$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GoIllini', '
')OK; why does the federal government then also have the power to "regulate the value of money?" More importantly, the federal government isn't charged with the power to "measure gold into 1-oz coins and regulate them like weights and measures"; it's charged with the power to make, or "coin" money.
PeakOil is You
Economics/Math (split from OPEC thread)
Re: Economics/Math (split from OPEC thread)
by bdmarti » Mon 09 Oct 2006, 14:04:25
Just so we all know that I don't just make things up, I'd like to quote from the supreme court case Hepburn v. Griswold of 1870.
This case said the "legal tender" law passed under Lincoln, and resulting in the inflated "greenbacks" was not legal, in that the government could not enforce "legal tender" for debts incurred prior to the passage of a legal tender law for a number of constitutional reasons.
Here's a quote from the opinion of the court:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')But can a power to impart these qualities to notes, or promises to pay money, when offered in discharge of pre-existing
debts, be derived from the coinage power, or from any other power expressly given?
It is certainly not the same power as the power to coin money. Nor is it in any reasonable or satisfactory sense an appropriate or plainly adapted means to the exercise of that power. Nor is there more reason for saying that it is implied in, or incidental to, the power to regulate the value of coined money of the United States, or of foreign coins. This power of regulation is a power to determine the weight, purity, form, impression, and denomination of the several coins, and their relation to each other, and the relations of foreign coins to the monetary unit of the United States.
Nor is the power to make notes a legal tender the same as the power to issue notes to be used as currency. The old Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, was clothed by express grant with the power to emit bills of credit, which are in fact notes for circulation as currency; and yet that Congress was not clothed with the power to make these bills a legal tender in payment. And this court has recently held that the Congress, under the Constitution, possesses, as incidental to other powers, the same power as the old Congress to emit bills or notes; but it was expressly declared at the same time that this decision concluded nothing on the question of legal tender. Indeed, we are not aware that it has ever been claimed that the power to issue bills or notes has any identity with the power to make them a legal tender. On the contrary, the whole history of the country refutes that notion. The States have always been held to possess the power to authorize and regulate the issue of bills for circulation by banks or individuals, subject, as has been lately determined, to the control of Congress, for the purpose of establishing and securing a National currency; and yet the States are expressly prohibited by the Constitution from making anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender. This seems decisive on the point that the power to issue notes and the power to make them a legal tender are not the same power, and that they have no necessary connection with each other.
....
We are obliged to conclude that an act making mere promises to pay dollars a legal tender in payment of debts previously contracted, is not a means appropriate, plainly adapted, really calculated to carry into effect any express power vested in Congress; that such an act is inconsistent with the spirit of the Constitution; and that it is prohibited by the Constitution.
a couple years after this case, two new "friendly" judges were appointed and this ruling was overturned, along with the first 100 years of precedent in the US in terms of currency laws.
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Re: Economics/Math (split from OPEC thread)
by GoIllini » Wed 11 Oct 2006, 13:31:25
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bdmarti', 'I')f you wish to have a unit of money called a "dollar" and you grant the government the ability to "coin" dollars, then it is also a rather useful tool for the government to have the authority to declare what exactly is a "dollar" in terms of something like gold or silver. Thus, a dollar could be 1oz of silver. The government would have the authority to coin such dollars out of silver.
Other banks or entities would be free to make all the silver coins they wanted, and they could possibly even call them dollars if they had an oz of silver, but they most certainly could not call them dollars if they were not what the government defined a dollar to be.
Other banks or entities would be free to make all the silver coins they wanted, and they could possibly even call them dollars if they had an oz of silver, but they most certainly could not call them dollars if they were not what the government defined a dollar to be.
This is one interpretation. What happens when the U.S. government changes what the value of a "dollar" is? Say I go into the bank, give them a large, pre-1860 penny, and they give me back an indian head penny, because the federal government redefined what a penny was. This was obviously legal.
Coins not made by the U.S. government but treated as such were almost always frowned upon or considered illegal. There are accounts of the secret service shutting down various goldsmiths during the Colorado gold rush, for example. No well-established bank ever really made coins, except for a few very odd cases under license from the U.S. Mint.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')"To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;"
Isn't it interesting how the ability to regulate "weights and measures" is right there with the ability to coin money? Could it be better that we all use the same definitions of OZ an LB when measuring money commodities, and thus a standard, legaly binding definition of such measures is a good thing? Or maybe they just lumped these things together arbitrarily...
I see them as the same thing; specifically enumerated economic powers within the states. The federal government had the power to regulate the trade of commodities; it also had the separately stated power of fixing the value of money.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')o. Mosty certianly not when one is discussing a legal document such as the constitution. All clauses in the document are relevant.
Your disneyland analogy is hopelessly off the mark.
That's great, but there's a comma there. I'll admit the framers saw these two as related (see above response), but in a legal document, the fact that the clauses have separate verbs means that the powers really don't go together.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Yes I am.
I agree that nearly all the citizens of the US are blind to the constitutional fraud perpetuated by the elite upon the masses in the form of the FED.
I'm claiming that even if this were true, your argument is moot. The Supreme Court, Congress, the President, the Fed and everyone else in power believes this is constitutional, along with 99.5% of the populace, and it's been this way for about 90 years. If enough people accept an interpretation of a document long enough, that becomes the document's meaning.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou don't need to convince the masses of it's legality, as the winner writes the history books and the text books. Simply spout out in the classroom that it's true often enough and all too few people will examine or question the issue at all.
What you need is to put a few corrupt judges in place such that they will allow the FED in it's initial state to exist. Then you can jump on a calamaty like the depression and take away everyone's gold in the name of the common good...while people are a bit too hungry and desperate to argue much. Then over the course of the next 3 generations take small steps to whittle away at the gold standard bit by bit...just a tiny bit so that you don't rile up the populace too much at once.
This is an interesting conspiracy theory. Do you have any proof that certain presidents appointed corrupt judges? Were any of them convicted of fraud? Any of them impeached for accepting bribes?
Most conspiracies on such a scale are extremely difficult, if not impossible to carry out. You could argue we had stupid judges, but not corrupt ones.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Obviously? You are making an assertion here that I feel you should back up.
You tell me why the government taxes and borrows when it has the power to print.
I think that it is in large part necissary to maintain the illusion of value in the fiat currency. If the government showed it's true face and just ran the presses it wouldn't be able to shift the blame on inflation as easily.
