Missed the live feed? Catch the full hearing on YouTube HERE or Mr Gray’s excerpt HERE.
While debriefing from our most recent trip to FreedomFest in Las Vegas, I posed a question: how do we take our movement to the next level? I mean, we have so many people that are paying attention now, but still believe we can petition the government to solve today’s social and economic problems.
Last week, Congressman Paul’s bill to audit the Fed finally came to a vote on the House floor. Though it passed with overwhelming majority, it is expected to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Years of work, donations, phone calls and effort stopped in their tracks.
Ron Paul said it best in his final appearance last month with Fed Chairman Bernanke:
“We’re in deep doldrums and we never change policy. We never challenge anything. We just keep doing the same thing. Congress keeps spending the money, welfare expands exponentially, wars never end, and deficits don’t matter,” Paul said.
The AOCS position takes in to consideration this reality. Let’s just move on. Let’s stop talking about auditing the Fed. Forget about Ending the Fed. Let’s start ignoring the Fed, and eliminating the impact they have on our lives. This has been our position from day one.
So, it came as quite a surprise when I received an invitation to testify in front of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy on parallel and competing currencies.
My first reaction was to turn it down. We’ve enjoyed nearly 5 years of uninterrupted operations, with no sign whatsoever of government interference. We like to fly below the radar, and don’t want unnecessary attention. We have a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it. But at some point, some day, the world will have to know what we’re doing.
Let’s stop talking about auditing the Fed.
Forget about ending the Fed.
Let’s start ignoring the Fed,
and eliminating the impact they have on our lives.
At 10am Eastern time on Thursday, August 2nd 2012, I am taking advantage of a rare opportunity to go on the record before the Domestic Monetary Policy subcommittee and tell them exactly what I’d like them to do to help complementary currencies come in to existence: absolutely nothing.
Below you can find a transcript of my written testimony, now part of the Congressional record. I invite you to tune in to the hearing, which is tentatively scheduled to be broadcast live on one of the C-Span channels Thursday, August 2nd at 10a Eastern. It will be recorded and posted here after completion, in case you can’t catch it live. Certainly, the hearing can also be cancelled or postponed at any moment without notice.
But this is it: we can no longer operate quietly. It was only a matter of time, anyway, given the work we’re doing with the Lakota Indian Nation and Commodity Banking. The best we can do is tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
________________________________________________
Date: August 2nd, 2012
Author: Robert J Gray, Executive Director of the American Open Currency Standard
Re: Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy & Technology
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee,
My name is Rob Gray and I was asked to testify today on the theory of competing currencies, and the practical challenges that make such a theory difficult or impossible to implement.
For nearly 5 years now, I’ve successfully directed the American Open Currency Standard – the standard for private voluntary and complementary currencies that compete against each other, not against the US dollar. Allow me to clarify: we do not consider AOCS Approved medallions produced and traded in our private barter marketplace ‘competition’ to the US Federal Reserve Note. Because “fair competition”, as one would find in the “free market”, assumes the existence of a level playing field, the existence of a standard set of rules. Those players who wish to compete honestly do so by relying simply on the merit of the value they bring to the market.
No fair challenge can be made between honest men and thieves. Let me be clear that when I say thieves: I refer to the current private central bank and the men in government who allow it to exist.
This brings us to a critical point: according to your Employee Handbook, Article 1, Section 8 says: “The Congress shall have the Power …To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…”. For anyone who has been a manager or business owner, it is not uncommon to find that you may have an employee who may choose to not do the work that is delegated to them, or even that they simply do it very badly. When such a time comes it is necessary for the manager or owner to step in and do the work themselves. I would argue that since 1913, Congress has failed to do the job with which it had been tasked. We the people are now bypassing you and are no longer waiting for you to make it right. It is far better to simply walk away from the system. We are walking away from toxic thoughts, relationships, investments and careers. We are taking the hard intellectual journey to rid ourselves of the indoctrination that keeps us in this system. We are realizing the power we have in ourselves and the everyday choices that we make to either empower some soulless collective or our own families. We are realizing that we simply need to withdraw our time, energy, and money from banks, politicians and corporations that do not serve our interests.
In the time since our inception, the American Open Currency Standard has enjoyed nearly five years of growth and success in our mission of issuing a means that allows valuable exchanges among men who produce. In the next five years, we expect to expand our offerings and to increase our ability to keep up with the demand for our private currency. We are doing the job Congress would not.
The use of community currencies here in the US became popular back in the early 1930′s. You see, at the time, the theory was that a group of the world’s most powerful men, many of them international bankers, were intentionally and systematically removing currency from circulation, creating an artificial scarcity of money across America. Small cities and towns felt it worse than anyone. But life did go on.
Then, during the greatest economic depression this country had ever seen, individuals across this country developed their own mediums of exchange. They still needed things – food, clothing, daily essentials – they still needed to live, and they didn’t have time to wait for the government to fix the problem, and they certainly weren’t going to rely on the same bankers that caused the crash to offer solutions. And so, according to historical records, thousands of community currencies were created, circulated and traded in places where the scarcity of dollars was interfering with the human desire to live, and the market’s desire to trade. And since their elected employees were not doing the job for which they were hired, these individuals took it upon themselves to secure the means to their own survival and potential prosperity.
More recently, community currencies have sprung up across Europe as the Euro and national fiat currencies become increasingly unavailable and undependable. Today, communities all across the Eurozone trade their own money instead of the Euro.
Community currencies are not simply a good idea in theory; they are necessary, alive, and true examples of the free market’s unwillingness to be artificially manipulated. Right now alternative and complementary currencies circulate widely across this country and in many different forms: Ithaca, New York uses a local fiat currency based loosely on the value of time; Berkshire, Massachusetts uses a fiat-backed fiat system, while many more communities circulate gold, silver and copper AOCS Approved barter tokens as a medium of exchange. How they are issued, accepted, accounted for and reported varies widely, as the participants and procedures are as different as the markets they serve.
As for practical issues to overcome in the issuance and circulation of complementary currencies, there are plenty. In a voluntary system, those that participate in the trading of private currencies must deal with the possibility of counterfeiting, fraud, scarcity, acceptance, accounting, storage and other issues, all without the luxury of big brother holding a gun to anyone’s head to ensure their success.
Even with all the risks, the market moves on. As in any free market, good ideas circulate with success, and bad ones eventually fade away. Participants voluntarily choose to accept and circulate the highest quality and most valuable currencies in exchange for their best production. Merchants accept complementary currencies based on the premise that someone else is willing to do the same later. Issues arise and are worked out by the market with only one light to guide them: the mutual exchange of value. No guns, no laws, no force: just the willingness to think outside the box and act on principle.
Complementary currencies are not new, in theory or in practice. Further, private currencies circulated long before governments erected themselves to interfere. What’s new, however, is the public’s apathy towards you and your policies. You’ve managed for the last hundred years somehow to convince the citizenry that you’re relevant. Now, just recently, we’re beginning to see the tides change on this. And once it catches on, you’ll be rendered completely obsolete.
The greatest hurdle you will face over the next few years is trying to convince “we, the people” that you are still necessary in spite of your failures to get the job done. Sure, some will continue to rely on you for hand-outs; it’s what they’ve known their entire lives and they will be slaves right up and to the point of their own destruction. They don’t know any better and I don’t blame them for their ignorance. But as you continue to squeeze the life out of the middle class, watch out for their greatest weapon: apathy. They may not be ready to admit it, but soon they’ll turn their backs on you and never believe another lie – the lie that you are willing and able to do the job for which you were hired. In the future you will not have to worry about million man marches or citizen journalists trying to catch you on camera. What you need to fear is no one paying attention to you. The next American revolution will not be fought with bullets and bombs; it will be won with the opposite consciousness.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” ~Henry Ford
To that end, I’m here today to propose a solution. My understanding of this subcommittee is that you desire to be part of the solution. You want to believe you’re doing something good for the country. Today, the greatest gift you can offer to the people you clearly represent is to introduce, not to the legislature but directly to the public, what I call IR 1207 – Individual Resolution 1207 – commonly referred to as ’Ignore the Fed’. Store your wealth in silver. Bank with a non-fractional bank that pays real money on deposits. Use the card services network to satisfy dollar obligations. Do not try to compete with the federal reserve system: ignore them. This country has succeeded in doing away with two central banks already over the course of its history – it is learning to do the same again.
Congressman Paul: on July 13, 2011, you asked Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, a question: ‘Is gold money?’ I ask that same question of you here today: is gold money? Is silver money? They most certainly are not. At least not by the current definition as handed down by Congress’ money-issuing surrogate, the Federal Reserve. And that’s just fine.
I respectfully petition you, sir, to seriously reconsider your position on this matter. The government has perverted the word money. My wife is a nutritionist, and she tells people, ‘If your grandparents wouldn’t recognize it as food, don’t eat it.’ I suggest to you that if your great-grandparents wouldn’t recognize it as money, don’t accept or spend it.
A great philosopher once said “When destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, ….” Today, conventional wisdom tells us that money is a worthless pile of paper. And for the last 100 years Congress has for a third time (again) shunned its responsibility when it comes to issuing money. Since the creation of the Federal Reserve and Congress’ abdication of their responsibility, the dollar has lost 98% of its value. I don’t suspect anyone would call that stellar job performance. I must be blunt and say that, as employees, Congress, you have not been successful in your charge to “…coin money and regulate the value thereof…” and therefore your services in this area are no longer needed. It is sad that even the men and women in this chamber either do not understand the system they serve or are so dependent upon the system’s favors that they dare not speak in opposition to it.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” ~Upton Sinclair
I ask you to leave the Fed their money and leave the people our silver, gold and copper. Do not push to redefine whatever representations we choose for our wealth as ‘money’. Let the Fed do what it wants with their ‘money’, so long as they leave us alone. I warn you: ‘honest money legislation’ is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The record of Congress over time has proven that it will make a miserable failure of this aspect of human survival as it has so many others.
The greatest thing this Congress can do is exactly what you’ve done so far: nothing.
“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” — Ronald Reagan.
I will not facilitate this government to “help” understand, control and ultimately destroy alternative currencies. All I ask is that you stay out of our way. The people in our world are happy to go right along saving you from your own destruction by producing value against all the odds, regulations, codes, and challenges thrown our way. But leave our money alone. It doesn’t belong to you, and it never will.
If you really want to help, I would recommend that instead of trying to DO something, you could start by undoing some things. But that list is far too long for me to get into here today and as a responsible employer, I’ll allow you some room for creativity.
One last thing I would like to leave you all to ponder…
How is it possible for every single person in the world to be in debt with credit card debt, student debt, consumer debt, auto debt, and mortgages?
How is it possible that every small business and corporation in the world is also in debt?
And finally how is it possible that every single local, county, province, state and nation on earth is also in debt?
Who owns the other side of that debt?
When you understand that, maybe just maybe, something positive will come out of this chamber.
The bottom line is simple: humanity is not going to wait for permission to survive. Things that cannot go on forever… won’t. The market will move on – with or without you. And, based on your rate of success to date, our preference is without you.
I thank you for your attention to this matter of life and death.
“There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” -Henry David Thoreau
About Rob Gray
Well done my friend and faithful servant. Now I know why I haven’t heard from you in such a long time. Thank you.
The Federal Reserve is the central bank of the United States. It has many tasks, but essentially, it controls the supply of U.S. currency in the market.
One would think an entity of this magnitude would be handled by no one but the government, however, the Federal Reserve is not owned by the government.
According to FederalReserve.gov, it is an independent entity operating under the authority of Congress but not subject to it.
Sounds pretty good until you dig a little deeper.
Federal Reserve stock is owned by private banks, which are not allowed to sell the stock, but which pay dividends of 6 percent a year.
When the government needs money, it goes to the Fed. These banks decide whether or not to lend the money to the government at interest, which it will eventually have to pay back to the non-profit Fed.
The Fed may not profit, but the banks that hold stock do. Where else would the 6 percent come from?
Banks profit from loans, especially when those loans aren’t paid off in time and interest begins to compound.
Thus, the deeper the country gets into debt, the more money somebody will eventually make. Unless we go bankrupt or
China invades.
One would think the task of controlling the money supply would be delegated to the government. The Treasury makes the money, shouldn’t it look after it too?
The whole history behind the founding of Fed is screwed up.
The Federal Reserve Act was written on the private island of J.P. Morgan by a bunch of rich banking patriarchs.
I can’t imagine a more sinister movie scene than scheming bankers with their tuxedos, top hats and monocles writing legislation giving them the power to control the money supply of the whole country.
It’s Looney Tunes without the anvil. Tom caught Jerry and ate the crap out of him in the first episode.
These bankers then backed Woodrow Wilson in the upcoming election, who won and signed the Federal Reserve Act into law.
Bankers are controlling the money supply, lending the money the government prints back to itself and eventually profiting off of returned loans.
The Wall Street bailout would have happened regardless of who was president at the time. The banks loaned themselves the money through the medium of the federal government, which is also known as money laundering.
Yes, money laundering, like the mafia. The Federal Reserve is nothing more than a cartel, a system controlled entirely by a few very wealthy banks.
The only candidate who showed any interest in ending the Fed was Ron Paul, who would likely get a substantial amount of both Republican and Democrat votes if he stood a frozen turd’s chance in Hell of winning.
Most Americans are rational — 60 percent of the time, they are rational every time — and rational people realize the current system of controlling the U.S. dollar is in need of a serious face lift.
Halleluiah!!! Finally someone has had the opportunity to tell this de facto Government that we all have suffered under to stick it!!! Turn our backs on them, ignore them, show them that we are not their slaves. That we are thinking, feeling human beings that have had enough!!! Your speech was eloquent, forceful, and to the heart of the matter. Just shy of calling the whole scheme corrupt you presented your case most excellently. Your timing is impeccable as I not only sense but I see clear evidence of a mass awakening. The Fed knows their days are numbered, our bargain with the devil expires in 2013. We will need another form of currency to replace their satans spawn illuminati symbols riddled paper. Wonderful news, I have been waiting to see this charade collapse for too long. Let the imploding begin!!!
Kudos is all I can say!
I Can Supply The Gold, Silver, etc. etc. To Back Up Your Project…Respectfully Yours The Secured Party
would be interested to know if mr paul had a response.
Rob,
Good luck and great speech.
Sort of a mini “This is John Galt speaking……” tone to it.
Thank you on behalf of these of us that don’t have the platform but want to say the same thing.
Kirk
Rob,
Although Congressman Ron Paul woke me up, you are the reason I am part of the Free Lakota Bank. We need a branch in every city in every state of the country. The Federal Reserve is corrupt to the core and only real “money is the root of all good.” You get to see Ron Paul tomorrow, and what an honor that will be for you. Ron Paul IS John Galt, and he will be listening to you tomorrow. So will I.
This is stupid. Do nothing? It’s illegal to be passing around medallions. We’ve already had many people from our movement jailed.Don’t want to believe that??? google it! Maybe they haven’t found out about you, but the moment you get on that radar your gold and silver will be taken like everyone else’s. Making competing currency legal will take cash from your organization likely. Too bad. You dont own MY money either so I do not recognize your currency. There needs to be at least some universal standard for exchange of your personal currency with goods that would then be traded for other personal currency. In closing… they need to make competing currency legal because right now it’s in the hands of the fed and it’s criminals and your actions will eventually have you jailed, your treasure taken by the government and your currency forgotten if they do not step in. GET REAL. HELP THEM LEGALIZE BEING FREE!!!
Cowardice, Ignorance, and Stupidity. Congratulations, Mr. Fennell, you’ve hit the trifecta. I have to start at the end and work my way backward with this, and I want to be perfectly clear on this point. I don’t need anybody’s permission to be free. My freedom is not something that can be legalized for me. It is something that I must own, and I am proud to say that I do. I wish for your sake, Mr. Fennell, you could honestly say the same, but from the post above, I seriously doubt it. If you feel enslaved to and afraid of your Congressional overlords, then you are doomed to a miserable existence right from the start.
I mentioned Cowardice in my opening line, and it fits you to a T, brother. If you want to slink around staying under the radar cowering from one corner to the next all your life, you’re welcome to it. You sound like a cockroach trying to subsist on the meager crumbs your are somehow able to collect and hide from sight. I prefer to live my life in the sun, succeeding or failing on the basis of my own efforts. Further, I am free, and I will be damned if I am going to run around afraid of some pinhead bureaucrat because I am unwilling to play the game his way. If they want to arrest me because I refuse to submit as you have, then so be it. If they can do that, none of us are truly free anyway.
Next, I mentioned Ignorance. You claim that using AOCS Approved medallions as barter tokens is illegal, and that several people from “our” movement have been jailed for it. I put the “our” in quotation marks because it is exceedingly difficult to think of anyone that could write the garbage you wrote above as being on my side of anything, but I digress. Presumably the people you are talking about being jailed were the Liberty Dollar guys. If you had even the slightest clue what you were talking about, you’d know that the reason Bernard and the gang got convicted is that they were actively promoting the Liberty Dollar in a way that suggested that it was US currency. I have the utmost respect for BvNH in general, but some of his tactics in promoting the LD were indefensible, however justified his reasoning for it was. AOCS has fought long and hard to do everything possible to distance AOCS Approved rounds from US currency unlike how the LD operated. The fact is that there is nothing at all illegal about using your own private property for barter purposes in the United States, and that is exactly what AOCS Approved rounds are. Another important concept that you are clearly ignorant of is that AOCS Approved rounds are PVBC, private voluntary barter currency. If you refuse to accept them, Mr. Fennell, that is entirely up to you. Nobody is holding a gun to our head to buy, sell, spend or accept them. Speaking for myself, I will take all the AOCS Approved I can get my hands on, and I will be very happy to spend them as the right opportunities to do so come along.
Lastly, I mentioned Stupidity. You are somehow under the notion that the marketplace can do nothing on its own without the prior approval of some bureaucratic weasal in some office in Washington. How stupid could you possibly be, sir? Can you name one government program that has ever been run more efficiently than it could be done in the private sector? That DC crowd is nothing more than a gaggle of incompetent nincompoops who turn everything they touch to crap. They have all but abdicated their Constitutional responsibility to coin money and regulate the value thereof for the last 100 years. Why on earth would we want their help? The very best thing that Congress can do at this point for the sound money movement is to get out of the way, and let the private marketplace work it out.
Mr. Fennell, if your proposed solution is to crawl in on your hands and knees, begging to be free all the while throwing wads of cash around the political whorehouse that is Congress in an effort to get their “help”, then you truly have hit the trifecta. Cowardice. Ignorance. Stupidity.
Well said fearless leader. As always, just let me know what you need. Anytime.
Bob
Awesome Rob, go get em.
You did a GREAT job Rob!!! So now they vote?
Message to congress: ‘Lead, follow, or get the h..l out of the way!’. I recall when RP said that congress was irrelevant . Let’s make the Fed irrelevant.
Mr. Anthony Fennell, I think you have had too much of the “Kool Aide!” The AOCS is simply offering a non fiat precious medal “medallion” (if that is what you want to call it) It is in no way competing with the “monopoly” monies that our corrupt Government is dishing out for your usage and their profit! Rob Gray referred to our Constitution that has given the job to Congress to “coin no money except in gold and silver!” The “garbage” you are circulating today is 75% copper/25% nickel…virtually worthless base medals (as per it’s face value) and a piece of paper/cloth with ink that expects you to have “full faith and credit in the Government!” Well ole’ boy, our great God almighty gave us silver and gold and our Founding Fathers knew that only these precious metals would ever stand up as a true monetary system! The sooner you educate yourself the sooner you will be safe!!
Very nice indeed.
Reading through this text, I felt as if Moses is once again confronting Pharoah.
You are a hero, Rob. Well Done!
I reckon that if AOCS gets big enough, you all will end up in jail. Probably, in a maximum security prison.
Suppose somebody goes to see a movie and tries to pay with any thing different than the FED’s USD, How can this person (or the guy at the box office) be sure that the FBI is not gonna shoot him down?
Legal tender laws are one of the most important tools the Government has to control society and suppress freedom. They will not give them up unless the People of the United States declares war against Leviathan and wins it.
Then again, if such war where to start, the Patriot Army would need a currency different than that of the FG.
This is not going to end well.
For anyone interested in watching Rob’s testimony before the House Committee of Finacial Services, you can find the video at this link, http://financialservices.house.gov/Calendar/EventSingle.aspx?EventID=304699. Just click on the link in the middle of the page for the archived webcast. It is a little disappointing in that the sound keeps cutting in and out for several minutes at a time throughout the video, but the gist of it is easy enough to follow.
On another note, great job, Rob. You never cease to impress, and the sound money crowd would be hard pressed to find a better spokesman. As always, you have my thanks and admiration.
Here’s a YouTube link as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPCFKHCCKF0
CLAP, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP! Bravo!
I am a bit frightened (admittedly) that the empire will strike back, but at this point if force is their only option we’ve already won. I’m not worried, I have guns, food, and real money.
Best wishes from Wisconsin
The power of anything that rules over you is the mindfulness you give it. Withdraw that mindfulness from it, and it will die together with its control over you.
Very well said. Gives me hope and I am less “objectively depressed”, to quote another writer, than I was yesterday. I see a light!