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Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby OilsNotWell » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 11:46:11

Hi aahala...

(sigh)...

Here's one link for you. All I would ask of a reader to do is take what I have said and do a modicum of effort, such as typing in a few google queries...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')EMORANDUM OF LAW: THE MONEY ISSUE


This brief is addressed to an issue commonly referred to as the "money" or "specie" issue which is based, in addition to other authority, upon Article 1, § 10, clause 1 of the United States Constitution which reads as follows:

"No State shall * * * coin Money; Emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."
This brief discusses this issue at length for the purpose of conclusively demonstrating the premises that constitutional money in our country can only be gold and silver coin and that the States are constitutionally compelled to operate on a specie basis. It is the contention herein that Article 1, § 10, clause 1 of the U. S. Constitution is an absolute prohibition upon the States which cannot be circumvented by permission or command of the federal government, and that such provision prohibits the States from utilizing any paper note or credit issued by any private banking institution, whether the same be Federal Reserve Notes, bookkeeping entries of liability or otherwise. ...


...Paper money was not only the instrument of theft, its vicious nature permeated the whole of society. In 1789, Peletiah Webster aptly described the entire social damage resulting from the experiments in paper money:

"Paper money polluted the equity of our laws, turned them into engines of oppression, corrupted the justice of our public administration, destroyed the fortunes of thousands who had confidence in it, enervated the trade, husbandry and manufactures of our country, and went far to destroy the morality of our people."
Between the end of the War and the time of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, our young nation suffered economic distress as a result of continuing paper emissions. However, the Congress under the Articles of Confederation did attempt to render some order out of chaos. In common circulation in our country at that time was the Spanish Milled Silver Dollar, and due to its universal use, accounts were kept in this "dollar" unit. On July 6, 1785, Congress declared that the money unit of the United States was a "dollar;" see 29 Journals of the Continental Congress 499. On April 8, 1786, Congress went further and declared:
"Congress by their Act of the 6th July last resolved, that the Money Unit of the United States should be a Dollar, but did not determine what number of grains of Fine Silver should constitute the Dollar.
"We have concluded that Congress by their Act aforesaid, intended the common Dollars that are Current in the United States, and we have made our calculations accordingly * * *

"The Money Unit or Dollar will contain three hundred and seventy five and sixty four hundredths of a Grain of fine Silver. A Dollar containing this number of Grains of fine Silver, will be worth as much as the New Spanish Dollars." [5]

Thus, prior to the Convention of 1787, Congress had made a factual determination that the common money or currency in use by the people of our country was the Spanish Milled Silver Dollar, and further that experiments, tests and analyses of these coins revealed that they contained 375.64 grains of pure silver. Many members of Congress were also delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 and it was based upon the factual findings made by Congress previously that the word "dollar" as mentioned in the Constitution had meaning.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1787

In May, 1787, pursuant to a Congressional plan to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation, delegates from the various states met in Philadelphia. The union of the States created by the Articles had been imperfect and therefore a better organization of unity among them was needed. However, a substantial problem confronting all the States at that time was economic and was caused by the monetary system, therefore it was essential that the best monetary system possible also result from the work of the Convention.

The best source of information available concerning the secret debates of the Convention is James Madison's notes. Insofar as the monetary provisions of the Constitution are concerned, Madison's notes reveal that on Thursday, August 16, 1787, the Convention was discussing the proposed Constitution's provisions contained in Article 1, § 8, wherein Congress was to be given the power to "emit bills on the credit of the United States." Gouverneur Morris on this date moved to strike this proposed phrase from the Constitution. In response, Mr. Elseworth stated that he "thought this a favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money." He further stated, "the mischiefs of the various experiments which had been made were now fresh in the public mind and had excited the disgust of all the respectable part of America. By withholding the power from the new government, more friends of influence would be gained to it than by almost anything else. Paper money can in no case be necessary. Give the government credit, and other resources will offer. The power may do harm, never good." Mr. Wilson commented that, "it will have a most salutary influence on the credit of the United States to remove the possibility of paper money." Mr. Read noted that he "thought the words, if not struck out, would be as alarming as the mark of the Beast in Revelations." Even more emphatically voiced was Mr. Langdon's remark that he "would rather reject the whole plan than retain the three words, 'and emit bills'." The motion to strike these words from the Constitution carried by a vote of nine states in favor and two opposed.

On Tuesday, August 28, 1787, the Convention was discussing the provisions contained in Article 1, § 10 of the Constitution. Mr. Roger Sherman and Mr. Wilson moved to amend the proposed Article 1, § 10 to include the words "nor emit bills of credit, nor make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." The discussion concerning this proposed amendment concerned only the portion regarding "emit bills of credit." In support of his motion, Mr. Sherman stated that he "thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money," reasoning that "if the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it." The voting concerning the power to emit bills of credit was eight states in favor and two opposed. The remainder of the proposed amendment concerning gold and silver coin passed with no opposition.

The work of the Convention was completed on September 17, 1787, and the end result was the Constitution of the United States of America. In reference to the much needed revision of the monetary system, Congress had been granted the power to "coin money and regulate the value thereof," virtually the identical powers in reference to the currency which it possessed under the Articles, which did not include the power to declare a legal tender. Further, certain binding, absolute and uncircumventable prohibitions had been placed upon the States in Article 1, § 10, cl. 1, one of which limited the legal tender power of the States to gold and silver coin. The chief architect of the monetary powers and disabilities contained in the U.S. Constitution was none other than Roger Sherman, who had so ably expressed his opinion of paper money 35 years earlier and resoundingly condemned it. At the convention, virtually all the delegates held views identical with Sherman, and they were certain that paper money had been permanently prohibited by the "Supreme Law of the Land." The intent of the drafters of the Constitution was to grant to Congress the power to coin gold and silver which could be the only legal tender pursuant to Article 1, § 10. Thus the Constitution was deliberately designed to insure gold and silver coin as the "money of the realm."

The proposed Constitution was thereafter submitted to the states for ratification. In Maryland, a delegate to the Convention, a lawyer named Luther Martin who was probably one of the few men to oppose prohibitions upon paper currency, summarized the work of the Convention:

"By our original articles of confederation, the Congress have a power to borrow money and emit bills of credit, on the credit of the United States; agreeably to which, was the report on this system as made by the committee of detail. When we came to this part of the report, a motion was made to strike out the words 'to emit bills of credit.' Against the motion we urged, that it would be improper to deprive the Congress of that power. But, Sir, a majority of the convention, being wise beyond every event, and being willing to risk any political evil, rather than admit the idea of a paper emission, in any possible event, refused to trust this authority to a government, to which they were lavishing the most unlimited powers of taxation, and they erased that clause from the system.
"By the tenth section every State is prohibited from emitting bills of credit. As it was reported by the committee of detail, the States were only prohibited from emitting them without the consent of Congress; but the convention was so smitten with the paper money dread, that they insisted the prohibition should be absolute. It was my opinion, Sir, that the States ought not to be totally deprived of the right to emit bills of credit, and that, as we had not given an authority to the general government for that purpose, it was the more necessary to retain it in the States. I therefore thought it my duty to vote against this part of the system."

Thus, it is clear from both the proponents of the constitutional ban upon paper money and one of its most ardent foes that the clear design of the Constitution in reference to monetary powers was an absolute prohibition upon any paper money....

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~becraft/MONEYbrief.html
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby OilsNotWell » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 12:14:34

Here's an article published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics entitled:

"The Forgotten Role of the Constitution in Monetary Law" by Edwin Viera...

(pdf)

http://www.fame.org/PDF/viera_Texas_Law.pdf

Here's another source on lawful money and the Constitution:

http://www.barefootsworld.net/constit2.html


And another:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')ebased Money!

Why a Federal Reserve Note isn't worth a Dollar.

This article is a layman's overview of United States money;
it is not intended to be an in-depth scholarly review, but it is fairly comprehensive.

http://www.geocities.com/tthor.geo/debasedmoney.html


So you see, aahala, it is very clear what the Consitution was referring to when the used the words "money" and "bills of credit". It was EXPLICITLY defined by Act of Congress both before and AFTER ratification. :)

200 years later, and we have gone back to making the same monetary mistakes over and over again, letting the 'den of vipers' control the issuance of, and define the value of, our money.

The earlier poster is correct in saying we could use just about anything for money, but it again misses the point...It's the control of, the issuance of, and the lack of limitations thereof, that gives rise to the present inflationary/deflationary episodes we now see.
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby aahala » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 13:19:44

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('OilsNotWell', '
')
So you see, aahala, it is very clear what the Consitution was referring to when the used the words "money" and "bills of credit". It was EXPLICITLY defined by Act of Congress both before and AFTER ratification. :)



Not really, but it's beside the point. I was responsing to your claim the
constituion specifically said one thing or another, not whether some
law was passed, or ruling was made subsequently, or what seems to
be your material, soneone believes the constituion should be interpreted
this way or that.

One of the things you note is the constituion has the provision
states must pay in gold or silver. I was aware of that. The provision
however, says the states, it doesn't say one way or another
specifically anything about the federal government.
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby jaws » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 13:31:38

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dukey', 't')here are 2 types of inflation ..

1 cost push. The price of the costs of production increase, ie when the price of fuel rises or labour increases. Smashing trade unions can help to reduce the cost of labour getting out of hand, but as for the cost of fuel .. well we all know about that.

2. Demand pull inflation, when people start to go crazy and borrow a tonne of money on credit .. or usually on credit. This can be controlled by upping interest rates because it makes borrowing money more expensive. However upping interest rates can be a chalange sometimes as some countries have a lot of people with mortages and they can hit hard by this i think.

From what i can see upping interest rates due to cost push inflation is a no brainer. If they really wanted to control the price of increasing fuel costs they COULD reduce tax on fuel. But theres so many times u can do this.

This is textbook macroeconomics and as such completely innacurate. Inflation isn't caused by "cost pushes". Costs pushes are caused by inflation! Borrowing money doesn't cause inflation. Lending money that wasn't borrowed (doesn't exist) causes inflation! At its core inflation is always a monetary phenomenon.
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby ohanian » Fri 30 Sep 2005, 19:56:12

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ohanian', '
')Movies. New cloths. Dining outside. Cafe. Coffee Latte. Overseas holidays.

There are lots of wasteful spendings. People can afford to spend less when the interest rate goes up.


And what happens when they already are not going to movies or buying new clothes, never could afford to dine outside, and have just given up on overseas holidays? There's only so much saving on going to cafes one can make.

And if you think that's a theoretical case, the above describes me. Going to cafes is the last luxury I have left.


Then you should give up on having kids. Think of how much money you will save. Stop smoking and stop drinking liquor. You got plenty of money left over to pay the interest rate hike.
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby Vexed » Sat 01 Oct 2005, 00:12:07

Ohanian Wrote:
Movies. New cloths. Dining outside. Cafe. Coffee Latte. Overseas holidays.

There are lots of wasteful spendings. People can afford to spend less when the interest rate goes up.

Doly Wrote:
And what happens when they already are not going to movies or buying new clothes, never could afford to dine outside, and have just given up on overseas holidays? There's only so much saving on going to cafes one can make.

And if you think that's a theoretical case, the above describes me. Going to cafes is the last luxury I have left.

Ohanian Wrote:
Then you should give up on having kids. Think of how much money you will save. Stop smoking and stop drinking liquor. You got plenty of money left over to pay the interest rate hike.

__________

I think Ohanian makes some really good points Doly. I mean its like you aren't even trying. Here's some ideas.

Start giving blood twice a week, start donating eggs/sperm, start collecting aluminum cans and glass bottles to recycle (as you walk to work), start faking celebrity items to sell on eBay, maybe spend the occasional evening on a street corner begging, and if that doesn't work, I hear there are some great black markets to sell some of your redundant internal organs too, etc.

I mean geesh, what are you lazy? You should know there is nothing more important than be economically viable.
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby richardmmm » Sat 01 Oct 2005, 13:23:19

OilsNotWell has the nail on the head here.................

It's very simple, a massive global shake down, here's how it works...........

the main obstacle to a rich elite, royal family style ruling class is the middle class. They get wealth and a voice and a vote and they complain and bitch and make political action groups etc etc etc.

if left unchecked, evnentually the middle class would take over everything and we would have a balanced situation and the rich elite would be more or less finished. everyone would end up working for the good of society and there would be a blend between democracy and socialism with decentralised local govenrments having most of the power. If you want to see this in action take a look a Switzerland. It's the closest you can find. For example the nation has enough accomodation and food stored to last all it's citizens for a year living underground in the event of a catastrophe. Things like this for the good of the whole nation, not a lot of geopolitical power games and wars in which only the rich elite prosper.

The middle class have one great weakness.............they just want to be comfortable. they don't see the point in huge roaring wealth or massive power, they just want to be on the level.

the rich elite though massive paper money printing constantly create booms and busts and undermine the wealth of the middle classes.

the nasdaq boom, worldcom, enron etc etc is an excellent example where the less savvy middle classes had a large percentage of their retirement income stripped from under their noses.

now we come to the end game of the manouver. Stocks you can wack, but they are easy to get out of, many sheeple escape. Real Estate is not so easy to buy or sell, it is a slower process. Plus if you are on margin (mortgage) then it's easy to repossess your property as it has a fixed and immovable location.

By playing with paper money supply, generating vast amounts of credit and then pinching the credit supply you put people in a very difficult financial state............once the credit fiesta comes to a halt, then suddenly the $100K mortgage you have seems more like a $10M mortgage and you have no way in hell to even make the repayments.

the most interesting thing is that Alan Greenspan wrote an article about this very thing and has betrayed not only the general public but also himself.

http://www.usagold.com/gildedopinion/Greenspan.html
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Re: Confused about interest rates - can anyone explain?

Unread postby OilsNotWell » Sun 02 Oct 2005, 05:21:51

Agree most sincerely with RichardMMM...I'd also add modern day Finland to that list...high standards of living for all, economic competition, universal education and health care (excellent quality), corruption in government officials unheard of, etc...

The difficulty ahead of us and others in the rest of the world lies because as subjects we have allowed this monetary manipulation to go on for so long. Most people are completely unaware of these basic facts about the formation of money, and how it is used to manipulate them out of a higher standard of living for the vast majority of people.

Just look at the back of a one 'dollar' Federal Reserve Note to see a symbol of how it all works: the pyramid. Notice the separation at the very top of the pyramid...the elite...the Eye of Horus (all-seeing/knowing)...knowing what's better for you..

The few elite at the top cannot rule if not supported by the many below them. It is BECAUSE many are poorer that there can be the truly wealthy.

And because many have refused to notice or take care to change back to a fairer system so clearly spelled out in 1787, the tumult from the inevitable correction will be quite large, as the pent up rage of over 100 years of blatant theft and manipulation boils over...
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