There Will Be More...

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

Violence is, unfortunately, fungible.

As this society becomes more and more officially violent, it is probable that unofficial violence will also increase. In fact, it is almost a mathematical axiom. It is also one not comprehended by those most responsible for initiating the process.

Police and politicians seem baffled by the growing disenchantment with their class. They seem to expect people to behave toward them with respect and deference no matter what they do – by dint of the fact that what they do is Official and Legal.

Why are politicians – left and right – increasingly despised by reasonable people? Could it have anything to do with the fact that they will not leave people alone? That all they do – at great expense (to us) and with great pomposity – is decree how we will be allowed to live, what we must do and what we may not do? Most of these things being precisely none of their business to so order?

But they believe that it – that everything – is their business, which endows them with an effrontery so great they’ve lost all of the normal restraints that bind ordinary people. We have arrived at a point in our history that absolutely nothing is off the table, beyond the grasping control of these professional grifters – which is what they are. These are not people who earn an honest living by free exchange of value for value, as most of the rest of us do. These are people who take vast sums of money and then dispose of vast sums of money – none of it theirs by right.

They do so with an entitled insolence that is insufferable to those from whom the funds are mulcted. The worst part of it being that the mulcted are rendered legally defenseless against these outrages. A law is passed, an order given – and they must “stand and deliver,” as the old saying goes.

If one had a neighbor who behaved this way, one would bar the neighbor from one’s property and – if there was no alternative – defend oneself against such a violent busybody.

But what defense is there against the political class?

The Vote?

That is like trying to plug a leaky roof with sheets of copy paper. At best, the rivulets will temporarily lessen. The rain won’t let up.

Instead of protecting our rights, politicians spend their time gutting them, turning them into conditional privileges at best – to be further conditioned (or rescinded) at their pleasure. Nothing of ours is safe. Not our money, not our property, not our freedom to act and live as we see fit. There is no line over which these professional disposers of other people’s lives and property and liberties will not step as they are held back neither by ordinary human decency or legal restriction.

They have become a ruling caste, as entitled and arrogant as their feudal analogs.

The glib violence which inheres in their every act and statement has become so much a given that they hardly notice it anymore. When a new “plan” or other such is presented, the fact that what is being suggested involves more compulsion and violence, that people will have no choice, is never even mentioned. The discussion is increasingly centered only on the supposed merits of the “plan” – and alternatives to the “plan.” That is to say, other “plans.”

Resentment grows.

The average honest wage-earner in the productive economy now “owes” his Lord(s) more than a Medieval serf owed his Lord. The typical tax exaction – when one includes the income tax, the Social Security taxes (15 percent off the top for the self-employed), the taxes on their property and so on – approaches half of every dollar they earn. The burden has become so extreme that most people must now earn two incomes to support one family and work until they are too old to continue working. The oasis of financial security recedes ever farther into the distance, never to be reached.

The productive class would like to be left alone – would like for the mulching to cease. Meanwhile, the client class (their ranks swelling with Millennial Marxists) demands ever-more-mulcting for their unearned benefit, which the politicians are happy to oblige as they receive payment for their services in the form of ever-increasing power.

Social resentment swells.

As it does, more overt violence becomes necessary to keep the pressure cooker’s lid clamped in place.

Enter the Praetorians. Or what is styled law enforcement.

It is no accident that this term – which is brutally honest – has become the preferred one. Nor that these enforcers of the law wax brutal. Behave toward the citizenry as occupying soldiers, barking orders and expecting – demanding – immediate submission.

Resentment of this bullying is also increasing.

Which has the effect of justifying a kind of doubling-down by the enforcers – whose mental state is becoming exactly like that of an occupying army dealing with threatening partisans. A soldier of the Werhmacht and veteran of the drang nach Osten would understand completely the fearful bleat of “officer safety” eructed by the enforcers of the law.

More distrust. Dislike morphing into hatred, barely suppressed. On both sides.

It is none of it good.

And it is going to get worse.

Because violence is fungible.

Doug Casey On Why Gold Is Money

Authored by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,

It’s an unfortunate historical anomaly that people think about the paper in their wallets as money. The dollar is, technically, a currency. A currency is a government substitute for money. But gold is money.

Now, why do I say that?

Historically, many things have been used as money. Cattle have been used as money in many societies, including Roman society. That’s where we get the word “pecuniary” from: the Latin word for a single head of cattle is pecus. Salt has been used as money, also in ancient Rome, and that’s where the word “salary” comes from; the Latin for salt is sal (or salis). The North American Indians used seashells. Cigarettes were used during WWII. So, money is simply a medium of exchange and a store of value.

By that definition, almost anything could be used as money, but obviously, some things work better than others; it’s hard to exchange things people don’t want, and some things don’t store value well. Over thousands of years, the precious metals have emerged as the best form of money. Gold and silver both, though primarily gold.

There’s nothing magical about gold. It’s just uniquely well suited among the 98 naturally occurring elements for use as money…in the same way aluminum is good for airplanes or uranium is good for nuclear power.

There are very good reasons for this, and they are not new reasons. Aristotle defined five reasons why gold is money in the 4th century BCE (which may only have been the first time it was put down on paper). Those five reasons are as valid today as they were then.

When I give a speech, I often offer a prize to the audience member who can tell me the five classical reasons gold is the best money. Quickly now—what are they? Can’t recall them? Read on, and this time, burn them into your memory.

Money

If you can’t define a word precisely, clearly, and quickly, that’s proof you don’t understand what you’re talking about as well as you might. The proper definition of money is as something that functions as a store of value and a medium of exchange.

Government fiat currencies can, and currently do, function as money. But they are far from ideal. What, then, are the characteristics of a good money? Aristotle listed them in the 4th century BCE. A good money must be all of the following:

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  Durable: A good money shouldn’t fall apart in your pocket nor evaporate when you aren’t looking. It should be indestructible. This is why we don’t use fruit for money. It can rot, be eaten by insects, and so on. It doesn’t last.

  
  


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  Divisible: A good money needs to be convertible into larger and smaller pieces without losing its value, to fit a transaction of any size. This is why we don’t use things like porcelain for money—half a Ming vase isn’t worth much.

  
  


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  Consistent: A good money is something that always looks the same, so that it’s easy to recognize, each piece identical to the next. This is why we don’t use things like oil paintings for money; each painting, even by the same artist, of the same size and composed of the same materials is unique. It’s also why we don’t use real estate as money. One piece is always different from another piece.

  
  


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  Convenient: A good money packs a lot of value into a small package and is highly portable. This is why we don’t use water for money, as essential as it is—just imagine how much you’d have to deliver to pay for a new house, not to mention all the problems you’d have with the escrow. It’s also why we don’t use other metals like lead, or even copper. The coins would have to be too huge to handle easily to be of sufficient value.

  
  


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  Intrinsically valuable: A good money is something many people want or can use. This is critical to money functioning as a means of exchange; even if I’m not a jeweler, I know that someone, somewhere wants gold and will take it in exchange for something else of value to me. This is why we don’t—or shouldn’t—use things like scraps of paper for money, no matter how impressive the inscriptions upon them might be.

  
  

Actually, there’s a sixth reason Aristotle should have mentioned, but it wasn’t relevant in his age, because nobody would have thought of it…it can’t be created out of thin air.

Not even the kings and emperors who clipped and diluted coins would have dared imagine that they could get away with trying to use something essentially worthless as money.

These are the reasons why gold is the best money. It’s not a gold bug religion, nor a barbaric superstition. It’s simply common sense. Gold is particularly good for use as money, just as aluminum is particularly good for making aircraft, steel is good for the structures of buildings, uranium is good for fueling nuclear power plants, and paper is good for making books. Not money. If you try to make airplanes out of lead, or money out of paper, you’re in for a crash.

That gold is money is simply the result of the market process, seeking optimum means of storing value and making exchanges.

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Doug thinks the price of gold could hit $5,000 in the coming years. To help you take advantage of this rare opportunity, he’s sharing the specific method he’s used to make gains as large as 487%, 711%, and even 4,329% in previous gold bull markets. The “Casey Method” is unlike any other investing strategy. If used properly, it could make you HUGE gains over the next few years. Doug explains it all right here. You’ll also learn how to get instant access to a special report that names 9 gold stocks with huge upside. Each of these stocks could rise 100%, 200%, or more in the coming years. Click here to get started.

The History Of Money (In One Simple Infographic)

Today’s infographic from Mint.com highlights the history of money, including the many monetary experiments that have taken place since ancient times...

As VisualCapitalist"s Jeff Desjardins notes, some innovations have stood the test of time – precious metals, for example, have been used for thousands of years. Paper money and banknotes are also widespread in use, after first being turned to in China in 806 after a copper shortage prevented the minting of new coins.

Other experiments didn’t have much staying power. The adoption of strange currencies such as squirrel pelts, cowry shells, or parmesan cheese are only remembered for their peculiarity.

Further, other attempts to stabilize the monetary system were abandoned early as well. The original U.S. gold standard lasted just 54 years, after FDR ditched it during the Great Depression. The Bretton Woods version (gold-exchange standard) lasted even shorter, abandoned after being in place for 26 years when Nixon ended all convertibility between the U.S. dollar and gold in 1971.

THE NEWEST CHAPTER IN OUR MONETARY HISTORY

Although the infographic ends with the introduction of cryptocurrency in 2009, it should be noted that the newest chapter in the history of money is taking place right before our eyes.

The “War on Cash” has been accelerating in recent years, as governments and central banks have called for the elimination of high denomination banknotes. While these anti-cash motions have also been made in many Western countries, the most vivid example of the demonetization is currently happening in India.

In November 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi demonetized 500 and 1000 rupee notes, eliminating 86% of the country’s notes overnight. While Indians could theoretically exchange 500 and 1,000 rupee notes for higher denominations, it was only up to a limit of 4,000 rupees per person. Sums above that had to be routed through a bank account in a country where only 50% of Indians have such access.

There have been at least 112 reported deaths associated with this demonetization – including suicides and the passing of elderly people waiting in bank queues for days to exchange money. India’s largest organization of manufacturers, the All India Manufacturers Organization, also estimates in a report that micro-small scale industries suffered 35% jobs losses and a 50% dip in revenue in the first 34 days since demonetization.

While demonetization in India is off to a rough start, some believe it can still be ultimately successful in the long-term. Regardless, the “War on Cash” still has incredible global momentum – and the end result – however it turns out – will likely form another important chapter in the history of money.

The Real Value of Precious Metals

 

 

Informed readers understand that the mainstream media, owned by a handful of gigantic corporations, is constantly bombarding us with propaganda, mythology, and disinformation. Some of this brainwashing is easily noted because it is very recent and/or plainly absurd. However, most of us will have absorbed large quantities of this mythology unknowingly, simply because we have been bombarded with this brainwashing (literally) every day of our lives.

One important aspect of this brainwashing is the mythology surrounding the concepts of price and value. For most people, these words are synonymous, even though they refer to two, distinct concepts. Price is the simpler of the two concepts. It merely refers to what a particular vendor or service-provider charges for their good/service.

Value is an entirely distinct concept. Value is the metric we use to compute what something is actually worth. At this point, most readers will begin to glean the difference between these two concepts. Just because a merchant charges $50 as the price for a particular good does not mean that this good has a value of $50. As consumers, we understand that it is not uncommon for merchants to over-charge for their goods, meaning that the price exceeds the value.

Conversely (although much less common) we also encounter situations where the price of a particular good is less than its actual value. Perhaps the merchant is distressed, i.e. going out of business, or is simply having a “sale” on their merchandise. In such situations where value exceeds price, we classify such transactions as “a bargain” – we obtained more purchasing power than we expected from the fiat currency in our wallets.

Now that we have clearly distinguished the concepts of price and value we can address the brainwashing. How and why have the bankers (and their media mouthpieces) managed to get most people to equate price with value, most of the time? The “how” is the easier dimension to address. In perfectly functioning free-and-open markets (something which has never existed in the real world) price does equal value.

In perfect markets, no merchant can over-charge for their products because in “perfect markets” consumers have perfect information. If one merchant charges excessively for his/her products, consumers with perfect information simply move on to a shop which prices its products fairly (i.e. price = value). Similarly, in perfect markets where merchants also have perfect information, they would never under-price their products, so once again price = value. (Note that in our “perfect markets” we assume that merchants never seek to undercut each other by discounting their goods.)

Here we see the origins of the mythology. In theory, price could/should/does equal value. The bankers and their media sycophants simply pretend that we have perfect markets – even though such markets could never exist in the real world – and thus is born the myth that price = value.

Why do the bankers consider it so important to brainwash us with this mythology? Here we have multiple motives at work. At the top of the list is market manipulation. Informed readers know that the bankers manipulate most of our markets most of the time. Indeed, the Big Banks have already been caught and/or convicted of conspiring to serially manipulate many of our most-important markets – with gold and silver markets being two of the most-obvious examples.

However, in a world where the Sheep have been brainwashed to believe that price = value, the concept of price manipulation cannot even exist. If price supposedly equals value, then no matter how high or low the price, manipulation cannot exist. Where price is assumed to equal value, any price is deemed to be a correct/legitimate price. Thus we see one, prime motive for this branch of brainwashing: to cover up the serial price/market manipulations of the One Bank.

Arguably, there is an even bigger motive for indoctrinating us with the mythology that price = value. It is found in the worthless, fiat currencies we carry in our wallets. Why is it vitally important to the One Bank that the Sheep accept the mythology that price = value with respect to our paper fiat currencies?

Very simply, if the Sheep automatically assume that price = value then those Sheep will never ponder the question “what is the actual value of this fiat currency?” The Sheep never ask this question, because they assume they already know the answer: the value of the currency is the same as its price (i.e. exchange rate). It is only in a world where the Sheep understand that price and value are separate concepts where the bankers would have to worry about those Sheep even beginning to ponder the worthlessness of these fiat currencies.

Putting this all together, we now see why price/value brainwashing has been a top priority of the One Bank, for more than a century. It is only through reinforcing this delusion that the One Bank can continue to perpetrate its serial manipulation of our markets. If we properly understood the concept of value, we would automatically see through the manipulation of most markets, because we would notice the discrepancy between price and value.

If we properly understood the concept of value, we would long ago have rejected the fraudulent fiat currencies foisted upon us by our corrupt central banks because we would immediately comprehend that these fiat currencies have no value. In a world which clearly understood the distinction between price and value, the One Bank could not continue to exist.

The constant, massive crimes it commits in manipulating our markets would become transparent. The fraud that the central banks and Big Banks perpetrate in conning us into using their worthless paper currencies would become transparent. Of all the lies which have been drilled into our minds, the mythology that price = value may be the single, most-important myth to the banking crime syndicate.

Now that we have established that there is no inherent connection between price and value, and now that we have established how/why we have been programmed with this brainwashing, we can finally address the title to this piece. What is the real value of precious metals?

It is a very simple question, yet thanks to the One Bank, it is now almost impossible to answer that question. For more than a hundred years; we have absorbed the mythology that price = value. For more than a hundred years; our markets have been constantly manipulated – perverting the relative price levels of virtually all the goods and services in our economies to historic extremes.

A century ago; answering the question “what is the value of precious metals?” would have still been an elementary proposition, because the differential between price and value had not yet been skewed to absurd extremes. For example, little more than a century ago the gold/silver price ratio was still at a rational level – approximately 20:1.

We know that number was relatively legitimate because the gold/silver price ratio is the most-established, most well-known price relationship in the history of our species: 15:1. The legitimacy of this price ratio is beyond any possible argument for two reasons. To begin with, the gold/silver price ratio (15:1) is an almost perfect match for the gold/silver supply ratio (17:1), the relative occurrence of the two elements in the Earth’s crust.

The second reason why we can be absolutely certain of the legitimacy of the historic gold/silver price ratio is that it endured for more than 4,000 years – until the One Bank began its malevolent campaign to destroy that price ratio as a first step in demonetizing silver. What is the mythology constantly fed to us by the bankers to explain/justify the ultra-fraudulent, modern gold/silver price ratio (currently around 70:1)?

Silver is no longer a monetary metal. It is now an “industrial metal.”

Pure brainwashing. In most of the world (outside the Corrupt West), silver is universally regarded as money: a store of value that most of the world’s population still uses to store (and protect) their wealth. The fact that silver also has a plethora of very important industrial applications cannot make silver less valuable. It can only make it more valuable.

The bankers’ propaganda is perverse. The fact that silver is now an “industrial metal” (while still also being money) makes silver more precious than ever, thus the historic price ratio should have shrunk to less than 15:1 rather than exploded upward to the current, ultra-fraudulent levels we have seen for an entire century.

Unfortunately, being able to price gold in relation to silver (and vice versa) helps us very little – in a world where all other prices for goods/services have also been perverted to extreme differentials versus their actual value. Given this reality, where do we even begin in attempting to determine the value of gold and silver in relation to other goods?

There is no simple way to answer this. The value of any good is supposed to be determined in accordance with its supply/demand fundamentals. However, the One Bank has severed the connection between price and fundamentals in most of our markets. In this pseudo-reality, not only does price have no connection to value, but we have been deprived of all objective reference points in determining value as a function of supply and demand.

What is the real value of precious metals? Today, this is a question which can only be answered in negative terms: the real value of gold and silver has no connection at all to the paper prices for gold and silver, and no connection at all to the paper prices for other goods.

The reaction of most readers to this elementary conclusion will be “so what?” What must be understood is that rejecting the bankers’ paper prices for all goods and all services as being fraudulent and irrelevant is an important step in changing this paradigm of fraud. It is only once we recognize that we can never estimate value of terms of the bankers’ paper prices (and the paper itself) that we reach an epiphany. We determine the real value of precious metals and the real value of all goods and services in relation to each other.

What is the real value of an ounce of gold? What is the real value of a house? What is the real value of a tennis ball? We cannot answer that question in terms of “dollars”, because our dollars have no value.

How many tennis balls can we obtain for an ounce of silver? How many ounces of gold must we spend to buy a house? Pricing hard assets in terms of other hard assets. It is only once humanity begins to ask (and answer) such questions again that we can return to a world of sanity, where price and value are at least similar, if not synonymous. It is only in such a sane world where accurate estimates of value once again become feasible.

What is the value of any good or service? We can never answer any such question as a function of dollars. We can only answer such questions as a function of real money, i.e. gold and silver.

What is the real value of precious metals today? We cannot possibly produce a rational answer to that question, in an irrational world which prices everything in terms of scraps of worthless paper. We can never estimate value as a function of something that has no value.

It is only when we completely reject the concept of “dollars” as being nothing but more banker fraud and we begin to price items of value in terms of other items of value that humanity can re-learn the concept of value – and then begin to attach rational prices to the goods and services produced by our societies.

 

 

 

 

 

Please email with any questions about this article or precious metals HERE