126 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
126 lines
6.3 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 10 Num. 32
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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THE POSTMODERN DOLLAR: "IT'S ALL RELATIVE"
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If nothing is backing the dollar, then why is that gold in Fort
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Knox?
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Or even, how do we *know* there is still gold in Fort Knox?
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Look at the side edging of a dime or a quarter. That edging is
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more than just decorative. When the coin was made of silver,
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that edging guaranteed that unscrupulous persons had not shaved
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off silver from the coin; that that coin contained the exact
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measure of silver. But why is that edging still on the side of
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dimes and quarters? No one would waste time shaving off copper
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from those coins.
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What exactly makes dimes and dollars worth anything? What gives
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them worth is that people *believe* they have worth. If $450
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will buy you an ounce of gold, then $450 is worth an ounce of
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gold. If $125 will buy you a microwave oven, then $125 is worth
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one microwave oven.
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Why do people believe the dollar has worth? Because (ahem) it is
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backed by the UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. So as long as people
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believe in the United States government, they will believe in the
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dollar. But if they don't believe in the U.S. government, then
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why believe in the dollar?
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What backs the dollar? *Belief*. How is the dollar propped up?
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Belief in the United States government.
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So what happens if belief in the U.S. government is threatened,
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say, by evidence of widespread corruption? That means that
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belief in the dollar is threatened. (Of course, the corruption
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in government, *in* *itself*, threatens belief in the dollar.)
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Remember how Larry Nichols got the phone call from "Wall Street
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types?" "Please, Mr. Nichols, don't go public with that. It
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will hurt the dollar/yen ratio."
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Instead of a dollar backed by gold or silver, we have a
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"commodity dollar." Paul Bakewell, in *What Are We Using For
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Money?*, says that "the use of a composite group of commodities
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at a specified index point" is now the standard of value. "By
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that composite index you would measure the value of other
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commodities; and the value of paper currency would also be
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measured by that composite index, and as thus measured the paper
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currency would vary in value, according to its purchasing power."
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In other words, the dollar is worth whatever it will buy. If $1
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will buy a Zippo lighter, then $1 is worth one Zippo lighter.
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The "relative dollar" arrived in the 1930s, about when
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"postmodernism" ("the truth is relative") came along. But which
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came first, postmodernism or the "relative dollar?" Noam Chomsky
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has said that political power tends to coalesce around economic
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power. Did elite "thought" coalesce around the "relative dollar"
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and so give us postmodernism?
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But Brian, what does this have to do with conspiracy? The
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strength of the dollar is backed by *belief* in the U.S.
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government. So, the government must be perceived as godlike or
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else the dollar's value diminishes. To prop up the dollar, news
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of government corruption, criminality and idiocy is played down.
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You say there have been conspiracies? Then you will be portrayed
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as a "conspiracy nut," otherwise truth would hurt confidence in
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the government and the dollar would slide, relative to
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commodities.
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One dollar equals one Zippo lighter. We supposedly have a $4
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trillion national debt. Why not manufacture 4 trillion Zippo
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lighters and dump them all into the hands of our creditors? We
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could make them in secret then, out of the blue, say, "Here's
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your 4 trillion. We're even now." Then, if the value of Zippo
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lighters drops, explain sagaciously that "it's all relative."
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Circa 1930s began the consumer society, where Americans
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increasingly are in a rush to buy, buy, buy. In other words,
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they are anxious to trade paper dollars for goods. The trick is
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to exchange the dollars for goods likely to hold or increase
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their value relative to the dollar. Do you spend money like
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there's no tomorrow? Deep down you vaguely understand that the
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"relative dollar" you possess is not stable and you look for
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something to replace it, something more likely to hold its value.
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Something big happened to this country in the 1930s, though it is
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rarely covered in standard so-called history. Your grandfather
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had to turn in $20 of gold to Uncle Sam and got back $20 of paper
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currency. Decades later, you were allowed to buy back that gold,
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but at a cost of about $450 in paper currency. So what happened
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between the $20 your grandfather turned in and the $450 you paid
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to get it back? $450 minus $20 equals $430. Where did that $430
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go? It went *somewhere*. Who got it? Somebody did.
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Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those
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of Conspiracy Nation, nor of its Editor in Chief.
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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