Bill Still. A name that deserves it’s own complete sentence. What can I say about Bill. A true legend in educating people about the history and nature of money.
Bill’s got some intersting ideas, which seem so simple, yet so powerful, with regards to significantly reducing the problems that stem from the current financial system.
The main problem that Bill focus’s on, is that of (so called) sovereign governments borrowing money from private bankers. Bill argues that if this situation ended, then a great destructive force would stop wrecking national economies and most importantly the suffering of the man on the street, would diminish.
By borrowing money from private banks (or the bank of the private bankers, like the US federal reserve), interest becomes payable upon it. While the USA was able to plunder resources of other countries, it was able to use those resources to offset (some in excess) the cost of borrowing money. But it’s become harder and much more expensive to wage those wars of theft. Hence the problem of borrowed money has (“sacred”)spiralled out of control. (All to plan of course).
Anyway, the problem with Bill is that his proposals are only a half-way house. Sorry, that’s unkind, let me re-quantify. Bill proposals are perhaps a “90% way house” in his favour, but Bills proposals will also ultimately cause problems.
Why? Because bill is an advocate of creating money, by creating/printing/minting debt free notes and coins (from materials that do not reflect the actual value of what they are constructed from). Although Bill has correctly identified a principle element of usury – the borrowing of money against which the amount due for repayment is greater (in monetary terms) than the principle (initial) amount borrowed. Bills call to creating money is simply a second dimension of the same usurious beast, even though it would result in lesser severity and have the associated problems occur over a longer time span.
The best form of money has as it’s prime property that of intrinsic (inherent/fundamental/inescapable/within itself) value*. If I am to sell an object, say a sheep, I want an object or token of payment that actually reflects the value of the sheep. e.g. a gold coin. What if that gold coin could be bought for $253. Which would I be happier to receive? – the gold coin or $253? I’d much prefer the gold coin. Why? Because the gold has intrinsic value but the value of the note is nominal i.e. the note has a purely fictional value given to it. and not a real value at all. By accepting the note, I’d be selling my sheep for a temporary illusion of value.
Yes, there’s a part of the value/cost of gold that is nominal, but the nominal amount is nowhere near as significant as for the note. The intrinsic value makes it have ‘value durability’. No matter that nominal fluctuation imposes itself upon the gold, the intrinsic value remains. This is not the case for nominal fiar currency. The value of the nominal value paper note is demonstrably unstable and subject to devaluation via inflation. As mentioned, Bill Still says that currency devaluation is largely because government borrow their money, But even if a government did print it’s own money, it would be creating money out of nothing i.e. ‘making money’ (which is almost exactly the same as the outcome of lending money on interest!) and then it would have a nominal value imposed upon it, subject to the political needs of the government. So Bill’s idea is in fact just a mini-me version of the current reality. Creating money is in itself inflationary robbing those who earn from the trade of their goods and services of the results and rewards of that trade. Robbing everyone of degrees of hard earned financial security; A scandalous rip-off.
And before you write in mentioning hyper inflation in Hapsburg Spain, realise that situation was much different from what would be the case today. It’s actually poetic justice that the gain of gold based on exploitation plunder and tyranny was self-destructive. In an ideal world where fair and honest trading takes place, I simply cannot believe large amounts of gold would a) be able to accumulate in such amounts b) that there would be no healthy economic ‘sink’ for that gold to be spent. In today’s world, there are many potential costly sinks today e.g. helping the 1 in 7 on the planet that do hungry each day, cleaning up pollution, providing decent housing / regeneration and health care, construction of mega projects such as PV arrays, irrigation or arid lands, research into sustainable energy etc etc etc. None of which were available in Hapsburg Imperialist Spain.
So Bill, you are still wrong. Gold is the ultimate in currency. Your solution, although it would reduce the severity of what we see today in global finance, would still cause more problems than is the case for the use of Gold and silver.
Bill has said why would you want a currency whose quantity is restrictive – I believe I have answered his query above. Bill (and others) also argue that it’s not the token that’s important, but who controls it. Again, I think I’ve scotched that ‘concern’ above.
I am NOT saying that the common man will be utterly free of the evil manipulation of money if gold and silver were to the principle form of money. What i am saying is there is no system that is better than the use of sliver and gold. The maximum number of people would benefit and the least amount of people would suffer.
If we all used gold and silver there would be little currency speculation, bolstering G&S’s retention of value even more.
* It has intrinsic properties because of its physical properties of being rare, soft and inert/indestructible, all of which make it perhaps the most desired material for jewellery/ornamentation/beautification as well as being physically useful.
P.S. Max Keiser is also wrong, for a similar reason. He advocates using interest as a financial control. Ellen Brown is also wrong. She advocates borrowing more money to spend her way out of some of the current economic troubles in the US (and wider) economy. Inflation causes a diseased economy. I posit the way to kill any Hapsburgian type problems would simply be to give a fair chink of gold and silver to the poor (perhaps from mass employment – putting the gold aside only to cater for payment of the labour of the poor). I suggest at a stroke that such a thing would have nullified any such negative Hapsburgian pressures.
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Living with the Conspiracy 24-7 
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