Dear SnowDog, Hey, thanks for reading my stuff.
>> and wasn't helped at all by the FDR >> decision to devalue from $20.67/ounce troy >> to $35/ounce troy, nor by his insane decision to >> rifle all the safety deposit boxes in the country, >> denying the private property of Americans who >> owned gold at the time, and taking much of >> that gold for public use without just compensation. > I'm curious what you would have done in FDR's place... Well, of course, I wasn't even born, so there wasn't any chance of me being in FDR's place, the White House, sitting in his wheelchair, doing his thing. > Imagine that it's March, 1933. Before or after 9 March 1933? Let's say just after. > For several years there has been a 'run' on gold reserves, > and the supply of gold amounts to only a fraction of the > remaining Federal Reserve Notes in existence. Sucks, huh. Must have been a mistake to pass that Federal Reserve Act back in, what was it, 1912, turning into 1913, late in the session, with something like 3 Senators making the quorum? Must have been a mistake for Woodrow Wilson to sign it, too, which he notes was his major regret of his administration. > If you allow the 'run' to continue, then soon there will > be no more gold in the US Treasury to back the Federal > Reserve Notes remaining in use, throughout the country. Very bad news. Can't imagine how the Treasury could have been placed in this situation by those kind and gentle souls over at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, et al. > Gold is legal tender -- nothing else -- and all contracts > in the country require payments in gold. Well, that's not true. A great many contracts required the ability to redeem in gold, or were written with the assumption that dollars were convertible to gold or silver. > So a default on the redemption of Federal Reserve Notes > would bankrupt the country -- and not just the government, > but all private debts as well. Would it? That would certainly be an interesting situation, to have a bankrupt government and a bunch of invalid private debts, too. > So what do you do? I would avoid stealing people's assets by devaluing the dollar and I would avoid stealing people's assets by seizing all privately held gold in the country. > Do you go to Congress and try to get them to remove the > country from the gold standard, and make all > Federal Reserve Notes, legal tender. Seems like a bad idea. One could pull a Lincoln and issue greenbacks, backed by nothing. > At the time, this was thought to be unconstitutional, > since the Constitution requires all states to make only > gold and silver, legal tender. "No state shall...make any thing but gold or silver a tender in payment of debt." Article IV as I recall, though I get older and memory works less well. Which makes Lincoln's behavior in issuing greenbacks to finance his crisis, the war to demolish the Confederacy, a bit of an amazing feat of derring-do. Lincoln had an emergency declaration from Congress; so did FDR. > It would have required a Constitutional Amendment, It didn't for Lincoln, and, curiously, didn't for Nixon, either, who also took the country off the gold standard. The fact I think is important here is that taking the country off the gold standard would have been bad for the banking cartel, and that's why FDR didn't do it. > which would have taken several years to implement -- > and it would have to have been approved by 2/3rds of > the Congress and a majority of the state legislatures. Pish and again tush. Slavery was constitutionally authorized until after the War for Southern Independence. How did Lincoln get away with the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed no slaves in territory the Union controlled at the time, but freed slaves, by decree, in territory the Confederacy controlled which slaves became free (and were immediately conscripted by the army) as soon as any of that territory came back into Union control. But, the Union's position was that all those states in rebellion were and always had been and always would be a part of the USA. So, how could Lincoln have emancipated slaves in any part of the USA without violating the constitution he was sworn to uphold and defend? Answer: he just did it, and let the cards fall where they would. For my own part, I think Lincoln violated the USA constitution left and right so often that he should have been tried and executed for treason. > There was no time. So what would you have done? Avoided stealing. > How would you have solved this problem, which appeared to > be coming at you like a freight train, from the first > moment you became President? If we assume that I remain me when I take this hypothetical position as FDR's stand-in, then I would get on the radio and say, "The government is closing now for lack of funds. Please go get your own gold and silver money and use that, instead. Anything you thought the government could be relied on to do you now have to do yourselves. Later this year we'll be selling the assets of the government, including all buildings and fixtures, to distribute to the creditors of the government. Sorry it didn't work out. But, you guys have been great, and I'm sure you're ready to manage your own affairs without all the hassles of government. If your statehouse has any ideas about staying open, and doesn't get shut down by the bankers, why, go ahead and ask your legislators to ponder the future of the sovereign state in which you live. Bye for now." Then I would have walked out of the White House, after being careful to close off all the lights, gone home, cleaned my guns, and set up all night near the door. >I think he did the only thing he knew how to do with > the powers that had been granted to his new office. Hmm. Well, I think FDR violated the constitution he was sworn to uphold and defend, and generally screwed the economy up further with his mismanagement. Probably ought to have been tried for treason and executed when found guilty, but who am I to say? Regards, Jim http://www.goldbarterholdings.com/ http://www.two-cents-worth.com/?101468&EG --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
