Georgia introduces "Honest Money" resolution

From Michael Boldin at the Tenth Amendment Center  Unindented portions below are also quoted from the Tenth Amendment Center site. The term "Constitutional Tender" is a more formal synonym for what we in Ohio call Honest Money. Honest Money is the only practical way we can protect ourselves from the hyperinflation in Federal Reserve Notes that will come when investors lose confidence in the dollar.

In the 2011 legislative session, Georgia will consider House Bill 3 (HB3), which states, in part:

The General Assembly finds that, as mandated by Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution, the state shall not “make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.” Federal Reserve Accounting Unit Dollars, having no redeeming value in gold or silver coin, shall not be made a tender in payment of debts by the state.

and further:

silver coins, silver eagles, and gold eagles shall be the exclusive medium which the state shall use to make any payments whatsoever to any person or entity, whether private or governmental. Such coins shall be the exclusive medium which the state shall accept from any person or entity as payment of any obligation to the state including, without limitation, the payment of taxes; provided, however, that such coins and other forms of currency may be used in all other transactions within the state upon mutual consent of the parties of any such transaction

The result? Bill Greene sums it up best in a recent Tenth Amendment Center op-ed:

Over time, as residents of the State use both Federal Reserve Notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve Notes do will lead to a “reverse Gresham’s Law” effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve Notes). As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the State’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the State (as citizens residing in other States carry out their desire to bank with sound money), and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve Notes for any transactions.

You can download the Constitutional Tender Act template here:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/legislation/constitutional-tender/

Track Constitutional Tender legislation in the states at this link:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/nullification/constitutional-tender/

George Soros, in his own words

On Nov. 10, I published an article on billionaire financier George Soros, who is actively promoting the destruction of the United States dollar in favor of a global currency. (Followup article, Dec. 3).

In this article from The Economic Collapse, there is a video in which Mr. Soros explains his vision in greater detail. The article includes a textual summary of the video.

I do not advocate spending too much time reading about Mr. Soros, because his agenda is essentially the same as that of other backers of the "New World Order," but his statements do lend urgency to our need to be vigilant, and to make necessary reforms to protect our freedom, as suggested in my 2011 Legislative Program and the Platform of The Ohio Republic.

Understanding the gold standard

Libertarians have been calling for a gold standard to replace our fiat currency (meaning, currency backed by nothing -- or even worse, currency backed by debt). But there are two kinds of gold standards, as Michael Rozeff points out in DumpDC: a free-market gold standard, which ensures that there is a natural relationship between gold (or silver) and economic activity; and a gold standard based on government-created currency. With a natural relationship (which requires that there is no governmental intervention, event that of coining the money), inflation is rare and mild, and the value of money tends to rise over time, protecting the savings of the people.

The alternative, which, as Mr. Rozeff points out, is the one being pressed by the central bankers, is a gold-based world currency, which will in time become a fiat currency, just as the dollar did -- leading to periodic panics/depressions, and robbery of the people by the central bankers.

The take-home is, we must watch what officials are trying to push on us.

Only a return to a really free market, currency included, will act in the interest of all of us. Otherwise, we will continue the same old, same old, until we are robbed into slavery by the bankers and their friends in government.

Read the link to gain a greater understanding of the underlying ideas.

Inflation, simplified

This is the clearest explanation I have heard of what taking the dollar off the gold standard (thanks to the Federal Reserve Bank) has done to the value of our money:

In 1933, Americans were paid $20.67 for each ounce of gold they surrendered. If they had simply lost one of those ounces behind the sofa, today they could exchange it for over $1,200. But if they had taken that $20.67 and misplaced it until today, that amount of money would only buy what a mere $1.32 would have bought them the day they turned in their gold.

Virtual buckeyes to Tammy Bertram and Teri Cain Owens, via Facebook.

Ron Paul: "We can't even maintain the zinc standard"

The U.S. Mint is finding even the cheapened cents and nickels too expensive to produce, observes Congressman Paul in his Facebook site, citing an article by Rocky Vega in The Daily Reckoning.

As far as I am concerned they can quit minting both anytime -- rounding up to the next dime isn't going to break anyone these days.

More importantly, it reminds us that a hyperinflation is coming, and to keep building up our stocks of gold and silver. (You can buy a 1964 Kennedy half dollar, which is 90% silver and is quite common, for about $7).

Using silver to pay taxes

According to The Idaho Reporter, a state representative there is introducing a bill with the same idea as our proposed Honest Money legislation. State Rep. Phil Hart (R-Athlon) has introduced a bill to allow the state treasurer to accept a silver "medallion" in payment of taxes. The medallion would be a bullion coin, to observe the Constitutional prohibition against states "coining money."

The legislation would also help revive a lagging silver mining industry and help resolve an environmental problem with a silver-like waste that threatens the water table in Northern Idaho.

While I personally like the idea of using the pre-1965 U.S. dollar, which is also silver, in payment of taxes, it is good that states are experimenting with different approaches to restoring sound money.

A proposal for Ohio is on the drawing board, and will be announced when introduced.

Why sound money is important

If Ohio's U.S. President William McKinley (1897-1901) were alive today, he'd be shaking his head. On the one hand, he found secession absolutely abhorrent. On the other, he would agree with the liberty movement's demands for sound money. Sound money, based on gold, was the basis of his entire political career.

In this article, "Sound Money and Limited Government," Russell Longcore at dumpdc.com gives a nice introduction to the issue of sound money, and why it is important to us today. The article is written in simple language that should help anyone to explain it to others.

War by other means

Karl von Clausewitz famously said, "War is the continuation of policy by other means."

A 21st century Sun Tzu might reverse that and say that economic strategy can be war by other means. Reuters recently reported that officers in the Chinese People's Liberation Army are urging economic retaliation against the United States for offering the sale of $6.4 billion in armaments to Taiwan.

"Our retaliation should not be restricted to merely military matters, and we should adopt a strategic package of counter-punches covering politics, military affairs, diplomacy and economics to treat both the symptoms and root cause of this disease," said Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Academy of Military Sciences.

"Just like two people rowing a boat, if the United States first throws the strokes into chaos, then so must we."

Luo said Beijing could "attack by oblique means and stealthy feints" to make its point in Washington.

In addition to the arms sales, Chinese-American relations have been strained over trade and currency quarrels, Internet controls, and hacking.

"For example, we could sanction them using economic means, such as dumping some U.S. government bonds," Luo said.

The Chinese military has no authority over economic policy, and no economic sanctions are being proposed at this time.

China has the world's biggest pile of foreign currency reserves, much of it held in U.S. treasury debt. China held $798.9 billion in U.S. Treasuries at end-October. But any attempt to use that stake against Washington would probably maul the value of China's own dollar-denominated assets.

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." -- Proverbs 22:7.

This is another reason why Ohio needs to begin circulating gold and silver coin (which is already legal tender) as an alternative to the play money we call Federal Reserve Notes. A plan for this is under development. For more information, see the Ohio Honest Money Project website. The plan once executed, will work to reverse the effects of Gresham's Law (bad money drives out the good).

Virtual buckeye to When Giants Fall.

Is secession the "third rail" of politics?

Russell D. Longcore at DumpDC.com thinks so.

[T]here is a new political "Third Rail" in America today... Secession. It evokes fear and dread in most politicians, no matter if those politicians are at the state or federal level. Even the lone Congressman leading a revolution in Washington for liberty... Dr. Ron Paul of Texas... won't speak of secession as a solution to end Federal tyranny.

Mr. Longcore spoke with Rep. Paul recently and asked him about secession. Rep. Paul's opinion was that the states had no chance for secession at this time. "Rather," Mr. Longcore writes, "he stated that as the Federal government implodes, the states wold be able to nullify or simply ignore Washington... a 'de facto secession' is what he called it."


Mr. Longcore links to Rep. Paul's "State of the Republic" address, in which Rep. Paul outlines the reasons why America is in such deep trouble as a nation. However, it is evident that Washington will not consider any of Dr. Paul's prescriptions for America's recovery. Even with 315 co-sponsors to HR 1207, the bill to audit the Federal Reserve Bank, Rep. (and Dr.) Paul does not anticipate that a vote will be taken in 2010.

Russell Longcore's conclusion:

There remains only one solution.

Secession.

I disagree with Doctor Paul. I do not believe that we can prevent "blood from running in the streets." State secession would not prevent the economic collapse of the Dollar. And when the dollar melts down, crime, hunger, poverty and death are still going to happen widely in America. I also believe that the President will invoke martial law as soon as the economic collapse occurs. At that moment, governors and state legislators are going to have to make a hard decision about who is finally in charge.

In Mr. Longcore's opinion, the only hope for a state to "shorten the suffering of its citizens" is to secede and immediately adopt a gold- or silver-based currency.

I think he's right.

Virtual buckeye to Bill Miller at Secession & Nullification.

The day Ohio robbed a bank

Joe Bozzi, of the Honest Money initiative at the Ohio Freedom Alliance, tells the story of how Ohio State Auditor Ralph Osborn carried out a mandate from the Ohio General Assembly in 1819 to collect $100,000 in taxes from the Bank of the United States (precursor to the Federal Reserve Bank).

The background of the story describes economic conditions similar to those we experience today, and is an example of state sovereignty in action at a time when no one questioned the right of states to nullify offensive federal laws under the Tenth Amendment.

It's easy reading and contains valuable lessons for all of us.

$99,200,000,000,000.00

... the correct amount of unfunded liabilities of the United States, as exposed by Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank in a speech in San Francisco May 28, 2008.

He breaks down the obligations in this excerpt from his speech, which has the interesting title "Storms on the Horizon:" (Emphasis added)

The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.

Why is the Medicare figure so large? There is a mix of reasons, really. In part, it is due to the same birthrate and life-expectancy issues that affect Social Security. In part, it is due to ever-costlier advances in medical technology and the willingness of Medicare to pay for them. And in part, it is due to expanded benefits—the new drug benefit program’s unfunded liability is by itself one-third greater than all of Social Security’s.

Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent.

I want to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules. These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity to handle the “funded” entitlement liabilities. Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows. Increase benefits and the liability grows as well.

Let’s say you and I and .. every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.

The United States Government consequently has only two choices, both bad. Repudiate the obligations, or print money to spark a hyperinflation. If the U.S. dollar had been backed by gold, this could not have occurred.

Secession may be the only way to get out from under the bankers

So says Dan Weintraub at Vermont Commons:

I think it may be time for us to leave The Union. I'm not happy about this. But the truth cannot be ignored. In the United States of America, it is the banks that are running the show. And as long as the banks run the show, despite the best efforts of the most righteous women and men, true political and social and environmental reform cannot occur.
...
[As] far as I can see, the only way to cast away the banks and the bankers and the usury and exploitation from our lives and from our hearts is to create a new system---a system in which the usurers and the fraudsters are simply not welcome. It may be time to seriously examine the role that secession politics might play in, once and for all, releasing us from the grip of a banking system that creates wealth for a few and poverty and suffering for the rest.

History shows that sustainable economies require a fixed store of value on which to the money, usually precious metals such as gold or silver. Fiat currency (not wholly backed by that fixed store of money) fails. Every time. It's only human nature -- print more and more until it becomes worthless.

I like my idea better

Mike Norman Economics reports from the San Diego Union that California has a bill in its Assembly to make its IOUs legal tender for the payment of State taxes, thus creating its own fiat currency. It will be interesting to see how this plays out legally. I suspect that it will be found unconstitutional because of Article I, Section 10, which prohibits States from emitting Bills of Credit or making anything except gold and silver coin a legal tender for the payment of debts.

What scares me is that the courts will allow it, and Ohio starts to get the same idea, instead of the sounder approach I suggested yesterday.

I have a better idea

According to Bloomberg, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was showing off a coin that he called a sample of a new world currency, which he strongly favors. Recent economic developments should make clear that the solution to our difficulty is not to replace one fiat currency (the U.S. dollar, backed by nothing) with another.

Here is my alternative, a certificate backed by gold:

The portrait is of the late James A. Rhodes, Governor of Ohio 1963-1971 and 1975-1983.

Common sense about the bailouts

Not everyone has bought in to the idea that printing more and more Federal Reserve Notes is the solution to our economic crisis. Two articles published today are especially good:

Robert Romano at The Daily Grind* calls it “Stimulating Debt, Abandoning Hope.” :

“Never mind that the government has ducked any responsibility for creating the current mess. Or that it has failed to enact—or even propose—reforming and repealing the very policies that caused the financial system to crack in the first place: too much credit, too low interest rates, regulations by government to force banks to give out loans that ultimately could not be repaid... ad infinitum, ad nausea[m].

“Beneath this abdication of accountability is a complete lack of faith by politicians in the very people they represent. And, of course, in the American spirit of free enterprise.”

The “stimulus” package, Mr. Romano writes, is not based on increased revenues, but on “a desire by politicians to exacerbate the self-same economic policies that caused the crisis to begin with.”

“It was not government that invented the steam engine that powered factories and mills, locomotives and steam boats; it was the individual initiative of several engineers over the course of hundreds of years, including James Watt and Richard Trevithick. Nor was it government that forever revolutionized the process of making cars—and just about everything else that is manufactured; it was the initiative of Henry Ford and his assembly line that created millions of jobs and made the 20th Century the era of the automobile. And again it was not government that transformed and made more efficient the use of computers; it was independent innovators like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.”

Basic truth: Government cannot create wealth -- never has, never will.

The second is Glenn Sheller’s piece in today’s Columbus Dispatch. He applies some good old-fashioned Ohio horse-sense, first by using a medical analogy:

“The economy is sick because its arteries are clogged with bad investments, bad debt, bad financial managers and bad companies. And these things grew to such toxic levels because they got a pass from bad regulators and from bad politicians who short-circuited the market forces that would have punished such foolishness long before it grew big enough to shake the financial underpinnings of the entire planet.

“The economy seeks to purge itself of these toxins, and only after it does can it regain health and resume growth. But all efforts so far seem directed toward preventing that from happening. We don't want to let foreclosure eliminate bad mortgages, we don't want to allow the failure of financial institutions that are built on bad decisions and rotten assets. We don't want to let companies that are ill-managed, overburdened and underperforming go bankrupt.”

“It's like saying that the cure for hangover is to drink more alcohol. A hangover can be postponed by more drinking, but that ‘solution’ leads to fatal alcohol poisoning. Assuming that nobody wants that, then sooner or later the agony of the hangover must be endured in order to return to sobriety and health.”

He concludes that we are acting like lemmings. We are trusting the same people who got us into the mess to get us out of it. His conclusion: “That's sounds more than just counterintuitive. That sounds crazy.”

Why does it sound crazy? I don’t know the exact M1 figures, but I do know that the bailout has created at least $2 trillion since last September out of nothing. Continuing along this path will flood our economy with too many dollars chasing too few goods and services – which is the definition of inflation. Flooding it too much will cause the patient to die of congestive heart failure, or hyperinflation.

If you want to know what that’s like, check out this article about Zimbabwe dollar from Agence France-Presse, which uses numbers I have never seen outside of astronomy.

* The photo is also from The Daily Grind.

.. or print your own money

No, we're not talking about counterfeiting. We're talking about local currencies. The Wall Street Journal has done a story about a village in northern Thailand which has boosted its own economy by using its own money, even successfully overcoming challenges from the national central bank. Local currencies are legal in this country, as long as it does not resemble a Federal Reserve Note. The value of local currencies is to encourage local residents to shop in local stores, instead of the large chains. This way, money recirculates within a community, instead of being shipped outside it.

Two well-known local currencies in the United States are the BerkShares in the Berkshire Mountain region of western Massachusetts, and the Ithaca Hours in upstate New York. More technical information on local currencies is available from the E. F. Schumacher Society.

Buckeye Bucks, anyone?

Virtual buckeye to Carl Etnier at Vermont Commons.

Here's a hot stock tip: Buy gold

According to The Telegraph, a newspaper in London, England, Gary Dugan, the chief investment officer for Merrill Lynch, says that rich investors now prefer gold to paper securities. "People are genuinely worried about what the world is going to look like in 2009. It is amazing how many clients want physical gold, not ETFs," he said, referring to exchange trade funds listed in London, New York, and other exchanges.

"They are so worried they want a portable asset in their house. I never thought I would be getting calls from clients saying they want a box of krugerrands," he said.

According to The Telegraph, Merrill-Lynch predicted that gold would soon blast through its all time-high of $1,030 an ounce, and would hit $1,150 by June. They see gold as a "safe haven" in deflation, and as a store of value in an inflation (which I think is more likely).

Merrill-Lynch expects global inflation to hover near zero, with rates of -1% in the industrial economies. Maybe at first, but with the trillions of dollars being pumped into the economy, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we experience double- and maybe triple-digit inflation by the end of the year.

Virtual buckeye to FrankRep at the Ohio Freedom Alliance.

"Paper Money Is Fraud!"

___On the afternoon of Saturday, November 22nd 2008, over a hundred daughters and sons of the great nation of Ohio assembled in downtown Cleveland. The purpose? To expose the corruption of the central banking cartel and demand the abolition of the Federal Reserve System.

___The date itself marked the ninety-fifth anniversary of the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, which subverted the constitutional ban on issuance of paper money and allowed a private banking enterprise to exercise the singular privilege of printing money for the Federal Government. Originally redeemable in specie (silver) currency, the fraud inherent in such an arrangement became quite apparent in 1929. After the disappearance of large sums of fractional reserve money, frightened depositors descended upon member banks to find that their hard-earned silver had been given to someone else.

___Rather than forcing the banking system to honor their contractual obligations on penalty of imprisonment (a punishment ordinary mortals like you and I would face), the politicians in Washington DC instead devised a convoluted “Rube Goldberg machine” of monetized debt securities in an effort to make the entire scam seem perfectly reasonable and even enlightened. Since then, Federal Reserve Notes have been made “legal tender”, which all U.S. citizens are forced to accept under penalty of law, no longer redeemable in “lawful money”.

___The deception continues to this day, as generation after generation of schoolchildren grow up believing that economics is a such a boring and difficult concept to understand that it is better just to leave the monetary policy of our nation to “experts” who care about such things. That this attitude is a fatal mistake is now becoming clear as the banking system racks up record profits while the losses are once again foisted upon the gullible American taxpayers. Simultaneously, the stolen purchasing power is used by the Federal government to finance their Imperial wars of global conquest and pseudo-legal domestic “surveillance” operations while the schools and bridges in our States crumble to dust.

___But on November 22nd, brave patriots from across the continent assembled in front of all Federal Reserve regional banks and made their voices heard. “No more bailouts! End the Fed!”, we shouted. “Inflation is theft! End the Fed!” With signs and voices raised in protest, we marched through the centers of our great cities, demanding an end to the central banking scheme once and for all.

___The alternative to continued servitude under the political and monetary dictatorship of the American Empire? Restoration of national sovereignty to the Republic of Ohio and prompt implementation of circulating currency physically consisting of silver (or other precious metals). In my opinion, any efforts to reform the system and bring it under control while still allowing the bankers to create fiat money out of nothing are doomed to fail. And since the Federal government in Washington has proved themselves to be unredeemably corrupt by perpetuating this unjust and unconstitutional system, the time has come to wrest out State sovereignty back from the Federals who have abused the privilege.

___More information about the “End The Fed” movement can be found at: http://www.endthefed.us/. Thanks to the Campaign for Liberty, the Ohio Freedom Alliance, Peace Chicken, and everyone else who helped to organize this glorious event.

Ten more reasons to reject the bailout

Congressmen, listen up!

Catherine Austin Fitts offers a unique perspective on the global financial system and on the political economy. Her background includes Managing Director and member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank Dillon Read & Co. Inc., Assistant Secretary of Housing - Federal Housing Commissioner in the first Bush Administration and President of Hamilton Securities Group, a Washington DC investment bank. And she opposes the bailout for these reasons, which I am taking the liberty to reproduce in full* from her blog:

(1) Crime that pays is crime that stays.
There is reason to believe that Wall Street and those they represent are holding loans without collateral, multiple loans secured by the same properties, and other fraudulent instruments among the “troubled assets.” Based on the secret “Treasury Conference Call” with 800 Wall Street insiders, we know the deal proposed to be passed by Congress isn’t the real deal promised to Wall Street.

(2) This smells like obstruction of justice.
Bail-out without due diligence of so called “troubled assets” is a perfect way to hide documentation of financial crimes. It is also a perfect means to launder both the past ill-gotten gains and new federal money spent recklessly and without necessary safeguards and oversight mechanisms. Be very suspicious when they tell you “we just can’t tell what’s in these troubled assets.” We can assure you that the federal government has field offices all across the country that deal with significant amounts of real estate and mortgage assets on a daily basis. If Treasury refuses for more than a decade to comply with the laws, with approximately $4 trillion missing (and counting), it is not competent to manage $700 billion of taxpayer money while its arm is twisted by Wall Street.

(3) Wall Street owes the federal government
money.
We need to get stolen money back from the banks that served as depositories for the US government (including trillions for which the Pentagon and HUD could not account) and punish them, not create another opportunity for them to game the system and engage in criminal enterprises to rob consumers. To the extent there has been regulatory wrong-doing, let’s not let the miscreants leave town with the evidence.

(4) Good guys are shut out.
A bail-out provides no way for honest leaders to come to the fore and use their creativity and expertise to restore balance and integrity to the system or for unproductive and poorly-managed banks that contribute to current over-capacity in the banking system to die a dignified death.

(5) This results in more investment in the “bubble economy.” Spending massive amounts on non-productive uses (“buying” worthless credit default swaps, mortgages with no collateral and derivatives, which could even include the derivatives used to manipulate the precious metals markets) as opposed to productive uses (repairing infrastructure, creating alternative energy systems, supporting inventing and production of “green” products) is inflationary.

This bail-out will drive prices of food, water and energy up for the people who can least afford it.

(6) Bail-out does not result in capital circulating in healthy ways.
The bail-out of Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies that are getting bigger by the minute by swallowing up other failing financial institutions (and creating more institutions that are “too big to fail”) does not result in trickle-down to those whose money was stolen in recent swindles (S&L, dot.com, current housing crisis), i.e., the taxpayers/middle class and working poor.

(7) These arrangements will result in more
corruption.
Centralized “fixes” are sure to result in black holes, no-bid contracts and other scandals.**

(8) The bail-out drains the real economy, rather than invests in the real economy.
The US economy can’t be productive or grow if consumers don’t have jobs and can’t afford to purchase goods and services. Real stimulation of Main Street is accomplished through productive investment, not
bail-outs that shift money to unproductive sectors. We should use all of our precious resources to reinvest in our people in the real economy.

(9) It props up sectors that need to downsize and
consolidate.
There is significant overcapacity in the financial and banking sectors. Brainpower and talent needs to stop blowing financial bubbles and shift to economic activities that create real value.

(10) It is a temporary “fix” to keep Wall Street afloat until after the election.
Our resources are better invested in permanent, long-term solutions. This bail-out will not fix anything. Rather, it will help the perpetrators get away and ensure that the ultimate day of reckoning is worse.

The Administration wants to drain the real economy to bail out Wall Street. It seems to us that the more appropriate plan would be to require Wall Street to return the $4 trillion plus that is missing and use that to rebuild the real economy.

We think the time has come to reverse the flow. Go to any business school in the country. That is what they teach. Money should move out of unproductive sectors into productive sectors. The bail-out does just the opposite.

“Just say NO!”

The "sweeteners" (the increase in the FDIC coverage on deposits to $250,000 and tax cuts) do not address the problem. Congressmen, listen to Ms. Fitts: "Just say NO!" And while you're at it, abolish the Federal Reserve!

Virtual buckeye to Ed.

* I ask Ms. Fitts' forgiveness for this. I have copied it because of the urgency of the situation we are all trying to address, and the need to add authoritative arguments opposing the "bailout".

** Have we forgotten the corruption involved with Iraq's "reconstruction" already?

A reminder why we should abolish the Federal Reserve

From the King's Right Site in Cleveland:

"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

-- Andrew Jackson

History records that he succeeded, and America had no central bank from 1836 to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, which again brought corruption, speculation, and the present crisis. The only way to sound money and sound banking practices is to repeat President Jackson's action, and abolish the Federal Reserve, returning to specie-based currency!