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Silver Coin Money
Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt
Ptolemy II, Philadelphos, 285 - 246 B.C.
Introduction
As
established in Part
I of
Silver
IS Money,
the original constitutional monetary standard was a well defined
specific weight and fineness of silver: three
hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain
of pure silver, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard
silver. The Coinage Act of 1792 also established that their was to
be a Silver Standard with a bimetallic coinage system of both
silver and gold coins.
“And
be it further enacted, That the proportional value of gold and
silver in all coins
which shall by law be
current as money within the United States, shall be fifteen to one, according to quantity in weight, of pure gold or pure silver; that is to say,
every fifteen pounds weight of pure silver shall be of equal value
in all payments, with one pound weight of pure gold, and so in
proportion as to any greater or less quantities of the respective
metals.”
It
is readily apparent to all except the blind who wouldn’t know a
bubble if it bit them in the butt that silver has always been
money within our beloved country, just as gold has always been
money. All one has to do is to read the Constitution to find that
“nothing but silver and gold coin” was to be issued as
money. Such a monetary system is known as an honest hard money
system, as opposed to the existing soft and getting softer paper
fiat monetary system of irredeemable Federal Reserve Notes.
And
wouldn’t it be nice, if our elected officials in Congress read
the actual Constitution and understood what it says in regards to
our monetary system, as has the learned Congressman Ron Paul from
Texas, who advocates a return to honest money. Perhaps our
representatives should read the first Congressional Records to see
how all of these hard money versus soft money issues were debated
repeatedly before deciding on silver and gold coin, and no
bills of credit (a.k.a. paper money).
Then
our elected officials would also get to see the monetary history
of the world which was often discussed as well, which shows that
back to before the days of the Bible that silver and gold were
used as money, and that all experiments with paper money ended
very badly – in depressions and currency collapse.
Silver
and gold is mentioned as money in the Bible, in the ancient Jewish
scriptures in
The Hesiod, in most ancient Greek Classics, in Babylonian,
Sumerian, Egyptian and Chinese ancient writings – just about
anywhere and everywhere, at all time periods throughout man’s
history – silver and gold were Real Honest Money.
A
bit of patience is asked of the reader, as we will talk more about
silver as money, but we are going to take a little detour to
provide some theory and history of just why silver
and gold is honest money.
Kondratiev Wave Theory
Kondratiev
was a leading Russian economist during the 1920s. In 1922, while
compiling statistics for the Soviet government on various economic
variables such as: wages, prices, interest rates, imports and
exports, consumption and production, including 14 other
statistics, he discovered what he considered to be a long term
cycle of expansion and contraction in capitalistic
economies, running approximately 50 to 60 years in length.
His
work went back to 1789, the dawn of the industrial revolution,
compiling data on international trade, capital, and money flows. The
belief in long term cycles was a not a novel idea attributable to
Kondratiev. Many others before him were familiar with the idea
going back to the Jubilee Cycles in the Bible, the work of Jevons,
up to and including Schumpter.
Professor
Antal E. Fekete’s excellent work:
Causes
and Consequences of Kondratiev's Long-Wave Cycle
has
pointed out that in regards to economic cycle theory there are
four major cycles recognized by western economists: Kitchin’s
short term cycle of 3-5 years; Juglar’s cycle of 7 years;
Kuznets’ medium-wave cycle with an average duration of 15-25
years; and lastly Kondratiev’s long-wave cycle with an average
duration 45-60 years. These cycles were discovered between 1862
– 1922.
Ian
Gordon of Long-Wave Cycles explains the genesis of Kondratiev’s
thesis to the conventionally accepted theory most often used
today:
“Really,
all I’ve done, and I think all other writers who’ve written
about Kondratieff, have done, is to break the cycle into the four
seasons and I think they’re very apropos. Spring being
the rebirth of the economy. Summer being the period when
the economy really flourishes and it’s also the time when you
get the inflation. Autumn being a period when people feel
good even though winter lies ahead. You still get those Indian
Summer days and so on. Then Winter being the time when the
economy sleeps and it’s the season when debt is flushed from the
economy so that it can start refreshed in the Spring.”
Other
Cycles
And
then – there are even longer term cycles as well: 100 year
cycles, millennium cycles, super-cycles and their geometric
fractal forms ala Robert Prechter in the western world of
economics; and the mother of all cycles: a Mavantara – from the
eastern sphere of the world.
But
all pairs of opposites produce children, which beget further
children, as minutes produce hours; hours of daylight and hours of
darkness together form a “day”; days together make weeks;
weeks give birth to months; and months become years. Cycles,
cycles everywhere.
Presently
some say we are in the Kaliyuga Age, which consists of 432,000
years. The Kaliyuga Age is to be followed by the Dvaparayuga Age
of 864,000 years. The Dvaparayuga Age is to be followed by the
Tretayuga Age consisting of 1,296,000 years; followed by the
Krtayuga Age of 1,728,000 years – at least some would say.
The
axis of the earth travels approximately 2,000 years within an
astrological sign, and moves backwards
on
to the next sign, continuing such “progression” or
“regression”, depending on one’s view, through all the signs
of the zodiac.
The
slow retrograde motion of
equinoctial points along the ecliptic is known as the Precession
of the Equinoxes.
Presently
the Piscean cycle is ending and the Aquarian cycle is beginning.
Hence the references to the "dawning of the age of
Aquarius" – at least for the next 2000 years or so.
A
complete cycle of small yugas takes approximately 24,000 years
(2000 x 12). This is the amount of time needed for the earth to
travel through each of the 12 signs of the zodiac, which may not
exactly be the case, (spending the exact same “time” in each
“sign”) but we will attempt to explain that later on, angles
and arcs and all that kind of stuff.
But
for now, the grandma and granddaddy of the ages.
Longer Cycles
Longer
term cycles are divided up into what are called Kalpas,
which are based on the formation, continuance, decline, and
disintegration of the universe – the disintegration cycle being
similar to the western world’s second law of thermodynamics or
mass entropy: the heat dissolution of all physical bodies that are
moving from order towards chaos in a dissipative state – sort
of.
Also
note there are four “phases” mentioned, kind of like the four
seasons on a grander scale – or so we perceive it to be grander,
but that’s another story, for another time.
The
above delineation of four is similar to that of an
individual man, who is born as a child, which is the formative
cycle; he then grows and develops in the continuance cycle into
adulthood; during adulthood he peaks and begins to slowly decline;
and in old age he begins to wear down faster or disintegrates and
dies.
Come
to think about it, stocks and commodities and such do about the
same – don’t they? Base, rise, top, and fall. Man that number four
gets a-round.
The Cycle of All Cycles
While
the earth's axis moves in an arc as it travels through the signs
of the zodiac, the entire solar system revolves around the Central
Sun of the Galaxy. This orbit is elliptical rather than circular.
Earlier
we mentioned the four yugas, which translates as ages.
Believe it or not, the four ages are denoted by the four
seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. And this was done
thousands of years before Christ.
Presently
we are in the winter season or the Kaliyuga Age.
- Winter
– Kaliyuga Age: 432,000 years
- Spring
– Dvaparayuga Age: 864,000 years
- Summer
– Tretayuga Age: 1,296,000 years
- Autumn
– Krtayuga Age: 1,728,000 years
However,
1998 is 5,090 years from the beginning of Kali Yuga of the long
cycle. For the short cycle, winter is ending with the entrance of
the planetary axis into Aquarius, which begins the season of
Spring, for the shorter 24,000 year cycle.
- Total
Time for One Cycle or Manvantara: 4,320,000,000 years (add 4
above seasons)
- This
is called "A Day of Brahma" and is followed by “A
Night of Brahma”
- One
complete day and night of Brahma: 8,640,000,000 year
- 360
of these days is called "One Year of Brahma":
3,110,400,000,000 years
- 100
of these years constitute the life of Brahma called a Maha
Kalpa: 311,040,000,000,000 years
At
the end of the Grand Cycle, the dissolution of the Universe
occurs, which is similar to matter and spirit becoming one, as in
balance or undifferentation. That yin/yang yoga thingy.
An
interesting side point – if you decipher any of the above
numbers using numerology (whatever that is), they all come
out to the number nine. Cycles, cycles everywhere.
Awesomeness
Now,
before you dismiss any of this as too far out, remember – this
is the same system that had the laws of physics, thermodynamics,
algebra, geometry, etc. approximately 1000-2000 years B.C. As an
example of the insight of these systems into the workings of the
Cosmos, note the following Puranas:
- "By
one more than the one before"
- "All
from nine and the last from 10"
Let’s
try it out and see how and if they work. Let’s subtract 665 from
1000.
All
from nine and the last from 10,
so 9 minus 6 = 3; 9 minus the next 6 = 3; 10 minus 5 = 5; so we
have a 3 another 3 and a 5, for 335 . 335 plus 665 = 1000. Cool.
Since
were having so much fun, let’s try another – let’s subtract
335 from 4000.
By
one more than the one before,
so 4(000) minus 1 = 3000 – now all from nine and the last
from ten
9
minus 3 = 6; 9 minus 3 = 6; 10 minus 5 = 5 – for 665, which
gives 3665
3665
plus 335 = 4000. Radical.
Now
the real awesomeness:
Take
our first example, in which the answer was 335. If we add the
individual numbers of 335 together we get: 3+3=6 and 6+5=11
and 11 is 1+1=2
Now
take the number 665 from the first example and do the same: 6+6=12
and 12+5=17 and 1+7=8
Now
take the number 1000 from the first example and do the same: 1+0+0+0=1
Now
take the 2, and add it to the 8 from the above two numerical
breakdowns, and we get 10, which added to itself is 1+0=1. Awesome.
Cycles
and patterns – everywhere.
You can do the same with the second example. You can do the same
with any and all
examples.
More awesome.
So
what does any of this have to do with silver? Patience, we are
getting closer.
Kondratiev Revisited
Earlier
we mentioned that the conventionally accepted model of
Kondratiev’s long term wave theory has been divided into four
parts named after the four seasons: spring, summer, fall,
and winter.
-
Spring
represents the beginning of a rebirth and rising trend in the
economy.
-
As
spring matures and turns into summer, the economy begins to
heat up.
-
Summer
then moves into fall and the economy begins to peak and cool
off.
-
Winter
arrives and the economy begins to significantly slow down,
ultimately destined for a bottom or “death” from which the
next spring renews “life”.
This
is a simplistic synopsis, as there are many variables involved in
each of the “seasons”: interest rates, money supply and
demand, capital flows, geo-political factors, wars, tariffs and
other forms of protectionism, population trends, stock markets,
commodity markets, prices, foreign exchange values, health and
disease patterns, even weather patterns – innumerable factors
are present.
The
chart below depicts the signatures of the various seasons and
their markers, according to conventional Kondratiev Wave
Analysis.
Kondratiev
Seasons 1949
- 2010

[Chart courtesy of FSO article on Ian Gordon of The
Long Wave Analyst, as noted above]
As
is readily apparent from the chart above, one of the long term
Kondratiev Cycles is depicted as starting approximately in 1949
and continuing until approximately 2010, with the delineation of
the cycle into four parts named after the four seasons. The words
of W. D. Gann have been used by
some to explain the seasonality of the cycle and the order of
nature’s law.
“The
four seasons of the year teach us that there is a reaping time and
a sowing time and a time that we cannot reverse the order of
nature’s law.”
It
is generally assumed by almost all followers of Kondratiev’s
Cycle theory that presently we are in the winter season,
as expressed in the following quote:
“I
don’t think that there can be any doubt that we’re now in Winter.
We’re in the period when debt is cleansed from the economy, so,
as I say, that the economy can be renewed with little debt in the
system. The winter period starts, following the peak in stock
prices at the end of autumn. We always know we’re getting into
that Autumn period -- when we’re going to have the
greatest Bull Market in stocks in our lifetime and probably the
greatest Bull Market in bonds and also the greatest Bull Market in
real estate -- because four events anticipate these great autumn
Bull Markets. Those four events occurred between 1980 and 1982. They
were the peak in commodity prices, the peak in interest rates, the
recession and the Bear Market in stocks.”
[Long Wave Analyst]
It
is also generally assumed that Kondratiev’s Cycle Theory is
basically about “waves” of credit inflation and credit
deflation, as the following quote explains quite well:
“Well,
when the Kondratieff Cycle starts (and our present cycle started
in 1949 with the beginning of Spring), debt has been
cleansed from the economy during the previous winter. People are
very, very wary. They’re scared that the depression will come
back. Everything is paid for in cash. But, as the economy starts
to regain some strength, as spring moves a long, some people start
to borrow money for their major purchases like housing, but it’s
mainly corporations borrowing to expand in line with demand.
During the Summer, borrowing picks up pace in line with
increasing confidence. Corporations borrow quite heavily to expand
their enterprises. So that borrowing goes to what I call a
worthwhile cause because it goes to expand the capital goods area
of the economy. When the recession hits at the end of Summer and
the interest rates peak. The Federal Reserve gets very scared
about what’s happening, so it starts to bring down (the)
interest rates, quite dramatically, and it pours money into the
banking system in an effort to revive the economy. What happens
then is that most of the corporations have already borrowed
throughout the Summer, really don’t need to borrow that heavily,
so a lot of the borrowing is done by consumers. Because banks have
all this money, they’ve got to make it available to somebody, so
they make it available to the consumer.
The
consumers start to borrow quite heavily. Because they’re
borrowing, they have the extra money with which to make purchases
and therefore the economy starts to expand and, of course, the
stock market expands with the economy. So consumers eventually, or
fairly soon into this expansion, start to put money into the stock
market and you get the growth of the mutual fund industry and so
on, growing and attracting more investor money into it and the
economy continues to expand. People start to get wealthy as a
result and eventually the whole system becomes completely
overwhelmed by the amount of debt and that occurs right at the end
of the Autumn period.
The
U.S. now has, 32 trillion dollars of government, corporate and
individual debt in the system. Most of that money is going to have
to be cleansed from the economy during the Winter. Once the peak
of the debt cycle is reached at the end of Autumn, it must be
eliminated from the economy during Winter -- we’re
probably 2 1/2 years into Winter now – debt is being cleansed as
we can see, through corporate bankruptcies. We’ve just seen the
biggest one in U.S. history with WorldCom. Before that, the
biggest one I think was Enron. So we’re starting to see some
very big debt bankruptcies and that debt being taken out of the
economy. At the same time, consumers, too, are starting to file
for personal bankruptcies in record numbers. So, we are starting
the debt cleansing process.” [Long
Wave Analyst]
Upon
reading the above it is amazing to see how many of the signature
events of the cycle have occurred and or are occurring. When the
present cycle is said to have started in 1949, it is obvious that
the United States had just come from out of a depression during
most of the 1930s. People were scared – very scared and very
leery of the stock market and the economy in general.
It
is also true that slowly confidence returned and the economy
became stronger and stronger, until the summer season of the cycle
had been entered and the economy was booming or in what
some refer to as a crack
up boom.
Notice
in the above chart how some of the signature for the summer season
read: gold soars – which it did; interest rates soar – which
they did; commodities boom – which they did. Then summer
turns into fall.
On
the chart, once again, notice the signatures: stock market booms
– which it did; interest rates fall – which they did; bond
prices rise – which they did; commodity prices drop – which
they did; stocks peak and then crash – well they may have
peaked, but they didn’t crash; and perhaps most importantly, debt
levels rise to unsustainable levels.
All
in all, however, most signatures appear to be fairly right on the
money. Of interest and import is the basic “tag” to
each of the seasons. Spring was a time of the “start
of inflation”,
summer was “runaway
inflation”,
autumn was “disinflation”,
and winter is “deflation”.
This is where long term cycle theory gets a bit tricky, and may
not be as readily discernable as some suggest. We will try to keep
this as simple as possible, so let’s go back to the main premise
of Kondratiev’s Cycle Theory.
Main Premise
The
basic premise behind Kondratiev’s Theory is that there is a
cyclic path that a capitalist economy follows that is due to waves
of credit inflation and then credit contraction or
what some call a crack up boom followed by a bust.
Also
note that listed under the winter season is a spike in interest
rates and a currency crisis, including a run from paper
money into gold. Also notice how back in the summer season commodity
prices peaked, and in the autumn they fall. Let’s
take a closer look at these few issues.
A Closer Look
The
basic premise under consideration is that a capitalist economy
goes through periods of credit expansion or inflation, followed by
credit contraction or deflation. This sounds fairly simple and
appears most likely, but is it? Have any of the past cycles taken
place under a complete fiat monetary system – no they have not.
All examples of past cycles were during periods when gold was
involved in the system in some way or form – either as the money
or the backing for the money (mostly the latter).
Whenever
one talks about an economy, and the expansion or contraction of
credit, one is talking about money and the lending of money.
Consequently, money is at the basis of monetary theory, or if it
isn’t, it should be, unless the economy is run by barter. Once
the threshold from direct exchange to indirect exchange is crossed
– money – the medium of exchange – is the basis of the
monetary system by which the economy is run.
The
economy is based on the monetary system, which in turn, is based
on the standard of money. You can tell the inherent nature of a
tree by the quality of the fruit it bares – a witness thereto.
Finally,
we are getting a bit closer to the title of this paper:
Silver Is Money.
Sorry for the delay, but you can
thank the Federal Reserve for the seemingly never ending
winding road to paper fiat land – I’m just trying to explain
what they’ve done and where it is leading us.
As
was shown in the first part of Silver
IS Money, the definition and
monetary standard of a dollar according to the Constitution
and the Original Coinage Act of 1792 is a specific weight
and fineness of silver – the Silver Dollar.
Since
there has never been a constitutional amendment to change our
monetary system, the standard is still in place, whether or not it
is used and honored – by the government or by We The
People.
Without
a constitutional amendment, any deviation from the Constitution is
an unconstitutional act, and, as such, it is as if it never
occurred, and is in opposition to the Supreme Law of the
Land.
Unconstitutional
acts are as if they never occurred, and are not the law – but
unlawful. Consequently, there is a strong possibility that our
monetary system of irredeemable Federal Reserve Notes is not only
unconstitutional – it may also be the antithesis of what an
honest monetary system is supposed to be.
Instead
of providing a system of savings and wealth
accumulation for all participants, money by fiat is nothing
more than a wealth transference scheme that enables the rich to
get richer, while the poor get poorer. Wealth is siphoned away
from the many – over to the few.
The Basis
The
foundation of any monetary system is the money it uses, the medium
of exchange by which trade occurs. The extension of credit is
based upon the soundness of the money that is extended as credit.
The extension of credit creates debt to be repaid. Debt can only
be paid for by real money – by honest money.
The
offsetting of debt or the rollover of debt into another debt is
not payment, it is a game of double entry bookkeeping and nothing
more. Now you see it, now you don’t. It is the work of a
magician that performs tricks of illusion – not honest labor. It
is a game of slight of hand – of wealth transference.
Because
of the moral hazard of paper fiat, which is fraudulent and
dishonest, any monetary system based on it is destined to the
unwinding of the inherent moral hazard. Likewise, any system of
economics that is based on an unsound monetary system, which
accepts the unacceptable, is subjecting itself to a false premise,
i.e. that a fiat money system that extends credit by fractional
reserve policy is real as opposed to illusionary – sound as
opposed to unsound.
A
structure is only as sound as the foundation upon which it is
built. A monetary system of paper fiat is but a house of cards. An
economy that lives by and within a house of cards, is exposed to
the ill winds of fortune – as fortune wears the faces of
Janus. One is reminded of the nursery rhyme of the three little
pigs and the big bad wolf – would you want the house of straw or
the house of bricks when the wolf comes a calling?
Kondratiev Revisited
The
Kondratiev Theory maintains that there is a cycle of debt
expansion (inflation), followed by debt contraction (deflation).
On the surface this appears correct, but if one looks deeper, are
there other possibilities just as probable? If paper fiat is
itself inherently inflationary, is deflation the only outcome, or
even the most likely scenario? What of hyperinflation,
is that a possibility?
And
what of this thing called prediction – how valid is it?
Does not prediction imply determinism? Can the future be
predicted? With what certainty? Perhaps a closer look should be
given to the theory of determinism as well.
According
to the Kondratiev chart above, commodity prices peak in the summer
of the cycle and we are presently in the winter season, yet
commodity prices have recently been at near record levels, when
according to Kondratiev theory, they should have been falling
since autumn, which has already passed. This could very well
be just a small glitch, or it could be a harbinger of other things
to come, as in mutations and or other probabilities or
outcomes. The jury is still out on this, as time and price
action will tell the tale, as either a huge top is being put in
place or a huge base. This will also be dealt with when we get to
the discussion of paradigm shifts.

CRB Index From 1960 - 2005
Chart courtesy of Sharefin
at www.sharelynx.net
The
Kondratiev chart also states that during the winter season,
which we are said to be in, that a currency collapse occurs as
interest rates spike up and a credit contraction takes place.
Before discussing the present situation, let’s take a look at
the recent past, as that is from where the present has come.
The
current cycle is said to have started with a renewed spring
season around 1949, that had risen phoenix-like from the ashes of
the previous winter. We all know how bad the great
depression was – horror stories are legion and there are still
many survivors alive to tell the tales. My father is one.
What
is most curious is that during the great depression fortunes were
made that hardly ever get mentioned. Now how can one make a
fortune during a depression, isn’t everyone losing money? The
answer is a resounding no – not everyone is losing money.
By investing in the bond market there are some making fortunes, a
literal killing. Professor Anal Fekete has written extensively on
this subject:
Stop
Greenspan From Plunging America Into A Depression, as
well as on the topic presently under discussion.
During
the great depression bond rates steadily dropped. When interest
rates drop, bond prices rise. Large institutional investors in the
inside loop made a killing. During the recent great decline in the
Japanese economy fortunes have been made in the bond market as
well. The speculation in the bond market is one of those dirty
little secrets “they” don’t want you to know about. There
are also other ways.
Many
of the elite collectivists know when to go shopping – when
things are on sale. Nothing like a nice fireside sale to pick up
entire businesses for pennies on the dollar. Ask Carnegie or
Morgan or Rockefeller how they fared during depressions. Both the
action in the bond market and the action during the fireside sales
is simply wealth transference by the elite few – nothing more,
nothing less.
Outcomes
Let’s
take a quick review, before proceeding further ahead. The
following appears to be the case according to the evidence thus
far revealed:
- Silver
is the constitutional standard of our monetary system
- The
required constitutional amendment to change the standard has
never occurred
- A
completely paper fiat monetary system of Federal Reserve Notes
is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Silver
Standard that it and the Coinage Act of 1792 established
- The
present paper fiat system confuses the means of paying debt
(money), as the same as the debt itself. Debt is not being
paid, it is being offset by rolling over one debt into
another(s)
- A
monetary system is only as sound as the money it is based on
- An
economy is only as sound as the monetary system it uses
- Economic
theories that do not first consider the soundness of the money
of the economy is subject to false premises and false
conclusions
- How
valid are predictions of economic theories and models based on
determinism and false monetary standards?
- Kondratiev’s
Cycle Theory may be true, but does that mean that one can use
it to make predictions of future events; and if so, with what
probability or certainty?
Near
the beginning of this work a quote was cited by W.D. Gann:
“The
four seasons of the year teach us that there is a reaping time and
a sowing time and a time that we cannot reverse the order of
nature’s law.”
This
is somewhat similar to the quote the first part of Silver Is Money
ended with:
“As
to every purpose there is a season and to every season a
purpose.”
Both
quotes appear to be related to the saying:
“a time for every season, and a season for every time.”
There
is obviously a time and a season in which to enact the purpose of
reaping and of sowing.
But
what of the statement:
“and a time that we cannot reverse the order of nature’s
law.”?
This
sounds true, as how can we possibly reverse the order of
nature’s law. Are we, however, the only entity possible or
existent to reverse the order of nature’s law? Perhaps nature
itself reverses the order of its own law?
However,
do we even know the order of nature’s law? The Law has
been previously covered in an earlier
work
Whence
& Pence, Part 10: The Unwounding, but
what is this thing called “order”?
Chaos and Order
Henry
Adams once said,
“Chaos often breeds life,
while order breeds habit.”
Pretty interesting statement to say the least. So now chaos is
thrown into the mix as well, which makes sense, as how can one get
order unless chaos is present? And it only seems natural
that order breeds habit.
Chaos
is generally thought of as disarray or randomness, which many an
ancient philosopher and many religious and occult texts say was
the cauldron from which the Cosmos came forth from. Ilya Prigogine
won the Noble Prize for his theory and experimental demonstration
on how order can come from Chaos.
Chaos
Theory examines and questions the random behavior of deterministic
systems. Such random systems have been found to be extremely
sensitive to infinitely small changes in the initial parameters of
the system. Consequently, chaos theory questions the plausibility
and validity of making predictions on how such systems will act.
Determinism
Determinism
is the belief that for every cause there is an effect, and for
every effect there is a cause; or in other words that every act is
the result of preceding acts. We can thank Mr. Newton for
popularizing this belief. He did almost as good of a job as Keynes
did in his field. Perhaps they were magicians by night.
Sir
Isaac’s Laws were able to predict systems very accurately, but
not even Sir Isaac could come up with the answer to King Oscar II
of Norway’s challenge as to who could prove or disprove that the
universe was stable. And Sir Isaac was no dummy – he was the
keeper of the mint, scientist extraordinaire, and Grand Master of
the Prior de Sion, which meant he was an adept of the ancient ways
– actually a Grand Master of the art. He wrote about some pretty
arcane and occult “stuff.” The pairs are always tricky –
even for a Grand Master.
Chaos
Chaos
is most readily seen in long term dynamic systems that involve
complex motion(s). Chaotic systems can be extremely mathematically
deterministic, yet also aperiodic, which makes them very hard to
predict, as the initial conditions are extremely sensitive to the
slightest of changes that in turn can produce totally different
end results.
Fractals
are an example of such as they are very complex geometric designs
that are infinitely detailed yet recursively defined. Weather
systems and their forecasts or predictions are another example of
chaotic systems and how difficult their forecasts or predictions
are.
As
common sense would dictate, war is a very chaotic system, which
Iraqi has demonstrated quite emphatically. Race horsing is
another, try making a living by predicting the outcome of horse
races – it’s called gambling. You can have the fastest horse
in the world, that has won all his races, yet the next time he
slips coming out of the gate, goes 8 wide on the first turn as a
result, cuts to the inside and gets blocked in, the undefeated
champion loses the race. The initial set of conditions changed,
and so did the outcome of the race.
Complex
dynamics occurs in man-made systems as well as natural ones. Man
himself is very complex, and consequently, so too are his social,
political, and behavioral systems. As we saw in the race horse
example, complex systems contain many variables or causes and
effects, which are not proportional to one another, they are
synergistic. There is communication or feedback that occurs at any
given point, which changes what appeared to be a very
deterministic sequence of events. Suddenly the system becomes
unstable. This is referred to as bifurcation, at which point the
system can break apart.
Instability
Originally,
scientists believed that if they could reduce the uncertainty to
the initial conditions in any given system, they could likewise
reduce the uncertainty in any final outcomes or predictions of the
system. What scientists have now found, however, is that two sets
of conditions that are nearly indistinguishable from one another,
can and do result in two final conditions or outcomes that vary
greatly from one another. In other words, any imprecision, even
extremely minute ones, will grow at ever-expanding rates.
As
the renowned Nobel prize winner Ilya Prigogine says, “This
suggests, moreover, that most of reality, instead of being
orderly, stable and equilibrial, is seething and bubbling with
change, disorder, and process.”
Complete equilibrium is actually
fairly rare, as the more complex a system gets, the more variables
there are that can become unstable. Brings to mind the old adage, “keep
it simple, stupid”.
Notice
some of the words that have been used: stable, unstable, change,
variable, uncertainty, bifurcation, complexity, etc. It is almost
as if one were describing our paper fiat monetary/debt system,
which has become so complex, with so many variables, creating so
many imbalances – the resulting system is very unsound or
unstable. The Fed is basically walking a tight-rope trying to
balance all of these unknown variables. Will they succeed, can
they do it? Time will tell, as that is what it does – expresses
change.
Money Issue Revisited
So
we have once again returned to the money issue, having gone way
out in left field where chaos rules, and back home again where
determinism used to be the norm. But I think you can see the
point: our monetary system according to the Constitution and the
Coinage Act of 1792 was on Silver Standard with a bimetallic
coinage system of silver and gold coin.
Such
a system is referred to as a “hard
money” system, because the
coins are hard, being as they were, struck from metal. Such a
system is also “sound”
as one can not as easily inflate gold coin as one can inflate
paper money, or what now is electronic money, computer entries on
a screen and nothing more.
Mining
gold and silver is very hard and dangerous work that requires
taking the metal from the bowels of the earth. This is what makes
precious metals – precious – their stocks to flow ratios are
very high, which will be gone into in more detail in part three.
Also
in part three we will look at the linkage between interest rates
and prices and the money flows between the bond and the commodity
markets; and how these could effect the systems of prediction we
are examining. Part of the inquiry will also deal with closed and
open systems and linear versus non-linear models. In the words of
Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine:
"While
some parts of the universe may operate like machines, these are
closed systems, and closed systems, at best, form only a small
part of the physical universe. Most phenomena of interest to us
are, in fact, open systems,
exchanging energy or matter (and one might add, information)
with their environment. Surely biological and social systems are
open, which means that the attempt to understand them in
mechanistic terms is doomed to failure.”
All
of these issues are reasons why our monetary system should not be
one of paper fiat. You cannot pay a promise to pay with another
promise to pay, that is simply rolling over the debt. You cannot
pay debt by default. You cannot pay debt by debasement. A system
that must continually grow and expand and debase its quality or
purchasing power just to stay alive is very unstable, it is like a
drug addict that needs an ever larger fix or dose – until one
day he needs it no more, because he is no more.
This
is why an honest system of silver and gold is needed to replace
our present system of irredeemable paper debt. Chaos awaits – as
we peer down into the abyss.
The
chart below is a chart of the quality or purchasing power of what
we will refer to as the dollar bill as opposed to the dollar, as
there is a difference between a Constitutional Dollar and a dollar
bill, as was shown in part one of Silver
IS Money. As is evident from
the chart – the direction of the debasement of our currency to
95% of its original “value” does appear to be a decent into
the abyss.

Chart courtesy from Sharefin at www.sharelynx.net
Chaos

"In
truth at first Chaos came to be ..."
[Hesiod,
Theogony 116]
Part
III To Be Forthcoming – The Four Horsemen

© 2005 Douglas V. Gnazzo
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