"I don't think we are in Kansas anymore Toto."1
Is Silver Really Money?
Does It Matter?
I wish I had a troy ounce of silver for every time I have encountered those questions on the net! Newsflash, the prestigious ISO (International Organization for Standardization) has set the standards for international currencies. Silver and gold are listed by the ISO as currencies. A fascinating quick resource for information regarding currency ISO 4217 is Wikipedia of course. Silver's currency code is a combination of X and its chemical symbol AG; hence its currency code is XAG. Following the same logic, gold's currency code is XAU. Each currency is assigned a 3 digit numeric code. Silver is currency number 961. Its standard is set at one ounce of silver. Therefore, Silver is an internationally recognized currency and not just a figment in the fervid imaginations of suburban gold bugs. In fact, I have even traded the XAG/USD currency pair at European brokerage houses and the XAU/USD at Forex.com. Go to Forex.com and check it out. They are the only U.S. firm offering this incredible investment vehicle. It requires only about $200 per contract! But is silver money? Answer, NO. Rule of thumb, if you can't buy a candy bar with it, it is not money.
I can't just drop into my local Starbucks and buy a large cinnamon dulce latte (expensive brew) with 35 silver cents. My barista would look at me like I had been smoking some of Ben Bernanke's newly printed federal reserve notes in my Hope Bong (unfortunately, both are super abundant now). Yes, a cup of Joe at Starbucks would only cost 35 silver cents ($4.35 for a latte divided by the price of one once of silver on April 9th, 2009 which was $12.35). In this crazy world of "regulated"2 fiat currencies ("legally" counterfeit monies), currently headed by red queen Ben Bernanke (off with all your heads dear readers), all currencies are volatile including silver. But silver has lost very little purchasing power relative to the toilet paper currencies (the founding fathers called it "rag money") like the U.S. Dollar and the British Pound. Since 1913 when the U.S. Congress was manipulated into turning the Dollar over to the control of a private banking cartel, it has lost more than 95 percent of its value. We gave them a Dollar whose purchasing power had stayed fairly stable (compared to paper money since 1913) for over a hundred years and they have given us back a few tarnished pennies. Fair exchange? Heck No! Those of you who are not logophobic are permitted, in the privacy of your own home, to use more appropriate harsher language. This is an outrage that warrants strong language and righteous anger. The purposeful debauching of our dollar is what is known as the alchemy of finance. We are currently experiencing the disastrous results of the monetary wizards (central banking cartels) trying to turn paper into gold. Great job guys. Yes, you Paul Volker and Sir Alan Greenspan3 (two previous monetary wizards who were crowned as red queens). Dear reader, next time you drop in to your local coffee shop (if you can afford to now) remember in 1913 a regular cup of Joe only cost around 5¢ to 10¢ (cents).
REMONETIZATION
Wall Street and the Belt Route won't but Main Street (you and I) can remonetize silver. Silver has been winning the Peoples Choice Award as money for literally thousands of years. Like the mythical phoenix it will rise again. This is much easier than immanentizing the eschaton. Remonetization will take 3 initial steps.
Step 1 Give the Silver Ounce - Currency XAG a Symbol. Don't underestimate the power of a symbol.
Step 2 Use Silver as a Unit of Account. The use silver as a "unit of account" can help protect you from what is known in the new science of behavioral finance as the "money illusion" (In subsequent articles I'll demonstrate how this can give you X-ray financial vision). Get ready to take off those emerald glasses Dorothy.
Step 3 Mint a "coin metal" silver currency. Hint: real coin metal is 90 % silver and 10 % copper not that 99.9% tourist stuff that is currently being minted for the marks by most governments. Why mint coins that are 99.9% "pure", because they KNOW you can't use it as a currency because it isn't durable enough! Wizard's first rule - people are stupid. Let's prove them wrong. Are you angry enough to do something?
A New Symbol for Silver Money
Step 1 we need to launch a new symbol for silver money. In 1787 (year of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia) a Dollar, the original "$", was 371.25 grains of pure silver (the average silver content of Pieces of Eight or Spanish Reals as measured by a congressional commission). The colonials' main currency was Spanish dollars. Our founding fathers keep their accounting records (silver as the unit of account) in Spanish Silver Dollars-Reals. Since the silver dollar symbol $ has been high jacked by the banking cartel to represent rag money in the form of paper federal reserve notes, we need a new symbol for the ISO Silver Currency XAG.
You can find the Silver Currency Symbol I created and now offer up in the competition of ideas and memes at my website.
Let freedom ring with the sound of real silver money again!
Thanks so much dear reader for listening to my tale and contemplating my recommendations. May the winds of change fill your sails and may there always be plenty of silver in your pockets. Aye, Aye Matey, remember captain flint's immortal words "Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight!"4
Footnotes:
1. FYI, Dorothy wasn't wearing ruby slippers in the original Wizard of Oz. She was wearing silver slippers as she skipped down the yellow brick road (aka gold bullion) with Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion. The Wizard of Oz was an adult allegory hidden inside a children's story. Frank Baum wrote about the late nineteenth century American battle between Wall Street and middle America. Google it!
2. Beware "regulated" is also code for new legislation sponsored by the same incompetent financial interests that brought you the systemic risk that lead to the current financial meltdown. For an excellent map of the current financial crisis, a must read is Meltdown by Thomas Woods. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.
3. Why name these guys? Paul Volker helped tricky Dick Nixon engineer the vastly immoral violation of our contractual obligations under the Bretton Woods agreements to exchange gold for dollars. This moved the entire world onto a system of fiat currencies for the first time in history. Remember this and you will understand how the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of the children. This is part of the systemic risk that created the current financial crisis. And last but not least Sir Alan Greenspan The Fallen Angel. Read or reread Alan Greenspan's article Gold and Economic Freedom published in 1967 in Ayn Rand's Capitalism the Unknown Ideal and you will Grok the allusion to Fallen Angel. Ok, for those of you who are too literal, no I am not implying that Alan once sat on the right hand of god. Two bits for those of you who figured out who the "not" god might be.
4. This quote is a reference to Edwin Vieira, Jr.'s monumental two volume scholastic work on the history of the American dollar Pieces of Eight. If you can beg, borrow or steal a copy of these books, do. No, I do not let my extensively glossed copies (my kindergarten teacher would be so displeased with me on so many levels) out of my library. Sorry.
