Lawson for Congress

Americans today are slowly being crushed by our currency’s decline. Oil is $110 per barrel, gold is over $1,000 per ounce, and foreign currencies across the board are hitting new record highs against the dollar.

These prices and events are not theoretical concerns. Americans across the board are facing rising prices for food, energy, and manufactured goods. Unfortunately, however, we’re not supposed to talk about the dollar here. In fact, we have such a provincial view of money in the United States that your average American consumer doesn’t even have the ability to save him or herself from a collapsing paper currency. In other countries, however, consumers are much more sophisticated:

In Bolivia, billboards feature George Washington’s image on a $1 bill alongside a bright pink 500 euro note, encouraging savers to turn to the euro to tuck away money earned abroad or sent home in remittances.

“If the dollar’s going down … save it in Euros!!!” say the signs popping up around La Paz for Bolivia’s Banco Bisa.

Just try going down to your local bank and switching your savings account to Euros. Not so much. (You can visit RBC Centura and gain access to Canadian dollars fairly easily, however.)

American consumers shouldn’t feel badly about their lack of knowledge regarding the dollar crisis, however. It turns out that even the White House isn’t allowed to talk about the dollar. Here’s a memorable quote from a recent press conference on March 7 by Dana Perino and Edward Lazear, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers:

Q I’d like to follow up on their refusal to talk about the dollar, if I could. I mean, we’re in a kind of a bad situation here, when OPEC says the reason for $105 or $106 a barrel of oil is the falling value of the dollar — and you won’t address that issue. Where do we go to find out who is right?

MS. PERINO: Well, as he just said, the Treasury Secretary is where you go to talk about the dollar. It’s a longstanding policy that predates this administration, and I’m not going to change it today. But Treasury can talk about it.

Q I don’t expect you to change it, but I do expect you to be able to say whether OPEC is completely wrong about this, or whether there is at least something to their claim that the dollar is responsible for the high price of oil right now.

MS. PERINO: Wendell, I’m under strict instructions, and have been from the beginning, to not talk about the dollar, and I’m not going to get fired to satisfy your question. (Laughter.)

That’s funny, all right. It’s funny that the current crisis is cloaked in bureaucratic “secrecy”, and folks aren’t willing to be honest about a crisis of historic proportions.

Today, the Federal Reserve opened up the money spigots to bail out a broke investment bank. Not surprisingly, our currency continues its free-fall against commodities and other currencies. The American worker, saver, and retiree has never been so endangered as in today’s inflationary environment.

For folks who don’t understand why we’re in such danger, here’s the answer: un-Consitutional debt-backed paper money that can be created or destroyed at will by a private central bank. Right now, your salary and savings are being stolen by the rising cost of food, energy, and other necessities just so we can keep a corrupt system solvent.

It’s time for a change, and time for Americans to talk about the dollar again. My favorite quote from this recent post:

I urge all voters to apply this crucial test to their representatives before supporting them.

Make them commit squarely and unequivocally to these questions. Do you believe Congress should exercise its sovereign power as provided in the Constitution of the United States to create money and regulate the value thereof and control the circulating medium in the interest of the whole people? Or do you believe this sovereign power should be transferred to Banks of Issue?

Their answers will prove conclusively whether they are with the people or against them.

Or do you believe that Banking Corporations should issue a credit substitute and through it control the money and circulating medium of exchange of the people of the United States in their own interest?

Watch your presidential candidate carefully and see that he commits himself clearly on this vital question. It will be a true test of his honesty and fitness for office. Admitted ignorance on the monetary issue should not excuse him. The subject is as old as our government, and if he does not know enough about it now to answer these test questions, he is not qualified to fill the position he aspires to, and should not ask your votes.

These words were written in 1912. When’s the last time you considered the nature of money?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 14th, 2008 at 10:25 pm and is filed under banking, debt, fractional reserve banking, gold standard, inflation, monetary reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.