Deacon was right. All governments steal from their citizens by debasing their currency. Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter "If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to anybody, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent on it. As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air... We are warranted, then, in affirming that this parody on the principle of 'a public debt being a public blessing,' and its mutation into the blessing of private instead of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself. In both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper."

The full text can be found here"
http://founders.archives.gov/documents/J...

The paper money we are forced to use is near to worthless.

In the long run, the United States government has two options to solve the ever growing national debt--massive reductions in government spending or massive inflation. Guess which politicians will choose?

The essay was incomplete. The gold standard was the prelude to the Federal Reserve.

It is literally true that the world was on a gold standard "before World War One." However, it is more correct to note that silver was the international standard, with gold a convenience. Only as the UK admitted total failure (after 200 years) to manage its silver coinage, that the Tower Mint and Bank of England went on a gold standard, which necessitated the expensive burden of recoining all the worn gold coins at full value of new coins. (They did that in the 1690s for silver. Twenty years later, England was on a de facto gold standard because all the silver had flowed out of the country. See "Newton at the Mint" by Sir John Craig.) Finally, in 1821, the UK went officially on a gold standard.

FIFTY YEARS LATER, in 1871, the German Empire went on the gold standard; and other nations followed, including the United States. It is known as "The Crime of '73" here. It was not a case of the free market competitively choosing the most convenient commodity. It was a matter of the central bankers of the nation-states deciding what would be lawful for everyone else.

Government laws always restricted banks. You must know the scene from the movie _Mary Poppins_ where the bank narrowly avoids catastrophe because of a run caused when the boy wanted his tuppence back. The laws there and here required a bank to clear its books on demand by the close of the business day. Such a law did not apply to barbers or carpenters.

Banks in the United States in the early 1800s often promised to pay 25 cents or 50 cents, but showed pictures of SPANISH or MEXICAN silver coins. (See "Spanish Coins on American Notes" here: http://scoan.oldnote.org) Gold-backed notes were rare until central banker Salmon P. Chase created the National Bank system to finance the Civil War. It required a bank to deposit at least $25,000 in gold with the Treasury. The bank got interest bearing Treasury bonds in return. Against 90% of the value of those bonds, the bank could issue its own National Bank notes. Again, the gold standard was not the result of millions of decisions by independent market agents, but was enforced from the government on the people.

Hello straightlinelogic,
A tangible asset desired more universally than any other... "Worth its weight in Gold!" Paper with ink on it .. a promissory note worth no more than the promises of the government that prints it... not so much.
Respectfully,
O.A.

The only to survive the down-fall of a fiat-currency is...
877-412-7446
http://www.wealthviagold.net

Related to this, read the article in Reason this month on inflation.