Truth Seeker ID: b09fc6 Constitutional Money General June 29, 2020, 1:34 p.m. No.1630   🗄️.is 🔗kun

(Gold, Silver, Precious Metals as Money)

"No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." ~US Constitution, Article I, Section 10

 

This General thread is for research that may lead to anon-written articles regarding CONSTITUTIONAL MONEY, how far we have strayed from the original definition of money, and movements to restore sound money in America. Other directly-related topics are fair game: Fiat Money, Central Banking, the Federal Reserve, and Precious Metals.

 

This thread is NOT for investment advice. Do NOT provide investment recommendations or general market commentary. Do NOT discuss bitcoin here.

 

No shitposting in this thread. All posts must be on topic. Shitposts are subject to deletion without warning.

 

There are plenty of websites devoted to Constitutional Money.

Murray Rothbard was an economist of the Austrian School. https://mises.org continues Rothbard's work.

The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin is a book covering how the Federal Reserve was founded and why. Recommended reading to get up to speed quickly.

 

Let's begin with a nice article on Constitutional Money

 

https://deanclancy.com/the-constitutions-seven-money-clauses/

 

August 5, 2014 by Dean Clancy

The Constitution’s Seven Money Clauses

 

They protect liberty and prosperity — when we follow them.

 

Seven clauses of the United States Constitution touch on questions that might be described as relating to monetary policy.

 

Properly interpreted, these seven clauses together form a system of rules that strongly protects economic prosperity and political liberty.

 

Four of the clauses include the word ‘money,’ three include the word ‘coin,’ and two include the word ‘dollars.’ /1

 

Below is the text of each of the clauses, followed by some definitions and comments. I’ve modernized the punctuation for readability.

 

The Seven Money Clauses

 

Congress shall have power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 2.

Congress shall have power to coin money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 5.

Congress shall have power to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States. ~ Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 6.

No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. ~ Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 7.

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. ~ Art. I, sec. 9, cl. 1.

No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. ~ Art. I, sec. 10, cl. 1.

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved. ~ Amdt. VII.

 

The Constitution’s Five Monetary Rules

 

Read in conjunction with the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, and the obligation-of-contracts clause (Art. I, sec. 10, cl. 1), we can identify five monetary policies that are constitutionally requisite in the United States:

 

The basic unit is the dollar, a silver coin containing 371.25 grains of pure silver.

Only gold or silver coins and currency (specie-backed banknotes) can be legal tender.

No state may issue coins or currency.

No one may counterfeit U.S. Government-issued coins or currency.

Fiat money notes (‘bills of credit’) are forbidden.

 

The remainder of this article defines some of the foregoing terms, and explains how we get to these five rules.

 

Definition: ‘Dollar’

 

The Constitution makes the ‘dollar’ the basic unit of account for the republic. It does not explicitly define the dollar. Why? Because everyone at the time knew exactly what a dollar was. It was a silver coin of a fixed weight and fineness, the most popular edition of which was the Spanish milled dollar. That popular coin, remembered today as ‘pieces of eight,’ contained on average 371.25 grains of pure silver or 416 grains of standard silver. ‘Standard silver’ is pure silver mixed with other metals, such as nickel or copper, for added durability. /5

 

Prior to the Coinage Act of 1792, ‘pieces of eight’ was basically the only ‘dollar’ Americans knew or used. The U.S. government did not mint its own version of the dollar coin until after the ratification of the Constitution (1788) and the Bill of Rights (1791).

 

In the Coinage Act of 1792, sometimes also called the Mint Act (because it established the first United States Mint to coin the first United States dollars), Congress duly codified the existing, universally understood definition of ‘dollar, as follows:

 

DOLLARS OR UNITS — each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, and to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver.

 

That is what a ‘dollar’ is, for constitutional purposes.

 

The value of the dollar is fixed, because it is a known quantity incorporated by reference into the constitutional text. Congress has no power to alter the value of the dollar. Only a constitutional amendment could do that.

 

Definition: ‘Regulate the Value’

 

The term ‘power to regulate the value thereof,’ with respect to ‘coined’ money, means simply the power to adjust the amount of gold in U.S. gold coins, in order to keep both gold and silver money in circulation — that is, to counteract Gresham’s Law. (Indeed, because of the Legal Tender Clause, this is not just a power but a duty.) Additionally this power allows Congress to adjust the Mint exchange rates of foreign specie coins vis-à-vis their U.S. equivalents. Importantly, this power does not allow Congress to arbitrarily redefine the value of the dollar any way it pleases.

 

Definition: ‘Currency’

 

The term ‘currency,’ as I use it here, is synonymous with banknotes, paper money. When banknotes are backed by specie or some other commodity, they may be regarded as honest money. When unbacked by anything of value, they are typically called ‘fiat money’ (the Constitution refers to them as ‘bills of credit’). Such money is forbidden. Neither the federal or state governments may issue it.

 

Definition: ‘Legal Tender’

 

The term ‘legal tender’ means a specific kind of coin or currency that the government requires creditors to accept in payment of debts. (‘Public’ debts can refer to government taxes, fines, and the like.) Under the Constitution, only gold and silver coins may be required to be used as legal tender (‘a tender in payment of debts’). Today in the United States, legal tender is statutorily defined as all coins and currency issued by the United States Treasury or the Federal Reserve System, including fiat money coins and notes. As we shall see when we get to the term ‘fiat money,’ this definition exceeds Congress’s power under the Constitution. The existing legal tender law (31 U.S.C. 5103), first passed in 1862, declares Federal Reserve Notes to be legal tender. But such notes are not legal tender in the constitutional sense, because they are fiat money and bills of credit, which the Constitution forbids.

 

The Founders intended that only gold and silver coins, and notes freely redeemable in and fully backed by such coins, may serve as legal tender in the United States. And they put this intention into the constitutional text. Therefore, honest money is not just a good idea, it’s the law!

 

Definition: ‘Fiat Money’

 

The term ‘fiat money’ means currency with legal-tender status that is not backed by anything of value.

 

Fiat money retains its value only so long as its users have confidence that its issuer (the government) will faithfully repay its debts. When that confidence evaporates, fiat money begins to lose value and can even becomes worthless.

 

The Supreme Court, in its famous Legal Tender and Gold Clause Cases, ruled that Congress has ‘plenary power’ to issue fiat money and dictate its value, pursuant to its power to ‘regulate the value’ of foreign and domestic coin. This interpretation is erroneous. Congress has no such ‘plenary’ power. Its power to regulate the value of gold and silver coins is a limited power that exists for the limited purpose of ensuring that both kinds of coin remain in circulation, that is, to counteract Gresham’s Law.

 

In these famous rulings, the Court made the incorrect assumption that the people had endowed their federal government with attributes of ‘national sovereignty’ like those found in European governments. That assumption has no grounding in the constitutional text and turns the American Revolution on its head. The whole point of the Revolution, indeed its greatest achievement, was to deny the existence of ‘sovereignty’ in the ‘rulers’ and recognize it in the people, considered as individuals. ‘All men are created equal’ — even you, King George! From which it follows that government must be by consent, and the power of the rulers (understood as the people’s servants) must be limited. Congress’s powers are of course limited in myriad ways. Among these are the five monetary rules that derive from the Constitution’s seven money clauses.

 

To be absolutely clear (for the true pedant), the Constitution does permit paper currency to serve as legal tender. But that currency must be backed by gold or silver coin. /6

 

Definition: ‘Bills of Credit’

 

The term ‘bills of credit’ in the Constitution refers to government-issued notes that represent a debt to the holder, and are typically intended to circulate as money in private transactions.

 

Bills of credit are a form of paper money that can be backed by something of value, but might not be. Typically they are not. When they are not, they run afoul of the Constitution’s explicit prohibition on bills of credit.

 

Interestingly, the Constitution is silent on whether the federal government may emit bills of credit. Does this mean it may? No. A provision specifically authorizing Congress to do so was struck from a draft of the Constitution. And the Ninth and Tenth Amendments remind us that, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, we must assume Congress has not been granted a power. From this conclusion follows the important policy conclusion that Congress, like the states, may not make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender in payment of debts.

 

In short, in the United States only gold and silver coins, or banknotes readily redeemable in such coins, can be legal tender.

 

In American history, examples of federal bills of credit include:

 

United States Demand Notes, issued in 1861 and 1862.

United States Notes, issued from 1862 to 1971.

Federal Reserve Notes, which have been issued since 1914.

 

All of these issues are unbacked by anything of value and are therefore, as a legal matter, unconstitutional.

 

By contrast, notes that are not ‘bills of credit’ in the constitutional sense, because they are fully backed by gold or silver coins, include:

 

United States Gold Certificates, issued from 1863 to 1933.

United States Silver Certificates, issued from 1878 to 1964.

 

Fractional Reserve Banking

 

Does the Constitution require banks to maintain 100 percent reserve ratios? That is, does it ban fractional reserve banking? No, it does not. But legal tender does have to be honest money.

 

Aside: Do I think fractional-reserve lending is a bad thing? No, I do not. It is naturally self-regulating: the same money that a bank creates through making too many loans is destroyed when those loans are repaid. And it adds helpful flexibility to the system.

 

The Twenty-Dollar Rule

 

It is common these days for legal scholars to profess not to know the meaning of the Seventh Amendment’s twenty-dollar rule, the rule that a jury trial is not required in civil disputes involving amounts less than twenty dollars. They claim the dollar’s value has changed since the eighteenth century, to an extent we cannot fathom. This is silly. Our modern Federal Reserve Notes are labeled as ‘dollars,’ but they are not dollars in the constitutional sense, and are therefore not relevant to the twenty-dollar rule. In applying that rule, a judge need not be intimidated. All he has to do is translate FRNs into constitutional dollars. This is not too difficult. It takes knowing a little middle-school math, and having a bit of familiarity with how precious metals are weighed and measured. Precious metals are defined in terms of troy ounces (note: not imperial ounces), which are subdivided into grains. One troy ounce is 480 grains. A constitutional dollar equals 371.25 grains of pure silver, which is the same as 77.344 percent of a troy ounce. Therefore, when a troy ounce of silver is worth one dollar in FRNs, a constitutional dollar is worth 77.34 cents in FRNs. And when a troy ounce of silver is worth ten dollars in FRNs, a constitutional dollar is worth $7.73 in FRNs. And so on. Got it? Okay. Now let’s do the calculation for the twenty-dollar rule. Take the current troy-ounce price of pure silver in terms of FRNs and multiply it by 77.344 percent. The result is one constitutional dollar, expressed in FRNs. Now multiply that figure by twenty. You’ve got it! Now just compare your resulting figure to the amount of money in controversy, which is expressed in FRNs. If twenty constitutional dollars, expressed in FRNs, is less than the amount in controversy, the plaintiff is entitled to a jury trial. If not — not.

 

Of course, this would all be simpler if there were no FRNs and we just used constitutional dollars.

 

Sidebar: Dates

 

In the list of money clauses quoted at the beginning of this article:

 

The first six of the Constitution’s seven money clauses are part of the original U.S. Constitution, which was proposed on September 17, 1787, and ratified on June 21, 1788.

The seventh money clause, found in the Seventh Amendment, is part of the Bill of Rights, which was proposed on September 25, 1789, and ratified on December 15, 1791.

The Coinage Act of 1792 was passed by Congress on April 2, 1792.

An Act to Provide for a Copper Coinage (whence the humble penny) was signed into law on May 8, 1792. Note: While Congress has the power to issue base-metal coins, such coins cannot be legal tender. That status only applies to gold and silver coins.

 

Notes

 

1/ Interestingly, the words ‘bank’ and ‘currency’ do not appear in the Constitution, nor its amendments. In this analysis, I have disregarded words like ‘taxes,’ ‘duties,’ and ‘excises’ — revenue provisions.

 

2/ The principle of enumerated powers expressed in the Tenth Amendment is inherent in the Constitution by virtue of the document’s structure. The federal government would be limited to a finite set of delegated powers even if there were no Tenth Amendment explicitly stating the fact.

 

3/ The Ninth Amendment is worded in a confusing, eighteenth-century way, but when read in light of eighteenth-century legal concepts and the text of its nearby companion, the Tenth, the amendment’s meaning becomes clear: federal powers are to be construed narrowly. The Ninth Amendment is not an ink blot. For more on this topic, see the writings of Professor Kurt T. Lash.

 

4/ The obligation-of-contracts clause is relevant because most contracts involve promises to pay money, and some contracts require payment specifically in gold. Since the 1930s, the federal government has refused to enforce so-called ‘gold clause contracts,’ contracts that require payment, under certain conditions, of some amount of money in physical gold, usually gold coin. Such clauses are used by contracting parties as a shield against inflation. Congress bans the agreements to facilitate inflation. It does so by emitting ‘bills of credit,’ paper money unbacked by anything of value. Gold clauses frustrate this design. Congress’s inflationary scheme is unconstitutional. Article I of the Constitution, in sections 8 and 10, bars the states explicitly, and Congress implicitly, from emitting bills of credit or impairing the obligation of contracts, including gold-clause contracts.

 

5/ 371.25 grains equals about 24 grams or about 77 percent of a troy ounce. 416 grains equals about 27 grams or about 87 percent of a troy ounce.

 

6/ To use the language of modern economists, the Constitution permits representative money to serve as legal tender, but only so long as it represents commodity money.

Truth Seeker ID: 93df7d July 27, 2020, 2:59 p.m. No.3665   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Fedcoin: A New Scheme for Tyranny and Poverty

 

If some Congress members get their way, the Federal Reserve may soon be able to track many of your purchases in real time and share that information with government agencies. This is just one of the problems with the proposed “digital dollar” or “fedcoin.”

 

Fedcoin was initially included in the first coronavirus spending bill. While the proposal was dropped from the final version of the bill, there is still great interest in fedcoin on Capitol Hill. Some progressives have embraced fedcoin as a way to provide Americans with a “universal basic income.”

 

Both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee held hearings on fedcoin in June. This is the first step toward making fedcoin a reality.

 

Fedcoin would not be an actual coin. Instead, it would be a special account created and maintained for each American by the Federal Reserve. Each month, Fed employees could tap a few keys on a computer and — bingo — each American would have dollars added to his Federal Reserve account. This is the 21st century equivalent of throwing money from helicopters.

 

Fedcoin could effect private cryptocurrencies. Also, it would limit the ability of private citizens to protect themselves from the Federal Reserve-caused decline in the dollar’s value.

 

Fedcoin would not magically increase the number of available goods and services. What it would do is drive up prices. The damage this would do to middle- and lower-income Americans would dwarf any benefit they receive from their monthly “gift” from the Fed. The rise in prices could lead to Congress regularly increasing fedcoin payments to Americans. These increases would cause prices to keep rising even more until we face hyperinflation and a dollar crisis. Of course, we are already on the path to an economic crisis thanks to the Fed. Fedcoin will hasten and worsen the crisis.

 

Fedcoin poses a great threat to privacy. The Federal Reserve could know when fedcoin is used, who is using it, and what they use it for. This information could be shared with government agencies, such as the FBI or IRS.

 

The government could use the ability to know how Americans are spending fedcoin to limit our ability to purchase goods and services disfavored by politicians and bureaucrats. Anyone who doubts this should recall the Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point. Operation Choke Point involved financial regulators “alerting” banks that dealing with certain businesses, such as gun stores, would put the banks at “reputational risk” and could subject them to greater regulation.

 

Is it so hard to believe that the ability to track purchases would be used in the future to “discourage” individuals from buying guns, fatty foods, or tobacco, or from being customers of corporations whose CEOs are not considered “woke” by the thought police? Fedcoin could also be used to “encourage” individuals to patronize “green” business, thus fulfilling Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s goal of involving the Fed in the fight against climate change.

 

Fedcoin could threaten private cryptocurrencies, increase inflation, and give government new powers over our financial transactions. Fedcoin will also speed up destruction of the fiat money system. Whatever gain fedcoin may bring to average Americans will come at terrible cost to liberty and prosperity.

 

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/july/27/fedcoin-a-new-scheme-for-tyranny-and-poverty/

Truth Seeker ID: 02ce48 Aug. 13, 2020, 7:56 a.m. No.4530   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Sounds to this anon like a big, BIG hint.

Especially with the recent historic run-ups

in the precious metals.

Will Donald Trump be restoring constitutional money?

Are the precious metals, and those who trade them, sniffing out a major change?

 

@realDonaldTrump

Drug companies, which are being forced by me to substantially reduce Drug Prices, are taking $millions in ads saying I want to increase Medicare Primiums. Wrong, just the opposite! These ads show DRUG PRICES ARE GOING DOWN, and they are not happy! False advertising!

7:56 AM · Aug 13, 2020 PDT

 

Charts for 10 year prices

 

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Primium

 

"Primiumis a metal made from alchemically purifiedsilver and gold. It retains the mystical properties of both of those metals to harm changing breeds harmed by such metals, and it also contains anti-magical properties to cancel supernatural or magical attacks and defenses. Very few Mage groups have the knowledge to be capable of creating the expensive metal: Iteration X Sons of Ether Knights …"

https://duckduckgo.com/?q="primium"

 

Few anons remember, but gold and silver are the only constitutional money. Everything else is just IOUs.

 

Did POTUS have someone search the web for the phrase "gold and silver" and locate this made-up word "primium" as a way to drop a hint?

Truth Seeker ID: e93d00 Aug. 30, 2020, 10:32 a.m. No.5089   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>5248

So, how do you guys propose, if we're doing the bimetal standard, or using the pool of the Four Horsemen, that our central currency facilitates digital transactions?

 

How do we get around Blockchain?

It's sort of cringe-worthy seeing people denounce "digital dollars" considering fiat has been digital (what do you think Credit is?) for decades already…

Truth Seeker ID: b5f5c5 Nov. 3, 2020, 12:41 p.m. No.6542   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6543

Here is a speculation about a return to constitutional money.

 

The New Monetary Reserve System Digital Currency Basket Backed By Gold

 

Tom Welcomes Dr. Stephen Leeb, financial author, wealth manager, and newsletter publisher, to the show. His interest began to shift in 2000 towards gold when it was apparent that globally we were reaching a significant turning point.

Dr. Leeb discusses the gap between developed and emerging countries and how China’s growth has mainly driven that change. This gap has since closed significantly and continues to do so. This trend has resulted in a vast and growing demand for commodities. The developing world is now more massive than the developed world and is growing much faster.

He discusses the reasons why gold has value and why holding it is so important. Like many other commodities, gold has outperformed. We will need massive amounts of copper, iron ore, and silver for the emerging economies and electrification. Silver has some of the best properties of any metal, and it’s not at all clear where we are going to get more.

He expresses concerns about our dependency on rare earth metals and the risks of not having stockpiles. Today, the U.S. has little input in some major supply chains like semiconductors; thus, we are now entirely dependent on others’ kindness.

Stephen argues American ingenuity through companies like Bell Labs during the last century led to much of today’s prosperity. We have now lost our competitive edge, mainly due to Nixon ending the gold standard. Subsequently, we moved to an undisciplined economy that could spend without restriction.

He discusses what a new monetary system would likely look like and why it will be a digital currency basket backed by gold. China is currently testing digital currencies, and internally they are already on a de facto gold standard. In China, citizens are encouraged to buy gold, which they can do at most banks. Western central banks are just beginning to take notice and look into digital currencies.

Lastly, Stephen discusses where gold could head over the next twenty years. Bottom line commodities will continue to play a massive role globally, and investors should own some gold.

 

Time Stamp References:

0:00 – Intro

0:55 – Converting to a gold bug.

4:30 – Energing economies.

8:00 – Gold as a store of value.

12:00 – East vs. West recovery.

15:30 – Commodity reserves changing.

18:00 – Properties of silver.

20:30 – Semiconductors. gallium, and silicon.

24:00 – Commodity scarcity and energy return on investment.

25:00 – Rare earth concerns.

32:00 – American ingenuity last century.

35:00 – What went wrong, we left the gold standard.

43:00 – Commodities should be in your portfolio.

44:20 – Structure of a new monetary reserve system.

48:00 – Digital basket of currencies backed by gold.

50:30 – Fixing gold to a new digital currency structure.

53:00 – China’s real gold reserves and their mining.

57:00 – China has a defensive military structure.

58:30 – Ghost cities and China’s longer-term plans.

1:01:00 – Co-operation or isolation.

1:03:40 – Gold targets long-term.

1:09:30 – The other 85%.

1:12:00 – Buffett buying gold.

 

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/the-new-monetary-reserve-system-digital-currency-basket-backed-by-gold/

 

https://youtu.be/uQDuvntrq3A

Truth Seeker ID: b5f5c5 Nov. 3, 2020, 2:08 p.m. No.6543   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>6542

Note: This guy Stephen Leeb was not right 22 years ago.

However over that same time period, NOBODY has been successful in predicting the highly-manipulated PM markets. Maybe that is going to change.

Truth Seeker ID: 5da778 Nov. 18, 2020, 10:20 a.m. No.6746   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Anon1: I used to be in mortgage banking. Started my banking career at (redacted bank). I was never senior level management but I got a belly full of that entire world, even at my lower level. I worked for several different banks, large and small, and I can attest to the absolute horrid corrupt manner in which they all operate. If you’re liberal you’re ok. If they get the idea you’re an independent thinker you’re on a watchlist, guaranteed. NONE of them are exempt from this. They’re ALL owned by [them] and crooked as hell. The whole debt thing is deeply tied to the big “mortgage wheel” and the housing market. I used to do the daily mortgage pool sales transactions for one bank on the secondary market. Like the debt situation, it’s part of how they create money out of thin air. Watch Zeitgeist for a good breakdown. They use mortgage interest rates to help control the flow of this non-existent money, and of course they just run up the debt so that they can collect on it at some point in the future, meaning they intend to take all our personal property from us since we’ll never be able to pay off the ever-increasing debt balance that they created. They’ve been lending money globally that only exists in the digital world, but they expect payment in real physical property. It’s how they’ve increased their wealth. By enslaving us to their contrived “debt”. We didn’t know any better, we were just born into this fraudulent system and thought that’s the way it had to be. I was under the impression that Trump’s reset was going to wipe all of that away…?

 

Anon2: You summarized my thoughts perfectly. It was around (year redacted) when I faced certain financial decisions, and had to try to project things like interest rates into the future in order to make comparisons between possible courses of action. Deep analysis led to the conclusion that if a person takes on debt of any kind, it enriches the financial cartel in such a way that they gradually acquire control over ALL real assets. And this encroachment has been going on since forever. However it is virtually impossible to make a large purchase like a house without a mortgage, unless one is really lucky. So I saw how the system is stacked against the average person, even against a clever insightful person.

 

This is the Vampire Squid that we're up against.

 

Anon1: Yep, you’ve just given a name to the thorn in my side that keeps me up at night. What to do. In a nutshell, if Trump’s reset doesn’t materialize we’re basically all fooked. They will keep pushing their plan forward. Humanity has served their purpose for long enough now, they feel they are in position to move ahead with overtaking and ultimately ridding themselves of most of us. They’ll keep some of us as slaves for their benefit, but they intend to do away with the idea of what it means to be Human. Enter AI and the technocratic rule. I’ve just spent the last 10 years paying off about (six figures amount redacted) in credit debt. I have nothing. No savings, no retirement or 401K. It was all sucked up in a really bad divorce situation. Not much they can take from me personally, but if they find me and want to get rid of me they’ll just send me to a “re-education” camp based on my conservative views and refusal to wear a mask or get a vaccination. I do trust God, but I don’t venture to know what His exact plans are for us. Many great, great Patriots and Saints who deserve a lot better than me have suffered more than I probably ever could.

 

Anon2: The house owns the casino. They make the rules. They create the chips. They enforce their rules. If you play in their casino, you must understand that the deck is stacked against you.

 

There are ways to fight back. But they take perseverance and a very very long-term view. Not everybody is lucky enough to have assets, let alone able to sequester the assets for an indefinitely long period of time, like decades, and endure permanent frugality by choice. Because no outsider can predict geopolitical events. And the House controls the geopolitical events too.

 

And if we COULD predict geopolitical events, then we'd be an insider and one of them. So that thought keeps us sane.