How many of you would stop using banks as a protest against the matrix woven by our monsterous fractional reserve system, if you had a practical way of doing so? Would you be willing to pay fees for service on your transactions? One of the problems that I see in not utilizing banks is that I receive payments that are in the form of checks, and I must also make payments to individuals and companies across a vast geographical land mass. It is not practical to obtain cashiers checks for every bill, and then mail it or personally deliver a cash payment. I would prefer to keep my assets in gold or silver, but I have no means with which to quickly and easily convert it to Federal Reserve currency when I need to pay for something, and Federal Reserve currency is all that is allowed by law to be used as a currency.
I don’t know if this concept would fit in with current banking laws or not, and there may be flaws to my thinking. It has been attempted before, but there may be ways around the legal challenges that have surfaced so far.
Why couldn’t there be what I will call a “fee for service” bank depository? It would be an entity that performs several different functions. Its functions WOULD NOT include lending and investing – at least not with customer deposits. It would have a 100% reserve status in relation to deposits.
1. It would receive and store cash deposits representing Federal Reserve currency. In exchange for transaction fees, transactions could be made by check, debit card, internet or wire just like any other bank.
2. It would serve as a secure vault for precious metals. Upon deposit, the depositor would be provided with a receipt indicating amount and ownership.
3. It would act as a gold and silver bullion dealer. If I had Federal Reserve currency that I wanted to convert and store as gold or silver, the depository would do that for me by selling me the precious metal, and also storing it for me. When I wanted to make a payment transaction (which legally must be in Fed Reserve currency), it would also buy back that portion of my precious metals, and then fulfill my payment transaction request. In order to reduce the amount of my transaction fees, I would have the option of keeping some of my deposits in a cash currency account for the purpose of making transactions, and some of it held as a deposit of physical gold and silver. Depositors would have to be informed and aware of the risks regarding constantly changing precious metal prices.
4. One problem that I can foresee would be deposits of bullion from different manufacturers. These bullions would require verification of content and quality. Current precious metal dealers that buy and sell must have ways of dealing with this, but the complications arising from premium collectible values for different coins and bullions could also come into play. This would require individual precious metal deposits to be kept separate, and it would not be practical. Perhaps gold and silver deposits would all have to be converted to bullion from a single manufacturing source in order for this concept to work.
5. After reading an excerpt from a book called Principles of Finance (see further down), it becomes clear that individuals would eventually end up attempting to use their precious metals deposit receipts as a form of currency. We have the case of Liberty Dollars and the indictment of Bernard von Nothaus and associates, which has not gone to trial as of yet, from what I can determine. Looking at the charges against them, I wonder if this couldn’t be avoided. Von Nothaus minted coins and deposit receipts that closely resembled U.S. minted coins and paper currency, and the company actually encouraged businesses to accept them as a form of payment. If bullion and deposit receipts were manufactured in a form that did not resemble U.S. coinage or paper currency (perhaps even stating “not valid as currency” on it), and all account holders/depositors were required to sign a statement acknowledging the U.S. statutes regarding currency, is this concept viable?
I’m guessing that ultimately the Oligarchy would pressure for enactment of legislation to eliminate the precious metals portion of this depository concept, but even so, wouldn’t just the concept of a non-lending banking institution help break the current ponzi lender/ bank system if enough people were to get pissed off and participate in it?
For alternative methods or systems regarding borrowing and lending, I’ll save those thoughts for another day, or leave it to more qualified people such as Lyndon LaRouche. Perhaps my thoughts on banking are too simplistic, but look at our whole monetary system. What kind of simpleton believes that money created out of thin air and backed by nothing could escape corruption and inevitable failure from its continuous ”ponzi” expansion? My depository concept doesn’t remove the root of the problem, but at least it’s a start in another direction. I feel that there are moral grounds for not participating in our current flawed system, thereby supporting what has become a corrupt and evil empire, any more than I have to. I don’t want to borrow their money and be enslaved by that debt anymore. I don’t want to lend the fruits of my labor into a volatile system, plagued by inflation, for paltry interest earnings.
PARAPHRASED EXCERPT FROM PRINCIPLES OF FINANCE BY SCOTT BESLEY AND EUGENE F. BRIGHAM:
“The earliest form of banking consisted of people depositing their valuables (usually gold and silver) with a merchant for safe keeping. These merchants were usually metal smiths, because they maintained facilities that were secure and considered to be safe havens from robbery. Upon deposit, the merchant would issue the depositor a receipt that verified the deposit and its ownership, When individuals wanted to purchase goods or services, they would redeem their depository receipts for the needed gold or silver.
Over time, people began to realize that the receipts from the more well known and trusted depositories could be used for trade. As a result, metal deposits did not actually have to be withdrawn, which was easier and safer than physically redeeming the depository receipts.”
THE CASE FOR A SINGLE NATIONAL DEPOSITORY:
http://wfhummel.cnchost.com/nationaldepository.html
OP/ED REGARDING LIBERTY DOLLAR CASE BY: Peter Ferrara:
U.S. STATUTES USED AGAINST VON NOTHAUS:
18 U.S.C. § 514 – (a) Whoever, with the intent to defraud—
(1) draws, prints, processes, produces, publishes, or otherwise makes, or attempts or causes the same, within the United States;
(2) passes, utters, presents, offers, brokers, issues, sells, or attempts or causes the same, or with like intent possesses, within the United States; or
(3) utilizes interstate or foreign commerce, including the use of the mails or wire, radio, or other electronic communication, to transmit, transport, ship, move, transfer, or attempts or causes the same, to, from, or through the United States,
any false or fictitious instrument, document, or other item appearing, representing, purporting, or contriving through scheme or artifice, to be an actual security or other financial instrument issued under the authority of the United States, a foreign government, a State or other political subdivision of the United States, or an organization, shall be guilty of a class B felony.
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 25 > § 486 Uttering coins of gold, silver or other metal
Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
VON NOTHAUS TRIAL SCHEDULED? “Bernard von Nothaus, William Kevin Innes, Sarah Jane Bledsoe, Rachelle L Moseley (North Carolina, Western) Docket call 1/11/2010 @ 10:00 AM”
