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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >I'm still following the issue.  It is not to be a 'regular' bank .  They 
> will take no currencies, only gold and silver.  I just don't know if they 
> can 
> protect themselves from the U.S. gov't .

It is currently illegal to use gold as currency.  When the 1933 exectutive 
order prohibiting the private ownership of gold was partially lifted in the 
1970's, only the provision for hold gold was removed.  The prohibition 
against 
using gold as currency still stands.

The current economy cannot return to a gold standard for the simple reason 
that there is not enough gold in existence to back up the outstanding 
currency.  
If you took all the extant gold and divided that into the countless trillions 
of existing fiat currency, that would mean anyone with a high school class 
ring would be a multi-millionaire.

Prior to the 1920's very few transactions took place using actual currency of 
any kind.   In settled communities people didn't so much directly barter but 
rather kept ledgers with goods and services being rendered into a money 
amount, although actual money was not used.

Herself has just finished reading the pubilication of the journala of a 
midwife who lived in Maine from the 1750's to the 1830's.  Some of the 
journals are 
in the form of half the page being everyday journal entries and the other 
half being her ledgers.  She got eight shillings for attending a birth.  But 
often as not the ledger reflected that the family "sold" a barrel of molasses 
to 
the merchant who transfered that asset to his debt to the fuller for some 
prepared wool and the fuller transfered the asset to the saw mill her husband 
ran 
who gave the asset to his wife and she removed it from the books.  No coin or 
script ever changed hands.  

When people had to "liquidate" a debt or asset, it was most often done in 
molasses or rum or whiskey which could be stored for a long time and kept its 
value.

The face of European economy and society was changed forever when the Spanish 
brought back tons of gold and silver from the new world.  Until then a 
wealthy person owned many estates and would take his retinue to one estate 
for a few 
weeks to collect his due in the form of food, drink, care for his horses and 
arms.  Then he'd move on to the next in a seasonal cycle.  There was not 
other 
way for him to collect his taxes because physical coin in large denominations 
was rare.  With the influx of New World gold, Europe when on a cash economic 
basis.d

Trying to figure out what we are going to use as money is a lot like trying 
to decide by what means we are going to power our cars ..... maybe the answer 
is  'nothing'.


James