To the editor:
The Federal Reserve System was drafted at a secret meeting held in November of 1910 at the private resort of J.P. Morgan on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. Anthony Sutton, former Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute for War, Revolution and Peace and a former professor of economics at California State University, Los Angeles writes “The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest”.
On June 24, 1968 silver-backed notes were exchanged for Federal Reserve Notes by the Fed. The old notes were backed by silver. The new notes are backed by law. It is called Fiat Money. Webster’s Dictionary defines fiat money as follows. ”U.S. paper currency of government issue which is made legal tender by fiat law, does not represent, or is not based upon, species, and contains no promise of redemption.” One might call it bogus.
Now the Fed has historically been authorized by Congress to print fiat money in an effort to bail out domestic and foreign banks which are in financial trouble. The latest bail out was called TARP and is currently happening monthly with no limits. Whenever we print fiat money to the money supply without backing we are creating inflation.
Counterfeiting today is a crime. It is a crime because it enables the counterfeiters to acquire goods with bogus currency. Fraudulent currency robs people of their store of value. If the counterfeiter is not stopped, he will destroy the value of everyone’s currency. Counterfeiting is one of the few crimes mentioned in the U.S. Constitution (see Article I , section 8, paragraph 6).
If printing unbacked bills that steals people’s wealth and waters down the value of everyone’s currency is wrong when an individual does it, how can it be right when the Fed or the government does it? Historically no economy of any nation in the world that printed fiat money ever lasted more than 50 years. On the other hand silver has always been used to back up money in the past. It will always have value. It is the opposite of fiat money.
The Creator, aka The Prime Mover, or God the Father, gave us rare silver and gold for that purpose. This is especially true when one considers the following. According to the U.S. Government’s United States Geological Survey of 2010, the estimated silver supply still in the earth is 400,000 metric tons. The yearly worldwide mine production, the survey shows is 21,400 metric tons. This means that the world’s below ground estimated supply of 400,000 metric tons could be depleted in about 18 1/2 years. It is thus possible that silver could be the only metal in the periodic table of elements that has been mined out.
Forty-five percent of the silver mined annually is used commercially and a large part of that is not retrievable. Since this USGS was done 14 years ago one could believe that in four more years silver would be gone forever and worth a lot more than gold since gold will not be potentially scarcer than silver by reason of its use. At any rate I will bet on silver instead of a Federal Reserve Note. In my opinion it is a no-brainer to buy silver with fiat money as a hedge against inflation while you still can.
L. Philip Soucy
Fort Kent
