Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Buy, Sell, No Cash Allowed

Louisiana's Second Hand Dealer Law Link to the story.

Apparently, if you're holding a garage sale or even if you've picked up groceries for your home bound neighbor who plans on paying you when you deliver them, you'll have to accept payment in check, money order, credit or ATM cards. NO CASH ALLOWED.

A "cashless society" has been promoted since I can remember. Without cash, or easily traded commodities with a universally recognized value (gold, silver, copper coins), one is reduced to barter. One good traded for another which makes trade extremely cumbersome outside of a small community. Even then, the IRS wants you to report barter transactions so that you may be taxed as they see fit (IRS Publication 17, Chapter 12).

The US is no longer on a gold or silver standard, and those coins are not "legal tender". Bernard VonNotHaus who championed silver "Liberty Dollars" lost his case and was convicted of conspiracy and counterfeiting. Now the US Government is expanding their power based upon this precedent to try and paint any barter or trade using an alternative to Federal Reserve Notes as illegal. This is contrary to the Coinage Act Of 1965 because these transactions are private.

Revelation 13:16-17

16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

I'm not quoting the Bible to slap those who don't accept Christianity as a valid world view or belief system. It is, to me, very troubling to see something prophesied nearly two thousand years ago seemingly coming true before our eyes.

Most people look in their wallets and bank accounts and see paper money. Your bank account isn't a drawer somewhere with your paper money in it. It's a computer that holds your "money" in digital form. The fact is, there is very little paper or metal coins in circulation when compared to the total amount of "money" held in all the accounts around the world. One could make the case that we live in a very nearly "cashless" world as it is.

Already in several states, including California, welfare, unemployment, and other benefit checks which were often converted to cash in now disappearing check cashing establishments are being replaced by debit cards.

About a year ago, there was a lot of talk about currency devaluation. In fact, if you look at international news, it is still there. That troubles me. Often times when something disappears from our local radar, it suddenly reappears and everyone thinks, "oh, that's old news. We talked about that months ago." and there's very little public reaction.

I used to sort through my change and keep the silver, silver clad and real copper coins I found. The rest was exchanged for paper money for ease of use. (Easy penny test: Drop a penny onto a hard surface, if it rings like a bell it is copper. If it is a dull "thunk" type of sound, it is copper coated zinc. All pennies minted after 1983 are zinc. Some 1982 pennies are copper, some zinc)

Now I'm keeping it all.

Every time a country has devalued its currency, it has left its coins alone. They might do a ten to one devaluation where all of a sudden your ten bucks are now worth one buck, and your bank account that had $1000.00 now has $100.00 in it, but the coins stay the same. If you had $100.00 in change before devaluation, you still have $100.00 in change after devaluation.

Devaluation is very easy to do when it's just digits in a computer and also very easy to leave certain people's accounts alone if they're in the proper circles. There won't have to be this massive recall of paper money to replace it with a different color of what is essentially nothing more than colored paper.

Replacing what little paper is in circulation will screw the drug cartels, and foreigners who may be sitting on piles of actual paper dollars and definitely hoses counterfeiters because they frequently will not be able to meet the deadline for an exchange.

Yeah, don't bet on your $1000.00 credit card balance suddenly becoming a $100.00 balance. The banks don't play that way.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keeping with your rule above, that 2nd hand law is a buck full of bull excrement. I don't understand how they are to enforce this. Maybe thats part of the plan, accuse them of assets gained by cash transaction and let them prove it wasn't.

In the 1980's, Mexico did this devaluation of their peso, losing TWO (!) zeroes iirc. 100 pesos became 1, in other words - sheesh! At that rate, Bill Gates could probably afford to buy a coke at Stripes . . .

Mayberry said...

Good point on coinage. By the way, even those zinc pennies are worth something now. Half the metal crap we buy these days is zinc "pot metal". I know a guy who fastened his boat with penny "washers" with holes drilled in the center, because that was cheaper than buying 5 cent a piece washers. And you can always use them for anodes...

tweell said...

I'm curious - those paper bills in my wallet all have the same notice: This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.
So... Louisiana is going to tell the Fed that isn't true?
[Gets a large drink and some popcorn]

Ken said...

...last two sentences should scare the hell outa anyone with CC debt...

HermitJim said...

Does make you wonder just what is coming next!

Man, we are in one hell of a mess, I'm thinking!

Old Jules said...

Race against time. The zinc in the pennies thing mentioned above offers a lot of good uses, but how the he'll most of us not on the radar could survive outside a cash component of the economy is a mystery.