Sunday, March 7, 2010

What Will You Use As Money After Armageddon?

The vast majority of us are in the final stage of being financially raped such as no one has ever been raped before in the history of civilization. This statement holds true not just for the United States, but for every industrialized country in the world. Our rapists -- our political and financial Masters in Washington, on Wall Street, in the city of London, in Tokyo, Paris and in dozens of other power centers -- have by now stolen from us virtually all of the wealth which we, our parents, our grandparents, and all of our ancestors stretching back through the mists of time, have spent our lives and broken our backs producing. The average person is still having a hard time coming to grips with this reality. That's to be expected. Any rational, honest person would consider such an act to be too obscene to be true. And it is those honest, hard-working individuals, who have all their lives trusted and believed their politicians and the "Economic Gurus" who are their minions, who are about to be utterly, totally destroyed.
From an economic standpoint, the most horiffic crime which has been perpetrated against us by our rapist Masters has been the virtual destruction of our money. Whatever is left of its value is quickly evaporating like dew on a warm summer's morning. For generations, our Masters have foisted upon us their own worthless, paper "fiat" currency in place of true money: gold and silver. These bits of paper with a few drops of ink on them can be printed by our Masters in unlimited quantities. And that's exactly what they've done: printed the stuff in unlimited quantities. To be a little more technical, they've engaged in inflation, an almost universally misunderstood concept which I'll deal with in an upcoming blog. YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF INFLATION IF YOU'RE TO HAVE ANY HOPE AT ALL OF SURVIVING WHAT'S ABOUT TO HAPPEN TO YOU!
As I'll explain later, inflation is a hidden tax: a way of taxing away your purchasing power without actually touching the number of dollars, pounds, euros, whatever, which you are holding. If they directly confiscated too much of your money, in a way that you could actually see, you would get very angry, and our Masters might find themselves doing air-dances from lamp posts in every capital city in the industrialized world. They don't want that. So instead they print mountains of "toilet paper money" -- which you can't see them doing -- diluting the purchasing power, or we could say the value, of the money you have.
By now, the process is nearing completion. I predict that soon it will indeed be complete: the fiat currency, or paper money, which you have spent your lives earning and saving, will become totally worthless. It will have no purchasing power at all. No matter how much of it you have, you won't be able to buy anything with it. Not a thing. Think about that.
That raises the question of what WILL you use to buy the things you need to survive after the junk in your wallet assumes the status, and probably the function, of toilet paper. What will you use as money after "The State's Fiat Money" won't buy anything? The answer is that you will use, at least in a pinch, any tangible commodity that possesses real value. In my novel, the "Iron Phoenix," which, by the way, you can buy in autographed, personalized form directly from me on this blog, I write of just such a situation occurring in the United States. In the "Iron Phoenix," the United States becomes a colony of a resurgent Russian empire, is occupied by the Russian military, and its people are forced to accept worthless Russian military scrip as money. I was exactly on the mark when I wrote about that, because that's exactly what's happening to us now, without the foreign occupation. Naturally, no one wants the stuff, and so everyone resorts to using anything they can find of real value in their transactions with other people, "under the table," of course.
For six thousand years or so, gold and silver have been by far the preferred commodities to use as money. There are very good reasons for this, which I'll explain in a future blog. But in my novel, there just isn't enough gold or silver to go around. No country in the world has issued gold or silver coinage for general circulation in a coon's age. The last year in which United States coins were made of 90% silver was 1964. That was a long time ago. So people in the "Iron Phoenix" make other commodities "do" as money. But to function really well as money, a commodity has to possess certain characteristics.
First, it has to be universally, or almost universally, desired. Everyone, or at least most people, have to want some of it. Lots of commodities meet this requirement, like any type of food, for example. And when the time comes, you will indeed be able to use food -- if you're lucky enough to have any -- in simple person-to-person transactions. But there are reasons why food doesn't make for very good money. For one thing, it tends to go rotten. Also, you'd probably need to have quite a lot of it in order to have any significant purchasing power. There are other reasons which you'll understand shortly.
Secondly, it has to be homogeneous: That is, one unit of it has to be identical to every other unit of it. Here, food has a problem. There are carrots, and then there are carrots. Some are bigger than others, or fresher, or more appetizingly attractive. You see the problem. That's one reason why diamonds don't make for very good money. But other commodities don't have this problem. Excellent examples are gold and silver. One pure piece of either metal, produced anywhere in the world, is exactly identical with every other piece. That's one reason why gold and silver have been popular as money for so long. But other commodies meet this requirement too. The characters in my novel, faced with a shortage of gold and silver coins, resort to using ammunition as money. Twenty-two long rifle caliber ammunition is particularly popular, but I have them using other calibers as well. In the United States, if someone owns just one gun, it's probably a twenty-two. Not everyone wants it, but enough people do that it meets the first requirement above. It's also homogeneous: one round of .22 long rifle ammo is, for all practical purposes, just like every other round. So the characters in the "Iron Phoenix," as long as the Russians aren't looking, make small, everyday purchases among themselves using .22's.
When everything hits the fan, ammunition will meet another necessary criterion of money: it will be rare. Whatever Statists may be left by then will be desperately in fear for their lives. It will be pay-back time, and they will know it. If they have any coercive power left -- which they may not have if the State itself collapses -- they will use every shred of it to keep you from getting your hands on ammunition of any kind. Civilian ammunition production will, of course, cease. They'll confiscate however much of it they can get their hands on. I would not be at all surprised to see the death penalty attached to the civilian possession of even one round of ammo. But if there are any of our Statist Masters left by then, rest assured that they will see to it that they have lots of the stuff at their disposal: All the better to keep you unwashed masses in line. Rarity is the reason why many commodities which may be both desirable and homogeneous don't make for good money. Sand and wood come to mind. They aren't rare.
The fourth criterion for any commodity to serve as money is that it has to be easily divisible into small units. This is another reason why diamonds make for lousy money. How would anyone make change for a small purchase made with a diamond? Here, gold and silver are stellar performers. Either metal can be chopped up into pieces as small as you like, and each piece will still be homogeneous, desirable, and rare. Ammunition works reasonably well for this, but it's not perfect. You can't cut a .22 in half. But you can divide a box of fifty of them into fifty individual, homogeneous, rare, desirable units. Not perfect, but still pretty good.
Now I'll leave it to your imagination to dream up other commodities that fit the above requirements at least reasonably well. The more requirements they meet, the more useful they will be as money. I have a character in my novel using disposable razors as money. This clever fellow sees all of the s--t approaching the fan, and stocks up on thousands of the things while they're still available at the dollar store dirt cheap. After the razor blades run out, and there's no more electricity to power electric shavers, he makes a killing. One disposable razor, to a man who's desperate for a shave, trades for one silver quarter -- a veritable fortune.
ANY TANGIBLE COMMODITY YOU CAN THINK OF THAT MEETS SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE REQUIREMENTS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE STOCKING UP ON RIGHT NOW! Don't wait. Do it now. Don't waste your purchasing power on movies, fancy restaurants, or high-definition TV's. The time is coming -- soon now -- when none of that will be worth a hoot. Simply achieving basic daily physical survival will be a HUGE CHALLENGE! Many among us, those who do not prepare in advance, will not be able to meet that challenge. They will die. It's as simple as that.
So, in conclusion, my advice to you is to get your hands on every gram of silver and gold you possibly can, even if the price in your local, current fiat currency seems high. It will get much, much higher. In fact, I firmly believe that the exchange rate between all existing fiat currencies and a single ounce of gold or silver will eventually reach infinity. If you have anything with "collector value," now is the time to sell it, run as fast as you can to the nearest bullion dealer and exchange its purchasing power for gold or silver. I especially recommend silver right now. By historical standards, they're giving the stuff away. We'll talk more about THAT later.
Ammunition will be great, I promise you. Buy all you can, if your local Tyrants will permit you to do so. Buy candles, razors, ANYTHING that you believe people will want and need. The more of the above requirements they meet, the better.
GET BUSY RIGHT NOW -- OR YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF IN VERY DEEP DOO-DOO!