Why Do You Think They Call It Fiat Money, Anyway?
by Edgar J. Steele

October 12, 2008

I'm getting a lot of emails from list members wanting market updates; wanting to know what to do in the face of the momentous events now taking place internationally.

At the risk of sounding trite, I've said it all before:  get out of dollar-denominated assets and into physical silver and gold.  Preferably silver, because I foresee the government confiscating gold once again.

Yes, the spot prices of silver and gold - especially silver - have been hammered in the past month.  That is why you buy and hold the physical metal for the long haul.  There now has been a complete separation of the prices of physical precious metals and the paper gambling markers reported by COMEX. 

Physical gold and silver are entering their Black Market days, from which it will be many years before they emerge.  Go on line to our most prominent Black market - eBay - and price out completed sales of bullion coins and bars.  You will find that silver is going for a premium of between $4 and $8 per ounce, not counting shipping.  Similar premiums are being charged by the few dealers who actually have any stock available for sale.  Keep that in mind when you get depressed by the reported spot prices, folks. 

Spot prices are for phony paper silver and gold, not the real thing.  The real thing has kept its value much better than you might think and it will do far better in the months and years to come.

Sure it is tough to shell out $16 today for a one-ounce silver Eagle when silver's spot price is ten-something.  But that simply reflects the difference in real value.  The spread will only get larger, as our government keeps "injecting liquidity" into the banking system.  In the not-too-distant future, paper metal will be worth no more than the paper upon which it is printed - less than toilet paper, in fact, as in today's Zimbabwe.

I wrote Defensive Racism over four years ago, when things were still a-go-go.  Many laughed and called me nuts at my economic and social predictions, particularly those concerning worldwide economic depression, World War III and America's coming race wars.  Nobody is laughing anymore, except at my race war predictions.  That, too, shall pass. 

I have decided to do a series of list messages that excerpt salient economic passages from my book for those who have not read it.  Today's excerpt discusses fiat money:

The Coming Economic Pandemic

 Touted by the one worlders as the natural evolution of humanity, a world without borders is a world with no economic safety net.  Previously, when one or more countries fell under sway of serious economic recessions or depressions, borders tended to confine the damage.  With today’s retrenchment and redistribution of industry, no safety net is possible.  When any significant country catches a cold, the rest of the world will sneeze.  God forbid a fatal economic disease should rise up anywhere.

Fact is, however, that fatal disease already exists and has swept the globe.  It is called fiat money.  Simply put, fiat money is any money, the value of which changes based upon actions of the government responsible for it, not due to economic underpinnings.  The American dollar is the perfect example, with our government running the printing presses nonstop, just to keep the doors open. 

Unlike what many people call “real money,” such as gold and silver, all down through history fiat money always has been watered, diluted and abused by its issuing government, until it soared into hyperinflation and became worthless.  In times past, even real money was weakened as the result of people and government shaving off the edges, leading to the grooved edges which now are minted into coins to discourage shaving.

There are only limited quantities of gold and silver available and only limited amounts that can be mined each year, with each year seeing decreasing quantities of ore hauled from less productive mines all the time.  The rarity of precious metals is what keeps them from being abused when used in commerce.  That is why governments hate to use gold and silver as money.  They cannot steal from the population through inflation merely by printing more.

Those of a more conspiratorial bent of mind believe the current decline in the value of all fiat currencies throughout the world is intentional.  How better to implement a single currency for use throughout the world than by making all currencies fail at once?  And governments get a huge bonanza in the process by paying off their debts with ever-more-worthless currencies that they simply print for pennies on the dollar.  How better to pave the way for a single world central bank?  Of course, those of us without printing presses get left holding the bag, as always.

New America.  An idea whose time has come.