government forced lending institutions to give loans to people who as I say, couldn’t afford them. Speculators spotted new investment vehicles, jumped on board and rating agencies underestimated risks. So many to be blamed on so many different levels, but the fact remains that these people were responding to a market solution created by government policies that ran contrary to common sense,” she said.

On the question of more complex economic issues, Mrs. Palin told the hall filled with bankers and economists, that would come later.

“Maybe you’re hoping to hear me discuss the derivations of the formula for effective rate of protection, followed by a brief discussion of the monetary approach to the balance of payments,” she said. “If time allows, a quick summary of factor price equalization. Maybe some thoughts on quantitative easing, but that’s for next time. Because I have spent my life closer to Main Street. That’s what I want to talk about is that view from Main Street,” she said.

See Also: WSJ Blogs: Ron Paul Q&A: Audit The Fed, Then End It

Nothing is more important at this period of time than auditing the Fed and stopping forced “swine flu” vaccinations. Any politician who tries to distract you off these two issues does not have his finger on the pulse and heartbeat of liberty.