The Timeless Truth About Money
Table of Contents
The Timeless Truth About Money - Introduction
"I've predicted everything Obama would do ... and what those actions would mean for the economy - from jobs to GDP, from taxes to debt, from spending to entitlements."
By Wayne Allyn Root .......................................................Page 01
Welcome To Debtroit
"If you want to see what America will look like in a few years, just look at Detroit. Once a crown jewel of American cities with a population of nearly 2 million, it is now a city of 701,000."
By Craig R. Smith ............................................................Page 03
The More You IRA, The Less You IRS!
"In today's uncertain economic environment, investing your hard-earned wealth without a proper plan for diversification is like trying to build your dream home without a blueprint."
By Chris Holton ...............................................................Page 05
2014: 'TRADING UP ' TO GOLD
"Gold has been 'falling upward' for well over a decade and I expect it to continue as long as we have spendthrift politicians and econo-morons steering our nation in harm's way."
By David Bradshaw...........................................................Page 07
BitCoin VS. Gold
"Bitcoins today are not accepted as 'legal tender' by any government or mint as government currencies are, nor do bitcoins have any guaranteed exchange value."
By Lowell Ponte ...............................................................Page 09
Obama: America Doesn't Want A 'transformation'
"We don't like the ongoing 'transformation' to something we have never endorsed. In fact, we prefer the America we have known and cherished all our lives!"
By Pat Boone...............................................................................Page 12
Obamacare: Touchdown "¦ Or Touchback?
"Obamacare is NOT a 'train wreck'. It's NOT an accident, it's a brilliant, cynical and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism!"
By Wayne Allyn Root........................................................Page 13
The Great Withdrawal Summary & Book Reviews
The Great Withdrawal is another book of slashing insight, cutting through the kudzu of Progressive thought control to reveal the oldest truth: Freedom works.
............................................................................................Page 15
How to Survive the Coming Final Dollar "Bear Raid"
The new book Game Plan: How to Protect Yourself from the Coming Cyber-Economic Attack by Kevin Freeman is a stunning collection of factual research which lays out how a systematic international plan could bring down the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Freeman warns today's international effort to "crash the dollar" has reached critical mass - "Stage 3".
By Craig R. Smith
The Timeless Truth About Money
INTRODUCTION
By Wayne Allyn Root, Author, The Capital Evangelist
Hello I'm Wayne Allyn Root. I'm a former Presidential candidate, Vice Presidential nominee, conservative national media personality, political and economic commentator, and true blue patriot.
But more importantly, my life has been spent in the business world. I'm a guy who understands economics. I'm a CEO, serial entrepreneur, business author, senior economic adviser and spokesman for major companies. I lecture about entrepreneurship and business success across the globe. The media calls me, The Capitalist Evangelist.
I also understand Barack Obama and his plans better than anyone in this country. I was Obama's college classmate at Columbia University. I wrote the #1 national bestselling book, The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide. The title sounds political, yet it was the #1 Finance book in the world on Amazon.com!
I've predicted everything Obama would do ... and what those actions would mean for the economy - from jobs to GDP, from taxes to debt, from spending to entitlements. My predictions have been right on the money.
I understand exactly what's happening to this economy, and how you can protect yourself. So I produced a 30-minute DVD with all the critical steps needed to insure Americans can both survive and thrive in 2014 - despite this economic Armageddon. It's called The Timeless Truth About Money and it's 100% free to every interested American.
7 Reasons America Faces a Crisis of Confidence!
Today our nation faces a Crisis of Confidence. Polls show 85% of Americans don't trust Congress, 53% don't trust the President and, amazingly, 66% do not even trust their fellow Americans!
This rising tide of debt and distrust has economic consequences. Here is a short sampling of what mainstream economists and pundits will likely never tell you, but are all covered in The Timeless Truth About Money ...
1) National debt over $17 Trillion, plus $200+ trillion long-term debt!
Hiding the government's liabilities from the public makes it seem as though we can tax our way out of mounting deficits. We can't! But if politicians get their way, we'll keep far less of our own money ... AND the debt will get worse. After all government always spends whatever comes in. So raising taxes doesn't help reduce the debt, it just increases spending.
2) Every U.S. taxpayer: Federal debt liability of $1.1 million and rising!
According to the U.S. Debt Clock, total long-term unfunded liabilities are at $126 trillion. That's a $1.1 million liability for each U.S. taxpayer! (Some economists calculate the total U.S. debt over $200 trillion, making your share $2 million!!) The main drivers: Social Security and Medicare. Not good. Because America is getting older and sicker by the day. Who will pay the bill?
3) More Americans Receive Government Entitlements Than Work Full-Time!
108,592,000 people are on government benefits, yet only 101,716,000 people are employed full-time. The government spends more on these programs than public education and defense spending.
4) Over 100 million working-age Americans are not working, the highest in history!
The jobs recovery is a total myth. The decline in the official unemployment rate over the past three years from 10% to 7.3% can be accounted for by the millions of Americans forever dropping off the labor rolls (i.e. they've given up a paycheck for a welfare check).
5) The typical American family today earns less than it did back in 1989!
In 1989, the median American household made $51,681 in current dollars. In 2012 the number was $51,017. This is more than a lost decade for economic gains for Americans. It's a lost generation! How tragic.
6) The Federal Reserve Will Not Revive the Economy in 2014, or Ever!
Do not be fooled by the Federal Reserve's "little" taper. They are still manipulating the price of money and interest rates. After 100 years of tinkering with the free market, the Fed has successfully debased the dollar by 98%. Do you really believe a proven 100-year old track record will change now? Watch what they do, not what they say.
7) Millions more are losing their health insurance than are joining Obamacare!
The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit millions employed by small businesses. Hospitals worry they won't be able to pay uncovered medical bills in 2014 - that will add even more debt. We've also added 30 million new patients, with no new doctors. Your quality of care is about to fall off a cliff "¦ with much higher bills to boot!
These seven economic realities are just the tip of an economic iceberg our great nation is heading toward full steam ahead! You need a life preserver, and fast!
7 Timeless Truths About Money ... They Never Told You!
The Timeless Truth About Money features a half-hour journey into the unknown realms of economic reality that history should have taught us. Together we will discover the timeless truths about money - and why owning Gold (which I call "wealth insurance") is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity.
Seven timeless truths about money covered on this new DVD include ...
1) Why The U.S. Dollar No Longer Qualifies As Real Money
2) How Obamacare Will Destroy Our Economy & Jobs
3) Trillions of Reasons Why Debt Destroys Nations
4) Money: The Builder or Destroyer of Civilizations
5) Gold & Silver: The Most Tangible Money on Earth
6) Your Golden Years Require a New Golden Strategy
7) Swiss America Leads By Serving All Generations
The Timeless Truth About Money is presented by Swiss America, the company that's been inspiring Americans to own real money as "wealth insurance" for over three decades.
Since 1982, Swiss America has educated over 1,000,000 Americans about the wisdom of owning gold and silver coins. They have always offered fair prices, fast delivery and the industry's first buy-back policy. They're 100% dedicated to preserving personal wealth - to help offset the 98% decline in the U.S. dollar. Yes, I said 98%.
Start 2014 with a step toward preparing and protecting your assets from selfish, spendthrift, corrupt, arrogant and ignorant politicians ... and the economists they use to keep the deception growing.
For your free copy, call your Swiss America representative at 800-289-2646 or register online at swissamerica.com/TTAM.
I promise you'll finally understand the true goal of Obamacare, how our trillions in debt will sink the economy and, most importantly, why your golden years require a whole new golden strategy.
Welcome To Debtroit
By Craig R. Smith, Chairman, Swiss America
In our latest book The Great Withdrawal, we opened with a chapter titled "Welcome to Debtroit: Where the Progressive road leads". I must warn you, it is not a pretty journey.
There are certain events which are extremely predictable, one being any city run by Progressive Democrats will ultimately fail. Detroit, or Debtroit if you like, is a gleaming example. Unfortunately, it is a harbinger of things to come in America as the most Progressive, ideologically driven administration is clearly fulfilling two promises made in 2008: fundamentally changing America and spreading the wealth around.
So if you want to see what America will look like in a few years, just look at Detroit.
Detroit, once a crown jewel of American cities boasting a population of nearly 2 million, is now a city of 701,000. More are leaving each day. It struggles for survival under $18.5 billion in debt. 77,000 abandoned/empty homes sit with no buyers, some with a price tag of $1.00. There are at least 66,000 vacant lots, many on which once stood beautiful homes. On average, 32 fires now burn daily in Detroit. The city's firefighters must make the decision whether a structure is even worth saving. Most are not, considering the value of the structure and the cost to fight the fire.
A city that in 1950 was home to 296,000 good-paying jobs now desperately clings to a mere 30,000. However, it still has nearly 15,000 well-compensated government employees and nearly 30,000 government retirees with pensions and premium health care to support.
The city is so broke that services are breaking down. Response to a 911 call in a town with 11 times the murder rate of New York City is now 58 minutes. 47 minutes longer than the national average. That is if they even answer. 911 service goes out regularly, sometimes for up to 15 hours.
Need an ambulance? More than a third of the city-owned vehicles are broken, and the ones still running have over 250,000 miles on them. The chance of surviving a serious heart attack when being transported by ambulance is less than 2%.
All of these horrific changes took place over the last 4 decades. Why?
Simply put, Progressive democratic leadership equipped with a belief that bigger government is better government. With enough tax dollars they can fix and cure everything from poverty to AIDs. That's the Progressive way! But it doesn't work. Never has, never will.
The same thinking that turned Detroit into Debtroit is now sinking the nation with $17 trillion in short-term and $100 trillion in long-term debt.
President Obama and his radically Progressive administration truly believe America needs to be changed in very fundamental ways. Go all the way back to our first openly Progressive President, Woodrow Wilson, and examine the seeds of collectivism - liberalism, progressivism, Marxism, call it what you will - that sent cities like Detroit down the pathway to hell which I'm told is paved with good intentions.
I do not believe Wilson, FDR, LBJ or Barack Hussein Obama intended to destroy the nation. I really don't. I truly believe they trusted in their Progressive ideology. There is only one problem: it has never worked in the history of the world, and it will not work now.
In fact, we can see the results of its failures all around us: the highest amount in our history of people on disability, unemployment, food stamps, and government assistance; the lowest participation rate in the nation's job market; 50% of all American household receiving some kind of government check; and anemic economic growth of 2% after trillions of freshly-printed dollars from the Fed, stimulus packages, and deficit spending have been pumped into the system.
This is not a winning formula for a bright future for the young and old alike.
If you want to see America in ten years, look no further than Detroit. City after city now faces the possibility of bankruptcy. This list is growing daily.
On Tuesday December 2nd, 2013, Judge Steven W. Rhodes handed down a ruling on the Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing of Detroit; the consequences of which may be felt throughout the nation. In his ruling, the bankruptcy trustee will have the ability to change the structure of public employee pensions. It will allow Kevyn Orr, the emergency city manager, to pay only what is absolutely necessary of its $18.5 billion debt, just enough to keep basic services running. Plain and simple, many creditors are not going to be fully paid. That is not good news for the thousands of vendors, many of which are small businesses, that extended credit to Detroit.
This burden will trickle down hurting real, everyday people. Like those who depend on a government pension in their retirement or healthcare in their older years. The utopia promised by Progressives like Mayor Coleman Young under his 20 year rule are, excuse the expression, "coming home to roost".
It would take far too long to explain in this space the implications for our nation at large. Therefore, my publisher is providing our readers a complimentary copy of our book The Great Withdrawal for a limited time. It portends what we face as a nation unless we seriously change our direction.
The problems are fixable if we understand them, but time is running out. That is why I am so grateful to Idea Factory Press for making you this unprecedented offer. Get a free copy of the book, read it, and then pass it on to someone else. Forewarned is forearmed about the ominous forces we face. Be prepared.
In the process, you may want to take steps to protect yourself and your family. If change does not occur soon, each one of us will pay the price with a collapse of our dollar and possibly the collapse of the economy. Your hard earned savings may well be at risk. Are you willing to take a chance when we see broken promises from Washington, D.C. day after day?
As I said, certain things are easy to predict. Detroit was one of the easier ones. We wrote about it well in advance of the city being granted Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Who will be next?
The More You IRA, The Less You IRS
By Chris Holton, Economic/Tangible Asset Analyst
In today's uncertain economic environment, investing your hard-earned wealth without a proper plan for diversification is like trying to build your dream home without a blueprint.
More and more, savvy investors are including hard assets in their retirement plans to provide a balance for their paper investments. It is vital to diversify retirement investments in this way to both safeguard and grow wealth in a variety of economic and financial market conditions.
Many Americans have established new retirement accounts through Swiss America, while others have moved a portion of their existing retirement plan savings to accounts through Swiss America from other vehicles and institutions.
What ever your needs may be, whether your retirement is a few decades away or just a few years away, we urge you to take full advantage of the various retirement plan options to help secure your future. For complete details, please be sure to call one of Swiss America's highly-trained account executives at (800) 289-2646.
Planning for Retirement
No one knows with certainty what the future holds. However, all investors share a common goal: financial security. Whether or not you achieve financial security depends largely on the success of your retirement plan.
Your approach to retirement planning should follow three fundamental principles:
"¢ You must realistically understand only you can take action to provide for your financial security in your retirement years. Depending on government programs, such as Social Security, is more than likely a road to failure.
"¢ You should work with your Swiss America account executive to select the retirement options most suited to your situation.
"¢ You should move NOW to establish and maintain a properly diversified retirement portfolio suited to your budget, existing holdings and risk tolerances.
The customization of your retirement plan will depend upon several factors including the amount of time you have left until retirement, how much risk you can tolerate, other future sources of income, the level and performance of your non-retirement holdings and how much you can afford to dedicate to a retirement plan including hard assets.
The lion's share of your retirement income is going to have to come from your personal savings and investments. As a rule of thumb, retirement experts indicate you will need around 60% of your pre-retirement income to maintain your pre-retirement standard of living during retirement. Social Security will not provide you with an adequate income during retirement. In fact, it will fall far short. This is especially true for Americans in upper income brackets because Social Security provides a smaller percentage of total retirement income for relatively wealthy Americans. Moreover, fiscal realities make the long-term future of Social Security uncertain at best.
It is important for you to actively plan for your retirement right away. Time can either be your greatest asset or your worst liability in achieving financial security in retirement. Getting started early will put time on your side.
Planning for retirement can be challenging because of the many unknown factors involved. If your retirement savings are not properly diversified, you could be jeopardizing your financial security. However, if you diversify across a wide variety of investments you can indeed achieve your retirement goals in a variety of economic and financial circumstances.
Hard Assets: Diversified Protection for Your Retirement Wealth
Because no investment category performs best in all conditions, you should create a retirement plan designed to hedge your savings during as many circumstances as possible.
A diversified portfolio spread across several asset categories can provide success without the uncertainty and volatility of putting all your eggs in one basket.
Hard assets, such as gold investments, should be a part of every well-balanced portfolio as historically they have been proven to protect and grow wealth when paper assets suffer. In other words, hard assets tend to appreciate in value in response to negative economic, monetary and geopolitical conditions.
If you have any questions or require assistance in establishing your retirement plan, please feel free to contact a Swiss America account executive today at (800) 289-2646.
Earned Trust
Swiss America Supports BBB
In 2013 Swiss America proudly sponsored the 23rd Annual BBB Integrity Golf Classic Benefiting BBB of Central Arizona Foundation.
Over 100 golfers teed off on Thursday, October 24, 2013 at BBB's 23rd Annual Integrity Golf Classic - including Swiss America CEO Dean Heskin, Vice-President Bronwin Barilla, and senior account executives Steve Rand and Larry Brouillette.
Over $18,000 was raised and will benefit BBB Foundation activities including outreach programs that educate children and seniors about marketplace issues and avoiding fraud.
Swiss America agrees with BBB that small businesses are the cornerstone of any community through creating jobs, spurring local economic growth and giving back.
Trust is the foundation marketplace leadership is built upon. After serving our clients faithfully for over 30 years, Swiss America has earned the respect of local and national consumer protection associations; such as BBB, The Rip-Off Report, The Industry Council on Tangible Assets and many others.
We feel strongly trust must be earned over time. In 2014 we remain 100% committed to advertising honestly, being transparent, honoring promises and safeguarding privacy. Swiss America will continue to be "The Gold Standard" in our industry for generations to come.
2014: Trading Up For Gold
Metals to Continue "Falling Upward" in 2014
By David Bradshaw, Idea Factory Press
2014 holds the promise of either building or destroying your wealth. The choice is yours.
Will you hold on to the paper promises of a government spending machine run amok? Or will you make the decision in 2014 to "trade up" to proven tangible assets that have withstood the test of time? Again, the choice is yours.
In 2013, financial "experts" almost unanimously declared the bull market in precious metals to be officially over. But keep in mind, this declaration has been made by pundits every year for a decade now. Each and every single time they have been proven wrong. Following each of the previous EIGHT major price corrections, gold prices have risen an average of 36%.
Gold has been "falling upward" for well over a decade and I expect it to continue as long as we have spendthrift politicians and mainstream econo-morons at the helm steering our nation in harm's way.
Gold prices have risen dramatically in recent years based on safe haven buying by individuals, institutions, and central banks worldwide as well as ETFs and other short-term speculators. Investors around the globe are diversifying their assets into the world's safest asset, gold, the new standard for measuring currencies globally.
Did you know wealthy foreigners have been buying precious metals with both fists over the last year as prices have fallen? It's true. What might investors from China, India and Saudi Arabia know that we in the U.S. could learn?
Zerohedge.com's Tyler Durden reports, "Now that gold's price is not only back at 2011 levels, but is essentially below production costs, demand out of China is off the charts. Demand in India - traditionally the greatest in the world - continues to also at unprecedented levels, although now that official purchases of gold are regulated and limited through capital controls, it is forcing the local population to smuggle in gold through the most innovative of schemes."
I remember back in 2008, when gold prices dipped over 25% from $1,003 to $746/oz. The majority of "experts" held funeral services for gold and gold bulls, yet today gold prices are now up over 62% from the 2008 low!
"Trading up" in life, and in investing, means keeping your eye on the bigger picture at all times. Far from the chaotic world of Wall Street speculation and manipulation, long-term investors and savers want to insure their wealth is built upon a firm foundation to withstand the storms ahead.
Properly viewed, asset diversification into precious metals should never vary dramatically. Whether you decide to put 2% or 25% into your asset foundation of gold and silver, you make the decision based upon your own comfort level.
If you already have a solid foundation of metals, sit tight and wait for market realities to eventually expose widespread market fantasy. Time is on your side. If you are sitting on a foundation of paper promises, you are at risk of big losses in 2014 as interest rates rise, stocks and bonds fall and real estate slides sideways.
Make 2014 your year to "Trade Up" to the metals of kings and princes - gold and silver! Do it for peace of mind and as wealth insurance against the further debasement of the U.S. dollar, as is covered in both The Great Debasement and The Great Withdrawal books.
When "trading up" to real money, it is always much better to be a year early than a day late!
As a bonus, you will likely also sleep better in 2014 - knowing your finances rest upon a solid gold foundation."¦
Sweet dreams.
Fund Manager: If You Believe in Math, Buy Gold!
CNBC.com
Oct. 24, 2013
"Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital says 'you either believe in math or you believe in magic,' and math points to gold going much higher," reports CNBC.
"A number of different firms around the world are saying 'Sell gold,' that it's a 'slam dunk sell,' so there's still a lot of negative sentiment out there," Johnson said. "And there are a lot of shorts out there."
To Johnson, this is actually good news.
"You can get a bit of a pop, and all of the sudden those shorts start to cover, people start to realize that QE is here to stay and not going anywhere, and things can change very quickly," he said. "I mean, gold can go up just as quickly as it came down."
For Johnson, the bottom line is that debt leaves the U.S. in dire shape, and this situation will end up being very helpful for gold.
"My kind of unofficial tagline is: You either believe in math, or you believe in magic," Johnson said. "I happen to believe in math. And the projection that our U.S. debt level is on is starting to go exponential-and the way the system is designed, it's going to increase even more."
So why does this matter for gold?
"There's a very high correlation between the monetary base, the national debt and gold," Johnson said. "For the long-term picture, that's the main driver" of gold.
In Johnson's view, then, the U.S. will have to create more inflation to pay down its debt. And if dollars lose value due to inflation, then it will take more of those dollars to buy an ounce of gold-consequently driving the gold price much higher.
"I do think the correction in gold is largely over," Johnson said. "I expect gold to go much higher even toward the end of the year, and on into next year."
BitCoin Vs Gold.
Millions of People Are Voting with Their Feet to Escape the Ongoing Devaluation of the U.S. Dollar and Other Fiat Currencies.
Is Gold or Bitcoin the Safer Store of Value today for Your Life Savings?
By Lowell Ponte
Bitcoin was devised in 2009 by a master computer programmer, and in its infancy one Bitcoin could be bought for as little as 25 cents.
In late 2013, speculators pushed the price of a single Bitcoin momentarily to $1,241, close to parity with an ounce of gold.
Many with a get-rich-quick itch were persuaded to embrace Bitcoin as "Gold 2.0" or "Gold for Nerds," and joined the Bitcoin Goldrush.
In 2013 alone, this little-understood investment surged 6,000 percent in value, partly by attracting investor money that in earlier years would have bought gold as traditional diversification insurance to hedge against the risk of inflation.
Eager to ride this skyrocket, Sir Richard Branson gained worldwide publicity by offering to accept bitcoins as payment for $250,000 trips to the edge of Outer Space aboard his soon-to-launch Virgin Galactic service.
Within days of reaching its stratospheric high price, however, Bitcoin plummeted to less than half its peak value when China suddenly restricted its use. Branson reportedly declared that he would still accept bitcoins at their now-much-lower value, but that he, of course, would not keep them as an investment but convert them immediately into cash.
Boston University School of Management Executive-in-Residence Mark T. Williams, a former commodities trader and Federal Reserve bank examiner, predicts that by mid-2014 the volatile Bitcoin would crash, returning hard to Earth at only $10, less than one percent of its 2013 peak value.
Bitcoin is "Fool's Gold," warn critics. Many compare it to the wild speculation over tulips that gripped the Netherlands in January 1637. This judgment-impairing fever caused frenzied investors to eagerly pay more than the price of a house for a single prized tulip bulb.
When this Tulipomania speculative bubble burst, prices plunged fast and far, much as they did last autumn for Bitcoin. Some have suggested renaming Bitcoin "Tulip Mania 2.0."
The Dutch obsession with tulips almost four centuries ago was not entirely wasted. Out of it the Netherlands developed a major flower industry that thrives today. The Bitcoin fad, by contrast, is now only five years old, yet might be bankrupt and replaced by competitors in as little as a year or two.
Bitcoin might be the Neanderthal, fated for failure and extinction, of a new approach to what we think of as money.
The search for an alternative money comes from a valid sense millions of us share - that today's massively over-printed paper fiat U.S. Dollar is politically manipulated and doomed to crash by fundamental laws of economics. A more secure, trustworthy and reliable store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange to replace the dollar is urgently needed.
In the long run, the deeper question is what our next forms of money will be, as the forthcoming Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte book Earth A.D.: After the Dollar explores. This latest book in our series is scheduled for publication in Summer 2014.
What Is Bitcoin?
Widely described as a "peer-to-peer cyber-currency" or "crypto-currency," the word Bitcoin actually has two meanings.
Bitcoin is the name of "an online financial network that people use to send payments from one person to another," writes economics journalist Timothy B. Lee of the Washington Post.
Bitcoin is primarily a low-cost alternative to credit cards such as Visa or to Paypal. However, it differs from Visa or Paypal in two ways: Nobody owns or controls this decentralized network, and Bitcoin network transactions are conducted not in dollars, Euros, Yuan or Yen, but in its own monetary unit, an imaginary "virtual currency" also called bitcoin, written with a small "b."
The creator of Bitcoin is "Satoshi Nakamoto," the pseudonym of a computer (but not economics) genius who in 2009 proposed this new medium of exchange. He designed an extremely complex open protocol by which computers solve transactional algorithms to "mine" bitcoins.
As of early 2014, every 10 minutes a bitcoin "miner" somewhere on Earth is solving the next mathematical computer problem, having it validated by a network node, and thereby earning 25 bitcoins worth, in exchange value, around $20,000. Over years, the payback for such efforts is scheduled to decline.
These problems grow in complexity so that, as with gold mining, more effort over time will be required to "mine" each next bitcoin. The mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto designed his protocol so that by around year 2035 the last of 21 million possible bitcoins will be claimed, almost twice as many bitcoins as the 12 million already "mined" as of early 2014.
Government vs. Bitcoin
Bitcoins today are not accepted as "legal tender" by any government or mint as government currencies are, nor do bitcoins have any guaranteed exchange value.
What bitcoins do have - if their supporters can be believed - is a guaranteed 21 million limit forever on total supply, on how many can be created. So long as people desire bitcoins and not some other cyber-currency, this supply ceiling could be more reassuring than a Federal Reserve willing to print countless trillions of paper dollars out of thin air.
Because bitcoins ultimately are mere numbers in a computer, each can be digitally divided down to eight decimal places to instantly create fractional bitcoins.
The dollar's history traces back to Spanish "Pieces of Eight," coins sometimes broken into eight equal pieces of silver called "bits." The U.S. Quarter coin inspired the expression that something cheap was "two bit," worth 25 percent of a dollar. This word for money lives on in the name bitcoin.
Because bitcoins are merely numbers in a computer, they have been hacked, stolen or accidentally misdirected. Since transactions using bitcoins are anonymous, encrypted and permanent, transactions are difficult to reverse.
Anonymity makes Bitcoin a medium reportedly favored by some online gamblers, drug dealers, circumventors of currency controls in places such as Argentina, money-launderers, tax evaders and other criminals, as well as by honest people who simply want freedom from government surveillance.
The privacy afforded by bitcoins has drawn attention from many governments that are eager to monitor citizen activities, to tax as barter bitcoin transactions, and to collect not only income and sales taxes but also the hidden tax politicians collect by deliberately inflating their nation's currency.
Unlike today's dollar, bitcoins can cause deflation - an increase in value over time as owners hoard it. Our book The Inflation Deception explains why today's governments want inflation, not deflation.
Governments will harass bitcoin until this crypto-currency's operators agree to let politicians track, tax and target its users. With the National Security Agency (NSA) preparing to use quantum supercomputers, Bitcoin encryption may be unable to protect user privacy much longer, anyway. Yet any agreement to surrender user information would limit the appeal of Bitcoin for many suspicious-of-government supporters.
Dawn of Cyber-Currency
Bitcoin is the first widely-recognized brand name in what could be a very lucrative future wealth transfer technology. Up to 20,000 online merchants and local stores reportedly may be willing to accept bitcoins as payment, including giant Overstock.com.
Customer payment via credit card can cost a merchant 3-5%; this is why many cards now offer cash back of 1-2% to encourage card use by customers who do not know that stores have marked up their prices to cover credit card fees. Fees for accepting bitcoins can be far lower, a potential boon to merchants.
Others see Bitcoin as an inevitable step towards economist Friedrich A. Hayek's dream of a world where people end government money monopolies and freely choose among competing currencies. The libertarian community Galt's Gulch Chile bases its economy on bitcoin.
Governments also see opportunity in any cyber-currency willing to bend its knee to politicians. Politicians are eager to move from hard-to-track physical money to a "cashless society" in which all future transactions are merely electronic impulses passing through - and being taxed automatically by - government-monitored computers. A politically-submissive bitcoin-like currency would be a huge step towards "cashless" control.
For today's investors, Bitcoin already has dozens of imitators and would-be competitors. Even banking and investment giant Goldman Sachs, with its influential political connections, has reportedly begun laying the legal groundwork for its own bitcoin-like currency.
Since bitcoins have no intrinsic value, their price has swung wildly - even falling by several hundred dollars within hours. His own analysis led the conservative London Telegraph's business tech reporter James Titcomb to warn that "Bitcoin has been hijacked by speculators" and that it may be "a Ponzi scheme" whose sharp fluctuations lure get-rich-quick investors but will prevent Bitcoin from being accepted as a reliable alternative currency. Competitors will overtake and extinguish Bitcoin.
Gold, meanwhile, continues as it has for thousands of years - as a reliable store of value with its own global intrinsic worth that acts as prudent insurance against the declines of conjured, politicized fiat money, both paper and digital. Gold, the once and future money, has outlasted all fads, bubbles and competitors.
Lowell Ponte is a former think tank futurist whose articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other publications. A former Roving Editor at Reader's Digest, he is co-author, with Craig R. Smith, of Crashing the Dollar, The Inflation Deception, Re-Making Money, The Great Debasement, The Great Withdrawal and in 2014 Earth A.D.: After the Dollar.
Obama: America Doesn't Want a Transformation By Pat Boone, Author, Entertainer
(Editor's note: The following is the text of a speech given by Pat Boone during the November 2013 Reclaim America Now rally in Washington across from the White House.)
Fellow Americans, fellow citizens, brothers and sisters:
I salute you today. I honor and thank you for your willingness to suspend your normal activities and to convene in our nation's capital, in front of our nation's house - to declare our mutual displeasure with the misdirection of this administration, our profound lack of support for its decisions, unconstitutional programs and directives, and what seems to be the escalating corruption of our very republic and its economy.
Our current president promised, on the eve of his election, that he was going to "fundamentally transform the United States of America," and in the last five years, has proceeded to do just that. But we here assembled protest that we don't like the ongoing "transformation" to something we have never endorsed. In fact, we prefer the America we have known and cherished all our lives!
We are here, as We the People, to address our grievances and to remind our elected servants that they serve at our pleasure, not we at theirs! They were elected to do our bidding, not the other way around!
We, the majority of the people, never endorsed the 2,000-page "Affordable Care Act." We never read it, nor did the men and women we elected to represent us! To this day, most of them still haven't; it was foisted and forced on them and us by steamroller tactics and wicked pressure from the leadership of the Senate and the president himself, in particular.
Now that we know better what that act contains, we like it even less. We were promised by the president-elect the "most transparent administration." Instead we are saddled with the most purposely secretive president in our history! Never before has a president sealed off his early birth, passport, school and travel records, intending that they forever be kept secret from the people who elected him! This what a free, democratic citizenry cannot accept! We demand that hidden things be revealed; the longer they are kept secret, the more suspicious they become!
What, Sir, are you hiding from the American people? And why?
We assembled are demanding a renewed allegiance to the Constitution, the very framework of our free society, and a renewed commitment to our Declaration of Independence. And to the God who breathed that Declaration through Thomas Jefferson, who stated:
"We therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions "¦"
And he concluded that document with these words:
"[W]ith a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
Friends, this is our DNA. This is how we came to be America, and we don't want it "radically transformed" by this president, or any other!
We too appeal to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rightness of our intentions, rely on His protection, and pledge our lives, fortunes and sacred honor to the renewal, the restoration - not the "transformation" - of America!
Obamacare: Touchdown "¦ Or Touchback?
Far from a failure, Obamacare is brilliantly succeeding
By Wayne Allyn Root, Author, The Capital Evangelist
Obamacare was never meant to help America, heal the sick, lower healthcare costs, lower the debt or expand the economy.
Conservatives needs to stop calling Obamacare a "train wreck." That means it's a mistake or an accident. That means it's a gigantic failure. It's NOT. This is a brilliant, cynical and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs and bring down capitalism.
Here's a quick overview of six things Obamacare was really created to do ...
1) Obamacare was intended to bring about the Marxist dream- redistribution of wealth. Rich people, small business owners and the middle class are being robbed so the money can be redistributed. Think about it- your bills are going to double or triple while your taxes dramatically increase too. You are hit from both ends.
2) Obamacare was intended to wipe out the middle class and make them dependent on government. Even Obama's IRS predicts health insurance for a typical American family by 2016 will be $20,000 per year! How will you afford $20,000 per year PRE tax? That's actually about $30,000 to $40,000 per year post tax. How will you pay the bill?
3) Obamacare is intended to kill every decent paying job in the economy, creating only crummy, part-time jobs. The proof is in- about 80% of the jobs created in America in 2013 were, indeed, crummy part-time jobs. Jobs that do not allow you to live a middle class life or live the American Dream like prior generations.
4) Obamacare is intended to bankrupt small business, and therefore starve donations to the GOP. Small business owners' insurance rates are being doubled, tripled and quadrupled by Obamacare.
5) Obamacare is intended to make the IRS all-powerful, adding thousands of new IRS agents. It puts the IRS in charge of overseeing 15% of the U.S. economy. The IRS now has the right to snoop into every aspect of your life.
6) Obamacare is intended to unionize 15 million healthcare workers. That produces $15 billion in new union dues. That money goes to fund Democratic candidates and socialist causes thereby guaranteeing Obama's friends never lose another election. And Obama's policies keep ruining capitalism and bankrupting business owners long after he's out of office.
Obamacare is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America and destroy capitalism. This is NOT a train wreck. It's a purposeful suicide attack. It's not failing, it's working according to plan (except for the website). Now that is a failure!
Obamacare is sickening or killing millions of Americans in at least three ways; stress, fear and uncertainty. We call this new health hazard "˜Obamacare Stress.'
Obamacare Stress is also making our nation ill by depressing the economy. Obamacare has created huge uncertainty among investors and businesses. This has choked off hiring, economic growth and prosperity. It has created a Depression-like downward, economic spiral as 23 million unemployed and underemployed Americans have less money to spend buying products.
Obamacare causes millions of Americans to feel oppressed and robbed by dishonest government power and millions of others to feel addicted to government handouts. Both groups are losing control over their own individual and family lives because of Obamacare.
Obamacare has revealed that President Obama's word can no longer be believed. He has created an immense Deficit of Trust almost as harmful to America's self-confidence and health as Mr. Obama's gigantic economic deficit. Obamacare, which idealists hoped would make us healthier, ironically might sicken and kill more Americans than it cures.
Meanwhile, Americans are voting with their feet. Conservatives, and even Progressive Liberals, are abandoning support. Disapproval of Obama and his un-affordable, un-healthy, un-caring plan is now at a historic high - over 60%, according to a recent CBS poll. Polls also show Americans believe Obamacare is hurting us 10 to 1 over those who believe it's helping.
The odds are good Obamacare will implode all on its own in time. Reform is needed, but will it ever come from a government that can mess up a one-piece puzzle? Remember the post office is run by government employees. By law it can have no competition. Last year it lost over $16 billion.
In my Obamacare Answer Guide published by Swiss America, I laid out 14 ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE OBAMACARE NIGHTMARE. It is available by calling your Swiss America representative at 800-289-2646 or visiting online at swissamerica.com/Ocare.
Bottom line: Only we the people can turn the tide in our nation back toward the principles that made our nation great. BUT, it all begins by understanding the times in which we live more clearly.
The Great Withdrawal
How the Progressives' 100-Year Debasement of America and the Dollar Ends
by Craig R. Smith & Lowell Ponte
Idea Factory Press, 10.2013, 252 pages
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Detroit was to be a workers' paradise, a symbol of Progressive success. Instead, it has become a symbol of Big Government failure, corruption, violence and decay. In 2013, after a great withdrawal of more than a million productive residents, once-great 'Debtroit' became the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.
The Great Withdrawal explores why Detroit failed, why other liberal cities may soon follow, and how this could drag America into insolvency and prolonged Depression.
It explores the bizarre Nanny Statist Progressive movement that took power in America in 1913 and has driven America on a "100-Year Detour" away from the ideals of our nation's Founders and towards the stagnation of Euro-socialist welfare states.
Smith and Ponte, in this their fourth book, look at how Progressivism has used addiction to welfare and easy money, as well as psychological manipulation politics from "crisis-ocracy" and "the herd inside our heads" to the sinister brain science techniques known as "nudge" to win elections, manufacture consent, impose invisible taxes, and control us.
Progressives now feel their power slipping away as Americans are withdrawing from a century of hypnotic control. This, argue Smith and Ponte, is why a desperate Left is turning to naked force - "financial repression," rule by decree, "regulution," crony capitalism, seizures and wealth redistribution, and politicized government agencies including the IRS and NSA to keep their hold on government power.
These power grabs will fail, predict monetary expert Smith and former think tank futurist Ponte, because Progressives are obsessed with obsolete centralization and expansion of government power. Progressives are doomed, even if they cling to power, to rule a nation that their policies have put into an economic death spiral towards a new Dark Age.
The path back to the Framers' prosperous Constitutional Republic, Smith and Ponte write, will decentralize and return Power to the People via the Internet, 3-D printing, decentralized energy, honest money, small government and individual self-reliance. They offer a road map back to the ideals Americans held before the very alien European ideology of collectivist Progressivism steered our nation off course exactly 100 years ago.
BOOK REVIEWS
"I received your fascinating book yesterday and have not been able to set it down. I have read much of the history of the Progressives and now, at 94 years of age, I have lived to witness the fruits of that system.
I have read much of the history of Progressives including Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, did not like it then, and I don't like it now. Now I find myself in a country in which God only knows how it will end.
From what I have read of your book, it seems like you have a good knowledge of what Progressives are all about. From where I set, it looks like this Once Great Country will have a very difficult next 50 years. I don't believe I have that much time left. We have had 3 & 1/2 generations without American History being taught in our schools, that is not a good base to build on."
-Maurice C.
P.S. Keep up the Good Work.
"Craig Smith and Lowell Ponte have done it again! The Great Withdrawal is another book of slashing insight, cutting through the kudzu of Progressive thought control to reveal the oldest truth: Freedom works."
-ROGER HEDGECOCK, Host, Roger Hedgecock Show
"Feel like your pockets have holes in them? In 520 B.C. the prophet Haggai provided the first 'inflation' definition on record: "Your wages disappear as though you put them in pockets filled with holes." In The Great Withdrawal Craig and Lowell teach us how to stitch up our financial holes - before it's too late!"
-RAY LUCIA, Host, Ray Lucia Show
"News Flash: We never left the 2008 Great Recession. The American economy is already devastated by debt bigger than our $16 Trillion annual national income! In five short years have undergone the 'fundamental transformation' into a European-style Welfare State. Within these pages you will discover key economic solutions to our century-long detour from the free market- small government our Founders brilliantly established."
-PAT BOONE, Entertainer, Author
Coins Remain A Bright Spot For Gold
REPORTS WALL STREET JOURNAL
Gold prices were driven lower in 2013 as short-term hedge funds and speculators dumped 27 million ounces held in GLD ETFs.
But on January 2, 2014 Wall Street Journal reported sales of physical gold coins worldwide increased by 63% last year ...
"Sales of gold coins are booming even as the metal's price is falling, a testament to gold's continued appeal for small investors and collectors despite its first bear market in more than a decade.
The heightened appetite for physical gold is a rare bright spot in a market that saw hedge funds and other large investors head for the exits last year. Gold futures prices tumbled 28% in 2013, their worst performance since 1981.
But at mints and coin shops around the world, gold continued flying off the shelves.
Demand for gold coins shot up 63% to 241.6 metric tons in the first three quarters of 2013, according to the latest figures available from the World Gold Council.
Sales of Gold Maple Leaf coins by the Royal Canadian Mint surged 82.5% to 876,000 ounces in the first three quarters of 2013 from the same period of 2012. The Perth Mint, Australia's national coin and bar producer, saw sales rise 41% to 754,635 ounces last year, while the U.S. Mint sold 14% more American Eagle gold coins than it did in 2012, along with a record amount of silver coins."
Today both gold and silver coins are "flying off the shelves" as smart money looks for a long-term store of value - even if, and especially when, prices temporarily drift lower.
Don't wait to buy gold ... buy gold and wait!
-Craig R. Smith
How to Survive the Coming Final Dollar "Bear Raid"
1.15.14 - By Craig R. Smith, Author, Swiss America Chairman
The new book Game Plan: How to Protect Yourself from the Coming Cyber-Economic Attack by Kevin Freeman is a stunning collection of factual research which lays out how a systematic international plan could bring down the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Freeman warns today's international effort to "crash the dollar" has reached critical mass - "Stage 3".
I have been writing about the increasing threat of economic and cyber war in my books and quoting Mr. Freeman for several years now. For example, in The Inflation Deception p. 28-29) I wrote ...
A Financial Pearl HarborAccording to Defense Department consultant Kevin D. Freeman, America in September 2008 suffered a financial "Pearl Harbor," an internationally-launched coordinated computer raid designed to drain overnight trillions of dollars from our most important financial institutions. The resulting panic gulled Federal lawmakers into approving vast emergency bailout funds for banks, brokers and key corporations.
This remarkably-timed attack and resulting economic confusion persuaded voters to renew the liberal Democratic control of Congress and to elect a fresh and unknown-and-untested anti-capitalist radical community organizer as president.
According to Freeman, this attack was the culmination of three coordinated assaults that began in 2007 with "a speculative run-up in oil prices that generated as much as $2 Trillion of excess wealth for oil-producing nations, filling the coffers of Sovereign Wealth Funds, especially those that follow Shariah Compliant Finance."
Oil prices soaring to $147 per barrel devastated the American economy, already vulnerable from the housing boom hitting a ceiling and the negative economic influence of a new and imperious Democratic Congress.
"The rapid run-up in oil prices," wrote Freeman in his 2009 analytic study Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses: Analysis of Twenty-First Century Risks in Light of the Recent Market Collapse, "made the value of OPEC oil in the ground roughly $137 Trillion (based on $125/barrel oil) virtually equal to the value of all other world financial assets, including every share of stock, every bond, every private company, all government and corporate debt, and the entire world's bank deposits." [17]
Stage 1 occurred 9-11-2001. Islamic terrorists targeted the WTC buildings hoping to strike the financial jugular vein of America. The attack successfully closed the U.S. stock, bond and money market fund trading for six full days.
Stage 2 occurred 9-15-2008. Freeman's research shows the Arab Sovereign Wealth Funds used $2B in oil profits to leverage a $20B "bear raid" on America - which successfully brought down Lehman Bros. and marked a deep recession, which WSJ reports, over half the nation still suffers from today.
Stage 3 will be a "bear raid" on the U.S. dollar. It is no secret the Arabs, Russians and Chinese have a goal of replacing the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Their plan is to introduce a new gold-backed Russian Ruble and Chinese Yuan/ Renminbi.
This coming bear raid could take many forms; including a staged cyber-attack on the five major banks, closing down bank account access, another "flash crash" on Wall Street, or targeting America's power grid or water supplies. Our vulnerability grows daily.
Here are just a few headline reminders of the growing cyber-economic-warfare ...
- N.S.A. Devises Radio Pathway Into Computers - New York Times
- Target says data breach up to $110 million customers - Yahoo News
- Trillion dollar risk: Cyberattackers target markets - Reuters/CNBC
- New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post hacked - The Guardian
And let's not forget the warning by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano the day she left office ...
"Our country will, at some point, face a major cyber event that will have a serious effect on our lives, our economy and the everyday functioning of our society." - Large-scale cyberattack on US is inevitable - The Hill
Our enemies' goal is to create a major financial PUBLIC PANIC in America. One that would so discredit the U.S. and our 98% debased currency that both American citizens and our foreign trading partners would begin to shun the dollar all at once in favor of a new currency with a store of value and gold backing.
Freeman believes, and I agree, this U.S. dollar "bear raid" could happen at any time - without notice. Therefore, holding significant wealth in stocks, bonds and banks has never been riskier.
America and its citizens need to wake up quickly and take swift, decisive actions to move risky paper and financial assets into time-tested tangible assets like gold and silver. In 2013 gold successfully withstood a major "bear raid" by speculators. In 2014 the U.S. dollar may not withstand the coming global "bear raid". Be prepared!
Today we are living on borrowed time and money. Make sure you are not caught by surprise the day the dollar dies! Instead, insure that your wealth survives and thrives - safely stored in the only form of money our Founders ever mandated for public or private use: Gold & Silver!
Read more from Craig R. Smith in 2014 Real Money Perspectives, The Timeless Truth About Money.
