The Great Gold Heist

[TrumanCash]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by TrumanCash (here)
I agree that we should be able to use any form of monetary exchange that we wish to use. However, I am unaware of any part of the US Constitution that prohibits the use of anything as a means of exchange/barter. I may be missing some data, but why would there need to be a constitutional amendment to allow something that is not prohibited?

There is nothing in our U.S. Constitution that I know of, or even suspect, that prohibits the use of any such means.

However, despite the intention of our (U.S.) founds that all freedoms are "God" given to the people, and only surrendered to our governments in so far as we the people consent, such as by such a Constitutional granting of authority to the government constituted by that document, it seems that the Courts respect our freedoms less when they are not explicitly granted in the Constitution, such as was done in the initial amendments to that Constitution. That's why I propose amending our U.S. Constitution to explicitly honor the freedom to directly (not via some custodial intermediary such as a bank or crypto exchange) exchange/barter by whatever means we choose.

Posted by TrumanCash (here)
However, I think we on this forum are well aware of the dangers of a mandatory digital currency without any tangible paper/coin option.

As I noticed in my above post:

The cryptocurrency distributed ledger technology can be used either way - allowing for direct exchange, or for exchange via (centrally controllable) custodial banking or exchange institution.

I would encourage and gladly make use of a digital currency that involved no government or government incorporated custodial intermediary. It's those custodial intermediaries, government agencies and government incorporated institutions, that the government can mandate to surveil, control, and report transactions. Corporations do not have "God" granted freedoms. They (including the governments themselves) operate under whatever rules and constraints the incorporating government decrees. In turn, our governments should only operate under whatever authorities we the people grant them.

In other words, if I pay a grocery store with bank check or a credit card, or transact in cryptocurrencies on an exchange such as Kraken or Coinbase, then that grocery store, if it's an incorporated business, and that bank, credit card company or exchange can, and typically will, be required by their incorporating governments to surveil, control and report in various ways the transactions that pass through their balance sheet.

If anyone reading this would like to send me a princely sum of Bitcoin, I'd happily post my Bitcoin public address here, to which your gift could be directly sent, from your Bitcoin wallet to mine, without any custodial intermediary ... not even for a fraction of a second. It would be just as direct and out of the reach of any government as if you came to my front door and handed me some gold or silver coins. Your right to do so should be honored as such by our governments and the institutions they incorporate, as a "God" given freedom, just as your right to send me a letter by the Postal Service is, or by email should be, honored by our governments. My proposed amendment would improve the chance that our Courts would honor your inherent freedom to do so, whether with gold, silver, or bit coins, or paper currency in a Postal envelope.

I entirely agree that we the people must NOT grant to our government the authority to mandate that we use only monetary exchange mechanisms that pass custodial control of that "money", in whatever form, via institutions they control.

Yes, I agree we should be able to use whatever we to use for "money". However, correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that Bitcoin is not private and the "government" can see one's Bitcoin transactions. It is also my understanding the certain cryptos like Monero cannot be surveilled by government. If I give silver or gold coin or whatever outside of surveilled grocery stores, for example, it is private and the government does not know about it.

I am concerned that Bitcoin may be adopted by the US "government" and then we are back in the same old situation of being surveilled, so the "government" can regulate it or even make it illegal. I am sure I am that I am not the only one with these concerns. I would not be opposed to a crypto that is entirely private and gold-backed as long as tangible money is still available.

What say you?

[Dilettante]

Posted by Vangelo (here)

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
...
If I were President of the United States, one of the first things I would do would be to push for a Constitutional amendment that recognized the freedom for people to directly exchange monetary value, be that in gold, silver, paper, or digital form, privately and directly, outside of the surveillance, control, or reporting requirements of any third party (corporation, government or otherwise).

Agree wholeheartedly. The deep state / swamp will go hysterical the moment this is proposed.

I also agree, but do you think this is realistic considering the damage that Elon Musk has already done with DOGE? This cabinet has teamed up with the dude who wants X to be the everything app, will implant computers in people’s brains, has put into space a system of Internet capable of connecting down to Antartica and all over the surface of the world, and loves AI and Grok. Musk has even said that if the goal of humanity were to make a super intelligent AI that replaces humans, that’s fine with him.

It’s Donald Trump and Elon Musk, not Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson!

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Yes, I agree we should be able to use whatever we to use for "money". However, correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that Bitcoin is not private and the "government" can see one's Bitcoin transactions. It is also my understanding the certain cryptos like Monero cannot be surveilled by government. If I give silver or gold coin or whatever outside of surveilled grocery stores, for example, it is private and the government does not know about it.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I am concerned that Bitcoin may be adopted by the US "government" and then we are back in the same old situation of being surveilled, so the "government" can regulate it or even make it illegal. I am sure I am that I am not the only one with these concerns. I would not be opposed to a crypto that is entirely private and gold-backed as long as tangible money is still available.

All Bitcoin transactions, since the beginning of (Bitcoin) time, are visible on the public Bitcoin ledger.

However nothing on the ledger says who engaged in those transactions, other than a pair (or more) of random numbers saying which bitcoin accounts that the bitcoin came from and went to. Short of some dot-connecting sleuthing work usually grounded more in the world of related monetary transactions in the better tracked banking world, no one except those involved in a particular transaction knows anything whatsoever about how those random bitcoin account addresses map to any being, corporation or other such legal entity in the "normal" world beyond their involvement in that transaction and in any other transactions in which any of those parties chose to use the same random number for their wallet id.

The exposure of the "real" identity of the owners of any of the accounts in a Bitcoin transaction happens when one uses a crypto-currency exchange to move wealth between the mainstream monetary world and the Bitcoin world. These exchanges, such as Kraken and Coinbase, are corporations operating under regulations similar to those banks operate under, and are required to identify their customers.

So if someone donates a few million dollars to my Bitcoin wallet (let me know if you need a public Bitcoin address to send that money to ), the IRS will not come after me for the taxes on my "income" until they see me try to convert that Bitcoin to Dollars on Kraken, my preferred exchange. Kraken routinely and by regulation informs the IRS of this (and all other such) transactions, with full information identifying each individual involved.

That, what I just wrote, exposes the weakness of what I've said so far. What good is a crypto-wallet full of Bitcoin, if I can not pay the rent and buy groceries with it, except under the full surveillance and control of the central powers and at their whim?

So ... one more element needs to be added ... just as my landlord and local grocery store do not require any sort of identification if and when I pay with cash or coin (well, my landlord imposes limitations for his own profit, which I tolerate, but that's a special case), similarly it must be the law and norm of the land that I can make purchases with one of the crypto-currencies that goes directly from my wallet to the store's wallet, with any intermediate corporate custodian and (hence) without any recourse short of a court of law if there is a dispute resulting from the transfer ... all just like cash is now.

Transactions involving a commitment over time, such as paychecks for regular jobs, paying rent, insurance policies, investments through stock and bond brokers, borrowing and lending money, retainers for legal services, and paying for subscriptions and metered services (electricity, water, ...) are a bit more of challenge. Each party in such transactions needs to know, over time, who is the other party with whom they are dealing. Even in a small town centuries ago, this was so. A stranger could come through town and hawk his wares on the town street or purchase goods at the store for cash or coin ... but could not usually enter into longer term arrangements until the locals had come to know and trust that person to at least some modest degree. That sort of trust based on face-to-face familiarity doesn't work in "communities" of millions or billions of people.

The "law of the sea" and its associated cadre of bankers and lawyers seems deeply entrenched in the global community of humanity. So far as I can see, such can not be removed, but only, at best, reformed, always at the risk of retrenching back to being a favorite tool of oppression for the top dog tyrant.

However ...

Perhaps the "legal tender" laws that decreed that Federal Reserve Notes to be legal tender for all debts public and private can be extended to one or more non-custodial crypto-currencies that, like cash and coin, support direct and immediate transfer of monetary value without any use of such an intermediate party as a bank, crypto-exchange, stock broker, or escrow agent, that hold the asset on their own books for some portion of the transaction, hence need to reliably identify the other parties to the transaction and, at least in our current civilization, are usually licensed by and incorporated under the government. However I don't know how such legal tender laws might or should be extended to cover these new circumstances.

Perhaps the magnetic pole shift and micro-nova catastrophe sequence forecast by Ben Davidson will pause that ever present oppressive matrix potential. That would be a harsh and temporary remedy, but it's currently the one I'd wager is most likely.

Perhaps the Fifth Epoch that Wade Frazier has dedicated his life to helping birth can "upgrade" our spirit and civilization to a less crude existence.

Perhaps there have been other, far darker, alien humanoid species intervening into our civilization who are now being driven off in some covert war that I can usually only glimpse when I dawn my Q-framed glasses, the absence of which species will lift a mighty oppressive weight off the shoulders of humanity.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Dilettante (here)

Posted by Vangelo (here)

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
...
If I were President of the United States, one of the first things I would do would be to push for a Constitutional amendment that recognized the freedom for people to directly exchange monetary value, be that in gold, silver, paper, or digital form, privately and directly, outside of the surveillance, control, or reporting requirements of any third party (corporation, government or otherwise).

Agree wholeheartedly. The deep state / swamp will go hysterical the moment this is proposed.

I also agree, but do you think this is realistic considering the damage that Elon Musk has already done with DOGE?

If you refer to the "damage" that DOGE has done to the deep state, I whole heartedly cheer that "damage".

If you refer to the risk that the new "bosses" may turn out in the end to be as evil as the old "bosses" ... only time will tell. But it's a risk we must take, and ameliorate as best we can. The depth of the depravity of the departing deep state boggles the mind.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by happyuk (here)
My own criticism of gold is that it's an unproductive asset that just "sits there", unlike ...

That is the inherent nature of all forms of money. Money provides a generic form of value, that can be stored until it is needed to purchase the food, clothing, housing, transportation, healing, and other necessities of more specific value.

Posted by happyuk (here)
Markets are complicated things, and occasional shortages in physical gold don't necessarily mean a crisis is imminent.

Agreed. Just seeing turmoil in the gold markets doesn't necessarily mean a global monetary/financial/economic/... crisis is imminent.

But the reverse is likely ... that a collapse of the largest debt-money based monetary system in (recorded) human history will likely include turmoil in the assets that might underlay alternative monetary systems.

Posted by Tigger (here)

Posted by happyuk (here)
My own criticism of gold is that it's an unproductive asset that just "sits there"

I don’t quite agree; I don’t view holding physical gold as being an unproductive asset. It’s a way of storing wealth outside of the ‘fiat’ currency system.

Agreed - well said Tigger and you beat me to it.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Abondance (here)
China has also accumulated massive purchases of gold in recent times, while selling large amounts of US debt.

The global sovereign debt crisis is well underway...

I have always been wary of the possession of physical gold because states in financial panic could force individuals to resell it (this has already been done in the US) or tax it so much at resale that it would not be worthwhile.

Yes - a global crisis of the debt-money system, which has been based on US Treasury debt since World War II (and was based on UK gilts prior) is well underway.

I no longer consider FDR's confiscation of domestically held gold in 1933, nor Nixon's "temporary" suspension of the gold backing of US Treasuries held in foreign central banks in 1971, to be a harbinger of upcoming risks.

Back then, we (well, the bankers) were moving us from precious metal backed money to debt backed money.

Now the "white hats" are managing the inevitable bankruptcy of our "US Reserve Dollar" debt-money system. So I expect gold and silver will regain value, not lose it further.

Debt-money systems _always_ have a "shelf life", as they only work so long as the future debt does not grow too much relative to the present assets and income available to service that debt. That "shelf life" has been reached for the current debt-money system.

[Dilettante]

Good discussion video, along the lines of what I've been saying:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kQ1ylse93dc

Gold revaluation = dollar devaluation = debt deflation. There are plenty of innocent people on the wrong side of this restructuring event, so I'm not cheering it on full-bore. It has to be done, but I would prefer a transition and not a collapse.

[norman]

The ball they have their eyes on is wiping out the original magicians coven who invented debt power.

I'll put up with a crash to get that done, even if it kills me.

[Satori]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by Abondance (here)
China has also accumulated massive purchases of gold in recent times, while selling large amounts of US debt.

The global sovereign debt crisis is well underway...

I have always been wary of the possession of physical gold because states in financial panic could force individuals to resell it (this has already been done in the US) or tax it so much at resale that it would not be worthwhile.

Yes - a global crisis of the debt-money system, which has been based on US Treasury debt since World War II (and was based on UK gilts prior) is well underway.

I no longer consider FDR's confiscation of domestically held gold in 1933, nor Nixon's "temporary" suspension of the gold backing of US Treasuries held in foreign central banks in 1971, to be a harbinger of upcoming risks.

Back then, we (well, the bankers) were moving us from precious metal backed money to debt backed money.

Now the "white hats" are managing the inevitable bankruptcy of our "US Reserve Dollar" debt-money system. So I expect gold and silver will regain value, not lose it further.

Debt-money systems _always_ have a "shelf life", as they only work so long as the future debt grows faster than the present assets and income available to service that debt. That "shelf life" has been reached for the current debt-money system.

TPC. Should the word “faster” in the first sentence of your last paragraph be “slower”?

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but to my understanding, the debt-money systems you mention, ie, fractional reserve, fiat, legal tender funny money, requires present assets and income to be available to service the debt. (Mostly the interest on the debt. The principal is not being reduced at all anymore, if it ever was.)

In other words, and in point of fact, the full faith and credit of, we the people, is the real security for any and all debt-based monetary systems. There has not been sufficient present assets and income to service the debt for many decades, if ever. It is the full faith and credit, meaning the blood sweat and tears, of we, the people, that is the backbone of any debt based, so called monetary system. That and tangible collateral, such as gold, silver, land, minerals….

If “future debt” grows slower than present assets and income, wouldn’t it follow that the debt-money systems’ “shelf life” can be sustained longer, making it possible for the proverbial “can to continue to be kicked down the road” even further in order to prolong and forestall the inevitable monetary collapse?

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Satori (here)

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)
Debt-money systems _always_ have a "shelf life", as they only work so long as the future debt grows faster than the present assets and income available to service that debt. That "shelf life" has been reached for the current debt-money system.

TPC. Should the word “faster” in the first sentence of your last paragraph be “slower”?

Good catch - I'll fix that now in my original post. I was trying to say that debt-money systems work so long as future debt does not grow too much relative to present assets.

Thanks!

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Satori (here)
In other words, and in point of fact, the full faith and credit of, we the people, is the real security for any and all debt-based monetary systems.

If your local bank, of which you are an ordinary customer, issues bonds to fund building more branches, using fraudulent claims of its financial health to sell more such bonds than it can possibly pay off, then digs that hole deeper by issuing yet more such fraudulent bonds to service its existing debt ... digging its debt hole deeper than any historical precedent ...

... then do you want your labor and assets to be the real security for that bank's fraudulent bonds?

I think not.

[T Smith]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Yes, I agree we should be able to use whatever we to use for "money". However, correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that Bitcoin is not private and the "government" can see one's Bitcoin transactions. It is also my understanding the certain cryptos like Monero cannot be surveilled by government. If I give silver or gold coin or whatever outside of surveilled grocery stores, for example, it is private and the government does not know about it.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I am concerned that Bitcoin may be adopted by the US "government" and then we are back in the same old situation of being surveilled, so the "government" can regulate it or even make it illegal. I am sure I am that I am not the only one with these concerns. I would not be opposed to a crypto that is entirely private and gold-backed as long as tangible money is still available.

All Bitcoin transactions, since the beginning of (Bitcoin) time, are visible on the public Bitcoin ledger.

However nothing on the ledger says who engaged in those transactions, other than a pair (or more) of random numbers saying which bitcoin accounts that the bitcoin came from and went to. Short of some dot-connecting sleuthing work usually grounded more in the world of related monetary transactions in the better tracked banking world, no one except those involved in a particular transaction knows anything whatsoever about how those random bitcoin account addresses map to any being, corporation or other such legal entity in the "normal" world beyond their involvement in that transaction and in any other transactions in which any of those parties chose to use the same random number for their wallet id.

Exactly right. Simply put, if you co-mingle Bitcoin with Federal Reserve Notes, via an exchange, then surveillance applies.

If you agree to sell me your collection of Beatles albums for 1000 satoshis, however, which I transfer to you via blockchain from my private wallet to yours, Bitcoin is completely private--and while the government, or anyone can "see" the transaction, there is no way to know who transacted with whom.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Eric J (Viking) (here)
.
USER’S GUIDE TO RESTRUCTURING THE GLOBAL TRADING SYSTEM

https://rumble.com/v6jowb4-coffee-an...-global-t.html

I am just now listening to this video that Viking posted above a few days ago.

This chap, Mike Smith, is making a lot of sense to me. I recommend listening to this video if you haven't already.

Mike Smith is explaining how he sees Trump's administration ending the global monetary system of the last eighty years, that has been based on the US Dollar as the global reserve currency.

This will bring back Dollars to invest in rebuilding America, resulting in some significant inflation, which will be guided as best as can be done into reinvesting in production capacity within America. This will be a major reshuffling of the deck, with some serious winners and some serious losers during the transition, but with longer term great prospects for American prosperity.

Smith speculates that the major gold movements back into the U.S. (Bill Ryan's opening topic on this thread) are reclaiming the gold that was leased out to the world, and enabling an honest audit of U.S. gold reserves. Interest rates will rise further, making it increasingly difficult to sell real estate to buyers who would normally need to take out a mortgage for the purchase, and making existing US Treasury debt (that pays lower rates) worth less.

Major investments are being made in data centers, such as the one that Elon Musk built in just six months time, that's now powering the latest, just announced, AI system Grok 3.

===

As I continue to catch up on this thread, I notice that Vangelo's Post #65 above of Chris Martenson's comments that tend to agree with what Viking posted from Mike Smith.

Posted by Vangelo (here)
Is This Trumps Secret Plan (Peak Prosperity)
Martenson has noticed odd and significant flows of gold and describes what he thinks might be going on.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by T Smith (here)
If you agree to sell me your collection of Beatles albums for 1000 satoshis

I'd agree to that trade. I have a fine, well maintained, collection of approximately 300+ rock and roll and similar records, purchased mostly at the famous Tower Records, on Peachtree Road, in Atlanta, Georgia in the mid 1970's, which I pretty much stopped listening to, long ago, when my focus turned to computer programming, later in the 1970's.

I'd happily package them up and ship them, for 1000 Satoshi. Let me know if you're interested.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Here's a for-dummies explainer, that may have a small chance of being close to correct. The whole gold revaluation thing is an accounting trick that might just get [most of] the whole world out of debt. (In other words, it'd be a Great Reset.)

We need to do more than "balance the books". We need to handle the collapse of the current "US Dollar Reserve" based global debt-money system, and run a major house cleaning of the vast amount of fraud and evil.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
But you say:

~~~

Look, I'm going to value my dog at $1,000,000. He's an asset. So I'm not bankrupt at all.

Have you told Mara yet that she's worth a million dollars?

[mountain_jim]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by T Smith (here)
If you agree to sell me your collection of Beatles albums for 1000 satoshis

I'd agree to that trade. I have a fine, well maintained, collection of approximately 300+ rock and roll and similar records, purchased mostly at the famous Tower Records, on Peachtree Road, in Atlanta, Georgia in the mid 1970's, which I pretty much stopped listening to, long ago, when my focus turned to computer programming, later in the 1970's.

I'd happily package them up and ship them, for 1000 Satoshi. Let me know if you're interested.

Maybe I bumped into you at that same Tower Records during those years.
Still have all my records but have not had a working turntable in a couple of decades - guess I keep them just in case I ever do, or maybe just to look at the album covers to jog old failing memories.

[mountain_jim]

to get back on topic (sort-of)

https://x.com/TonySeruga/status/1892615504214556746

Tony Seruga
@TonySeruga
·
43m
🚨 THERE IS NO GOLD IN BANK OF ENGLAND’S VAULTS! 🚨

The Bank of England halted delivery of gold and was in de-facto in default. Now the chatter is the @bankofengland has NO GOLD!

They are supposed to have about 5k metric tonnes.

#BOEDefault

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
but have not had a working turntable in a couple of decades

I had a vintage Panasonic Technics automatic direct drive turntable and an Audio Research SP-9 tube pre-amp, up until about 8 or 10 years ago, when I sold them to someone else here on this Avalon forum. I had not used them myself for many years before.

[sunwings]

The revolution will be televised.

[Dilettante]

Posted by sunwings (here)
The revolution will be televised.

Until the lights go out!