AOCS Blog

“More than two million American Silver Eagles were sold to US Mint authorized dealers within the last two weeks, pulling their 2009 sales above 23 million and now over 24 million. If the pace can be maintained, silver eagles would reach 30 million this year, breaking last year’s annual tally by some 10 million. Silver American Eagle Bullion Coins were authorized by Congress in 1985 (Public Law 99-61) with the first production run beginning in 1986.”

1. Director’s Update: As the year wears on, not much in the political or economic landscape has changed. But since you have Silver, very little of that matters for you. In fact, the dollar value of silver is up nearly 75% over the last year. Not only that, but the economic and financial crunch is encouraging both individuals and businesses to get back to barter!

The human spirit will always crave freedom. We will always want to create and innovate. Even when the deck is stacked against us, we will find a way to survive. The most basic evidence of this are the 33,000 community currencies that circulated in towns across America during the Great Depression. Humans will find a way to survive, thrive, and be happy, regardless of what barriers or legislation may stand between us and our freedom.

Unfortunately, we’re also creatures of habit. We’ll tend to do something a certain way, simply because that’s how it’s always been done. If you’ve ever tried to stop smoking, stick to a diet, not pick your nose, or chew with your mouth shut, you know first-hand just how difficult it can be to try breaking a habit, regardless of how bad the habit may be.

Change, whether it’s breaking a bad habit, shopping locally, or trading Silver, usually follows a certain level of pain. And our neighbors are going through quite a bit of it these days. We’re working harder, having less time to relax, taking pay cuts, and watching our savings continue to wither. On one side of the coin, this is very discouraging, especially as it’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. On the flip side, however, this pain is encouraging Americans to re-think the way we think, work, shop and interact with other people and systems. So, the struggles of today may just be the Silver Lining of tomorrow: people are waking up and becoming more conscious of the consequences of ignorance.

For us, our glass is so much more than just half-full.

2. The Ag Trading Post is open! As you may have seen in the short video created by New Hampshire Free-Stater Dave Ridley of the Ridley Report, the Ag Trading Post is open and ready for business. Since the website is under development and not yet completely online, I will share a few key details as to why the Ag Trading Post will succeed:

- There are 2 central themes for the store: first, Ag exists to encourage folks to “think outside of the box”…the big-box retailers, that is, and instead to begin considering local vendors. Second, the store entices patrons to invest in better quality products. Look for both of these themes to be explained in detail on the Ag Trading Post website, where you can sign up for the newsletter to know when it’s live! Read more…

by Hugo Salinas Price
President, Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver
October 29, 2009

The shooting, the bombing and the killing of World War II stopped in August of 1945, and the War was formally over.

The United States and Britain knew the War was won, in 1944.

At that time, a Conference was called among the 44 Allied Powers, to determine the nature of the world’s monetary and financial system after the fighting was over. It was held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA, in July of 1944.

As a result of the Conference, a set of Agreements were signed.

The most important of all the agreements was the one that established that gold should be the money to be used to settle all trade deficits between nations, but in lieu of gold, dollars could be used to settle these deficits; at the option of all Central Banks, these banks could demand gold from the United States Treasury at a redemption rate of $35 dollars for each ounce demanded.

Thus, the United States could pay for its trade deficits either in gold or in dollars. No other nation was allowed to pay for its trade deficits in its own currency; for all other nations, settlement of trade deficits had to be done with gold or with dollars previously acquired in the course of trade with the U.S. or with other nations who had dollars. In other words, dollars – and only dollars – were as good as gold.

General de Gaulle (President of France, 1959 – 1969) has been quoted as saying that this was “an exorbitant privilege”. And so it was, a privilege of the victor in World War II.

Under the rules of war, a country at war may loot and plunder its enemy, if it can do so. Booty has always been a great incentive to get soldiers to fight, and World War II was no exception. When a war is over the looting and plunder stops and nations renew commercial relations, exchanging their goods in peaceful international trade.

In forcing on the Bretton Woods Agreements the acceptance of the dollar as a means of settling international debts, along with gold, the US established the will of a victorious power to continue to loot and plunder the whole world.

Formally, World War II was over. But in fact, World War II was not only not over, but the US had implicitly declared war on the whole rest of the world by imposing the dollar as a means of settling trade deficits, along with gold.

By running huge trade deficits which arose out of its expansion of credit and consequent money-printing, the US was able to leverage its gold holdings and send abroad masses of dollars to pay for imports. The exporting countries received dollars – not gold – for their export surpluses to the US. The dollars began to pile up in foreign Central Banks as “Reserves”. The exporting countries, not being nuclear powers, were afraid to demand gold in payment of their export surpluses, since such a request would very probably irritate the great power, and nobody wanted to offend the USA.

All this export of dollars in payment of trade deficits finally moved General de Gaulle to demand gold for dollars held by the Banque de France. This annoyed the US government and shortly thereafter, not coincidentally, there was an outbreak of rioting in France which threatened to unseat President de Gaulle, who had offended the US by simply asking for France’s gold.

The US, by means of the “dollar as good as gold” provision of the Bretton Woods Agreements, has been looting and plundering the rest of the world, non-stop, since the end of World War II. Very subtly, based on Bretton Woods, the US has continued to act as the triumphant victor in a war; it has never since the end of World War II “[reassumed] among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle” it, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

The US has not assumed an equal station among the powers of the earth, since World War II came to a formal end. It has continued to impose its Imperial Will upon the rest of the world, as vassal states, and has been duly exacting tribute from the rest of the world, by means of its paying its trade deficits with dollars, which are nothing at all since 1971. The US did not truly “normalize” relations, neither with the Axis powers when World War II was declared formally over, nor with the rest of the world.

Commerce is an eminently peaceful activity. The seller forces no one to buy; the buyer forces no one to sell. The means of payment of commerce, since written history began, has been either goods for goods, i.e., barter, or goods for gold – a perfected form of barter. Silver has also worked well, as a means of payment of commerce. But anything else, any innovation, anythingdecreed to be a means of payment by anybody whatsoever, cannot be anything but an imposition, a violation of the rules of commerce.

The present ruinous condition of the world’s finances and its lopsided industrial development has not yet corrected itself. If anything, we are in the “eye of the hurricane” for the moment.

If all governments in the world were to collapse, commerce would not disappear; it would arise out of the disorder, and its money would be – gold or silver, or both. Gold and silver are the natural means of payment for humans. Such is the intellectual decline in the world, that those in power have forgotten this; they and their paid lackeys in the financial press and financial media are dreaming when they think that they can come up with some effective but artificial, fiat means of payment, decreed by some governmental body. Any such fiat means of payment will inevitably preserve privileges for some, and impose burdens on others. Commerce cannot thrive under those conditions; it will go into permanent decline, along with our industrial civilization.

“Regionalizing” fiat currencies will only have the result of pitting region against region – as illustrated in Orwell’s “1984”. This is the fallacy underlying all talk about a “multi-polar world” while ignoring the need for a neutral, real and time-tested medium for exchange of goods.

The world’s principal powers should convene and come to an agreement for the establishment of the world’s monetary and financial system on the basis of gold as the exclusive medium for settlement of international trade deficits – a neutral, real and objective medium for commerce and finance.

If the governments of individual nations want to allow their banking systems to diddle with fractional banking and inflation, it is their right to do so. But when it comes to settling accounts with other nations, they must come up with the required gold.

Only then will we be able to say that World War II has ended.

© 2009 Hugo Salinas Price
Editorial Archive and Bio

CONTACT INFORMATION
Hugo Salinas Price | Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver, A.C. Mexico City, Mexico | Email l  Website

Federal Reserve Policy Audit Legislation ‘Gutted,’ Paul Says

By Bob Ivry

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) — Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

The Fed, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has come under greater congressional scrutiny while attempting to end the financial crisis by bailing out financial firms and more than doubling its balance sheet to $2.16 trillion in the past year. The central bank is also buying $1.25 trillion of securities tied to home loans.

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Lew Rockwell weighs on in the fraud:

…. no surprise: Ron’s historic HR 1207, to audit the Fed, has been gutted by the powers-that-were in the house. If you are a constituent of Barney Frank (D-Big Banks) or Mel Watts (D-Fed) or any of the rest of them, by all means write and call to protest. (If you are not a constituent, your communication goes into the wastebasket, so there is no point in writing. Petitions and form letters are also useless, even to your own congressman.) Not that you will have the standing of even a very junior banker. You are merely a tax victim, after all. But what really counts is not the actions of the petty and not-so-petty crooks who comprise the congress, but the changes taking place in the hearts and minds of the American people and people around the world. There Ron Paul has won an historic victory, no matter what the official criminal class does. The Fed today stands on far shakier ground than at any time since 1913. Let’s have an earthquake. End the Fed!

PS: Need I note that Ron was taken to the mountaintop by these creeps, and offered rewards if only he would go along? When will the Dems learn, and the Repubs too, that they are dealing with a man of iron principles, and iron will, for liberty, sound money, and peace, who cannot be bought, nor influenced for evil? Never, I guess. To both government parties, he is an alien — a diamond in a dump.

It’s a sad day for Liberty and another victory for coercion, taxation, fraud, and theft.

Source: http://caps.fool.com/…

Bloomberg.com is reporting that an attempt by the Treasury Dept. to review the Fed has been firmly rejected by Fed officials.

Fed Rejects Geithner Request for Study of Governance, Structure

By Craig Torres and Robert Schmidt

Sept. 21 (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.” read full article here.

So they have pushed back on any auditing of the Fed, now they are saying no to any additional governance models…are these the people you want handling your saving?

Are you going to allow your child’s future to be controlled this secret organization?

The World’s Premiere Silver Investment Conference

September 24th – 25th, 2009 Spokane, Washington

The Silver Summit, Inc. is proud to announce the addition of a Registration Page to our website.

We welcome you to join us at the world’s premier silver investment conference September 24th and 25th. The audience will have the honor to listen to the “silver” words from experts such as David Morgan, Al Korelin, Bill Murphy, Roger Wiegand, Jeffrey Christian, John Embry, Mike DiRienzo, Alex Mcdougall, Dr. Eric Rentz, and a special live video feed from Mexico by Hugo Salinas-Price.

Mining companies will be exhibiting their mining explorations, properties and products, and CEOs will be on hand to take your questions.

Please take a few minutes to enter your name into the database for The Silver Summit 2009. This online pre-registration process will greatly expedite your check-in at the conference.

You can always telephone The Silver Summit office to register in person at (208) 556-1621.