What a Trillion Dollars Looks Like

[hjmoosejaw]

A Trillion Dollars

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

 

[Freedom1Man]

I figured it looked like a 100 dollar bill with more zeros behind the 1.

It would be much cheaper to do it that way and then mail a stack of those to china......

 

[Citizen]

I figured it looked like a 100 dollar bill with more zeros behind the 1.

It would be much cheaper to do it that way and then mail a stack of those to china......

No it wouldn't.

Central banking is the slickest wealth redistribution scheme ever invented.* The central banks (our Federal Reserve is a privately owned central bank) create money out of thin air.

Any such newly created money derives its value from the money already in existence. Worse, the newly created money adds to the supply of money. Increasing the supply of money causes price inflation since there are more dollars chasing the same amount of goods. Prices increasing is literally just another way of saying the value of money goes down.

Here is where the wealth redistribution comes into the picture. The money you earned last week, and the money you put in savings ten years ago lose their value as prices increase. You have the same number of dollars. But, now they won't buy as much. The value of your dollars was in effect sucked away by the newly created money, and transferred to the creators of the new money and the people who first received that newly created money.

And nobody ever once reached in your pocket or bank account.

Here is the Chinese angle. The Chinese knew that Bernanke was proposing under QEII to create some $750B. "QE" means quantitative easing, and is code, literally, for creating vast amounts of money out of thin air. The Chinese knew well that all that money printing would create inflation and reduce the value of the dollar. Now, watch this because it applies to any investor, not just the Chinese. The Chinese had bought US debt with dollars that were worth "x". But, Bernanke was going to cause the dollar to fall in value with all his money printing. Thus, the Chinese would be repaid with dollars that were worth less than the dollars they gave when they bought the debt.

This is why the Chinese balked and complained about QEII.


Helpful Hint: Honest-to-god, this sort of information is as important as gun rights. You cannot afford to not understand this stuff on at least an elementary level. There is no point in having guns if you don't even know you are being screwed and how.


One of Karl Marx's principles was the centralization of credit. Guess what else the Federal Reserve does besides print money out of thin air. It sets interest rates at the top of the banking system. Those rates are then used to set the interest rate below it. Ever had a credit card with a variable APR that was, for example, "Prime plus 2.3%". Prime refers to the Prime Rate set by the Federal Reserve. Thus, the Federal Reserve board that decides whether to raise or lower interest rates by a quarter point here or there are doing exactly what Marx was advocating. By setting the prime rate, the Federal Reserve is literally controlling the credit down the chain.

 

[Freedom1Man]

Helpful Hint: Honest-to-god, this sort of information is as important as gun rights. You cannot afford to not understand this stuff on at least an elementary level. There is no point in having guns if you don't even know you are being screwed and how.

That is something you need to learn.

I was being serious and flippant at the same time since I really do understand money and barter. Since I will hope you don't need a history on how money came about I will not expand in to that area. However since you do mention the Constitution and money in the same response I will now have to school everyone.

Now, I guess I will have to say class in session.

Let's start with fixed values, 1 day is one revolution of the earth around it's axis, a week is 7 days, a year is one trip around the sun, and a dollar is a minted coin containing a working average of 371.25 grains of silver. Back in the day of the Constitution it was a Spanish Mill dollar that was the standard currency. It had milled edges so people would know that the coin had not been clipped and thus would contain it's correct weight in silver.

Now the term dollar is found once in the main body of the constitution (article 1 section 9) and again in the bill of rights (7th Amendment) it must be understood that the founding fathers knew that the term dollar was a fixed value and that it was in a coin. That is made firm in Article 1 section 8 of the constitution,

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

. It's interesting to note that congress can only regulate the value of coin(s) because only coins can be money as far as our constitution is concerned.

Since the original Article 1 section 8, was worded as this way,

To coin and to print Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

one must ask why those 3 words were stricken from the constitution. Well if you look back at that time the they had just been using a paper money called, "Continentals," during that time congress over printed them and crashed their value. Those in the constitutional convention did not want to see a repeat of that even and so struck the words from the constitution there by denying congress the power to ever print money again and at the same time limiting the term of money (for governmental purposes) to coins.

Now those wonderful stacks paper are mistakenly called money and the only reason they are given any value is because the corrupt courts have ruled that the local governments must accept them for the payment of fines and taxes.

Okay you might try to make the claim that we borrowed money from China and have to pay it back. Article 1 section 8

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

so how much money have we borrowed? NONE, ZERO, NOTHING! The only thing that has been borrowed is CREDIT since I have not see one silver coin change hands. Sorry got a little ahead of myself with that.

As for the federal reserve bank. It's a private for profit bank that lends credit to the government at interest while claiming it is lending out money. The only payment it can accept are federal reserve notes. For the purpose of education here I will use 100 'notes'. The bank lends the 100 notes to congress and congress promises to pay 110 notes. Well there are only 100 notes that have been made. So the bank has to create 110 of them to be lent to congress to pay back the first loan. I am sure you can see how quickly that spirals out of control. What is the difference in value between a 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 note bills is the number printed on them. The difference between a 1 dollar coin and 50cent coin is their content of silver.

That I believe was a good quick overview. It you really want me to go more in depth I can do that.

So about my statement of just adding a few more zeros it is the most accurate statement I could make. Since federal reserve notes are not really money and congress has not borrowed any money from China then all we would have to do to pay them back is print off a couple of federal reserve notes with the correct number of zeros and then stop using them in this country.

Congress never had the authority to print money and thus could never have the authority to delegate the printing of money to anyone. So the only thing you're proving is that congress has been acting unlawfully for many decades.

If you want to get to the core of the problem then stop using a SSN for anything. The use of an SSN your way of saying that you support the federal reserve, slavery, and inflation.

If you wish to claim that a piece of paper is a dollar simply because the government says it is then I have a few cows in my wallet I would love to sell you. Each has a different weight printed on it too. Oh and I've decided that 1 day is 3 rotations of the earth and that 1 hour is 1/5 of a day. So please none of this a piece of paper is a dollar looney nonsense.

 

[()pen(arry]

I'd add something to Citizen's discussion. Quantitative Easing isn't simply creating money ex nihilo. It is specifically the central bank allowing a government bond-holder to increase the amount of money they claim to have, requiring that they no longer claim to hold that government bond, and then declaring that the government bond no longer exists. Technically, they keep the bond on their "books" at the central bank, but they never collect on it. What's happening here? The government treasury increases their funds in exchange for a bond purchaser decreasing their funds (typically not literal funds, merely time-dependent accounting gimmick "funds", aka "credit"). That's the bond "purchase". Later, the central bank "takes" the bond, tells the "purchaser" they can behave as if they've been repaid, and the bond disappears from the market. At the end, the government has more funds, the "purchaser" has more funds (interest), and the bond will never again see the light of day. That's definitely creating money, it's just more insidious for two reasons: 1) the private market bond-holders who get to take advantage of this sweet deal are hand-picked by the central bank, and 2) very often, the central bank is doing this with itself, casually cycling its "own" bonds around and around themselves, extending the maturation timeline indefinitely, to inject funds into the government treasury. Also it has a confusing name that makes people think, "Well, they must be smarter than me, 'cause I don't understand it."

Here's a super quick Q&A-style primer on the Fed, Fed loans, and money that I posted in another forum a while back.

I'm not interested in starting a class on macroeconomics, so I'm going to stick to a single, critical topic, in question/answer/answer format.

Please see the following topics as background information for what I'm about to explain. I'm not assuming you don't understand economics; I'm establishing a common knowledge base.
Federal Reserve System
Excess Reserves
Fiat Money

Question: How much money does a bank have?
Incorrect Answer: The sum of its deposits, reserves, etc., blah blah naive nonsense.
Correct Answer: The amount it is willing to claim and behave as if it has, after measuring all risk factors involved; typically, the amount of money the governing bodies of the economies in which it operates permit it to claim and behave as if it has.

Question: How much money does "the Fed" have?
Incorrect Answer: The sum of the excess reserves of the commercial banks and the United States federal government. (Or anything remotely similar to this)
Correct Answer: None.

Question: How does "the Fed" loan money to banks?
Incorrect Answer: It lets commercial banks make use of some portion of the total Federal Reserve Bank credits for a period of time, possibly requiring interest with repayment.
Correct Answer: It doesn't. It allows banks to claim and behave as if they have more money than they previously claimed and behaved as if they had.

Question: Where did "the Fed" get the $7.7 Trillion it secretly "loaned" to banks?
Incorrect Answer: Umm... well, it must have an account somewhere... in a bank... or something...
Correct Answer: It didn't. It simply told the banks they could claim and behave as if they had more money. In the case of Citigroup, for instance, it said, "Hey, you can talk and act as if you have an additional $99.4B, without anyone knowing and without fear of legal action, but at some point in the future, you have to stop talking and acting as if you have that $99.4B. In fact, never talk about it at all, please."

Question: So what happened when they "repaid" those "loans"?
Incorrect Answer: Errr... I'm confused...
Correct Answer: Nothing. The banks just stopped claiming and behaving as if they had the extra money.

Question: What would have happened if they hadn't "repaid" those "loans"?
Incorrect Answer: Economic calamity.
Correct Answer: Not a god damn thing (at least, nothing concrete that anyone could point a finger at). That's why they were secret in the first place. If people (most importantly, other economies) knew that the "loans" had been made, they would know there was additional Dollar-denominated currency in the world market, diluting the value of all Dollars (aka "inflation"), and while no one would have done anything about that immediately, they would have treated the Dollar as having lesser value in relation to other currencies, had the banks not "repaid" the "loans". Now that the banks have "repaid" the "loans", it's theoretically a net-zero change, and no one cares (that is, other economies don't care, except that they might be concerned about future such "loans" that don't get "repaid", which might result in inflation / investment devaluation).

Question: So where did the money the banks "repaid" go?
Incorrect Answer: Back into the bank... account...
Correct Answer: What money? There never was any. There was a curious sequence of changes to various accounting ledgers, but I have no idea what money you're talking about.

Question: So then what the f*** is money?
Incorrect Answer: It's an asset/agreed form of exchange/blah blah college freshman weed-out class drivel.
Correct Answer: That, my friend, is precisely why the Dollar is called a "fiat currency". It is what the people with the power to hurt you say it is. There is as much of it as they are willing to say there is. They have as much of it as they think they can get away with claiming they have. There are lots of governments in the world all doing this same thing, at the same time, and that's exactly why the world currency markets are so perplexing, so volatile, and so utterly f***ed right now.

Question: So why can't I claim I have more money than I have?
Incorrect Answer: Because you don't actually have that money.
Correct Answer: Because the governing body of the economy you operate in will deny you certain desirable liberties if you do so and are caught. Many people do this all the time anyway; most are caught, but only most.

Question: So what is "the Fed"?
Incorrect Answer: A board of governors that determine monetary policy... *yawn*
Correct Answer: A bunch of political appointees who have a bunch of people who work for them, all of whom decide how much "money" the United States Government is going to let people claim and behave as if they have. Yes, that really is exactly what "the Fed" boils down to.

Question: What's got you so up in arms?
Incorrect Answer: I'm worried about inflation if there are future such "loans" that aren't "repaid".
Correct Answer: The fact that you don't already understand this, and yet you vote.

 

[twoskinsonemanns]

No it wouldn't.....By setting the prime rate, the Federal Reserve is literally controlling the credit down the chain.

snipped for space.

Thanks for the great post Citizen. I enjoy reading your simple, understandable explanations of this sort.

 

[Citizen]

snipped for space.

Thanks for the great post Citizen. I enjoy reading your simple, understandable explanations of this sort.

You're welcome.

The guys who posted just after me, Freedom1Man and ()pen(arry, added some great perspective, too.


I am currently reading a text from 1870 on economics, Political Economy for Beginners, by Millicent Fawcett. In the chapter on credit, she lays out a paragraph about how too much credit causes a boom, and then there is a bust (called back then a panic). Followed by a period where credit will be dramatically curtailed. In one paragraph she described the meltdown of 2008 and the depression we are in. Meaning, this sort of thing has been known about and well understood since at least 1870!!!!!!!! Goddam the big bankers and Wall Street!!! Damm them to hell!

 

[Freedom1Man]

You're welcome.

The guys who posted just after me, Freedom1Man and ()pen(arry, added some great perspective, too.


I am currently reading a text from 1870 on economics, Political Economy for Beginners, by Millicent Fawcett. In the chapter on credit, she lays out a paragraph about how too much credit causes a boom, and then there is a bust (called back then a panic). Followed by a period where credit will be dramatically curtailed. In one paragraph she described the meltdown of 2008 and the depression we are in. Meaning, this sort of thing has been known about and well understood since at least 1870!!!!!!!! Goddam the big bankers and Wall Street!!! Damm them to hell!

If you can afford it, "Pieces of Eight," is a good read too.

The whole boom/bust/credit thing has been known about since before 500 BC.

The only way to fix things is through will take a few steps almost all at once.
1. Make it common knowledge that Socialist Security is a voluntary and stop strong arming citizens into getting a number.
2. Declare a debt jubilee.
3. Go back to constitutional currency.

That will kill inflation as we know it, have people remember they have a right to the fruits of their own labor allowing them to save for retirement, and it will free all those stuck in usurious debt cycle (like our governments).

 

[Lasjayhawk]

If you can afford it, "Pieces of Eight," is a good read too.


The only way to fix things is through will take a few steps almost all at once.
1. Make it common knowledge that Socialist Security is a voluntary and stop strong arming citizens into getting a number.
2. Declare a debt jubilee.
3. Go back to constitutional currency.

Do you think that will happen? Didn't think so.
If the rest of the world decides to start trading oil in something other than USD, or economy would crash in in about a week. I am afraid (read SHTF) that we are in for a very bad time that could happen without much warning. Other than the last 10 years of warning that is.

 

[()pen(arry]

Do you think that will happen? Didn't think so.
If the rest of the world decides to start trading oil in something other than USD, or economy would crash in in about a week. I am afraid (read SHTF) that we are in for a very bad time that could happen without much warning. Other than the last 10 years of warning that is.

Many benchmark currencies have come and gone from the international marketplace without the attendant economic cataclysms that are always predicted. Being prepared for economic turmoil is good; supposing certain calamity without evidence benefits no one.

 

[Lasjayhawk]

OC, I just don't see a way out of the mess Washington has put us in without major turmoil. I'm not sure that we may not have to accept a period of major inflation and social unrest to right the ship.

Spending too much is like drinking too much, sooner or later comes the hangover.

 

[Freedom1Man]

Do you think that will happen? Didn't think so.
If the rest of the world decides to start trading oil in something other than USD, or economy would crash in in about a week. I am afraid (read SHTF) that we are in for a very bad time that could happen without much warning. Other than the last 10 years of warning that is.

It does not matter if I believe it will happen or not. I was simply putting out the only real solution to this monetary crisis.

Besides the courts don't even know what Federal Reserve Notes are. I have proof. I made this video/audio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bghO-r-lYM

So please don't poo poo the solution instead make more people aware of it and be part of the solution.

 

[Venator]

It does not matter if I believe it will happen or not. I was simply putting out the only real solution to this monetary crisis.

Besides the courts don't even know what Federal Reserve Notes are. I have proof. I made this video/audio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bghO-r-lYM

So please don't poo poo the solution instead make more people aware of it and be part of the solution.

Don't leave us hanging, was the fine dismissed because they refused to accept "money"?

 

[Lasjayhawk]

It does not matter if I believe it will happen or not. I was simply putting out the only real solution to this monetary crisis.

Besides the courts don't even know what Federal Reserve Notes are. I have proof. I made this video/audio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bghO-r-lYM

So please don't poo poo the solution instead make more people aware of it and be part of the solution.

Not poo-poo-ing that at all. But I think a reality is that the politicians will spend till the whole dang thing blows up. EVERYTHING the government seems to want to do is like controlling a device with positive feedback. You wind up with something that's oscillating out of control. Shoot we would be in much much better shape if we had started switching some of our land based transportation to natgas 10 years ago. But that would be too easy. Instead we push plug in electric cars (zero emission) ignoring that 1/2 the electricity in this country comes from coal fired plants.

 

[Citizen]

SNIP That will kill inflation as we know it, have people remember they have a right to the fruits of their own labor allowing them to save for retirement, and it will free all those stuck in usurious debt cycle (like our governments).

Thanks for the info on the book. I'll check it out. I'll finish the 1870 text; then I'm going to try again with Economics in One Easy Lesson by Henry Hazlitt which I never finished for some reason. Pieces of Eight will come right after that.

Regarding inflation as we know it, I wonder. First, let me say it would be a galloping broad jump in the right direction-your suggestions. But, I wonder about inflation. The 1870 text mentions something called Bills of Exchange. I've never heard of such a thing, but they were (are?) credit instruments used somehow by merchants for large purchases. I get the idea that the textile factory issued a bill of exchange to the cotton bale seller, etc. And, then, I suppose the cotton bale seller took that credit instrument (which is also a debt instrument) and exchanged with the somebody else, perhaps the twine factory so he could make cotton bales, I don't know.

The author's point was that merchants making large purchases would have been in a bit of a pickle if they had to scrounge up, say, 20K pounds sterling in silver or gold coin, and then cart it over to whoever they were going to buy from. So, the market invented this credit instrument called a bill of exchange. Now, if these merchants had only coin to work with, the total volume of money in the system would not change as the coins were exchanged to and fro. However, as soon as you enter a credit instrument, now you have effectively cause inflation because the total volume of exchangeable "money" has now grown, and not just a little if such becomes commonplace.

The author points out something I'm neither convinced is true nor convinced is false--I just don't know yet. She points out that in a perfectly balanced economy the price of a commodity is the cost of its production, all factors taken into consideration. However, as credit appears and increases prices go up. Notice she doesn't say that as the volume of money goes up, prices go up. She says the existence of credit affects prices. Hey! It just dawned on me, she is saying the existence of credit is effectively the same thing as creating money out of thin air. Or, more precisely, extending credit immediately has the same effect as if that much money was created out of thin air. Oh, this is very interesting. I shall have to mull this over. (She seemed to be a bit of a promoter of the central bank--the Bank of England, so I'm a little suspicious of what she says, but I wonder if she's not bang on the mark about this. I shall have think this over and try to work it out a bit.)

Back to bills of exchange. So, if these things still exist, or maybe there is a modern something that supplanted them, I wonder if inflation would really end. And, the boom-bust business cycle. At any rate, your suggestions would get the government spigot shut down, closing off that source of inflation.

 

[Freedom1Man]

Back to bills of exchange. So, if these things still exist, or maybe there is a modern something that supplanted them, I wonder if inflation would really end. And, the boom-bust business cycle. At any rate, your suggestions would get the government spigot shut down, closing off that source of inflation.

While I have not read that book, and I am a little rusty on the details of bills of exchange. I will point out that a bill of exchange is a mix of credit and barter. The main difference between a bill of exchange and 'metal money' is that the government only accepts the 'metal money' for payment of taxes, fines, and fees.

A bill of credit could be that I will help you build your business in exchange for X number/amount of output.

You and I could create an exchange system that could be of anything. So long as we both honor it, it will have value to us. However if we renege on the agreement then it falls apart. Lets, say that you wanted a foal in exchange for your carbine. So you know I breed horses and will make sure the breeding happens we write up a payment agreement (bill of credit) I take the carbine and give you paper work showing that you will have the out come of horse A and B breeding. So that takes about 18 month before delivery. Now you could trade that credit for something else and have them collect the foal later on.

 

[Freedom1Man]

Don't leave us hanging, was the fine dismissed because they refused to accept "money"?

I wish. The judge sent me a letter saying that she didn't know what federal reserve notes were but they would accept them as payment however if the bank did not recognize them as money that they would mark the fine as unpaid.

I paid with 1 dollar FRNs and a full mix of coins each type shorted enough that they would not be full rolls. They still had to count coins.

 

[Lasjayhawk]

I wish. The judge sent me a letter saying that she didn't know what federal reserve notes were but they would accept them as payment however if the bank did not recognize them as money that they would mark the fine as unpaid.

I paid with 1 dollar FRNs and a full mix of coins each type shorted enough that they would not be full rolls. They still had to count coins.

I kind of like what this guy did, but I don't think I would have killed them all:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yTBHCNHaQo

 

[Freedom1Man]

I kind of like what this guy did, but I don't think I would have killed them all:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yTBHCNHaQo

I would have accepted the refusal and walked out. It was on tape, I would have brought the law into court and used that video as a legal defense.

 

[Lasjayhawk]

Freedom1Man Here is a clip that might turn your stomach from 8/15/1971 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRzr1QU6K1o

Boy that worked out real swell, don't you think? :banghead:

Was there ever any law passed that allowed the treasury to default on its silver certificates? I can only find executive order and an arbitrary decision by the treasury. AFAIK there should still be a silver dollar in the treasury for every one still out there. Doesn't seem sporting that I can only trade my real dollar for a phony one.

But it does put into perspective just how little a dollar is worth now (about 4 cents) :cuss: