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Sunday, February 26, 2012

A STUDY OF EURASIAN ECONOMIC THOUGHT (MEROS D)



























(BEING CONTINUED FROM 27/11/11)

III. Wu-wei in Switzerland
The Low Countries and France do not represent the complete European axis of wu-wei infiltration. Before the tolerant period of Eurasian synthesis inside Europe would cease to exist, terminated by the rise of national neo-mercantilist Revolutionism, a European mutation of the wu-wei-state was erected inside a small Alpine transit-land, Switzerland. During the 17th century, the Low Countries had provided Europe with a mass of new information on China but the “Chinezen van Europa”91 did prove unable to decipher the wu-weian message. Quesnay had based his model of reform on wu-wei – yet, Physiocracy’s influence on the political economy of post-revolutionary France was almost nonexistent. Ultimately, it was in the Swiss Confederation where the actual fusion of European, traditional practice and imported Chinese expertise, materialized. In this section we will consider two aspects of this fusion process, first, the effects of Quesnay’s theories on Switzerland, and secondly, Switzerland’s development into a European paradigm of wu-wei. The Swiss succeeded where France and the Low Countries failed; through their example, the European political unit transformed itself under the banner of China’s wu-wei. But how did Switzerland do this?

3.1 The Fusion
After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) by Louis XIV, 25,000 Huguenots exiles had settled and revived large parts of Switzerland, economically and culturally.92 From the seven Swiss contributors to the French Encyclopédie, only two were not second generation Huguenots.93 Additionally, the traditional inter-European intellectual endeavours of the Huguenots (the ‘livre de Hollande’)94 pulled Switzerland closer to the inner-circles of the so-called ‘Republic of Letters’, whose centre was Amsterdam.95 Thus, a matured enlightened nexus had arisen in western Switzerland and the independent republic of Geneva, by the 1720s.96
During the 1760s, a distinct Sinophile block of the so-called ‘école romande du droit naturel’ (Alfred Dufour)97 and Swiss Economic Patriots, started to reprint Quesnay’s sources on China, re-creating his personal resource pool on wu-wei in western Switzerland. In 1764, de Surgy’s vital
texts were published at the ‘imprimerie de Fortunato Bartolomeo de Felice’98 in Yverdon.99 In the same year, the process continued through the posthumous publication of the Considérations by Marquis d’Argenson (*1694-†1757)100, a former classmate of the Sinophile Voltaire. The favourite maxim of the Marquis, Europe’s first ‘true free trader’101, had been ‘to govern better, one must govern less’102; which is of course analogous to the wu-wei principle of the ideal Confucian ruler, who reigns but does not rule.103 At the end of his life, d’Argenson had developed a deep sense of admiration for Chinese state craftsmanship. As he wrote in Considérations:
“The Chinese government embodies the ‘juste milieu’, [here] the Law of Confucius still exists [...], although it is as old as that of Solon, [which is] destroyed, and even caused the destruction of […] Empires. I believe in exact the description which I have just made of the Chinese government […] I propose to the nations of Europe this model [of superior government], for their own benefits.”104
Interestingly, the first edition of the famous Lyon-lecture by Poivre was published in Yverdon as well, only four years after de Surgy and d’Argenson.105
Besides replicating Quesnay’s sources on wu-wei, Yverdon was very active in diffusing various original physiocratic texts. Parallel to Poivre, a collection of Quesnay’s writings by the French Physiocrat Pierre du Pont de Nemours, the “Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement”, was published.106 Once again, the strong influence of French Sinophilsm on the Swiss enlightened nexus becomes apparent by quoting Nemours on the Chinese expertise in government:
“[China’s way of government], by taking human nature into account, includes all the needed […] laws for men, and is suitable for all types of climate and countries; since four thousands years [the ordre naturel] has remained the [official doctrine] of the Chinese government.“107
Unsurprisingly, the French Physiocrats had been attracted to parts of this very sinophile part of Switzerland – especially after the foundation of the partly physiocratic Economic Society of Bern, in 1759.108
From very early on, one of Quesnay’s students, the Sinophile Marquis Victor de Mirabeau became ecstatic about the French Physiocrats’s Swiss connection.109 In 1760, he travelled to Bern and addressed the society:
“Finally the day of days has dawned which will open the eyes of mankind to the best of her truest advantages, this is because the ‘Ökonomische Gesellschaft’ is to be established in the capital of the most powerful canton of Switzerland […] Admirable citizens, soon all the dispersed pieces of knowledge will, under your favour, crystallize in your country and form a protected and secured treasure of knowledge. I cannot reveal to you what I am expecting, what I am hoping for in this deepest of moments. But do not despise the discoveries of the people who preceded you in this noble cause.”110
Indeed, one member of the society would not despise the findings of the French around the ‘Confucius of Europe’; this person was Albrecht von Haller (*1708-†1777), an influential physiologist and writer. As one of the outstanding Swiss intellectual figures of the 18th century, he chaired the Economic Society for nine years (1766, 1768, 1770-1777) and was fascinated by the works of the Sinophiles, Mirabeau and Christian Wolff.111 Haller frequently used his knowledge of the Chinese Empire to criticise anti-physiocratic writings. He condemned Galiani’s writings on the poor export power of agriculture, by drawing attention to the “entrepreneurialzation of the Chinese peasantry”112:
“Galiani, the defender [of industry, is] mistaken: the tailor from Canton, he says, can work for Paris but not the [Cantonese] peasant. [Galiani forgets that] the Chinese peasant produces [the] silk for London [as well].”113
In 1771, Haller published Usong, a Swiss Staatsroman i.e. description of the ideal state in all its aspects, whose political philosophy was deeply influenced by the principle of wu-wei.114 Although Haller’s story plays in Persia, the lessons of his Staatsroman were the lessons he had personally drawn from examining the government of virtuous China.115 Haller’s ideal state is based on China’s universally applicable laws and a bureaucracy that is governed by the principle of accountability, but most importantly on the principle of ‘action by non-action’.116 Haller’s Emperor simply rests in a state of wu-wei as the human embodiment of the authority in which laws and bureaucracy are grounded, like the ideal Confucian ruler who reigns but does not rule.117 Furthermore, the tax system is copied from the Chinese practice.118 Like in China, the system is mainly based on land-poll, and indirect taxes play only a secondary role.119 One indirect tax is known, a very low import duty. However, this duty is fixed at the lowest rate possible because it is “not the Emperor’s wish to extort riches from the merchants”120 but to increase commerce and agriculture.121 Thus, the Emperor Usong is most concerned with agriculture as the base of the state i.e. the nongben-minben ideology, but also considers evenly commerce and industry as sources of national wealth.122 Usong’s physiocratic government does not despise cities (as the Physiocrats did) but aims to protect the welfare of the urban centers to assure additional welfare for the people of the Empire.123
Therefore, by choosing China as his preferred model of government, Haller ends up praising wu-wei as a virtuous and successful instrument of government. However, most importantly, the commercial power of the city is added to Haller’s vision of the ideal state. Unlike Quesnay, who was very much focused on copying the nongben qualities of China, the economic model by Haller endorses the modern commercialism of the urban centres as a vital element for a wu-wei state in Europe. Haller states clearly that this de-linking of wu-wei erzhi from its agricultural core is done for the benefit of the whole population, including the peasants (hence minben).124
Thus, Haller urged Switzerland to transform the French-Chinese physiocratic message of wu-wei for the solely benefit of ‘the people’. He attached the component of urban freedom to the original principle, which had solely been based on the Chinese virtue of agrocracy (agriculture and peasantry-friendly)125. This inclusion of commercial wu-wei was facilitated by Switzerland’s high proto-industrialization and free trade tradition. Quesnay’s one-to-one copy of the Chinese principle had been
ideally suited to reform the autocratic, agrarian, anti-commercial ‘China in Europe’126 but for agrarian and commercial Switzerland, this so-perfect model would work no more. The Swiss, not the French, nor the British, altered the authentic Chinese ‘agrarian wu-wei’ to suit their own needs, transforming themselves into the new European paradigm of wu-wei. This additional economic freedom was embraced via Switzerland’s traditional free trade economy.


(TO BE CONTINUED)


Christian Gerlach

Department of Economic History
London School of Economics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Gerlach

NOTES
91 P. J. van Winter, De Chinezen van Europa (Groningen 1965).
92 Ian Inkster, Science and Technology in History (London 1991), p. 48.
93 Frank A. Kafker/ Serenal L. Kafker, The Encyclopaedists as individuals: Biographical Dictionary of the Authors of the "Encyclopédie”; Studies on Voltaire (Oxford 1988), pp. XX- XXIII.
94 Jonathan Israel, The publishing of forbidden philosophical works in the Dutch republic (1666-1710) and their European distribution, p. 233, in: The Bookshop of the World – The role of the Low Countries in the book-trade 1473-1941, (ed) Lotte Hellinga et al. (Goy-Houten 2001), pp. 233- 243.
95 Elisabeth L. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an agent of Change: communications and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge 1979), vol. I, p. 138.
96 Ulrich im Hof, Geschichte der Schweiz (Stuttgart, 6th ed.1997), pp. 87- 91.
97 Simone Zurbuchen, Patriotismus und Kosmopolitismus – Die Schweizer Aufklärung zwischen Tradition und Moderne (Zürich 2003), p. 50.
98 Jean-Pierre Perret, Les imprimeries d’Yverdon au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Lausanne 1945).
99 De Surgy, Mélanges intéressans, (Yverdon 1764-1767).
100 René Louis de Voyer de Paulmy d’Argenson, Considérations sur le gouvernement ancien et présent de la France / par Mr. le Marquis d'Argenson (Yverdon/ Amsterdam 1764)
101 Julius Becker, Das deutsche Manchestertum – Eine Studie zur Geschichte des wirtschaftspolitischen Individualismus (Karlsruhe 1907), p. 7.
102 Oncken, August, Die Maxime laissez faire et laissez passer, ihr Ursprung, ihr Werden (Bern 1886), p. 61.
103 Ames, Rulership, p. 29.
104 Translated from the French: d’Argenson, Considérations (Amsterdam 1784), pp. 109- 110.
105 Poivre, Voyages (Yverdon 1768).
106 Francois Quesnay, Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain / recueil publié par Du Pont, 6 vols. (Yverdon 1768- 69).
107 Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, De l’origine et des progrès d’une science nouvelle 1768/ Dupont de Nemours ; publié avec notice et table analytique par A. Dubois (Paris 1910), p. 35.
108 Georg C. L. Schmidt, Der Bauer im Zeitalter des Frühkapitalismus – Die Wandlung der Schweizer Bauernwirtschaft im achtzehnten Jahrhundert und die Politik der Ökonomischen Patrioten (Bern 1932), pp. 112- 118.
109 August Oncken, Der ältere Mirabeau und die Ökonomische Gesellschaft in Bern (Bern 1886) p. 38.
110 Translated from the German version, in: Oncken, Mirabeau, p.21.
111 Ulrich im Hof, Albrecht von Haller. Staat und Gesellschaft, p. 48 in: Albrecht Haller (1708-1777), 10 Vorträge gehalten am Berner Haller-Symposium 6.-8. Oktober 1977 (Bern 1977), pp. 43- 66.
112 Kent G. Deng, Development and Its Deadlock in Imperial China 221 B.C.–1840 A.D., p.495 in: Economic development and cultural change, Vol. 51, No. 2, January 2003, pp. 479- 523.
113 Translated from German: im Hof, von Haller, p. 61.
114 Albrech von Haller, Usong. Eine Morgenländische Geschichte (Bern 1771).
115 Max Widmann, Albrecht von Hallers Staatsromane (Biel 1894), pp. 59-60.
116 Haller, Usong, pp. 385- 418.
117 Ames, Rulership, p. 55.
118 Haller, Usong, pp. 117- 121.
119 Deng, Imperial China, p. 490.
120 Widmann, Staatsromane, p. 48.
121 Ibid., pp. 47, 49.
122 Ibid., p. 52.
123 Haller, Usong, pp. 406- 407.
124 Haller, Usong, p. 406.
125 Deng, Imperial China, p. 497.
126 Fisher, Containing China?, p. 549.

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Saturday, February 18, 2012

IN THE GOD WE DOUBT - FAKE BONDS and American Monetary History

(THE ARTICLE IS RELATED TO http://feraios.blogspot.com/2011/08/bonds-history-and-upcoming-false.html  .CLICKING ON THE TITLE WE ARE REDIRECTED TO AN ARTICLE ABOUT  Six Kinds of United States Paper Currency  )

Italian police seize $6tn of fake US Treasury bonds




MORE AT  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/fake-us-treasury-bonds-seized

A)Why Were The Trillions In Fake Bonds Held In Chicago Fed Crates?(Editor's Note.EN. when the total estimated U.S.A debt is 15-16 tn USD )

ORIGIN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS

The Federal Reserve began on December 23, 1913. President Woodrow Wilson expressed grave concerns about the seriousness and the danger of what had just occurred -- the overthrow of the American economic system by a group of private bankers.

The first major spark to begin World War I occurred the following June, when Archduke Francis Ferdinand, the heir to the Austria-Hungary throne, was assassinated -- along with his wife.

As we revealed in Section Two, World War One had been planned by Guiseppe Mazzini, the head of European Freemasonry, and Albert Pike, the head of American Freemasonry, back in 1871. Their plans were proudly displayed at the National Museum Library in London.

In June 1914, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by a nationalistic member of a different country -- Serbia. Then, most likely thanks to press manipulation, the public was whipped up into a frenzy -- and they were told that this was an act of war.

Assassinations are very easy to stage. That appears to have been a key part of how Pike and Mazzini's plan to start World War One was realized in practical terms.

The outrage from this assassination spread throughout Europe. The controlled press in different countries most likely contributed by manipulating their people into taking sides.

Germany quickly sided with Austria and Hungary. Germany then declared war on Serbia and her ally, Russia, seeking vengeance for the murder of Archduke Ferdinand.


IT SOON SPIRALED OUT OF CONTROL
Germany's declaration of war was on August 1, 1914 -- and very soon afterwards, the whole world began spiraling out of control.

Germany invaded Luxembourg, declared war on France and invaded Belgium to have an attack point against France. Britain declared war on Germany in defense -- and even Canada joined the fight.

This all occurred in 1914, and the battle raged on until 1919 -- with several other countries getting drawn in along the way. Germany was crushed at the end of the war, and the Treaty of Versailles was drawn up to help rebuild their economy.

By 1921, it was clear that nothing had really changed in the world. The rich still got richer, the poor still got poorer, and no one really "won" the Great War -- as it was called back then.

Within the insider circles of the international community, much of the problem was blamed on the gold standard -- for the reasons outlined in Adam Smith's
The Wealth of Nations from 1776.

The degree of atrocity that was suffered from the gold standard was sufficient to convince Emperor Hirohito of Japan to travel to the United Kingdom and sign a secret pact, in 1921, to create the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).

The BIS was created by the founders of the Federal Reserve, which had started about seven years earlier. We will learn a lot more about them -- and
read from their own official documents -- in Section Five.

The BIS was intended to expand the powers of the Federal Reserve into a truly global reach... and it worked.

HIROHITO ACCEPTS THE PLAN TO START THE BANK OF INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENTS
The plan Hirohito accepted was also secretly agreed to by several other nations in the 1920s. It took time, but a consensus was reached within less than a decade -- and they eventually went public about their new alliance.

Whether voluntarily or involuntarily, all the most significant supplies of gold and silver in the world were turned over to the Federal Reserve and Bank of International Settlements and "blacklisted" -- that is, taken off-market.

The idea was obviously not to destroy all the gold and treasure -- that would be a stupid and needless tragedy. Instead, the various leaders were told they merely had to put all their gold on deposit.
Secret deposit.

Everyone still got to keep their gold -- only the public would be told it was missing, or it had never existed in the first place. The Asians certainly hadn't gone public with how much they really had, so that whole story could be easily kept secret.

BONDS WERE ISSUED IN EXCHANGE FOR THE GOLD
Each country that handed over its gold -- and / or had its gold forcibly taken -- was given certificates of deposit, or
bonds, in exchange for what they gave up.

The bonds were issued by the Federal Reserve, through their various banks in major cities of the United States. These bonds were considered to be as valuable and as redeemable as cash.

The problem was that the Federal Reserve printed
vastly, vastly, vastly more money in these bonds than existed in the open, honest economy -- trillions upon trillions of dollars' worth, beginning in the 1920s.

Remember -- the amount of gold that actually existed was much greater than anyone could have ever imagined, since the Asians had kept it all very secret.

Had the public found out how much gold there really was, it would have created a massive economic shock. Gold would have become practically worthless overnight.

The world leaders needed to know that the gold they put on deposit was still worth its actual value in conventional dollars. Otherwise, they would be really pissed off about not getting "fair market value" for what they were "depositing" with the Federal Reserve.


EVERYTHING WAS PACKAGED VERY NICELY -- AND VERY SECURELY
The bonds looked very sexy -- and had huge numbers on them.

There were 100,000-dollar gold certificates, million-dollar gold certificates, 100-million-dollar bonds and even billion-dollar bonds.

That's right. Single sheets of paper were allegedly worth a
billion dollars in some cases.

I am aware of how crazy this sounds, but the intel on this is very good -- including pictures that David and Mackie Hutzler may have given their lives for us to see.

As an investigator, my job is to pass along the information to you. I cannot assume that I know everything, or that every piece of data is correct. However, when I have multiple, totally independent sources tell me the exact same things, I listen.

Though there were several different types of storage containers, many of these bonds were put into 8.5x11-sized boxes carved out of a single piece of durable wood -- about two and a half inches deep, making them almost as big as a typical ream of 500 sheets of paper.

THEY NEEDED TO STAY SECURE FOR 60 YEARS
The wooden boxes were then glued shut. That way, the bonds were much less likely to get moldy -- after being stored in a chest and buried underground in a secure location for 60 years.

After the 60 years, the Asian countries were told they could dig up the chests, cash out the bonds and get their money back if they wanted to.

According to Fulford, Keenan and other sources, in 1938, the Kuomintang dynasty in China sent seven battleships' worth of gold -- a staggering amount -- to the United States to protect against it being stolen by the Japanese.

This is a key aspect of the trillion-dollar lawsuit we have been discussing.

In response, the United States issued massive amounts of 1934-series Federal Reserve bonds -- carefully sealed in boxes, which were then sealed in locked chests -- and handed them back to China as collateral.


THE 60 YEARS WERE UP IN 1998 -- AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE LOST THE CASE
  In 1998, the 60 years were up. The Kuomintang had fled to Taiwan and were no longer the ruling party in China, but they still wanted their gold back. The Federal Reserve fought them in a secret international court at the Hague -- and
lost.

The Federal Reserve was ordered to pay out the debt as of September 11, 2001. They did not. We all know what did happen that day.

What  Very few people knew, until now, was that all the Kuomintang gold was being stored under Building 7 at the World Trade Center. After the towers came down, the vaults were "mysteriously" found to be empty.

The Kuomintang have been fighting ever since to get their gold back. The size and scope of such a "winner takes all" heist is truly extraordinary -- but something outrageous and unprecedented in any known laws of physics did happen that day.

Susan Lindaeur is now the highest-level, most credible witness to have added significant strength to the story that "9/11 was an inside job."

The lawsuit Neil Keenan has filed on the Dragon Family's behalf could potentially break the whole story open before the eyes of the world -- and again, this lawsuit has the backing of a 122-nation alliance.

I have written this investigation to help end the deadly silence -- so justice can be served. Ultimately, this is
everyone's war -- not just those seeking to reclaim their stolen property.

THE BOXES WERE COVERED WITH ENGRAVED COPPER
Before we go into more detail about the BIS and the open, provable aspects of the story, it's important to fill in a few more of the technical details about the bonds, the bond boxes and the bond chests.

The 8.5x11-sized wooden bond boxes were faced and sealed with bronze-colored sheet metal -- for extra protection from the elements underground.

The sheet metal on the boxes had elaborate, official engravings on every side. The engravings indicated that the bonds were issued by the Federal Reserve. They indicated which Federal Reserve bank, from which American city, had issued the bonds.

The range of serial numbers for the bonds were also engraved into the sheet metal -- as well as the staggering value of the financial instruments inside.

MORE ABOUT THE CHESTS
Many of the larger chests, particularly in the 1934 series, held a total of 13 of these boxes. They did very much look like the classic "treasure chest."

Twelve of the bond boxes inside these chests were about two and a half inches wide, as we said -- and the thirteenth was only half that width and was actually a "Book of Redemption", not containing bonds but rather instructions on how to redeem them.

Each chest also contained a single, small cylindrical "Information Scroll" mounted in a clamp. All thirteen of the boxes fit neatly and snugly into the chest like a row of books.

The chest was then also covered with engraved sheet metal. The engravings said the bonds were issued by a Federal Reserve bank from a given American city. The serial numbers of the bonds were listed, as well as the total value of everything in the box.

Many of these 1934-series chests carried a written value of Three Trillion Dollars -- and a substantial number of them were produced. Each chest was padlocked shut for even further protection.


THE BONDS WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE USED IN THE "OPEN" ECONOMY
Even though the Kuomintang had the option to reclaim their gold after 60 years, the bonds were never meant to be used as cash. The money was still expected to be held on deposit and used as collateral for the existing "open" currencies of the world.

If the bonds were freed up and actually cashed, they could ruin the United States economy -- which had nowhere near as much money in it as the Federal Reserve had printed in the bonds.

The whole idea was to keep the bonds on deposit -- as well as the gold they were issued against.

The bonds represented how much value a given country held in the BIS system. We will explore the inner workings of this system in Section Five.

Most importantly,
the bonds, boxes and chests all contained deliberate, glaring errors in spelling and grammar. That way, if anyone did actually try to use them, the authorities would say they were "Fake".

It is not clear whether the Asians and other foreign nations were aware of these deliberate errors or not. Probably some of them were, and some of them were not.

Meanwhile, anyone who actually tried to cash the bonds would be lucky to escape from their plan alive.
HOW DID I KNOW ALL THIS?
The reason why I know all this is rather convoluted, but compelling. In mid-December, once I knew what questions to ask, a top insider described to me what these bond boxes actually looked like. He had also toured some the vast facilities where the gold was held.

I then emailed Neil Keenan, the principal in this trillion-dollar lawsuit, with the information. Less than 15 minutes later, he sent me an avalanche of pictures that looked
exactly the same as what I had just described -- even though he had never met my insider.

Bear in mind that I'd already been in contact with Keenan for nearly three weeks by this point. There was no possible way he could have moved fast enough to create fakes that matched what my insider had just described.

I never thought I was going to do this, but since there are already two other online sources that have leaked very similar images, here are some of the pictures Neil Keenan sent me.
MORE AT  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/why-were-trillions-fake-bonds-held-chicago-fed-crates  

    
B)Counterfeiting and American Monetary History
In the November 10, 2011 issue of the New York Review of Books, Gordon Wood, professor emeritus of history at Brown University, reviews a new book by Ben Tarnoff Moneymakers: The Wicked Lives and Surprising Adventures of Three Notorious Counterfeiters. I found the second paragraph of Wood’s essay, especially arresting.

Almost from the beginning of American history Americans have relied on paper money. Indeed, the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1690 was the first government in the Western world to print paper currency in order to pay its debts. Although this paper money was not redeemable in specie, the Massachusetts government did accept it in payment for taxes. Because Americans were always severely short of gold and silver, the commercial benefits of such paper soon became obvious. Not only the thirteen British colonies, but following the Revolution the new states and the Continental Congress all came to rely on the printing of paper money to pay most of their bills. By the early nineteenth century hundreds of banks throughout the country were issuing notes that passed as money. No place in the world had more paper money flying about than did America. By the time the federal government began regulating the money supply during the Civil War, there were more than ten thousand different kinds of notes circulating in the United States.

Note the explicit reference to the role of making paper money acceptable in payment for taxes as condition for the success of the paper money printed by the Massachusetts government even though the money was not redeemable in specie.

Wood goes on to recount the important role that counterfeiters played in American history focusing on the stories of the three “heroes” of Tarnoff’s book to illustrate the ways in which counterfeiters actually served the public interest by providing access to paper money that banks were not willing or able to provide, an observation that will resonate deeply with our own esteemed Benjamin Cole, who has loudly proclaimed the benefits of monetary expansion, even if accomplished by counterfeiting.

Another important point that I found extremely interesting comes toward the end of Wood’s piece.

The golden age of American counterfeiting came to an end during the Civil War. In 1862 the United States made paper money printed by the national government legal tender. This “bold expansion of federal sovereignty,” says Tarnoff, “represented nothing less than a revolution in American finance.” The National Currency Act of 1863 followed, and a tax on the notes of state banks put them out of business. The United States had become a new nation. “The war produced something unimaginable: a federal monopoly on paper currency. . . .Never before in American history,” says Tarnoff, “had the power to make paper money been held by a single authority.”

Counterfeiter felt the effects immediately. With a single national currency people no longer had to sift through thousands of different bills trying to distinguish the genuine from the fake. But an agency to detect and arrest counterfeiters was still needed, and in 1865 the Treasury Department created the US Secret Service, which soon severely cut down the number of counterfeiters and counterfeit notes. At the time of the Civil War one third or more of the paper money in circulation had been fraudulent; by the time the Federal Reserve System was established in 1913, counterfeit bills made up less than on thousandth of one percent of the paper money supply.

Obviously, centralizing the issue of bank notes greatly increases the incentive of the monopoly issuer to enforce its property rights and eliminate counterfeiting. With a decentralized supply of bank notes, individual banks have relatively little incentive to seek or undertake enforcement action against counterfeiters who are more likely to counterfeit someone else’s notes than their own. In his first great book on monetary theory, Good and Bad Trade, Ralph Hawtrey cited the reduced costs of identifying counterfeit notes as the principal advantage in suppressing free competition in the issue of banknotes.

Wood closes by noting that most of the $900 billion of Federal Reserve Notes in circulation in 2010 (now well over $1 trillion) are thought to be held outside the US. The amount of gold held in bullion or coins by private citizens is estimated to be 16% of the total of gold in existence in2008. The current stock of gold in all forms is about 170,000 metric tons. So about 25,000 metric tons of gold may now be privately held. At $1700 an ounce, private gold holdings are thus worth about $1.3 trillion. I don’t know how much of this is held outside the US, but I suspect it is much more than a half. Let’s assume it’s a round number like $1 trillion. Then the amount of privately held gold outside the US is about twice the amount of privately held Federal Reserve notes. However, holding Federal Reserve Notes is not the only way that people can hold dollars abroad. They can also hold euro dollar accounts, which are time deposits denominated in dollars held in offshore (outside the US) banks. No one knows what the volume of such accounts is, because it is basically an unregulated market outside the reach of US regulatory authority and pretty much left unregulated by foreign governments. But estimates of the size of euro dollar accounts (which may be denominated in other currencies, but are overwhelmingly denominate in dollars) are probably far more than $1 trillion. So based on the revealed preferences of legally unconstrained choices, the dollar seems to be way, way more popular than gold.

SOURCE   http://uneasymoney.com/

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Friday, February 10, 2012

Syrian society and parties must Find a Different Way against the unfamiliar to them, barbaric brutality

(THE TITLE REDIRECTS TO THE WIKI PAGE ABOUT THE NCC BUT ALSO THERE IS ANOTHER COUNSIL THE SNC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Coordination_Committee_for_Democratic_Change )

“In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, ...a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals. ...[to] be accomplished early in the course of the uprising and intervention, ...
Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main (sic) incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals. ...Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus …
Further : a “necessary degree of fear .. frontier incidents and (staged) border clashes”, would “provide a pretext for intervention... the CIA and SIS [MI6 should use … capabilities in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.”
(Joint US-UK leaked Intelligence Document, London and Washington, 1957)

“'The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history."
(George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950.)

MORE AT http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29126

DEAR FELLOW READERS ,CHAIRESTAI (= BE HAPPY) ,
THE TODAY ARTICLE IS REFERRING TO A SENSITIVE  REGIONAL ANCIENT POWER,
THE SYRIAN PEOPLE.
BEING THE EASTERN  CENTRE OF THE HELLENIC EMPIRES OF THE MINOANS, MACEDONIANS AND ROMANS FOR ALMOST 5000 YEARS ,IT TURNED TO THE MAIN  INFLUENCE ,WHICH CAME FROM  THE ARABIAN PENINSULA FOR THE LAST 1000.
THE TODAY SYRIAN STATE ,INSTITUTED RIGHT AFTER THE WWII ,IS AN IMPORTANT STABILITY  FACTOR FOR THE  EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND MIDDLE EAST  GEOPOLITICS.
WHEN IT WAS VISITED ,DURING THE LATE 80'S,BAATH'S AND ASSAD'S FIGURES WERE SHOWN  EVERYWHERE AROUND THE COUNTRY,UNDER THE  SOVIET  COMMUNISTIC INFLUENCE.
AFTER THE CHANGE OCCURRED IN 2000 ,DUE TO NATURAL PHENOMENA AND ASSAD'S SON CAME INTO AUTHORITY,WE ALL FELT A RELEASE.
IT WAS POINTED OUT ,LOTS OF TIMES TO OUR SYRIAN OPPOSITION'S,POLITICAL FRIENDS AND LATELY (ONE YEAR AGO) AT POSTINGS TO REGAS PHERAIOS SEe AND MEDITERRANEAN GROUP ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/regasvelestinlesferaios/ ) ,THAT NOW THE REGIME SHOULD STEP BACK AND PROCLAIM  DEMOCRATIC PROCEDURES ,SO THAT LIKE IN WESTERN OLIGARCHIES, THEY COULD RULE THEIR COUNTRY BETTER FOR THE SAKE OF ALL,IN PEACE.
UNFORTUNATELY THE YOUNGER ASSADS ,SEEMS THAT THEY AREN'T CAPABLE IN BALANCING SYRIAN STATE'S  AFFAIRS, WITH THE PROPER SENSITIVITY.
THE POLICY OF UNDERSTANDING  THE ENDING OF THE  REGIME ,AND  THE PEACEFUL GUIDANCE  TO A DEMOCRATIC CHANGE,IS A MATTER ,WHICH SURELY,CONCERNS  ALL SYRIANS ,WHO MORE OR LESS ARE INVOLVED INTO CORRUPTION IMPLICATIONS,OF THE DICTATORSHIP.
THE BRUTALITY ,WHICH IS FOLLOWED BY  BOTH SIDES,APART THAT IT IS TRADITIONALLY (THOUSANDS OF YEARS)UNACCEPTABLE ,IT IS NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE POPULATION,NEITHER FOR THE TERRITORY AND EUROPE.

THE HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE'S UPRISING CAN BE READ AT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011–2012_Syrian_uprising


Syria’s Opposition Must Find a Different Way

As the death toll mounts on the streets in Syria, it is important to remember how we got here. Damascus has decided to reassert control over its restive cities by using the full might of its military. This should not come as a surprise to observers and policy makers. Indeed, the surprise is that the government has taken this long to order its offensive.
In the first three months of this crisis, it is fair to suggest that the opposition was largely peaceful. By the summer of 2011, this was beginning to change. The uprising was morphing into an armed resistance as weapons started to surface on Syrian streets. The defining moment was at the beginning of Ramadan.  Contrary to consensus opinion, the government was not deterred by the start of the Holy month. Hama was stormed and taken back from the opposition to the shock of the region. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made its first defining public comment on Alarabiya Television Channel immediately following Hama’s fall to the government, after withdrawing its ambassador from Syria.
Since Hama, Syrian opposition members have begun increasingly to  call to demand weapons and a military response to overpower the regime. For the next 6 months, Syrian streets and neighborhoods became armed enough that the mighty Syrian army had to think twice before entering the developing mini enclaves ruled by the opposition within its cities. Not surprisingly, taking up arms suddenly became the accepted modus operandi of the opposition and the uprising. Those cautioning against such strategies were referred to as ignorant or regime supporters.
Young opposition activists who followed the advice to arm and fight the regime are now being left to fend for themselves against the military Goliath of the Syrian Army. As I wrote following my return from the country, many assured me that the armed forces were yet to use more than 20% of their capacity. As I listened to pronouncements by opposition leaders about the necessity to arm, I could not help but wonder what would happen when Damascus would unleash its full  military might. We will now find out.
While Rastan, Homs and ZabadaniKalashnikovs?
Sadly, following the double veto at the U.N., many capitals have announced that they are willing to further arm the rebels. This is a travesty. The fact is that no amount of arms in the hands of such untrained rebels will come even close to defeating the Syrian army. This insanity must stop. The Syrian National Council and regional powers must come up with a different strategy if they truly care about the Syrian people who are now dying on the streets and in their homes.  Some have argued that had it not been for the veto at the U.N., the Syrian army would not have responded this way over the past 48 hours. This is false. The decision to storm HomsZabadani was made before the vote. The central government decided to restore its control over all its cities before a Syrian Benghazi could be established.
At the beginning of this crisis, I was skeptical that the opposition was as armed as the government media claimed. By the end of Ramadan, I had no doubt that armed elements were indeed committing violence against government forces and others. This was confirmed to me by a first-rate reporter who has spent months in the most troubled cities and neighborhoods of Syria. This is not to give a pass to the government. It is the stronger of the two parties, and it must assume most blame for the violence. The leadership has been very consistent in its defiant attitude. In spite of this, many still speculate that the President will soon step down or leave the country. Such false signals have convinced those taking up arms that their strategy is somehow working and that a “win” is around the corner. This is regrettable and dangerous.
Those of us living in the comforts of the West are only too familiar with how politicians in democratic countries compete over their “records”. My wish is to see the Syrian opposition begin to discuss President Assad’s  record on the economy, the public sector, illegal housing, the environment, health care, education, the media, and individual liberties. Instead, we seem to hell bent on steering our country straight into an iceberg with 23 million on board.
The Syrian National Council and many Arab and International policy makers who are now pontificating on Syria’s future were nowhere to be seen in 2007, when the President’s second 7-year term began. We have gone from being in a coma to calling for the downfall of the regime and even the hanging of its leader. This is insanity. The Syrian National Council must call for all rebels and opposition groups to stop arming themselves. Instead, it should declare that the opposition set its sights on 2014, when President Assad’s second presidential term will come to an end.
What is needed is a smart and innovative strategy that helps spare lives but effectively convinces the leadership that the old ways of doing business are over. Popular efforts must be spent in writing a new constitution, a bill of rights to calm minority fears, and an economic plan to reassure the business community and workers alike. The standard of living of most Syrians is appalling, so is the education level and health care system. The opposition must channel their energies towards such topics rather than the senseless calls to arm the rebels in what is clearly a suicide mission.
To be sure, the opposition if anything is likely to go in the opposite direction to what I am suggesting. Just this morning, a young member of the opposition (Mr. Mohammad Al Abdallah) is calling for Mr. Ghalioun to step down accusing him of failing to do anything while Homs residents are being slaughtered. While his anger is understandable, he offers no precise prescription of what to do next. I am not sure how you make a revolution and succeed in toppling this regime peacefully. Perhaps Mr. Abdallah can nominate a Syrian Ghandi for the next phase of this country’s future.

By Ehsani
 February 10, 2012

SOURCE  http://www.syriacomment.com/

ps.the whole article it is dedicated to my old friend kamal who is living in exile for more than 30 years.

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