Great article comparing the decline of Roman coins to US coins

Really good article describing how the coins went from 90% silver to silver plated poop, just like ours, and how Romans started adding their emperors to coins, just like we have.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/doug-casey-currency-debasement-and-cultural-degradation

And eventually they will stop making coins as it reports cents cost 3 cents of zinc, and nickels cost 8 cents to produce, though I have no idea if there is still any nickel in the Nickel. Interested to know your thoughts.

 

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Currency debasement has a long and sordid history; only difference is today, they call it QE.

 

I'm made a graph on this a while ago!

 

Bastards!

 

What about the stone money of the island of Yap?

 

If cent production and/or nickel production is eliminated, the cost of production for the remaining coinage will increase.

 

Stylistically, beginning in the mid 2nd century, Roman coins increasingly loose the classical realism in portraiture that characterized those issued under the 12 Caesars. By the 4th century even the finest engravings are, comparatively, cartoons.

In terms of naturalism and idealization, American coins of the first half of the 20th century represent a “classic” period. Our contemporary coinage reveals a tendency toward abstraction analogous to those late-antique issues of Rome.

 

The metal content of our coinage is not the problem. The problem is a lack of control in keeping the money supply at a reasonable level, too much government spending and a ballooning national debt.

I wasn't as hot on this issue until the Congress starting passing trillion dollar spending bills. It's madness.

 

To put things into perspective. Coins constitute about 1% of the money in circulation. Most of the money, something like 80%, is money in accounts on computers. All of our coins could gold and silver; it would make no difference.

 

After reading the article, I have a strong feeling that someone involved in the article, maybe directly or indirectly, is trying to convince me to buy gold or silver based upon a gross simplification of history and some big "maybes." The article's main purpose seems to be one of marketing or advertising.

 

The evils utilizing promise to pay to the bearer on demand as some sort of value is atrocious. If we had a competent incorporated congress that used public banks or the US to inject low interest credit into towns all across the country for productive avenues... all the better. But that does not happen.


There are groups of people that want to get rid of coins as bank credits are already mostly digitalized. So, unfortunately, the future looks to be digitalized 'credit' using Impact/Value markets that will also be a promise to pay to the bearer on demand just with frr more debt and niche markets making humans commodities to be traded on wall street.


The US inc. is a self-funding corporation, so I'm not quite sure why congress chartered a bank to work like this when they could freely issue credit into productive avenues and give people a chance, which would boost economy and they would not have to pay it back!


'A decent work worth reading is SHORT HISTORY of Paper Money and Banking IN THE UNITED STATES including an Account of PROVINCIAL AND CONTINENTAL PAPER MONEY to which is prefixed AN INQUIRY into the principles of the system with considerations of its effects on morals and happiness. The whole intended as a plain exposition of the way in which paper money and money corporations, affect the interests of different portions of the community' by William Gouge.

Also, Gold and Silver coins have no intrinsic value and these metals can easily be manipulated. Just recently my town used our shit and diarrhea as a medium of exchange... no joking. I found it bery useful.

That being said there might look to be a correlation between debasement and cultural degradation, or rather, debasement and the decline of empires but I don't really think the fall of empires, however, has so much to do with debasement of so-called 'intrinsic value' than it has to do with greed and members of empires working for their own personal agendas or that of their corporate lobbyists, foreign agents, etc., at the expense of the general welfare. I mean it doesn't help that the US is a make work retail corporation meme economy that basically props up service sector jobs for the benefit of the very rich. Hopefully this changes and I think it started in the 1970's when we significantly devauled the USD and later off-shored jobs to china because corporations could make a larger profit that way.


Which reminds me of the constitution that mentioned this general welfare thing though we cannot forget the convention that framed the constitution had 24 land speculators, many bankers and corporate lawyers, etc., not one mechanic or farmer.

I think the decline of empires, if not Barbarians waiting at the flood gates, is due to the taking advantage of the general welfare.

But I'm stupid, so who knows.

 

The idea of the U.S. Government selling bonds to the Federal Reserve to create money to fund its projects is a new one. In the past the Government sold U.S. bonds and T-bills to private entities to raise money.

Done in moderation, that is a sound policy. The Federal Reserve bought and sold those securities through its open market operations to regulate the money supply. It did not act in the way it does now.

The current system of selling bonds to the Fed is a road to ruin in my opinion. It results in uncontrolled increases in the money supply which will lead to massive inflation. History has taught us that, but some people never learn or just ignore the lessons history has to teach us.

The Federal Reserve was not created to operate this way. When I was taking a money and banking economics course in undergraduate school in the late 1960s, the professor, who was advocate of Keynesian economic theory, laid out the sale of bonds to the Fed scenario. He said that it had not and should not ever happen. He would be turning in his grave if he knew what is happening now.

All advanced countries need a central bank to regulate their currency. This has been proven time and time again. If you will want an example of how an economic system can be made unstable by the alternative, study the history of the United States before the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln started the National Bank System, and the monetary system grew from there until the Federal Reserve was formed circa 1913.

You make a lot of valid arguments about instances when the Federal Reserve enacted the wrong policies, but ague that it should not exist is folly.

 

You have a point, I agree, it should exist, but only as it is an arm of US inc and with the exception that they get rid of what was suppose to be temp. income tax which apparently, the income tax law, was, as Warburg states, a persuasion from the Swiss Seligman banking family who were not even US citizens at the time. Leave it up to private bankers such as Morgan and Warburg to benefit from the doldrums and boom and bust cycles of their own doing and ruin what could have been a very good system of the US government selling bonds to the FED to create money to fund productive projects or the US simply issuing money without interest in a responsible manner without the need of the FED into productive porjects such as local permaculture or to completely revamp our food system encouraging a more localized, productive, healthy system; as just one small avenue out of thousands. Of course, I'm sure the fast food industry will lobby hard for this not to happen. Nevertheless, it's just one avenue worth looking into.

How can the current system of selling bonds to the Fed be a road to ruin if the FED is under the full control of US Inc. and is chartered as a self-funding corporation? It is impossible for an imaginary corporation to owe itself imaginary money via other imaginary sub-franchise corporations, when it can really print all the imaginary credit & currency it ever will require ab initio at will, Descarte. One would not even need to FED to regulate such issuance if responsibly issued into productive avenues. The treasury could do this on their own without even having to go through the FED. The US can never go broke, they can never be in debt to themselves which is why congressmen and women crying about the budget is a bunch of hoopla. Sure, such issuance results in increases in the money supply, but this won't lead to massive inflation if issuance goes towards productive avenues, ie., not to wall-street, multi-national corporations that hold offshore accounts but to the middle class people and even those who are left destitute and have no way of getting off their feet. The problem is congress being too inept and bureaucratic to do anything about it. They'd rather have farmers destroy their produce to raise their prices to save themselves from going under while their neighbors remain poor, probably hungry and unable to buy their produce. It's a never ending cycle and if states would just open up public banks to inject low interest credit into these areas (the banks profit would go back into these communities rather than wall-street) in a responsible manner that would help farmers and sectors of socities that live far from the commerical centers get off their feet.

What is capitalism but merely owning the monetary and credit/statutary production from which every corporation exists. I believe Malynes wrote that one. We certainly do not live in a meritocracy. Rich people creating cheap workers is now suddenly "prosperity gospel" for Team America and this is a problem. Not even AOC talks about CAPITAL TAX, no, rather she talks about 65 - 75% marginal tax and as you and I know, well everyone knows, people like Warburg, Morgan, Rockefeller, etc., will just dodge the tax.

Yes, we live in an unsustainable make-work economy where the "american dream" equals no god, no real churches, no soul...just money. Always the money, only the money.

I mention public banks should issue these injections as it is sort of illegal for a state sub-franchise such as Ohio LLC., to do so; so as to increase basic cred flow to suppressed areas, which will increase spending and automatically create small corps for retail products...
Farming might come back in style if normal people could afford to do it + local distribution; though big companies are not fond of small distribution from small companies.

 

Yikes!!!!

ATTICA!!! ATTICA!!!! ATTICA!!!.

You could have just said:

"Read about tulips and stuff. That is the problem".