Bernard von NotHaus, reports Tom Lovett of the Evansville, Indiana Courier & Press, stands convicted, as of last month, of “making coins resembling and similar to United States coins; of issuing, passing, selling and possessing Liberty Dollar coins; of issuing and passing Liberty Dollar coins intended for use as current money; and of conspiracy against the United States.”
All told, according to Steve Lyttle of the Charlotte, North Carolina Observer, von Nothaus faces up to 25 years in prison and a $750,000 fine (as well as having about $7 million worth of confiscated silver kept by the government pursuant to a form of legal theft known as “asset forfeiture”) for the “crime” of selling silver to willing customers.
While the libertarian commentariat has made much of US Attorney Anne Tompkins’s characterization of von Nothaus’s enterprise as “a unique form of domestic terrorism,” I have to admire Tompkins for her openness and honesty. Her employer — a criminal gang which counterfeits money on a massive scale and forces acceptance of that bogus currency as “legal tender” — may not be domesticated, but it must indeed find the prospect of honest money taking hold among its victims terrifying.
Von Nothaus’s plan was, in its basic structure, elegant: He wanted to encourage the use of “hard money,” specifically silver, as an alternative to US Federal Reserve Notes in daily commerce. Toward that end, he minted silver rounds (what most people, but not von Nothaus, call “coins”) of known quality and purity, and offered warehouse receipts in paper and digital form against stored reserves of silver.
The government’s primary claims at trial revolved around similarities between von Nothaus’s product and the Federal Reserve’s counterfeit “money.” He denominated his offerings in “dollars” (a term which predates the United States by more than 250 years and the Fed by nearly 400). Some of those rounds arguably looked similar to government-produced coins, bearing an image of Lady Liberty (others featured the face of US Representative and “hard money” advocate Ron Paul) and a religious motto (“Trust In God,” as opposed to “In God We Trust”).
The government’s prosecutors were understandably reluctant to go into the differences between his product and their own. The Fed’s “notes” are nothing more than inflationary paper backed only by debt and by the claim that a government gone $15 trillion into that debt won’t formally default and/or print so much of that paper that it becomes useful only as a replacement for the stuff you keep next to your toilet. Most government coins are made of base metal and not worth, to grab a convenient cliche, a plug nickel on anything other than that government’s say-so.
Liberty Dollars, on the other hand, consisted of real silver, or of receipts redeemable at any time for that silver — with frequent periodic audits by an accounting firm to ensure that the silver to honor redemption claims was actually on hand.
Those silver rounds have not only retained their value, but are today worth a good deal more in metal value alone, at least as denominated in “Federal Reserve Notes,” than when they were purchased from von Nothaus. I won’t be surprised to learn that they’re worth more yet as collectibles, but that’s a side effect of the government’s crackdown, not von Nothaus’s intentions.
The only way for the warehouse receipts to lose their value was for von Nothaus to find a way around the audits and steal the silver backing them … or for a criminal gang to happen by with enough guns to force its way into the warehouse and steal the silver from him. Which, as we know, is exactly what happened.
Of all the things we’ve allowed governments to seize control of, money may have been our worst mistake. The state distorts the very idea of money, using it as an instrument to control you and extract value from you at will (above and beyond overt taxation) and, through banks and the new digital economy, to keep an eye on you to boot.
Government “money” is a lie, and Bernard von Nothaus faces prison for telling the truth. So much for “the truth shall set you free.”
Citations to this article:
- Thomas L. Knapp, Hard Money, Hard Time, Deming, New Mexico Headlight, 04/27/11
Right on, Thomas! This whole society is a complete joke, vis-a-vis the establishment that controls every aspect of our life. Of course they want to control our money — it's the basic tool of everything we do as consumers, families, businesses and individuals. As Rothschild boasted, when you control a country's money, you control everything about that country. The just, true, egalitarian situation would be a free, open market in competing private currencies and private banks, but that would deprive the statists and elites the complete control and domination over all of us which is the whole rationale for every "law" they make.
While I certainly don't approve of the actions taken against Liberty Dollar, I'm highly distrustful of Von Nothaus and company. They were essentially running a multi-level marketing scheme, selling gold and silver at an obscene mark up over spot. I know a lot of would be hard money advocates and users were turned off by Liberty Dollars when they brought them into coin shops to sell them for cash, and found that they could only get the market price for a one ounce silver round rather than the face value of their Liberty Dollar.
ravenwarrior,
Liberty Dollar did everything short of tattoing "the face value is not in Federal Reserve Notes" on your head when they sold the things to you to make you understand what they were doing.
I have two Liberty Dollar warehouse receipts, for one ounce each somewhere around here. They were purchased for $10 each when silver was something like $7 an ounce. If Ann Tompkins's jack-booted thugs hadn't stolen the silver backing them, I could probably sell them for ~$30 each right now.
My recent post Shutdown Blame Game Update- Advantage GOP
They were selling there rounds to distributors for about the goIng market price who were then passing them on to the public, sometimes at a 30% mark up over spot. Pretty misleading if you ask me. Especially when private mint bullion usually sells for only a few points over spot.
Raven,
Liberty Dollar had extensive FAQs and articles as to why it was doing what it was doing the way it was doing it, including the "face value" stuff, etc.
The reason I know this is because I read that material at the time.
The reason I read that material at the time is that, like you, I thought the higher price was curious and wondered why they were doing that.
In fact, I never bought directly from Liberty Dollar myself for that very reason (I knew I could go down the street and buy 1-oz. silver rounds more cheaply). The two warehouse receipts I have were sent to me by friends.
But, there's a difference between "the price is higher than I think it should be" and "pretty misleading."
Ravenwarrior/Raven are totally ignorant. They simply do not understand the Liberty Dollar business model. People could buy Liberty Dollars at a discount and make a profit by spending them at face value. A $20 dollar Liberty Dollar, for example, was thousands of times the value of a $20 dollar paper FRN manufactured for 2 cents. Liberty Dollar silver content did not have to equal their face value or even their discount price, because Liberty Dollars were designed to be a functioning currency, not a bullion coin or piece. As usual, Liberty Dollar is being attacked and denigrated by ignoramuses who never bother to study how it works. What's truly unforgiveable is that even supposedly informed VIP's attacked it without making a fair attempt to understand it.
Ravenwarrior,
Thanks for having the guts to express the facts of this case. I agree with you 100%/
Bogus money is domestic terrorism ?? The FRB of NY profited $8.4 trillion last year from the auction of Treasury securities—OFF OF THE BOOKS–without any mention in the ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS or to the public ! Its embezzlement by counterfeiting ! The Ponzi scheme Fed inflict perpetual indebtedness on society and confiscate the wealth of the people, and posterity, while impelling the nation to national bankruptcy. The mathematical inevitability is at RIP OFF BY THE FED RESERVE ; http://www.scribd.com/doc/48194264/rip-off-by-the…
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/message/14172