EVANSVILLE, Indiana (AP) — Federal agents raided the headquarters of a group that produces illegal currency and puts it in circulation, seizing gold, silver and two tons of copper coins featuring Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.
Agents also took records, computers and froze the bank accounts at the "Liberty Dollar" headquarters during the Thursday raid, Bernard von NotHaus, founder of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act & Internal Revenue Code, said in a posting on the group's Web site.
The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it produces are illegal. NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.
"They're running scared right now and they had to do something," von NotHaus told The Associated Press Friday. "I'm volunteering to meet the agents and get arrested so we can thrash this out in court."
Wendy Osborne, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Indianapolis office, declined to comment and referred all questions to the U.S. attorney's office for the Western District of North Carolina. Suellen Pierce, a spokeswoman for that office, also declined to comment.
The raid comes eight months after von NotHaus filed a lawsuit in federal court in Evansville seeking a permanent injunction to stop the federal government from labeling the Liberty Dollar an illegal currency.
The U.S. Mint issued a warning this year that the Liberty Dollar violated the Constitution and warned consumers against using them unsuspectingly.
Paul's campaign said it had not authorized production of the Ron Paul dollars.
"We were aware they existed, but we didn't have any affiliation with them," said Jesse Benton, a spokesman for Ron Paul's campaign. "He didn't ask our permission to make them."
Sounds like some people need to take a fucking economics class...
"NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar."
Yeah, because the value of gold and silver is just so much more stable than that undependable USD.
Ron Paul is an economic shithead. I like some of his stances on other issues, but his policies on economic isolationism and restricting free trade make him very ill suited for helping the US dollar recover the value it's lost over the last few months.
So it is fitting that a bunch of retards who don't understand the fundamental properties of currency should create an "inflation free" currency that does not actually represent any real value.
Well, I understand where they're coming from. Precious metals have a set value that really doesn't fluctuate. It's the economies of the world that fluctuate, so the precious metals gain and lose value compared to each individual economy. The dollar doesn't fluctuate in value if you're only looking within the US economy. Well, it sort of does, but we call it inflation. I hate and lose economics. Money, even jewels and precious metals, is imaginary. You put paper with ink on it into a bank and it disappears. they give you a piece of paper with a number on it and a promise that you're gaining interest on your, now, non-existent money. Even if we switched back to a system of valuable coinage, unless we stopped banks from making investments. the money on paper would still exceed the tangible money.
If they had just been selling gold as a viable investment option then things wouldn't have been so bad, but they were basically printing money without the consent of the government.
Well, value is determined by people. Sure, gold is rare, but it's only valuable because people say it is so. There are plenty of materials and substances around the world that are hard to find, yet do not have the same value. For example... panda shit. I would imagine there is more gold in the world than panda shit, but there is more value in gold nonetheless. You cannot purchase Panda Shit futures on the New York Stock Exchange.
We used to have a gold standard, which stated that $1 US dollar was backed by a certain amount of gold in the US Treasury. I think it was an ounce? When we adhered to the gold standard, there was very little inflation. That's why shit in the old days of our grandparents was so cheap. Then again, they only made a few thousand dollars a year for salary.
I think it was the Vietnam War that caused us to abandon the Gold Standard. Basically, the war was so expensive that the government discovered it would actually run out of gold. So it abandoned the standard, started printing money, and allowed the dollar to float on the world market. ("Floating" is a finance/economics term that means a currency's value is determined by the global economy).
They can't just start minting gold and silver coins. Fixing a nonfloating value to the Ron Paul Dollar (hereafter referred to as RPD) will work only as long as the US severs all ties to the rest of the world. The value of gold will continue to fluctuate outside of the US. If people from other countries discover that they can buy gold coins in the US and trade it for more in other countries for the actual gold value of RPDs, then businessmen will engage in arbitrage on a grand scale. We would LOSE all of our gold RPDs.
That's what happened to Japan when it first opened its borders a long time ago (can't remember the date). There were discrepancies in the value of gold and silver between Europe and Japan. Europeans could go to Japan, exchange a lot of gold for a lot of silver, and then go back to Europe and exchange the Japanese gold for more silver than it paid with. Rinse and repeat.
I should have sent you articles from the newspaper about our recent "local inflation". As a crazy business minor, you'd probably enjoy hearing about the craziness of eastern Long island. This past summer was one of the most expensive we've ever had. People in the Hamptons were actually paying over $100/lb. for lobster salad. One woman walked away with a $1200 purchase of lobster salad.
I AM GOING TO TYPE THIS ONCE. AFTER THAT I CAN NOT BE FLUMMOXED INTO TRYING TO EXPLAIN IT ANY CLEARER:
An amazingly easy way to promote inflation is to print more money. This makes sense, since with more dollars there will be less demand for them. NORFED will only print enough new money to replace old money that is destroyed. THAT IS THAT.
But what about the world economy and the value of the dollar compared to the pound, yen, and mark? I don't know anything about world economies. Let's go back to talking about local stuff.
Is it really so bad that more money is printed by the Federal Reserve? I mean, the cost of something is an arbitrary value anyway, so if there's more dollars, things will just cost a proportionally larger amount, right? The status quo is preserved, isn't it?
WRONG. Unfortunately, currency, like most things, is subject to our fourth dimension of time. What does this mean? It means that prices don't change immediately as more money is printed. There is a lag between money entering the economy and prices increasing. What does THAT mean? It means that for a while, goods and services are actually CHEAPER for the people who get the money first. Who gets the money first? Well the banks, obviously. The very institutions who loaned the money to our government in the first place. This means that for a time (and a long time at that) after extra money is printed, the financial institutions, and the first sets of hands the money travels to after them, have unfairly skewed purchasing power.
THAT IS THAT.
EDIT OF: Wow, I'm looking at this post of mine half an hour later. I still mean everything I say in it, it still makes sense to me. I just think I came off as a bit of a jerk. That happens when I type things. In person I have a kinder voice I swear. Serephel you said you're a business major, so I'd specifically like feedback from you. I don't mind if I end up being wrong about my stuff above, but I'd like to know why. If I'm right, though, I'd like that too.
Well John, you are a jerk. This is not news. But we love you anyway, because you're incredibly good at stimulating interesting conversation.
That being said, I was hoping you would say something, because I know you like Ron Paul.
It's not necessarily bad that more money is printed by the Federal Reserve. It's just the way our economy works now. In fact, money has to be printed every year to replace money that is no longer in circulation. Paper bills become lost, burned, torn, etc.
What you commented on, John, I can't say anything with certainty, because I've never thought about that before. So... what I'm about to say is just hypothesis. Don't hold me to anything.
As far I can tell, you are right in that there would be a discrepancy between when the money is released to the environment and when the economy will naturally inflate accordingly. But, I do not believe that that time frame would be very long.
When currencies fluctuate in value on the international market, sometimes there are discrepancies in exchange rates between three different countries. Banks engage in this, called arbitrage. It is literally free money. By utilizing these discrepancies, a banker can exchange, for example, dollars for yen, yen for euros, and euros for dollars, and make a few thousand extra dollars somewhere in the middle in a matter of seconds. I can think of some example numbers later if anyone's interested.
But, the market will naturally correct itself, and these windows for arbitrage close very quickly as exchange rates will naturally alter to reflect the normal world rate. Because banks around the world all have employees who spend their entire day looking for these windows, the market self corrects in matters of minutes.
This will happen too in a national environment. If this new money is circulated in the environment, then the initial owners of said money will get to experience extra purchasing power. But the market will naturally correct itself with the assistance of the internet, because financial data between these banks would be available nationwide.
So, who knows, that window could only be a couple minutes. But, this is entirely hypothesis. I'll have to ask my econ teacher about this after Thanksgiving. Now I'm curious. Interesting point, John.
From MSNBC or something KHARTOUM, Sudan - A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan, accused of insulting Islam's Prophet by letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad, her school said on Monday.
Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where the Liverpool woman was being held.
Teachers at Unity High School in central Khartoum said Gibbons, 54, made an innocent mistake and simply let her pupils choose their favorite name for the toy as part of a school project.
Police arrested Gibbons on Sunday at her home inside the school premises, said Unity director Robert Boulos, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's Ministry of Education.
Boulos said she had since been charged with "blasphemy," an offense he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.
A spokesman from the British Embassy in Khartoum said it was still unclear whether Gibbons had been formerly charged. "We are following it up with the authorities and trying to meet her in person," he said.
Boulos said he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan's predominantly Muslim capital. "This is a very sensitive issue."
"We are very worried about her safety," he added. "This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."
Class voted on toy name
Boulos said Gibbons was following a British National Curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year's animal was the bear.
Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked a girl to bring in her teddy bear to help the second grade class focus, said Boulos.
The teacher then asked the class to name the toy. "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Mohammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.
Each child was allowed to take the bear home at weekends and asked to write a diary about what they did with the toy. Each entry was collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message "My name is Muhammad," said Boulos.
The bear itself was not marked or labeled with the name in any way, he added, saying Sudanese police had now seized the book and had asked to interview the 7-year-old girl.
Boulos said the first he knew about the course was last week when he got a phone call from the Ministry of Education, saying a number of Muslim parents had made formal complaints.
One Muslim teacher at Unity, who also has a child in Gibbons' class, said she had not found the project offensive.
"I had no problem with it at all," the teacher said. "I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote."
The country's state-controlled Sudanese Media Centre reported late Sunday that Gibbons had been arrested for "insulting the Prophet Muhammad." It said charges were being prepared "under article 125 of the criminal law" which covers insults against faith and religion.
No one was immediately available for comment from Sudan's ministries of Education or Justice.
Unity, an independent school founded in 1902, is governed by a board representing major Christian denominations in Sudan, but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged 4 to 18.
This makes me want to go into a rant about the purpose of separation of church and state. I suspect doing so here would just be preaching to the choir though.
This makes me want to go into a rant about the purpose of separation of church and state. I suspect doing so here would just be preaching to the choir though.
Maybe it would be fruitful though, as I see this as a different argument than, say, teaching evolution in Kansas. This is a country that openly desires to merge church and state, and I feel like that makes a difference. Of course, I do think it's a little ridiculous that parents would get so bent out of shape about it, but they're legally encouraged to do so.
Seems like the Sudanese people genuinely believe church and state should be merged. That's fine by me, because who's to say a separation thereof is superior?
There is no way in hell I'd want the same people to manage my government AND my religion. That's a free governmental ticket to FORCE people to believe what the government damn well wants them to believe. What if I don't quite agree with some small obscure bit of religous doctrine (like not naming things after Muhammad perhaps?) that the government/church are trying push? Guess what? Too bad! That silly bit of doctrine is officially the law and you damn well better agree with it. Now imagine you don't agree with something a bit more substatial. Living under rule where I could be branded a "heretic" or something and be punished just for seeing things a bit different rubs me the wrong way. Further more, I'd consider that governmental power is a corrupting influence. If you combine them, you get more than the church influencing government decisions, you get the government influencing religious decisions. What happens when your church becomes morally corrupt? What happens when the immoral act as moral leaders to the masses? Do I need to go on?
If kept separate, the churches can influence the morals of the people, which in turn influences the government in a safer, more controlled manner. Combining them loses that barrier. More efficient yes, but your saftey net is gone. Your government can collapse at the drop of a hat.
I'm sorry, I didn't type clearly. I wasn't asking who has the right to say whether a separation of church and state is inferior or superior for themselves, I was asking who as the right to say whether a separation of church and state is inferior or superior for other people.
Originally by Mr. O'Lore What if I don't quite agree with some small obscure bit of religous doctrine (like not naming things after Muhammad perhaps?) that the government/church are trying push? Guess what? I'd move!
I'm sorry, I didn't type clearly. I wasn't asking who has the right to say whether a separation of church and state is inferior or superior for themselves, I was asking who as the right to say whether a separation of church and state is inferior or superior for other people.
I don’t care what you believe in, violence and hate shouldn’t be an answer. This situation is really gross. I hope the teacher doesn’t get hurt. I think X’o’Lore’s post sufficiently describes why religion and government do not mix.
Comments
Sounds like some people need to take a fucking economics class...
Yeah, because the value of gold and silver is just so much more stable than that undependable USD.
So it is fitting that a bunch of retards who don't understand the fundamental properties of currency should create an "inflation free" currency that does not actually represent any real value.
We used to have a gold standard, which stated that $1 US dollar was backed by a certain amount of gold in the US Treasury. I think it was an ounce? When we adhered to the gold standard, there was very little inflation. That's why shit in the old days of our grandparents was so cheap. Then again, they only made a few thousand dollars a year for salary.
I think it was the Vietnam War that caused us to abandon the Gold Standard. Basically, the war was so expensive that the government discovered it would actually run out of gold. So it abandoned the standard, started printing money, and allowed the dollar to float on the world market. ("Floating" is a finance/economics term that means a currency's value is determined by the global economy).
They can't just start minting gold and silver coins. Fixing a nonfloating value to the Ron Paul Dollar (hereafter referred to as RPD) will work only as long as the US severs all ties to the rest of the world. The value of gold will continue to fluctuate outside of the US. If people from other countries discover that they can buy gold coins in the US and trade it for more in other countries for the actual gold value of RPDs, then businessmen will engage in arbitrage on a grand scale. We would LOSE all of our gold RPDs.
That's what happened to Japan when it first opened its borders a long time ago (can't remember the date). There were discrepancies in the value of gold and silver between Europe and Japan. Europeans could go to Japan, exchange a lot of gold for a lot of silver, and then go back to Europe and exchange the Japanese gold for more silver than it paid with. Rinse and repeat.
Whew... economics rant.
An amazingly easy way to promote inflation is to print more money. This makes sense, since with more dollars there will be less demand for them. NORFED will only print enough new money to replace old money that is destroyed. THAT IS THAT.
But what about the world economy and the value of the dollar compared to the pound, yen, and mark? I don't know anything about world economies. Let's go back to talking about local stuff.
Is it really so bad that more money is printed by the Federal Reserve? I mean, the cost of something is an arbitrary value anyway, so if there's more dollars, things will just cost a proportionally larger amount, right? The status quo is preserved, isn't it?
WRONG. Unfortunately, currency, like most things, is subject to our fourth dimension of time. What does this mean? It means that prices don't change immediately as more money is printed. There is a lag between money entering the economy and prices increasing. What does THAT mean? It means that for a while, goods and services are actually CHEAPER for the people who get the money first. Who gets the money first? Well the banks, obviously. The very institutions who loaned the money to our government in the first place. This means that for a time (and a long time at that) after extra money is printed, the financial institutions, and the first sets of hands the money travels to after them, have unfairly skewed purchasing power.
THAT IS THAT.
EDIT OF: Wow, I'm looking at this post of mine half an hour later. I still mean everything I say in it, it still makes sense to me. I just think I came off as a bit of a jerk. That happens when I type things. In person I have a kinder voice I swear. Serephel you said you're a business major, so I'd specifically like feedback from you. I don't mind if I end up being wrong about my stuff above, but I'd like to know why. If I'm right, though, I'd like that too.
That being said, I was hoping you would say something, because I know you like Ron Paul.
It's not necessarily bad that more money is printed by the Federal Reserve. It's just the way our economy works now. In fact, money has to be printed every year to replace money that is no longer in circulation. Paper bills become lost, burned, torn, etc.
What you commented on, John, I can't say anything with certainty, because I've never thought about that before. So... what I'm about to say is just hypothesis. Don't hold me to anything.
As far I can tell, you are right in that there would be a discrepancy between when the money is released to the environment and when the economy will naturally inflate accordingly. But, I do not believe that that time frame would be very long.
When currencies fluctuate in value on the international market, sometimes there are discrepancies in exchange rates between three different countries. Banks engage in this, called arbitrage. It is literally free money. By utilizing these discrepancies, a banker can exchange, for example, dollars for yen, yen for euros, and euros for dollars, and make a few thousand extra dollars somewhere in the middle in a matter of seconds. I can think of some example numbers later if anyone's interested.
But, the market will naturally correct itself, and these windows for arbitrage close very quickly as exchange rates will naturally alter to reflect the normal world rate. Because banks around the world all have employees who spend their entire day looking for these windows, the market self corrects in matters of minutes.
This will happen too in a national environment. If this new money is circulated in the environment, then the initial owners of said money will get to experience extra purchasing power. But the market will naturally correct itself with the assistance of the internet, because financial data between these banks would be available nationwide.
So, who knows, that window could only be a couple minutes. But, this is entirely hypothesis. I'll have to ask my econ teacher about this after Thanksgiving. Now I'm curious. Interesting point, John.
And don't thank me, thank the kni- I MEAN RON PAUL!
This makes me want to go into a rant about the purpose of separation of church and state. I suspect doing so here would just be preaching to the choir though.
Maybe it would be fruitful though, as I see this as a different argument than, say, teaching evolution in Kansas. This is a country that openly desires to merge church and state, and I feel like that makes a difference. Of course, I do think it's a little ridiculous that parents would get so bent out of shape about it, but they're legally encouraged to do so.
There is no way in hell I'd want the same people to manage my government AND my religion. That's a free governmental ticket to FORCE people to believe what the government damn well wants them to believe. What if I don't quite agree with some small obscure bit of religous doctrine (like not naming things after Muhammad perhaps?) that the government/church are trying push? Guess what? Too bad! That silly bit of doctrine is officially the law and you damn well better agree with it. Now imagine you don't agree with something a bit more substatial. Living under rule where I could be branded a "heretic" or something and be punished just for seeing things a bit different rubs me the wrong way. Further more, I'd consider that governmental power is a corrupting influence. If you combine them, you get more than the church influencing government decisions, you get the government influencing religious decisions. What happens when your church becomes morally corrupt? What happens when the immoral act as moral leaders to the masses? Do I need to go on?
If kept separate, the churches can influence the morals of the people, which in turn influences the government in a safer, more controlled manner. Combining them loses that barrier. More efficient yes, but your saftey net is gone. Your government can collapse at the drop of a hat.
^---fixed
I do.
I don’t care what you believe in, violence and hate shouldn’t be an answer. This situation is really gross. I hope the teacher doesn’t get hurt. I think X’o’Lore’s post sufficiently describes why religion and government do not mix.