Freedom-Fighters Forum

The Constitutional Broadside
V1 N8 A PUBLICATION OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY COUNCIL

IT’S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING

People often say, Its not the money; it’s the principle.

In this broadside, we direct attention not just to the principle of the thing; we are concerned about the money of our nation and about the principles upon which it is based.

Even though you may think that we push elementariness to the point of ridiculous redundancy, we trust that you who are true patriots will join with us in a deeper look at our money.

Many people have been deceived in thinking that the questions of money and its creation and management are far too complex for them to understand. Such folks just throw up their hands in dismay and leave the whole question to the “experts”.

That is exactly what those “experts” have tried so hard for so long to accomplish. “Smart Burglars” are always on the alert to locate houses to burgle that are left unattended.

THERE CAN BE NO LIBERTY WITHOUT MONEY

We know of lots of people who disdain any thought about “money”. They have heard that it was once called “filthy lucre” or “the root of all evil”. So they try to sweep all questions about our medium of exchange under the rug and pretend that they are “too spiritual”, or too busy, to think about such a sordid thing as the creation and management of money.

But we notice with deep gratitude and reverence that even the LORD, our god, commanded that all his people pay a tithe of their total income to his Prophets and he asked the question. Will a man rob God?

All thinking people know that there are many signs of great danger and trouble in our country today. These are the people we try to reach. We trust that before all liberty is lost, enough bright ones will see that ignorance and apathy about our national money policy will destroy and chances we might still have to maintain ourselves in peace and freedom.

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW THAT HURTS YOU

It’s what you know for certain that just aint so. That’s what really does you in”

We were all told when we were kids in school that the reason the Boston Tea Party dumped the tea in the harbor was that they didn’t like “taxation without representation.” That was true enough, but it was not even half the truth. The rest of the truth is shown clearly in the words of the infamous Stamp Act. Those who look at it carefully with understanding see the truth.

The Bostonian Patriots didn’t mind paying taxes all that much. They had been taxing Boston for over a hundred years without rebelling. Here is what our teachers did not tell us clearly. The thing they got so mad about was this: The Tea Tax had to be paid in British money. They had been coining money in Massachusetts for over a hundred years and had used it in their commerce. They paid no tax on their money. They were unwilling to pay tribute to the money lending bankers of London who created British money; this had the effect of demonetizing their own money and put them under the clutches of the money barons of Europe by making their own money invalid. This was clear evidence of danger to them. They were to be subjugated perpetually to the evil tyranny of money creators who seize the power of government to support their tyranny. The American Patriots were not about to bow down in financial slavery to money crating London bankers.

The so-called “tea-tax” was the last straw. It broke the camel’s back. They rebelled and fought for their liberty. They backed the signers of the Declaration of Independence and swore an eternal covenant with each other, saying, “To this cause we give our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

 

Indeed it does. But to understand just how money grows, it may take a bit of semantic adjustment. Truthfully, money, or better said, the real wealth, that makes man’s survival possible is produced regularly and sent to us daily by Divine Providence. It comes free of charge with the compliments of our all-wise and benevolent Heavenly Father. He gives to mankind enough and to spare. By His Grace alone we survive from day to day. All we need to do is to obey his divine laws.

WEALTH, MONEY AND DEBT

WEALTH. There are almost as many definitions of wealth as there are persons who make up meanings for words. What the word, wealth, means to you is to a very large extent defendant upon your sense of values. To a man desperately ill and despairing of his life, health would be more desirable than to own all the property of earth. To such a person, health might be considered the greatest wealth in the world.

Generally speaking, wealth is considered to be property that is capable of being owned and has the capacity to satisfy human wants. On the other hand, the value of wealth is the estimate of its worth that is placed upon it either by the person who owns it or by someone who desires to acquire it. This sense or estimate of value is subject to change from day to day and from person to person.

VALUE IN THE MARKET PLACE is set and established by the price at which a commodity is sold. If you own a commodity and someone is willing to pay you a price, and you sell at his price, the value of the wealth was agreed upon by both of you. If you think it is worth more to you than he will pay, your concept of its worth to you causes you to keep it. If what he offers to you is worth more to you than what he is willing to buy from you, you sell.

THE BASIS OF THE PROFIT SYSTEM. If you received more for what you sold than you thought it was worth, you made a profit. If the buyer paid less than he thought the product was worth, he made a profit. This is the crucial and basic principle that underlies the profit system. It is the principle that makes it possible for both the seller and the buyer to profit from the transaction. Too many people think that there is only so much wealth available in man’s “pie” and that when someone takes a piece, he has decreased the total wealth available. There is enough and to spare for everyone. Some of these folks think that when someone sells something, he takes advantage of the “poor peon” who buys. If the market is free and the laws of the market are allowed to work, there is enough for everyone and everyone profits from the market.

TRUE VALUE. Some of the most valuable things in existence cannot be bought or sold. You simply cannot buy life. You cannot buy time. Air is for everyone; the wind bloweth where it listeth and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Love is a happening that is not for sale and character cannot be weighed in a balance.

GOD’S ETERNAL GRACE. The min of man is simply staggered when it attempts to comprehend and encompass the grace of our Creator. He maketh the sun to shine and moves our planet on its swirling path through eternal spheres. Who knows the worth of life and the power of living things? The sun shines each day and bathes the earth in wealth beyond the comprehension of the mind of man. Living plants, the grass and trees, and the plankton of the seas, gather in the rays of energy that stream to us daily from the sun and turns them into food for man and beast. Who can truly measure the wealth of one living grain of wheat? With soil and water; with a measure of heat and a small amount of carbon dioxide to breathe, one grain of wheat can feed a nation if you allow its life-force to function and multiply.

FOOD IS WEALTH. Soil is wealth. Energy is wealth. Knowledge is wealth. Machines are wealth. A factory is wealth. The laws of nature are the greatest source of wealth on earth. Gravity pulls moisture from the clouds to water the plains and puts snow flakes on the mountain top. This force of nature is wealth beyond the comprehension of any man. Who can place a price upon a water fall and be sure he has measured its true and total worth? To an engineer, it can run a dynamo and lift a million burdens from the weary shoulders of hungry men. To an artist, it may be a thing of beauty that fills his soul and helps him to tap the inspiration and motivation of divinity.

THE GREATEST MIND that ever tabernacle in flesh said, “Lay not up treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal.” He gave up his life to point our minds in the direction of the greatest source of wealth, the true wealth of God and of Eternity.

THE MESSAGE OF GOD in our time is the same one He gave to Father Adam; “Multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. I give you dominion over the earth and of everything that creepeth thereon. Go to now and till the garden of earth. Eat your bread by the sweat of your face but remember that I have placed thorns and thistles in your pathway to plague and torment you. I have “one this because I know that ease and comfort alone will destroy you. I have given you a help mate and you shall cleave to her and to none else. I have written my laws upon the tablet of your heart, and on hers, to guide you through your short night of earth-life. My Spirit will teach you the truth line upon line but Satan is loosed upon you. The things of my law you may do, but of Satan’s lies, you shall have no part.” Next to life, itself, man’s greatest wealth is his divinely given free agency. Freedom to think to make choices, to love and to labor; these are among the greatest items of wealth for man. So long as he serves God with all his might, mind and strength, he can never be truly poor. All the power man needs is available to him by obedience to God’s divine law. He has said,”..know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

 

EVEN CHILDREN “know what money is” At least they think they do. But strange as it may seem, the stuff which we call money is really not what we assume it is. But you say, “Why not? It will buy things, I can pay my taxes with it. I can pay my debts with it and when I get a receipt marked “paid in full” I’m free of the debt. Doesn’t that make it money?” No, it doesn’t.

WEALTH is not money and money is not wealth. You can’t eat money. You can’t wear it or warm your house with it. You can’t even put it in the bank and have any real faith that it will be there and be paid to you on demand. This is one of the most important things you can ever learn about money. In our present world you can be certain that it will not remain a constant and measurable substance.

MONEY is an abstract concept. It exists only in the mind of man. It is a concept that we can symbolize. When we have created a symbol that we refer to as money, that symbol is still only a symbol. The minute it ceases to be a symbol, it has no further function that we can call a monetary function. So long as we remember that the stuff we refer to as money in our everyday affairs is only a symbol, we can maintain some semblance of a claim to monetary sanity.

GOLD IS NOT MONEY. It is a commodity. It is property. It is a rare and beautiful metal that has great utility in man’s life. It is one of the best materials on earth for putting caps on teeth. It is exquisite for jewelry. A wedding ring of gold is a marvelous symbol of eternal love and devotion. But gold is not money. It is one of the properties of man that he loves to own because it is beautiful, imperishable, rare and is always in demand in every nation. But it is the best and most universally acceptable material in the world that can be used as a money symbol.

CERTIFICATES OF DEBT are not money. It is true that many promissory notes, such as Federal Reserve Notes, are printed and circulated in lieu of money. They are represented by their creators as money and we use them as if they were real money. But they, by themselves, are not money no matter what the government and the Federal Reserve Banks says about them. They are at best cheap substitutes for real money.

PLAY MONEY that children use in the game called Monopoly is not real money. It is a good toy to play games with, but it is not money.

FIAT MONEY

In Noah Webster’s time, the time of the founding of our Nation, the word fiat was defined in his dictionary in these words: “Let it be done; a decree; a command to do something. After the “Civil War” the term “fiat money” came into the language. This was a term of derision used by the money lenders and money creators of hat time to destroy the interest free government money created by Lincoln. They called it fiat money because it was created by act of government. Since that time, the term, fiat money, has been in the American version of the English language. It is a good word and is in standard dictionaries today.

Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1956 defines it this way: “Fiat money: U.S. paper currency of government issue which is made legal tender by fiat or law, does not represent, or it not based upon, specie, and contains no promise of redemption. “Specie is defined in that dictionary as “coin, usually, gold or silver.” At that period of our financial history, 1956, the so called paper money of The United States still bore this statement in fine print:

“This not is legal tender for all debts, public and private, and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States Treasury, or at any Federal Reserve Bank.” The World Book Encyclopedia Dictionary, 1968 Ed. Gives this definition for the word, “Fiat Money: U.S. paper currency made legal tender by decree of government but not convertible into coin.” $10,000 Federal Reserve Note, series 1969, bears this legend: “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” All “money” of the United States Government today is fiat money. It is fiat by definition and phoney in fact.

SO WHAT?

What is fiat money today? It is money created by government. Note, we don’t say, “government”. We say, “Government”. Fiat money of today is money created by the give-away activities of government, hense, government debt. But what has that to do with the value of your so-called dollar of today? Here in a nutshell is how it works. The Government blows the dough. It pays out more money than it takes in. How can it do this?

GIVERNMENT DEBT

The government writes bad checks by overdrawing its account. Like Federal Revenue sharing of today. It simply lies about what it is doing. The government is sharing its debt, not its revenue. When it pays out money that it does not have in the bank, it is overdrawing its account. This means that it goes that much farther into debt. To do this, it “sells” bonds, certificates of debt. It borrows “money” by printing government bonds. These are placed in the portfolios of financial institutions such as Federal Reserve banks, savings and loan companies and in the hands of private individuals. This creates new so-called “money.”

Here is the word of a great financial authority on the subject. It is a quote from a talk given by the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in his speech to the annual Intermountain Banking Seminar held at Utah State University, Nov. 18, 1971. He said, in part, “The borrowing was carried on in such a manner as to be monetized, having the same effect as if the Government had printed the money to buy goods and services.”

MONETIZED DEBT

Monetized? What does that mean: It simply means that the debt was turned into money. Not real money, you understand, but fiat money. It is somewhat like what happens when you go to the bank to “borrow” money on your note. When you give a note to the bank, the bank takes a first mortgage on everything that you own. It uses the mortgage as proof that it has final control of your assets. It uses those assets as the basis or backing for your credit. It monetizes your real estate and all your property. The bank “issues” “money” to you by creating that money; new money. It turns your property into money. Your property is monetized. The money thus created is deposited to your account in the bank. It is done by writing figures in the bank’s ledger. Your “deposit” in the bank is “money”. It is banker’s fiat money. You can spend it. You can write a check on it and pay your taxes or buy groceries with it.

 

The constitution of The United States provides for the coinage of money-real money. It does not provide for any other kind of money, fiat, Federal Reserve Notes, bank deposit money, or any other kind of phoney play money. It strictly forbids any other kind of money excepting real money.

PAPER, or Fiat money: The Founders were well acquainted with bad money. They had millions of it in the form of “Continental Congress” money. It had proved so worthless that the people coined a new phrase to cover it; “It’s not worth a continental.”

Constitutional, money was to be money that was coined. They specifically forbade the making of anything to be legal tender except Gold or Silver.

Legal Tender: Legal, real money:

The Constitution says, Article 1, Sec. 8: “Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standards of weights and measures.”

This means that no one except congress shall create money. The Constitution says further in Article 1, Section 10: “No State shall coin money; or, make anything but gold or silver legal tender in payments of debts:…”

COIN

What did the Founding Fathers consider money, real money, to be? “Constitutional money?”

Look at the language they used when they talked to each other and when they wrote what they thought.

Noah Webster, one of their contemporaries; one of them, produced Noah Webster’s Dictionary and published it in 1828. Here is his definition of the word coin, reproduced photographically exactly as it was published then.

COIN, n. [Sp. cu a; Port. Cunho, a die to stamp money; SP. Acu ar, to coin or impress money, to wedge; Port. Cunhar; It. Conio, a die; coniare, to coin; Fr. Coin; Ar. —, to hammer, forge or stamp. The sense is, to strike, beat, or drive, coinciding with the French coigner, or cogner. Hence we see that coin, whether it signifies a corner, a wedge or a die, is from the same root, from thrusting, driving.]

Primarily, the die employed for stamping money. Hence, 1. Money stamped; a piece of metal, as gold, silver, cooper, or other metal, converted into money, by impressing on it marks, figures or characters. To make good money, these impressions must be made under the authority of government. That which is stamped without authority is called false or counterfeit coin. Formerly, all coin was made by hammering; but it is now impressed by a machine or mill.

Current coin is coin legally stamped and circulating in trade.

Ancient coins are chiefly those of the Jews, Greeks and Romans, which are kept in cabinets as curiosities.

COIN, n.t. To stamp a metal, and convert it into money; to mint.

Coin did not mean “print”. Coin meant to take either gold or silver and strike it with a hammer or a press so as to put upon its surface a symbol or a legend that would identify that particular piece of metal in such a way that it would be a coin. Being made out of gold or silver it would have specific worth in and of itself. It would be real. It would be money. It would be real money. It would not be “fiat money”

Now why on earth would they think of making their “real money” in this way?

THEY NEEDED A YARDSTICK

A YARDSTICK. Everyone knows what a yardstick is. It is a measuring rod that is three feel long. But how long is a foot? Twelve inches, you say. But how long is an inch? 1/36^th of a yard? You must be kidding. How long is a yard?

What determines the length of a yard? Who sets its standard? Who would want a yardstick that would shrink or stretch according to the whim of the fellow doing the measuring?

REAL MONEY is a symbol of value both in trades made today and in years to come. It is both a measure of value and store of value. If “money” cannot be treaded either today or tomorrow, anytime any place in the world for any commodity, or any service, or any money of any other nation, and if it does not carry its value forward in time, it is not real money.

Did they think that there was enough gold or silver in the country to satisfy all of the needs of the people for money? No. They were not stupid. They knew that they would need a “substitute money” to be used in addition to their “specie” or real money. They were aware that they could print certificates that would be redeemable in real money. They knew that as long as the money substitutes were redeemable in real money, people would accept the certificates just as readily as they would accept the coins.

 

John Maynard Keynes, of England and Harvard, and his hallucinating followers, persuaded our government to go off the Gold Standard in 1933.

They claimed that gold was useless as a money base: that it was actually worse than nothing.

They sold the idea that our nation should go into debt; that we should spend and spend and spend without regard to income. They taught that we should disperse our assets, giving to the “have-not” people both in our own country and around the world. This, said these socialists, was our duty; that doing so would make the world more prosperous.

They said that it really doesn’t matter how much debt we owe because we “owe it to ourselves”. Their reason for advocating debt, they said, was that “spending and spending without regard in income was “pump priming” such was the deceit they used to convince the nation that the more money it owed, the better off it would be.

Their next sophistry was to convince the government that it should confiscate all the gold held by the citizens of the nation. Supposedly, this gold would then all belong to the Nation as a whole. They then passed the Banking and Gold acts of 1 933 and 1934. These acts, with the Presidential Executive Orders that related to them, form the basic foundation of much of our present financial and economic policies. Essentially, these “laws” and Executive Orders gave the use of our gold to the Federal Reserve Bank System.

Whole books could be, and have been, written on this subject, and the whole truth has never been told to the public. Perhaps it never will be told.

One basic concept that was generic to the whole Keynesian notion of money was the idea that a gradual and controlled inflation, or expansion, of our money supply would make our nation more prosperous. Their basic idea was that the money should be inflated at a faster rate than the productivity of the nation increases. Their idea was that an inflation of about 2 ½ percent in any given year.

This was like saying that the government can pass a law that makes it moral and legal to steal if you don’t steal more than 2 ½ percent in any given year.

We are now waging a life and death struggle to keep the rising tide of inflation from destroying our whole economic system.

The Unconstitutional money of the United States, the fiat money that is issued without regard to any basic standard of measurement of value, will and is contributing to the destruction of our nation.

BANKER’S MONEY

Suppose that you “borrow” $1,000 from a Country Bank, pledging your assets as “security”. The Bank probably deposits this “loan” to your account. If so the Bank sets aside $16.5% or $165.00 of this amount as a “legal reserve” for this deposit. After that, the full $835.00 balance still on deposit can be loaned again by your Bank.

Suppose, however, that you write a $400.00 check against this $1,000.00 The Bank pays out $400 and reduces its “legal reserve” to $99 or 16.5% of your $600 balance. Thus, they have a remaining “loanable deposit” of $501 the difference left to them after setting aside the “legal reserve” required by your $600

When your $400 check is deposited in a bank, the receiving bank will set aside a legal reserve of $66 and have a remaining “loanable deposit” of $334 You can see that the $835 is still existing as “loanable deposit” in banks.

Thus, you can see that when you have “monetized” your assets by taking a loan, you have helped create new money. This is true because bank deposits are used as if they were “real money”

The Bank is always sure to get new and additional assets in the form of notes and mortgages as security on its new money loans. Thus, you have a very expansionist method of creating new money when the public demands it by monetizing assets.

Now this same thing happens in the case of the Federal Government when it “borrows” For instance, take “Revenue sharing” The Federal Government writes a check for $15,000,000. It sends this to the State of Utah. The Treasurer in Utah cashes the check by depositing it in our local “Country Bank”. The Bank must keep on deposit as a “legal reserve” 16.5% of the $15 million. But Utah can write checks against the total, just as you did on your loan. When the state sends a check to Salt Lake City for $1,500,000.00 Salt Lake City for $1,500,000.00 Salt Lake City’s Treasurer simply deposits the money in the bank at the same instant that the check is cashed by the bank. So the full amount of the original Bank. Even if the State of Utah pays it out for a new building the contractor deposits the money and it all stays in some bank all the time.

In this way you can see that the Federal Government wrote a “bad check” This is true because the Federal Government did not receive a payment in the form of taxes or other income to cover the check. The government went in debt. “The debt was created in such a manner as to be monetized, having the same effect as if the government had printed money to buy goods and services.”

The bank must hold on deposit only a certain percentage of its total deposits. City Banks, those in metropolitan centers, must hold a little larger percentage than do Country Banks such as those in Salt Lake City. Country Banks must hold only 16.5% is the bank’s “legal reserve” which it must have on deposit at all times. If on a given morning it does not have 16.5% of its total deposit on reserve then it must that day either borrow money from some source such as the Federal Reserve or it must sell off some assets. It must have its legal reserve on deposit at all times.

Fiat, or banker’s money can be called or destroyed, almost on a moment’s notice. This is brought about by putting into reverse the process by which it was created This calling process is put into effect either by the person who put up his assets to be monetized in the first place or by the bank who made the loan. If the borrower pays off his loan, the money that was based on his assets or deposits that were created by monetizing his assets is called or destroyed.

On the other hand, the Bank can call his loan. This means that either the bank refuses to renew a renewable loan or he demands payment on the loan that is made on a “demand” basis; made on a note that can be called at any time by the Bank. The borrower must either pay off his note or the bank takes ownership and control of his assets and pays off the note.

As a practical matter, vast power over whether new money can be created or existing money destroyed is had by The Open Markets committee of the Federal Reserve Bank. This committee is composed of the seven members of The Board of Governors of The Federal Reserve and by the twelve Presidents of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks Thus, nineteen men, who meet regularly, can and do decide to a very large degree how much or how little money there will be in circulation. They have many ways to enforce their powers. They set the rate of interest the local Federal Reserve Member Banks must pay for the money they borrow from the Fed. They set the discount rate on such things as commercial paper that is pledged for creation of new money. They decide how liberal member banks can be in making new loans or how strict they must be in calling existing loans.

It is true that the Federal Government also exercises very significant control, or effect, on the money market. This they do by their various borrowings through the sale of U.S,. Government Bonds by the Treasury, or by so –called independent bureaus of the government.

In the final decisions made as to the creation or destruction of fiat money, the higher powers of finance who exercise almost unbelievable power over the heads of the Federal Reserve Banks are almost virtual dictators who rule over the day to day affairs of the people of our country.

FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES are certificates of debt. By no stretch of the imagination can a debt be considered to be an asset. It is a promise to pay. A debt is an asset to the person who owns the debt. The Federal Reserve owes the debt or they would not call a note by the name note. A note is a promise to pay. But the trouble with Federal Reserve Green Stamps is tha the Federal Reserve does not intend to pay and will never pay you real money in exchange for their note. They will give you another bad check to cover the one you hold but by no stretch of the imagination can you believe that you can collect real money for a Federal Reserve Play Money note.

REAL MONEY

THE SYMBOLS that we call money cannot be considered real money unless they meet this one test: They must be universally acceptable in exchange for goods and services and have a constant value.

YARDSTICK

Here is why we need a measuring stick It should be made of gold.

The most basic and standard unit of measure for reporting the value of money is gold.

There could be other units of measure. On the other hand, every person on earth can tell, or easily find out, the meaning of the phrase, one troy ounce of gold.

We do not need fifty billion tons of gold in order to peg the value of a dollar to the value of a grain of gold. All we need to do is to allow our dollars to buy gold freely in the world market and the free market of the world will adjust itself very rapidly.

Before long the dollar will find a relationship to gold and to all of the currencies of the world.

Everyone knows how long a mile is and the size of an acre because the Bureau of Standards has set the length of a yard. It is the length of a certain piece of steel when that piece is at a certain temperature. It doesn’t make any difference what standard you accept for the length of a yard so long as everyone knows it and it is fixed absolutely or with the greatest possible certainty.

THE SOLUTION

Give us a yard-stick, a measuring rod, by which we can tell the whole world the exact nature and value of an American Dollar.

In the meantime, we must remember that the dollar is not wealth. Neither is gold. They are measuring rods in the world of finance.

After that, we must know what real wealth is and spend our time producing wealth.

If people want to sit on the bottom of their lab and cry for someone to feed them, they will not produce wealth. Or if they demand an ever increasing amount of wage for doing less and less, they will never have what it takes to compete in the world market.

If people try to live forever by going more and more into debt, they are destines to wear chains for ornaments.

Right now, we need to know the true and permanent size of a dollar. We can finally set this only in the market place by being sure that we produce the wealth we need.

Finally, we must produce only the amount of true money needed to produce and trade our wealth efficiently.

A proper step in this direction is to allow citizens to buy and hold gold. Cut gold free in the market place and a whole bunch of miracles will take place if the people go about their work in a manner so as to serve God and demonstrate their true love for themselves and their neighbors. They will produce and they will prosper and they will be free. Anything they need beyond this, God will provide.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

We have considered money, the reason for it, its nature and some of its draw-backs. We considered how it is created and some things we might do with it.

But is that all we need to do? by no means, it is only an introduction to the problems we face in preserving our liberty under law.

THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE

Mary went to the grocery store to buy some tomatoes to garnish her Christmas salad. She could go along with the “special” on lettuce at 29 cents a pound. But she nearly blew a gasket when they asked her 69 cents a pound for fresh tomatoes

“Why such an exorbitant price?” she asked herself. She simple couldn’t understand it.

She knew that her dollar would buy food on Elm St., but she overlooked a vital detail. The merchant had to send her dollar to the farmer in Mexico to pay for the produce he imported. What difference does that make?

THE DOLLAR IN THE WORLD MARKET

Mary wouldn’t actually go herself to Mexico to pick tomatoes for her Christmas salad. She sends her money abroad to do the job instead. She would never dream of paying someone to come all the way from Central Africa to clean the faucet on her kitchen sink. But without giving the matter even a first thought – let alone a second thought- she sends her dollars all the way to Rhodesia to buy chromium. She just loves that shiny chrome that keeps her kitchen faucet from rusting right off the end of the water pipe.

In Great Grandmother’s day, the American dollar was a healthy and robust fellow. It had a lot of muscle. When it went around the earth in search of the good things the world had to offer, it had the strength to bring home the bacon.

But not so with Mary’s sick little play money paper trinkets of today. They have become the laughing stock of the whole world’s money market.

WHAT HAS MADE THE DIFFERENCE?

When Great Great Grandmother wanted to bake a loaf of bread, she had to find a dead tree and chop it up into fire wood. It took a lot of energy to cut cord-wood.

But not so with modern Mary. She doesn’t even have to strike a match to light the flame in the over. She flicks a switch and the thermostat turns on the heat.

What is the significance of the difference? Grandmother produced her own energy by eating the living things of earth and converting their energy into chopping power.

But Mary hires Ready Killowatt to chop her wood. She converts fossil energy from oil wells and coal mines into tireless electrical servants. The trouble with this procedure is this: The U.S. doesn’t have enough oil wells and the ones we have are running dry.

ENERGY VS THE DOLLAR

Grandmother and her pampered grandchildren John and Mary had and have some chores to do before eggs. Mary drives to the supermarket and trades in her Federal Reserve Green Stamp fiat money for Wheaties and sugared donuts.

Here is another very significant difference. Grandmother was taught to stay out of debt. Great Granddaughter Mary was taught that debt is an asset and that the more of it her country has, the richer she will be Grandmother learned that when she made a promise, the Lord expected her to keep it. Mary and John were taught that they would never have to pay off their money [debts because they owed the debt to themselves. Grandmother lived in the world of reality. She learned to restrain herself from stealing. Grand daughter has been taught by a bunch of socialists that the way to have prosperity is to make the government responsible for financial welfare of the citizens.

In Grandmother’s time the citizens allowed the government to create only enough money units to match the worth of their real wealth that they produced.

In Mary’s day, the government simply began cranking up the printing press and running off dollars as if they were as good as gold.

Mary then started sending her fiat dollars around the world to buy the luxuries she had been receiving from Grandpa’s labor. She will soon begin to learn that the people of the rest of the world are not completely ignorant fools.

The Mexican farmers want only good solid money to pay for his labor in raising tomatoes.

The Arabs are demanding solid money. Without it they won’t ship petroleum energy fuels to the U.S.A.

OUR SHRINKING DOLLARS

To stop inflation from destroying our economy, we must do these things:

1. Restrain ourselves and our government from trying to consume more than we produce.

2. Stop the “money making machine” from creating “fiat money” faster than we produce wealth.

3. Make our money certificates redeemable in constitutionally lawful money.

4. Pay with real wealth the debts we owe to the world.

YOUR CHRISTMAS DOLLARS

He whose divine birth we celebrate spoke very little about money. When the things he talked about are missing from a culture, it is impossible to have sound money. He spoke of love. He taught brotherhood. He demonstrated integrity and service. He said that a house built on a sandy foundation will not stand against the storm. Above all, He spoke of the reality and fatherhood of the ultimate, true, and living God as the proper guide for man.

He revealed the truth that Divine Law is the very rock foundation on which our lives, our nation, and our money system must be built if they are to endure.

The Master’s immortal story about The Good Samaritan tells with divine art something of the virtuous use of the practical stuff called money.

The Samaritan was a man of action. When he came upon a man in need, he saw him. He had compassion. “And he went to him, and he bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and he sat him upon his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.” He stayed all night with him” And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, “Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.”

Here is the spiritual use of money.

The Samaritan owned his animal. He was not only willing to give; he had the means of giving. He had money that was his own. He had bandages, medicine, food and water. Besides these, he gave of himself. He was a man of substance and character.

There are those who disdain and subconsciously attempt to avoid the privilege and the responsibility of ownership. Such people seem to feel that poverty and meekness are of necessity inter-related. They seem to believe that the more you have of both, the better; that the less money you have the more righteous you are.

No person can be truly and completely free on this earth if he cannot own and control his own property as did The Good Samaritan.

Money is a symbol that man has invented to make it easy and effective to exchange property and service. Properly thought of and used, money is a most spiritual asset. No doubt we will be held accountable before the Eternal Judge for our use and management of money.