Clipping Coinage: Prelude to Fiat Currency Abuse

Sure of their qualities and demanding praise, more go to ruined fortunes than are raised.
Alexander Pope 1688-1744, British Poet, Critic, Translator

Clipping Coinage: Setting the Stage for Fiat Currency & Central Bank Manipulation

Updated June 2023

Clipping coinage, a practice that emerged in the past, highlights the darker side of human nature. In an era when payment for goods was made in gold, some individuals sought to exploit the system by engaging in deceitful practices. Merchants and other unscrupulous individuals would shave off portions of the gold from coins or even replace the precious metal with cheaper substitutes like lead.

It seems the need to rob and cheat each other is wired into us, and as time passes by, we just seem to perfect this art. Sol Palha

This act of coin clipping reveals a disturbing truth about human behavior – the inclination to deceive and take advantage of others for personal gain. It is disheartening to acknowledge that throughout history, there have always been individuals who prioritize their interests over the well-being of their fellow human beings.As time progresses, this art of deception only becomes more refined. The desire to rob and cheat others appears ingrained within us, perpetuating a cycle of mistrust and exploitation. Instead of fostering a sense of unity and cooperation, some individuals are driven by a selfish desire to bury their peers and thrive at their expense.

The existence of coin clipping is a stark reminder of the darker aspects of human nature. It is a reminder that we must remain vigilant and strive to build a society based on trust, empathy, and fairness, where the well-being of others is valued as much as our own.

Doubts Over US Dollar’s Anchoring to Gold: Transparency and Stability Concerns

The actions of the Federal Reserve in gradually reducing the backing of the US dollar with gold and eventually abandoning the gold standard have indeed raised concerns among critics. This shift has led to a perception that the value of the US dollar is no longer firmly anchored to a tangible asset like gold.

Furthermore, the lack of transparency surrounding the amount of gold held in Fort Knox has fueled speculation and scepticism. The possibility of undisclosed sales or substitutions with lead bricks raises doubts about the integrity of the gold reserves.

Moreover, even if the reported amount of gold is accurate, the current price of gold would need to increase significantly to provide adequate backing for the US dollar. This discrepancy between the perceived value of gold and its actual support of the currency raises questions about the stability and long-term viability of the US dollar as a reliable store of value.

These concerns highlight the need for greater transparency and accountability in monetary policies to ensure the trust and confidence of the public. It is crucial to have a financial system that is fair, transparent, and accountable to protect the interests of all individuals.

Unveiling Coin Clippage: The Feds’ Ruthless Maneuver and the Masses’ Stunned Silence

The Feds have just found a clever way of clipping gold coins. Instead of slowly stealing a bit at a time, they just went for the jugular and took it all. The worst part is that the masses sit in a frozen stupor, clap their hands, and praise these arrogant swine. If you think the world will wake up anytime soon, you are in for a rude awakening. Please wait for my follow-up essay on investor sentiment and the average Joe’s outlook on Gold. (I spent about one month on the road, mainly in Florida, collecting data on investor sentiment). The average person has no idea what Gold represents, so it will be a long, slow, protracted battle.

One thing most people forget and occasionally slip my mind to is that the Feds are a group of very evil, brilliant and ruthless individuals. So, do not think they will bow down and drop dead. They have had the luxury of studying many worthless paper currency blunders committed in the past and have now perfected the Art of Defrauding and Robbing a Nation and its people of all their assets. In another follow-up article, I will also discuss a tool the Feds have developed that could be Gold’s nemesis.

The True Winners in the Battle: Unbiased Investors

In the end, the only group of people who will win any battle are non-biased investors, which means you should not be a bear, a bull or a bug. You should be a cold, calculating investor. Forget this “let’s stand together BS and fight to the end principle.” The only thing left standing will be the marker on your grave

You do not stand together in the market because ”it’s the winner take all principle” prevails. Those who try to stand together will find themselves in the sights of many machine guns. A market means that at the end of the day, someone has to lose a dollar for every dollar won. So, no matter what camp you think you are in, no amount of happy clapping will get you into the promised land unless you open your eyes and mind and learn to trade unbiasedly. There are a few good times to win, but there is always a good time to lose, and the market is riddled with the bodies of losers who thought they would be winners.

Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.
Galeazzo Ciano

Coining Clippage: Unraveling the Historical Legacy of Currency Debasement

by Alan Lunt

Clipping coinage, or debasing a currency, is the art of the modern age. Little do the perpetrators realise that time after time, throughout history, each attempt has failed. Before milling was placed around the edge of gold coins, people used to shave the coins, reducing the gold content of each coin and making them less desirable to hold. Clipped coins were recognised as bad money, and they were discounted. In Germany, the cunning money makers added lead to the gold, ostensibly to increase the money supply, which failed when the clipping of the gold content led to hyperinflation.

In Spain, when the new gold arrived from the new world, the influx of money reduced the value of gilders. Each time people have “made” money, they have killed it’s worth.

Enter the Age of the Central Banker. These men and women have one task to perform, and that is to increase the monetary base. By expanding that base, they encourage currency debasing, thereby causing inflation. Governments are not immune from encouraging their bankers to print money. The Government can spend the added cash on “much-needed social programs”.

Eroding Savings, Nurturing Debt: The Stealth Tax of Inflation on Value

Finance ministers surely know that they are stealing the savings of their constituents by inflation, reducing the value of money. It is a tax; there can be no other conclusion. An insidious eating of the value of money gnaws at the core of a sound economy. It creates an “incentive trap”. The incentive is to spend now and not save a bean, as the bean loses value or as most people see its prices rise. It drives people to borrow money as they fear prices will get away from them if they hold off from purchasing, be it stocks, property or consumables.

All this “pushing to purchase” has created a credit society. The most important thing a person can have is a credit record. How ludicrous. I know of people who have millions who never borrowed anything, yet they are deemed a credit risk because they have no credit record.

???????

Biting Winter: The Ripple Effects of Rising Debt and Failing Money Lenders

A new age is dawning; it is a slow bloomer, but the debt will become a dirty word as the Kondratiev Winter starts to bite. As people cannot pay off their debts at ever-increasing interest rates, the money lenders will begin to fail. The initial indicators will be misread, but bad policies by lending institutions will start to be recognised. As an example the West Pac Banking Corporation was flush with liquidity. Their advertising ploy was to paper the walls of the banks with posters proclaiming “How Landlords Get Wealthy”.

The subtle message was that if you were renting, you should be buying and not contributing to your landlord’s wealth. The statement also suggests that prices never fall and interest rates never rise. How stupid is that? Is greed driving people to leverage themselves to the hilt, or is it fear? Fear of being left behind or desire for the potential gains.

Either way, it is the unacknowledged knowledge that inflation will eat away at the core of their finances if they do nothing. We have been conditioned from when all vestiges of a monetary standard were wiped internationally in the early 1970’s. The baby boomers still remember the chronic inflation that followed; saving values were whipped from all thought processes and not passed down to the next generation. Oh, the web that has been weaved.

Unshackling Value from Debt: The Cry for Intrinsic Worth in a World of Debased Currency

What happens when the word “value” is not tied to the word “debt?” Value is intrinsic and lasting, not something to be debased at the whim of socialistic morons. The message is clear: we need to be re-educated to the true meaning of the word inflation. Rising prices is a result, not the cause. The cause is a clipping of the currency printing money. Look no further than your elected leaders. According to David Bond, and if history is any guide, the life span of a fiat currency since Roman times, from Renaissance to collapse, is about 30 years. New Zealand coinage came into decimal currency on the 10th of July, 1967. Copper/Nickel. Next to valueless. Units of exchange that have no base. Clipped currency.

As the renowned economist Ludwig von Mises warned us decades ago: “There are no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner due to voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” [Human Action, Regnery, 1966, p. 572.]

The entire world economy rests on the consumer;
if he ever stops spending money, he doesn’t have to do things he doesn’t need – we’re done for.
The Mogambo Guru
Professor Richard Dougherty

The time to worry has passed; the time to plan is NOW.

Unveiling Coin Clippage: Unraveling the Tale of The Holey Dollar

by John Tyler

No, folks, I did mean “Holey” rather than “Holy”, although many give the dollar God-like status.

The dollar I refer to is a more historical example of slippage. The new governor of the Colony of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, in the year 1809, inherited a difficult money problem (has there ever been a simple money problem except not having enough?). There was just not enough money around. As soon as a silver dollar surfaced, it was traded for the essentials of survival in a new land and exported away by the trader for a vast profit. As a result, there was no coinage in the colony, and the troops had to be paid in rum!

Like today, the USA, the colony of New South Wales, needed imports to survive. Unlike the USA, however, the defiling quality of the monetary printing press was yet to be discovered, so Macquarie hatched a cunning plan.

Forging Value: The Tale of the Holey Dollar and Dump Coins

Macquarie imported 40,00 silver Spanish Dollars and had a convicted forger punch out the centre of the dollar to create a lower denomination coin, the “Dump”. This was over-stamped with the colonial crown, and the internal rim of the now “Holey Dollar” had “New South Wales “ stamped.

So we see the use of a forger make 1 + 1= 3, while devaluing the currency to anyone who had previously been exporting the silver currency for profit. The guarantee of government also became the alchemical philosopher’s stone, creating value from more common elements. The USA made These friends when the dollar/gold link was severed.

The great irony is that a Holey Dollar is now worth $100,000 to collectors and a dump $40,000.Who knows what gold will be worth after it has been “clipped” from the dollar?
An example of a “Holey Dollar”.
Only 350 survived as they were recalled to the smelter’s pot.

Paper money is just a hobby!!

By Art Soukup

What a strange-sounding phrase the above is.

What an odd notion that paper money is just a hobby.

At any rate, the phrase is essential for your economic future, so take the time to learn.

Still, I wonder if there is any truth to the title phrase. Let’s see if we can find out by first getting the definitions of words and terms. After that, we will then analyse what we have found. We will start with the intention of the word “hobby”.

At this location: http://www.brainydictionary.com/words/ho/hobby173785.html you will find this definition: Hobby.

(n.) A small, strong-winged European falcon (Falco subbuteo), formerly trained for hawking.
(n.) Alt. of Hobbyhorse A strong winged European falcon…perhaps the Eurodollar. It seems to be somehow related to a hobbyhorse, so at this location:

http://www.brainydictionary.com/words/ho/hobbyhorse173786.html you will find this definition: Hobbyhorse

(n.) A strong, active horse of a middle size, said to have been originally from Ireland, an ambling nag.
(n.) A stick, often with the head or figure of a horse, on which boys make believe to ride.
(n.) A subject or plan upon which one is constantly setting off; a favourite and ever-recurring theme of discourse, thought, or effort; that which occupies one’s attention unduly, or to the weariness of others; a ruling passion.

Delving into Hobbyhorses: A Recurring Focus on Different Paper Money Types

Hmm, A ruling passion that one focuses undue attention upon. Hmm, again, A favourite and ever-recurring theme of discourse. The editorials at various websites are always about the different kinds of paper money and their relation to precious metals; therefore, all the editorials are different kinds of hobbyhorses.

Makes sense.

We now need the definition of “paper money”, so at this location: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/paper+money
you will find this definition: PAPER MONEY Pronunciation: ‘peypur ‘munee
Definition: [n] currency issued by a government or central bank and consisting of printed paper that can circulate as a substitute for specie.
Synonyms: folding money, paper currency.
See Also: Bank bill, bank note, banker’s bill, banknote, bill, currency, Federal Reserve note, fiat money, fractional currency, government note, greenback, note.

Hmmm, paper money is a “substitute for specie”.

And specie defined: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/specie is WordNet Dictionary

Definition: [n] coins collectively
Synonyms: coinage, metal money, mintage
See Also: coin, currency

Webster’s 1913 Dictionary
Definition: \Spe”ci*e\, abl. of L. species sort, kind. Used in the phrase in specie, that is, in sort, in kind, in (its own) form. [The king] expects a return in specie from them” [i.e., kindness for kindness]. –Dryden. {In specie} (Law), in precise or definite form; specifically; according to the exact terms; of the very thing.

\Spe”cie\, n. [Formed as a singular from species, in a sense 5.] Coin; hard money.

So coin hard money is specie, and paper money is printed paper that can circulate as a substitute for specie. We now have the words and phrases defined for the necessary insight, but where is the PROOF!!

For your reading misery, the following link points to all 50 titles of the us code. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/

I said misery because it took me about two months to read the shortest title, Title 13 Census. I had to read many other labels (a few years) until I found the proof that “paper money is just a hobby”.

So, for your reading pleasure, here are the links. Read them in sequence and look for the phrase “paper money”.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/ <– top link to commerce and trade.
Just a quick look. No need to read.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/ch48.html <– Hobby Protection.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/2101.html <– Marking requirements.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/2102.html <– Private Enforcement.

All the interesting stuff in the US code always seems to be stuffed away under definitions or misc.

So at this location: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/15/2106.html <– Definitions. You find in Section THREE: (3)

The term ”original numismatic item” means anything that has been a part of a coinage or issue used in exchange or used to commemorate a person or event. Such term includes coins, tokens, paper money, and commemorative medals. Hmmm, “used to commemorate a person “… so that’s why there is a picture of a person on the paper: George Washington, Alex Hamilton, the Queen of England, and so on.

So you now have PROOF that “PAPER MONEY is just a hobby” ” requiring some protection because it is an ORIGINAL nominal item that is (Falco subbuteo), formerly trained for hawking. Gee, by now, you should be getting a warm fuzzy feeling KNOWING that your entire wealth is based upon someone else’s HOBBY, which occupies one’s attention unduly. So much for the concept of “Valuations”.

One nice thing about gold and silver is that no hobbyhorse can print the stuff.

Crafted initially on September 22, 2004, this article has undergone numerous updates throughout the years, with the latest revision completed in June 2023.