Do You Have Gold?

Just a quick tidbit of news that caught my eye this week. It seems that there is an organization located in Indiana known as National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code (NORFED). This organization has been minting and selling gold and silver “liberty Dollar” medallions. Last week the U.S. Treasury Department issued a warning to purchasers of these coins that using them, as money would be considered a crime.

Here’s the catch…the U.S. Treasury has no authority to determine if an action is a crime or not. That would come from a different branch of the government. It seems that someone at Treasury kind of panicked about this whole thing and is trying to put a halt to NORFED’s selling of these medallions. This has done nothing to halt the sales of these coins. In fact, Mike Johnson, the executive director says that interest and sales are up.

As it turns out, a Federal Reserve spokesman says that as long as the coins don’t say “legal tender” there is nothing illegal about them. He also states, “there is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon.”

So, there are a growing number of people purchasing these coins, with over $20 million in circulation, and many of them being used in bartering situations for goods and services. People like them because they are not tied to the U.S. government and so they retain their value, unlike Federal Reserve Notes, which have lost 95% of their purchasing power since 1913.

At some point, if this trend of using alternative money continues, you can bet that the government will have to step in to preserve tax revenues. We may see another executive order outlawing the ownership of gold, similar to what Roosevelt did to prop the dollar up back in 1933.

If our government continues on their current course of destroying our currency, the day could come when you pull into a gas station in some out of the way town and the owner refuses your “reserve notes” and demands payment in something a little more substantial.

Think about that while you sip on your second cup of coffee this morning.