Mint must prove rare seized coins were stolen

PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. government improperly seized a set of extremely rare and valuable "double eagle" coins from a Philadelphia jeweler's descendants and must win a forfeiture case to keep them, a judge ruled this week.

Ownership of the 10 gold coins — worth millions of dollars apiece — may be determined by a jury in a weeks-long forfeiture hearing.

The family of the late Israel Switt is suing to recover the double eagles, so named because they had a face value of $20, twice the amount of gold coins known as eagles.

The government argues that none of the coins were removed legally from the Mint when President Franklin D. Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in 1933. The stockpiled double eagles minted that year and waiting to go into circulation were instead melted down, although a few apparently survived.

The judge's order released Wednesday calls for the government to initiate a forfeiture hearing by Sept. 28. The hearing would likely amount to a trial in which the government would have to prove Switt's family never legally possessed them, a family lawyer said.

Lawyer Barry Berke argues that some coins could have left the Mint legally through a gold exchange program in place at the time that attracted jewelers like Switt.

"There was a period of time where it was permissible to exchange gold coins for gold bullion," said Berke, who represents Switt's daughter, Joan S. Langbord of Philadelphia, and her sons, Roy Langbord of New York City and David Langbord of Virginia Beach, Va.

They say they found the coins in a safe deposit box in 2003, 13 years after Switt died.

The following year, they asked the Mint to authenticate them and suggested they were open to a negotiated settlement, perhaps akin to the 50-50 split reached in a previous case involving one double eagle coin.

The collection could be worth nearly $80 million or more. A comparable double eagle sold for $7.59 million in 2002 — believed to be the highest price ever paid for a coin.

The family has previously asked for the coins' return or a settlement of up to $40 million.

U.S. District Judge Legrome Davis ruled that the government improperly seized the coins and denied the family due process when Mint officials decided to keep them after they were authenticated without a hearing.

"The government's 'good-faith' belief that the coins were once stolen is not sufficient, under the circumstances, to justify its decision to conduct a warrantless seizure," Davis wrote.

Federal prosecutors representing the Mint declined through a spokeswoman to comment Friday.

In a statement, the family noted Israel Switt's combat service in World War II and said they have tried to be open with the government throughout the long case.

"Perhaps this was only a minor and personal battle, but nevertheless it is one where a family's rights to receive fair treatment from the government of the United States was vindicated," the statement said.

A. E. Fekete: Open The Mint to Gold!

Could a Private Firm Force the Government to Do It?

Antal E. Fekete
Gold Standard University
E-mail: aefekete@hotmail.com

How to rebuild the shattered credit system

People ask: "Isn't the Mint already open to gold, producing Gold Eagles and Buffaloes?" Opening the Mint to gold has a technical meaning, namely, opening it to the free and unlimited coinage of gold on private account. The Gold Eagles and Buffaloes are produced on Treasury account in limited quantities and sold at a premium as souvenir coins. It is a ploy to show that gold coins would just not circulate as money. Well, they would if there was no premium and the market was saturated.

Not until that happens do I see any hope for the world's greatest and most permanent asset, wealth tied up in gold, to leave its hiding place, get mobilized and start discharging its duty for which it is so superbly suited: rebuilding credit and refinancing world trade on a sound basis. Irredeemable promises to pay by default-happy governments can under no stretch of the imagination serve as a sound basis for world credit and world trade.

Unless the ice is broken and one country does open its Mint to gold, the same pattern that was established in 1971 (when the U.S. Government defaulted on its international gold obligations) would continue to the further detriment of the world's prosperity. The output of the world's gold mines, plus whatever gold trickles down from the public sector, will go into hiding and will not benefit society. The world economy is literally bleeding. It is bleeding credit that keeps factories humming and cargo ships sailing. There is no other way to stop the hemorrhage than opening the Mint to gold. The battle cry should be: put gold back into circulation to save our civilization and to save the world! People must be aware what the malady is and what the remedy should be.

The full meaning of 1971

Apart from the enormity of a great government reneging on its solemn obligation, sealed by international treaties, confirmed by several sitting Presidents, to pay holders of its short-term debt gold at a fixed rate of exchange, we should remember another aspect of the 1971 default. It triggered the world's greatest deflation ever to take effect with a lag lasting about one generation.

The world prospered before 1971 because it had the U.S. Treasury as its residual supplier of monetary gold. The wholesome effect of this arrangement was that people were willing to pay out gold. They were confident that they could get back their gold exactly on the same terms. Confidence permeated producers, banks, trading houses, shipping lines, right down to the lowliest consumer. They could make deals with one another in the belief that the world's monetary system is not run by tricksters. It is run by upright men who know the meaning of the word 'honor'.

But once the commitment to redeem dollars in gold was broken, people became reluctant to pay out gold. They were no longer certain that they could get their gold back on the same terms. This froze the stock of the world's monetary gold. More ominously, newly mined gold started to go into hiding, and the world economy had to be financed through the creation of synthetic credit.

For those of us who do not subscribe to the Quantity Theory of Money, this was deflation waiting to happen. The synthetic credit was - what else? - the broken promise of the defaulting banker. People with a logical mind knew that this arrangement had to be temporary. Only a deranged man would reward default by promoting the dishonored monetary instrument from the bottom of the garbage heap to the position of the highest-powered money of the international monetary system. After all, the U.S. government did have the gold it needed to run the world's credit system. What it did not have, but could easily get with incorruptible politicians, a matching foreign policy free from entanglements, and a matching social policy free from the 'free lunch' mentality.

The present deflation is open-ended, as it is not known how much devaluation the dollar will have to undergo before it can be tethered once more to gold - as it was done exactly 75 years ago. To stop deflation, the flight into gold must be stopped first, as it was done by the U.S. in January, 1934. President-elect Obama has already named his candidate to run the Treasury. An historical opportunity has been missed. The very same people who engineered and orchestrated the present crisis will be put in charge to rectify it. They are dyed-in-the-wool Keynesians or Friedmanites.

America's antagonists are just as helpless

Of course, the Arab countries, the Muslim countries, as well as the Asian powers (including Russia), which do not have carry the heavy Keynesian and Friedmanite ideological baggage, would love to start a new currency based on gold, and then take credit for saving the world. If they could, that feat would pass the torch of human civilization back to the Orient, and thereafter the Western governments could be deservedly castigated as the selfish and stupid satraps that landed the world in this incredible economic mess. They would hardly be invited to sit in the councils of nations, let alone to lead them. Worse still, the fear is that without the free flow of gold the world may get lost in the quagmire of a New Dark Age, in which law and order disappears, along with the disappearance of gold and silver.

Yet all the attempts of the Arab, Muslim, and Asian powers to put gold back into the monetary system have misfired, precisely because they have 'forgotten' to open their Mint to gold, which is the key to a New Golden Age.

Why gold?

I have dealt with that question several times in my earlier writings, but I shall say it again. Gold is absolutely indispensable for reconstruction, far beyond the limits imposed by gold's present valuation in the markets. The reason is that, once remobilized gold, and only gold, could carry a weight thousands of times greater than its nominal value. Gold, once put back into circulation, will regenerate credit which, under Western tutelage, has been allowed to disintegrate. The Western powers have fallen victim to the most inept and stupid Ponzi-scheme ever inflicted on people who are otherwise not illiterate: the Ponzi-scheme of Keynesian and Friedmanite economics. The 'miracles' that these two so-called economic systems can work depend on what I have described as a check-kiting scheme between the Treasury and the Central Bank. They conspire to accept each other's irredeemable promises to pay. For a time the shills could whip up sagging gambling spirit by their spectacular off-take at the gaming tables. But, ultimately, this Ponzi scheme, like any other, depends on an infinite supply of new fools. While the supply of fools in the world is very great indeed, it is not infinite. That is the only weak point in Keynesian and Friedmanite economics.

Without rebuilding credit on a gold foundation there is no hope for reconstruction, president-elect Obama's grandiose reflation plans notwithstanding. The U.S. Treasury is empty, nay, it is in a hole, of the size of several years' GDP. Government revenues are fading. American industry has been dismantled. Foreign creditors of the U.S. have had enough of the make-belief world of giving up real goods and real services in exchange for irredeemable promises to pay. Even if you put them under duress using military blackmail, they badly need those goods at home because they are themselves in deep trouble.

De facto opening of the Mint

I have been greatly discouraged and dismayed that the Western governments, in their dogged stubbornness, have refused to listen to the voice of reason and allowed their antagonists to advocate the return to a gold standard. The Western governments should have taken the initiative and made a coherent statement on their own position.

But then something unexpected happened, which gives us a ray of hope. Canada has been my adopted country for over half of a century. In many ways it is a decent country in this world of indecent governments. Canada has not used conscription to coerce young men to become cannon-fodder in foreign imperial and colonial ventures. It did not succumb to the 'Roosevelt-syndrome' in confiscating the citizens' gold. While taxes are high, on balance it may be a price worth paying in exchange for clean cities, sane banks, safe streets, and universal health care.

Canada's gold policy was free of the neurotic aspects of the American. Gold has never been declared contraband in Canada. While it is true that fools were put in charge of government-owned gold, and they sold it for a pittance to invest the proceeds in irredeemable obligations of the U.S. government, the Royal Canadian Mint started issuing gold coins as early as 1967 (to commemorate Canada's centennial.) Later, in 1979, with the issue of the Canadian gold Maple Leaf coin of one Troy ounce, 9999 pure, the Royal Canadian Mint created a coin that may well become the standard coin of a new emerging international gold standard. By now, 30 years later, many other countries are issuing gold coins to the same standard of weight and purity. As I shall explain below, the world treats these coins as being as perfectly fungible as only money can be, and refuses to treat them as souvenirs, keepsakes, or as a conversation-piece, which was the intention of their designers.

To be sure, the Royal Mint of Canada is not open to gold in the legal sense of the word. If it were, it would have made a commitment to convert gold, 9999 pure, free of seigniorage charges, into Maple Leaf coins, ounce for ounce, in unlimited quantities, to all comers. If there is no de jure commitment, is there a de facto commitment to the same effect?

That's what a Canadian firm decided to find out in 2007, and so far the results are encouraging. They show that the Royal Canadian Mint has taken upon itself the burden to provide the world with a reliable source of gold coinage at an acceptable cost. This firm buys the standard international "good delivery gold bar" of 400 Troy ounces or about 12.5 kg, 999 fine and exchanges it at the Mint for 400 Canadian Maple Leaf coins, paying a premium that, according to the firm, is small enough that it can sell the Maple Leafs profitably at the normal 7-9% premium, even during this latest rush into gold coins. As soon as the coins are sold, the firm is buying more good-delivery bars and converts them into Maple Leafs at the Mint. It keeps doing this. This is the exact opposite of the great coin melt of F.D. Roosevelt's fame, who confiscated the citizens' gold coins only to melt them down and to mark up the dollar value of the resulting ingots - a symbolic gesture to show that gold has been demonetized.

This Canadian firm leads the way to gold remonetization. It uses the agency of the Royal Canadian Mint to do it. Needless to say, there will be imitators both at the Mint level and at the arbitrage level. In particular, the premium on coined gold will decline. There will be a race of governments to offer the same service on a competitive basis. (Remember how the Kugerrand has found imitators in all major countries of the world?) Willy-nilly, the Mints are going to do what they have been conceived to do in the first place: put the citizens in charge to decide what the money supply should be. By the U.S. Constitution the power to create money is reserved directly to the people themselves, and should not be delegated.

As you can see, the Royal Canadian Mint is open to gold de facto. As more imitators enter the field, the de facto commitment to monetize gold will become permanent.

Reason for optimism

I think it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this fact. While the 7-9% premium is an eyesore and takes away from the purity of the scheme, and the lack of a de jure commitment to keep this facility open through thick and thin is deplorable, the bottom line is that the first tentative steps have been taken by a Western Country (blessed with a strong gold-mining industry, and with an unbroken history of gold trading and sound banking) to opening the Mint to gold. This gives plenty of reason for optimism.
A new stage in gold's evolution?

Two professors at Prince Sultan University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, H. Assenov and K. Petrov, have published a paper with the title: A New Stage in Gold's Return to Money (see References below.) In this paper they put forward the hypothesis that the market monetizes the one ounce standard gold coins regardless of shape and country of origin, as long as they have the right weight and fineness, as witnessed by the uniform price at which they are traded. They say that this is a new phenomenon that first appeared in December, 2008, the same time when gold backwardation first appeared as a threat to close down Comex warehouses. It means a great leap in the marketability of these coins due to perfect fungibility. Now a much larger pool of coins backing the trade is available. Both buyers and sellers dismiss the coins' idiosyncracies that would be of interest to numismatists and collectors. The authors suggest that this is a proof that gold's remonetization is in progress. Gold is not yet money, but it has cleared one of the most serious hurdles towards becoming money. The market for the standard gold one-ounce coin, 999 fine, is no longer fragmented.

The authors make no reference to the fact that the Royal Canadian Mint is de facto open to gold as shown by the activities of a private Canadian firm. This fact, in my opinion, plays a large part in the phenomenon the authors describe: the uniform valuation of all standard gold coins. However, it is significant that they noted the simultaneous appearance of backwardation in the December gold future contract at the Comex. They also quote Carl Menger's theory on the origin of money, that is, the rise of indirect exchange. Both the ugliest and the most beautiful gold coins are traded in indirect exchange strictly by the quantity and quality of metal content, completely disregarding the outward appearance of the coin. Whether the coin features the effigy of a bearded man or a kangaroo is of no consequence. The authors conclude their paper as follows:

Under the current financial order we use paper tickets with the picture of a bearded man that are currently printed in the trillions by another bearded man. Those tickets have had no backing for many decades, so there has been no restraint in their printing. Up until recently there has been a modicum of self-restraint in the printing process. However, since the Summer of 2008 all restraint has been thrown out of the window by the bearded man, a.k.a. Bailout Ben, who has indulged Congress and the Bankers in an historic multi-trillion dollar printfest. In response, common-sense people have rushed into gold as a store of value. Now that the value of gold is driven entirely by its purity and quantity, it is only a matter of time before gold is used again as a medium of exchange. Gold coins are no longer a numismatic delight, nor do they appear to be a Barbarian Relic. Gold is becoming money once again. Dollar holders beware!

Sprott Money Ltd.

I tease my readers' curiosity no longer. I disclose that the Canadian firm that has harnessed the Royal Canadian Mint to change the course of history is Sprott Money Ltd., established in 2007. The inspiration came from its founder, Mr. Eric Sprott himself. I salute him here as a man of great insight and courage. He firmly believes that gold should again be the international currency, by the choice of the people. He believes that the U. S. economy is in a state of total systemic failure. He says that we are in a depression today. He points out that the average bank is leveraged 25 or 30:1. He does not beat around the bush: he says that in a true mark-to-market, probably no bank would have any tangible capital left. He does not think that any economy that is paper-based can be insulated against the contagion of debasement that is the hallmark of the U.S. dollar.

In a recent interview (see References below) Sprott stated that during the past three years his organization has converted a lot of gold bars to gold coins at the Royal Canadian Mint, and then he went on:

We have lots of inventory; we are not seeing any signs that we are going to eat through our inventory of coins. But I always do worry that I've got to be able to buy the 400-ounce bars back, too. So we'll see. If it happens that I can't buy the bars back, I don't think I'll be selling the coins. (Emphasis added.)

I have included this quotation for its value as it so closely relates to the problem of backwardation in gold. When Sprott cannot buy any more 400-ounce bars, that's it: the curtain has fallen on the Last Contango in Washington. Backwardation is here to stay. And you will know it immediately because Sprott Money Ltd. will simultaneously withdraw its offer to sell Canadian Maple Leaf coins to retail customers. Not for sale at any price quoted in dollars, whether Zimbabwean or U.S.

We need lots of imitators for Sprott and lots of imitators for the Royal Canadian Mint, if we want to shorten the painful death-watch of this reactionary episode in the history of money, the experiment with the paper dollar backed, as it is, by the greatest collection of weapons of mass destruction: debt and thermonuclear warheads - if not much else.

References

By the same author:

The Rise and Fall of the Gold Basis, June 23, 2006
Monetary and Non-Monetary Commodities, June 25, 2006
The Last Contango in Washington, June 30, 2006
Gold, Interest, Basis, March,7, 2007
Gold Vanishing into private Hoards, May 31, 2007
Opening the Mint to Gold and Silver, February 5, 2008
Has the Curtain Fallen on the Last Contango in Washington? December 8, 2008

These and other articles of the author can be accessed at the website www.professorfekete.com

The Only Real Monetary Asset, www.sprottmoney.com

Eric Sprott: Gold: The Go-To Asset in Any Environment, The Gold Report 01/09/2009, www.theaureport.com

A New Stage in Gold's Return to Money, by H. Assenov and Dr. K. Petrov www.financialsense.com/editorials/petrov/2008/1226.html

Calendar of events

Szombathely, Martineum Academy, Hungary, last weekend of March, 2009
Encore Session of Gold Standard University Live.

Topics: When Will the Gold Standard Be Released from Quarantine?
The Vaporization of the Derivatives Tower
Labor and the Unfolding Great Depression
Gold and Silver in Backwardation: What Does It All Mean?

San Francisco School of Economics, July-August, 2009
Money and Banking, a ten-week course based on the work of Professor Fekete. The Syllabus of this course is can be seen on the website: www.sfschoolofeconomics.com

January 12, 2009

U.S. Mint suspends sales of 1 oz gold Buffalos

By Frank Tang
Reuters
Thursday, September 25, 2008

NEW YORK -- The U.S Mint said Thursday it was temporarily suspending sales of American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins because strong demand depleted its inventory.

"Demand has exceeded supply for American Buffalo 24-karat gold one-ounce bullion coins, and our inventories have been depleted. We are, therefore, temporarily suspending sales of these coins," the Mint said in a memorandum to authorized American Buffalo dealers.

The Mint also told dealers that it would work to build up its inventory to resume sales shortly.

In mid-August, a shortage of American Eagle one-ounce gold coins due to "unprecedented" demand had also forced the U.S. Mint to temporarily suspend sales of the popular coins.

The Mint said Thursday it would continue to supply the American Eagle 22-karat gold one-ounce and American Eagle silver bullion coins on an allocation basis to coin dealers.

In addition, the half-ounce, quarter-ounce, and 1-10th ounce American Eagle gold coins and American Eagle platinum were also available, the Mint said.

Coin dealers from the United States to Canada have recently reported a surge in buying of bullion coins and other gold products as troubles in the financial markets prompted people to seek a safe haven in precious metals.

On Thursday, the U.S. gold contract for December delivery ended down $13 or 1.5 percent at $882 an ounce on the COMEX division of the NYMEX, while spot gold traded at $873 an ounce.

Bullion hit an all-time high of $1,030.80 an ounce on March 17.

* * *

...and a snippet from BullionVault:


"...Longer-term, says Roland Duss - co-chief investment officer at Gonet & Cie, the Swiss private bank based in Geneva - the price of Gold Bullion could reach $2,000 or more per ounce over the next decade.

"We are still in a commodities bull market," Duss told London's CityWire news service on Wednesday.

"The growth in demand from emerging economies is such that it will exceed supply, so we are bound to have price hikes for another five to 10 years."

Duss says 95% of additional demand for energy, metals and other raw materials is coming from emerging economies. Developed OECD countries simply don't have an impact.

"On the supply side [in contrast] there is a lot of destruction. For metals, there are too many cost increases, which means that some mines are not going to be there."

World gold mining output peaked in 2003. Ian Henderson, head of J.P.Morgan's $5bn Natural Resources Fund, believes we need "a sustained price level of over $1,200 an ounce before we see any significant new mine build."

The CEO of world No.4 gold miner Gold Fields, Nick Holland, says his company's assets would require a market-price of $2,000 and above "if you tried to build these mines today" to justify the investment.

"Already at cost levels between $600-700 an ounce," notes the latest Precious Metals Weekly from Wolfgang Wrzesniok-Rossbach at Heraeus - the German refining group - "many mines will find it difficult to continue production.

"This should put a check on fresh supply. At lower prices, the feasibility of processing 'scrap gold' [meaning old jewelry and electronic bonding wire] will also be severely tested - and at the same time it should significantly encourage jewelry demand.

"As such, in the next 15 months, we do not see the gold price falling for any extended period of time below these levels"

***

GATA: U.S. mint suspends gold coin sales; futures price is a fiction

12:25a ET Friday, August 15, 2008

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The U.S. Mint has suspended sales of American Eagle gold coins and is refusing orders from dealers, two coin and bullion dealers confirmed Thursday.

The mint's suspension of gold coin sales follows its tight rationing of sales of silver eagle coins, begun in May, when sales to the public were terminated and sales to the mint's 13 authorized dealers were tightly limited.

Word of the mint's suspension of gold coin sales came from the American Precious Metals Exchange in Edmond, Oklahoma, and from Centennial Precious Metals in Denver, Colorado.

The suspension is overwhelming evidence that the futures contract price of gold on the commodities exchanges is substantially below the physical market price and that, indeed, the commodities exchanges are being used as GATA long has maintained -- as part of a massive scheme of manipulation of the precious metals, currency, and bond markets.

Michael Kosares, proprietor of Centennial Precious Metals and host of its Internet bulletin board, the USAGold Forum , explained Thursday:

"The U.S. Mint buys direct from the refiners, and this suspension of gold eagle sales may be an indication that the supply line is already backing up, or that the mint expects that it will back up for the rest of the year. I wonder who would give up physical metal at these prices and under these circumstances except distressed sellers. The central banks are in a hunker-down mode as far as I can determine, and it's the mines that supply the refiners. So if the mint, which buys from the refiners, is having a difficult time locating metal, what does that tell you? I keep saying that we may get a surprising rubber-band effect later in the year when the pre-holiday/festival season kicks off in September/October. It may happen sooner. One of our indicators of approaching a bottom in gold is how many calls Centennial Precious Metals gets from our U.S.-based Indian clientele. Here's a quote from my office's report to me at the end of the day today: 'Today was a good day. ... There must have been an Indian convention where someone was handing out USAGold business cards.' That may give you a clue as to thinking in India proper and probably the rest of the Asian rim."

That is, through their agents the bullion banks the Western central banks, desperate to prop up a corrupt and totteringt financial system, have put gold so much on sale that even the U.S. Mint can't find any now. The price reported from the commodities markets is a fiction -- a scary one, perhaps, but a fiction no less.

You can strike a blow at the market riggers who are defrauding the world -- just buy a little real metal. The dealers listed at the bottom right of this dispatch will be glad to help you do it.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Fed up with the Federal Reserve...

We've Been Told Not to Imagine
a World Without the Federal Reserve.
Maybe We Should.

By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
The New Republic
Wednesday, November 28, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Recently the Washington Post carried a front-page story about a federal raid on the headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code (Norfed). The Indiana-based company, which advocates "sound money," has been selling coins and paper certificates backed by gold and silver for years, in effect trying to compete with the dollar.

The government ignored Norfed's "Liberty Dollars" for a long time -- until the group started selling thousands of coins with Ron Paul's likeness to show support for the Republican presidential candidate. Paul also wants to abolish the Federal Reserve.

To the public at large, the activities of Norfed seem utopian, naive, and even downright fraudulent. The idea that the world's greatest economy could be run without a central bank and private parties could replace the government as issuers of currency is one that many people will find scary. With the dollar in something of a free fall and the United States in the midst of a housing and credit crisis that has sent some of the nation's top CEOs packing, Americans will be looking for financial security, not monetary adventures.

And yet it is precisely in such a financially wobbly environment that the actions of Norfed should invite a critical look at the way money is managed. Some of the country's greatest economists, including Nobel Prize winners, have been saying for years that the Federal Reserve has probably caused more problems than it has solved since its creation in 1913. Its role in the last century's boom-and-bust cycles is a matter of record; it looks as though it played a similar role in the current housing market crisis too.

While the creation of the Federal Reserve was essentially a response to a series of bank runs, those crises were mild compared to the ones that were to follow. In 1913 the United States was under the gold standard. Although the government issued currency, the fact that currency was tied to gold meant that the authorities could not manipulate the money supply easily. The Fed's initial mission was to guarantee the convertibility of deposits into currency on demand. A few decades later the United States abandoned the gold standard and the Federal Reserve became the country's most powerful economic institution, exercising its monopoly in issuing currency based on the discretionary power of its board of governors.

All in all, financial instability has been far greater since the creation of the Federal Reserve. What did the Great Depression teach us? Essentially that even with the best of intentions, it is impossible for the authorities to manage the supply of money in accordance with the exact needs of the economy.

A country's economy is the sum of millions of people making decisions that no single individual is in a position to anticipate. As the economist Murray Rothbard showed in his book "America's Great Depression," in the 1920s the Federal Reserve pumped up the money supply, expanding credit by more than 60 percent. Because the economy was very productive, this monetary expansion did not show up in the regular inflation figures. But, as is always the case with inflation, many resources went to the wrong kind of investments -- until the crisis hit.

The late Milton Friedman showed how the Fed made things worse by not providing the system with enough liquidity once the Depression was obvious.

The current housing market and debt market crises are in good part the children of the Federal Reserve. By cutting rates 13 times between 2001 and 2003 and then keeping them very low for years, monetary policy contributed to the housing bubble. That is not to say that other factors -- including financial instruments that made it difficult to see that the underlying foundation was not as solid as it seemed -- did not play a part too. But once again the Fed has turned out to be a factor of financial instability.

In this context, Norfed's attempt to prove to the Fed that the market is ready to trust private currency backed by gold is a welcome occasion to take a second look at some of the economic institutions we take for granted. Naive and utopian? You bet. But that is probably because of how far the world has moved from the time when money was too important to be left to the politicians.

----

Feds raid Liberty Dollar and seize and freeze everything

The FED's "Untouchables" sensing real danger from real money competition couldn't help it but strike at the "evil counterfeiters". But who's the Real Counterfeiter here?...

"...You and I would go to jail if we dared to "print" money. Counterfeiting is a crime. However, the Federal Reserve has the legal monopoly of writing unlimited checks. In short, the Fed is "legal counterfeiter".
While we have to work to obtain money, the Fed has the power to inject newly created money into the banking system to stimulate the economy and lubricate the wheels of commerce..." (from Murray Sabrin's "Bernanke and the Panic Button")

*******

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The Liberty Dollar organization announced this morning, via the letter appended here, that federal agents today raided its offices in Evansville, Indiana, and confiscated all its property and equipment.

This moves seems extraordinarily bold considering that Liberty Dollar's right to operate already was being litigated in federal court.

Let's hope that Liberty Dollar soon can force the government to answer in federal court for today's action.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Liberty Dollar Company Announcement
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:

I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville, Indiana.

For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum, and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that were just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files and computers and froze our bank accounts.

We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the U.S. Constitution.

We should not be defrauded by the fake government money.

But to make matters worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been confiscated. Even the dies for minting the gold and silver Libertys have been taken.

All this has happened even though Edmond C. Moy, the director of the U.S. Mint, acknowledged in a letter to a U.S. senator that the paper certificates did not violate Section 486 and were not illegal.

But the FBI and Secret Service took all the paper currency too.

The possibility of such action was the reason the Liberty Dollar was designed -- so that the vast majority of the money was in specie form and in the people's hands. Of the $20 million Liberty Dollars, only about a million is in paper or digital form.

I regret that if you are due an order, it may be some time until it will be filled, if ever. It now all depends on our actions.

Everyone who has an unfulfilled order or has digital or paper currency should band together for a class-action suit and demand redemption. We cannot allow the government to steal our money.

Please don't let this happen.

Many of you read the articles quoting the government and Federal Reserve officials saying the Liberty Dollar was legal. You did nothing wrong. You are legally entitled to your property. Let us use this terrible act to band together and further our goal -- to return America to a value-based currency.

Please forward this important alert so everyone who possesses or uses the Liberty Dollar is aware of the situation.

Please go here to sign up for the class action lawsuit and get your property back:

http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php

Thanks again for your support at this darkest time as the damn government and its dollar sinks to a new low.

Bernard von NotHaus, Monetary Architect
Liberty Dollar
Evansville, Indiana

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Royal Canadian Mint issues a 100 Kg pure gold coin!

Finally! A 100-kg Canadian gold coin

Last Updated: Thursday, May 3, 2007 | 12:43 PM ET
CBC News

The Royal Canadian Mint has produced the world's first 100-kilogram gold coin with a face value of $1 million. And they're for sale.

Why did it do this? "Because we can," the mint said on its website.

The Royal Canadian Mint displays one of its new 100-kg, pure gold bullion coins.
(Canadian Press/Tom Hanson)

The coin is the size of a "very thick pizza" — 50 centimetres wide and three centimetres thick — and is .99999 pure.

It was originally meant to be a one-off novelty item to help promote the other gold coin the mint unveiled Thursday — a new line of one-ounce Maple Leaf bullion coins that will have a face value of $200.

But after several interested buyers came forward, the mint decided to produce "a very limited quantity" of the $1-million coins on a made-to-order basis for public sale.

Even though the big coin has a face value of $1 million, it won't sell for that. At current prices, the coin's 3,215 troy ounces of gold are worth well over $2 million.

A mint spokesperson said the coins will sell for between $2.5 million and $3 million. So far, the mint has received confirmed orders for five coins.

The Royal Canadian Mint faces international competition from a variety of other countries that also make gold coins.