THE ARIZONA CURRENCY BILL REVEALS THE GAME
As most regular readers of this website are aware, for some years I've been following the progress (or lack thereof) of various states; bullion depositories and currency bills. I have tended to regard these moves and various states' bills recognizing gold and silver specie as money as a good thing, but with a profound and necessary caveat: that actual physical certificates of deposit be accepted and circulated as currency, and that they be convertible into specie, which may also be used as currency in transactions. Lacking those things, I've been trying to warn that what may look like a return to "sound" and "constitutional" money might really be a trap to get people into accepting an essentially cashless system "backed by bullion", in other words, a fraudulent system counterfeiting the reality.
With that in mind, ponder this story shared by W.G. (with our thanks):
Notice that the headline here is - in my opinion at least - egregiously misleading, for "100% backed" system without specified and formally explicit convertability, and formally and explicitly and in law allowing the use of physical, and not electronic or digital, media of exchange and requiring the acceptance of such physical media for exchange and transaction is nothing less than a trap. The Arizona bill, according to this article, seems to lack those all important ingredients of convertibility and physical certificates of deposit:
A bill filed in the Arizona Senate would establish a transactional currency backed 100 percent by gold and silver, along with a bullion depository. If passed, it would create the infrastructure to facilitate the everyday use of sound money, while also offering safe storage for precious metals.
Sen. Jake Hoffman and Sen. Rachel Jones filed Senate Bill 1096 (SB1096). The legislation would establish the Arizona Bullion Depository to serve as safe storage for precious metals and facilitate the issuance of state-minted gold and silver coins, along with a specie-backed transactional currency.
...
A transactional currency is defined as “a representation of actual precious metals, specie and bullion held in a depository account by a depository account holder that may be transferred by electronic instruction and that reflects the exact unit of physical precious metals, specie or bullion in the pooled depository account in its fractional troy ounce measurement.”
Notice that in the definition of "a transactional currency" that this is restricted to "a representation...that may be transferred by electronic instruction...". Completely missing from the definition is the key qualifier phrases such as "a representation by digital or physical analogue means as bearer certificates of deposit payable to the bearer on demand' in said units of specie, and that the specie itself may be used as legal tender in transactions.
In other words, the Arizona bill strikes me as the absolute worst case scenario for a trap on the individual or on businesses, for the specie and bullion exist in a blind subject only to electronic transference, and not actual legally sanctioned use of the physical medium of specie or a bearer certificate of deposit.
Without such physical media and the anonymity they enable, it is useless and pointless to talk about "constitutional" or "sound" money. It is merely a bullion trap, a "bullion scheme" to get people accustomed and used to surrendering their financial sovereignty enabled by physical media of exchange to an electronic system.
Without the presence of these factors, the Arizona bill should be rejected as written, and seriously modified to incorporate these factors, as should every other such bill in every state considering them. It should be noted that most of these bills fall short in precisely these areas...
And please note, these same mistakes are being replicated in a similar bill being considered in the state of Iowa:
Again, without physical media of exchange that are convertible, and without the proviso that the physical specie itself may be used in transaction and must be received in payments, this is all smoke and mirrors: what good is it to ban central bank digital currency at the federal level, when at the state level, so-called "transactional currencies" are being accepted and mandated by the states, without bearer's certificates of deposits circulating as a physical medium of exchange. Without these things, it is nothing but a trap.
Let's add one more thing that needs to happen at both the state and federal levels in law. When was the last time you saw, or spent, a silver certificate? or a United States note (those paper notes where the treasury seal is red, and not green, or, in the case of a silver certificate, a blue treasury seal). Answer: unless you're an old curmudgeon like me, you probably never have. Those notes - and particularly United States notes - do not appear in circulation simply because they were taken out of circulation - even though issued by the United States Treasury directly - by the private central bank known as the Federal Reserve, and were physically destroyed. There needs to be a law on the books against any destruction of a physical medium of exchange.
So, one more time: do not fall for the digital trap or the new euphemism of "electronic transactional currency backed by specie." It's a fake-out, a trap, plain and simple. Arizona et Iowa caveat emptor...
See you on the flip side...
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