Gold/Dollar/Taxes

[indago]

Journalist Mike Zigler wrote for Liberty Watch Magazine November 2007:
On a 106-degree May afternoon in 2003, government agents raided several establishments belonging to Southern Nevada businessman Robert “Bobby” Kahre. With guns drawn, officials held more than 20 handcuffed workers in the sun without water as agents collected records and other materials. Kahre hadn’t committed a crime. He had upset the Internal Revenue Service by paying his workers based on the face value of gold and silver coins, versus the market value in the Federal Reserve system (the value of the coins in U.S. paper dollars). Even though the coins were in circulation, displayed a face value, and were regulated by Congress, the IRS’s confusing and endless tax code did not determine how to handle these gold and silver coins if used for payroll. The tax code only references dollars. It does not distinguish between coined money and paper money.

Gold/Dollar/Taxes

 

[indago]

In March 2007, the primary defendant, Bob Kahre, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the prosecutor and IRS agents who had conducted what he alleges to be an unlawful search and seizure raid.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Portland — Independent Media Center

IRS Suffers Defeat: Kahre tax trial: Wages Paid in Gold and Silver Coin

NEW 10/1/2007 6:49:35 AM

Main Stream Media Blackout: 161 Federal Tax Charges, 0 Convictions

IRS Suffers Staggering Defeat in Kahre tax trial. Tax Questions Raised Regarding Gold and Silver Coins Used to Pay Wages

Around noon on Monday, September 17th, a Las Vegas federal jury returned its verdict refusing to convict nine defendants of any of the 161 federal tax crimes they had been charged with. The charges included income tax evasion, willful failure to file and conspiracy to evade taxes.

The four-month trial centered around the family businesses of Robert Kahre who paid numerous workers for their labor with circulating gold and silver U.S. coins, and did not report the wages. The payments took place over several years, allegedly totaling at least $114 million dollars.

On September 20, 2007, three days after the federal trial's dramatic conclusion, the Las Vegas Review Journal, reportedly under a degree of public pressure, ran its first (and last) story about the outcome of the trial. To this day, with exception of the single article by the Review Journal, no major media entity has published a news story regarding the outcome of this important federal criminal tax case.

The censorship of this important news story is, unfortunately, not unexpected given the continuing, worldwide onslaught against the U.S. "dollar" -- specifically the Federal Reserve variety, and the ever growing numbers of Federal Reserve Notes required to trade for an actual ounce of silver, gold, oil, or for that matter, anything.

In short, this failed prosecution has coalesced and exposed truths our Government desperately needs to hide from the People: the truth about our money, the truth about our (privately-owned) central bank, and the truth about the fraudulent nature of the operation and enforcement of the federal income tax system.

According to defense attorney Joel Hansen, who represented co-defendant Alex Loglia, the primary "willfulness" defense was that the defendants believed they had no legal obligation to withhold, pay income taxes or report anything to the government because, in part, the nominal (i.e., face value) of the gold and silver coins is so small as to fall beneath the reporting thresholds set by the Internal Revenue Code.

The Defendants also argued that regardless of the valuation of the coins for internal revenue purposes, there is no law that requires average American workers to file or pay direct, un-apportioned taxes on the fruits of their labor.

The Government argued that the payments in solid gold and silver U.S. coins must be considered at their bullion (i.e., intrinsic full-market) value when considering the worth of the wages for purposes of the internal revenue code.

Attorney Hansen cited two Supreme Court cases bolstering Defendant's monetary argument at the heart of the defendants "willfulness" defense.

The essence of the argument is that under the Constitution Congress is obligated by law to mint and circulate such coins as demand requires, and must establish the value of coins as they are used as legal tender, but the coins' market value, arising as valuable personal "property," is a distinct, separate attribute of such coins, and is of no legal consequence if the coins are used as legal tender.

In other words, if a worker is paid with such coins, his taxable "income" (if any) can only be the face value indicated upon the coin money paid -- i.e., $1.00 for a circulating silver dollar or $50 for a circulating gold U.S. coin. Not surprisingly, the IRS has never issued any public guidance regarding this significant issue.

The first case, Ling Su Fan v. U.S., 218 US 302 (1910), establishes the legal distinction of a coin bearing the "impress" of the sovereign:

"These limitations are due to the fact that public law gives to such coinage a value which does not attach as a mere consequence of intrinsic value. Their quality as a legal tender is an attribute of law aside from their bullion value. They bear, therefore, the impress of sovereign power which fixes value and authorizes their use in exchange."

The second case, Thompson v. Butler, 95 US 694 (1877), establishes that the law makes no legal distinction between the values of coin and paper money used as legal tender:

"A coin dollar is worth no more for the purposes of tender in payment of an ordinary debt than a note dollar. The law has not made the note a standard of value any more than coin. It is true that in the market, as an article of merchandise, one is of greater value than the other; but as money, that is to say, as a medium of exchange, the law knows no difference between them."

Defense attorney Hansen confirmed that members of the jury were able to actually hold and inspect the gold and silver U.S. coins paid to the workers.

After almost four months of testimony and three and a half days of deliberation, the jury did not convict any of the defendants of any of the 161 crimes alleged. Although some defendants were acquitted of multiple counts, and several were acquitted completely, others may have to stand for a retrial if the Government brings charges a second time.

The Review Journal reported the jury foreman claimed DOJ prosecutors admitted they were "shocked" by the outcome.

In March 2007, the primary defendant, Bob Kahre, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the prosecutor and IRS agents who had conducted what he alleges to be an unlawful search and seizure raid. In 2005, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to overturn a previous District Court ruling holding that the federal prosecutor is not entitled to absolute immunity for the unlawful raid.

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/10/366287.shtml

 

[Annie]

and this has to do what with the overall forum? I may easily be missing something here, please educate me.

 

[indago]

Kathianne wrote:

and this has to do what with the overall forum? I may easily be missing something here, please educate me.

When the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the subversion of our monetary system in 1883, Justice Stephen J. Field wrote a scathing rebuke of his bretheren on the bench:

"If there be anything in the history of the Constitution which can be established with moral certainty, it is that the framers of that instrument intended to prohibit the issue of legal tender notes both by the general government and by the States; and thus prevent interference with the contracts of private parties. ...legislative declaration cannot make the promise of a thing the equivalent of the thing itself. ...For nearly three-quarters of a century after the adoption of the Constitution, and until the legislation during the recent civil war, no jurist and no statesman of any position in the country ever pretended that a power to impart the quality of legal tender to its notes was vested in the general government. There is no recorded word of even one in favor of its possessing the power. All conceded, as an axiom of constitutional law, that the power did not exist."

 

[RetiredGySgt]

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

Section 8 Article one does in fact give the Government the right to create money. It further stipulates not JUST coins but "securities".

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section8

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Is there board maintainance at 3 in the morning? Or any other time? It seems late at night I routinely get the waiting to load message for minutes at a time.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

As for taxation...

Amendment XVI

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Pretty damn clear to me.

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt posted:

Section 8 Article one does in fact give the Government the right to create money. It further stipulates not JUST coins but "securities".

Government securities are not paper money.

Government Securities

 

[indago]

The foregoing quote of Justice Stephen J. Field was from the United States Supreme Court case of Juilliard v Greenman. The Juilliard School of Performing Arts in New York was named after Augustus D. Juilliard, a wealthy textile merchant.

Following is an excerpt from a research article that I wrote:
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The use of paper for a medium of exchange is not new; and when it has been used, it was a subject of abuse, as were those who accepted it in payment for a debt owed. The subject was brought before the Constitutional Convention of 1787. So much has been written concerning this that any more would be superfluous. The subject was even superfluous in February, 1787, when George Washington wrote to Senator Stone of the Maryland Legislature, writing of an issue of paper money by the Legislature of Maryland:

"The ground has been so often trod, that a place hardly remains untouched. ...An evil equally great is, the door it immediately opens for speculation, by which the least designing, and perhaps most valuable, part of the community are preyed upon by the more knowing and crafty speculators."

Let it suffice to be noted that a paper medium of exchange in this country was denied the government, by not granting this power, in favor of gold and silver coin. Those who issue money into the marketplace were disappointed with this result, and since that time had continually sought to subvert the monetary system of this country, and replace it with a paper medium of exchange, and keep the gold and silver that was displaced by it. Although use of a paper medium of exchange was never granted the federal government, nor the State governments, a paper medium was continually in use, regardless of the denial. Many cases had been brought to the courts by those who were tendered depreciated banknotes marked "dollar" instead of the real silver dollar. More often than not, the gold and silver coin was upheld as the monetary standard in this country; until the civil war. The north was desperate for money to prosecute the war, and it was decided that, because of the exigency, and the desperate times, a United States Note could be issued into the marketplace which would serve, temporarily, as money until the exigency was over, when the notes would be retired, and the country would be returned to its original monetary standard. The notes were printed, and issued into the marketplace, and were termed "greenbacks". They depreciated, their lowest point reaching nearly a 70% depreciation as against the gold and silver coins of the country. History has shown that the Grant administration was extraordinarily corrupt. It was decided that the notes would be re-issued back into the marketplace instead of retiring them. Some who were tendered these notes, in payment of a debt, refused them, and a case was brought before the courts where argument was heard all over again concerning the constitutionality of paper money. Gold and silver coin was continually upheld as the exchange medium of the country until the President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant, reconstituted the Supreme Court of the United States, and the case of Juilliard v Greenman was argued before the Court in 1884. It was noted in the statement of facts:

"Juilliard, a citizen of New York, brought an action against Greenman, a citizen of Connecticut, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, alleging that the plaintiff sold and delivered to the defendant, at his special instance and request, one hundred bales of cotton, of the value and for the agreed price of $5,122.90; and that the defendant agreed to pay that sum in cash on the delivery of the cotton, and had not paid the same or any part thereof, except that he had paid the sum of $22.90 on account, and was now justly indebted to the plaintiff therefor in the sum of $5,100; and demanding judgment for this sum with interest and costs. The defendant in his answer admitted the citizenship of the parties, the purchase and delivery of the cotton, and the agreement to pay therefor, as alleged; and averred that after the delivery of the cotton, he offered and tendered to the plaintiff, in full payment, $22.50 in gold coin of the United States, forty cents in silver coin of the United States, and two United States notes, one of the denomination of $5,000, and the other of the denomination of $100, of the description known as United States legal tender notes, purporting by recital thereon to be legal tender, at their respective face values, for all debts, public and private..."

Mr. Juilliard refused to accept the notes, and he, therefore, sued for full payment in money.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt Posted:

As for taxation...

Quote:
--------------------------
Amendment XVI

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
--------------------------
Pretty damn clear to me.

It is noted, in our historical records, and also by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the Constitution of the United States recognizes two classes of taxation: the direct and the indirect taxes. The Court noted that the indirect taxes, which include the excises, are "taxes laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, and upon corporate privileges." "...the requirement to pay such taxes involves the exercise of privileges". Direct taxes are taxes upon the person or his property. During the construction of our government, it is recorded that an attempt was made to grant the power to government to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States, and all attempts failed. The Congress was granted the power to lay direct taxes upon the States with the requirement of apportionment. It is also recorded that the sixteenth amendment created no new taxing powers for the government; that the federal "income tax" is an excise tax, and the "income" is the measurement used for the amount of the tax to be paid.

Government was never granted the power to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

RetiredGySgt Posted:

It is noted, in our historical records, and also by the Supreme Court of the United States, that the Constitution of the United States recognizes two classes of taxation: the direct and the indirect taxes. The Court noted that the indirect taxes, which include the excises, are "taxes laid upon the manufacture, sale, or consumption of commodities within the country, upon licenses to pursue certain occupations, and upon corporate privileges." "...the requirement to pay such taxes involves the exercise of privileges". Direct taxes are taxes upon the person or his property. During the construction of our government, it is recorded that an attempt was made to grant the power to government to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States, and all attempts failed. The Congress was granted the power to lay direct taxes upon the States with the requirement of apportionment. It is also recorded that the sixteenth amendment created no new taxing powers for the government; that the federal "income tax" is an excise tax, and the "income" is the measurement used for the amount of the tax to be paid.

Government was never granted the power to lay a direct tax upon the inhabitants of the States.

It most definately does it states plain and clear that INCOME can and will be taxed. ALL Amendments to the Constitution that are approved by the people become part of the Constitution. Unless you can provide proof that this Amendment did not get the appropriate approval of the people at the time it was ratified your argument about what the founders wrote and meant is irrelevant.

Government WAS granted the power by the this Amendment.

Amendment XVI

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

The amendment clearly states Congress will have the POWER to lay and collect TAXES on INCOME, it further states that this tax can be from whatever source derived. IT stipulates that this power replaces the apportionment clause listed for States and that no census or enumeration is required.

Your claim otherwise is without merit of any kind. Once this Amendment was passed and Ratified it became the law of the land. It could not be clearer.

Shall I go quote the portion of the Constitution that specifically states amendments passed and ratified become part of the Constitution and can supercede previous clause or powers in said document?

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt posted:

ALL Amendments to the Constitution that are approved by the people become part of the Constitution. Unless you can provide proof that this Amendment did not get the appropriate approval of the people at the time it was ratified your argument about what the founders wrote and meant is irrelevant.

The sixteenth amendment was not voted on by "the people".

The Solicitor General for the government made much the same argument that you are making, that the sixteenth amendment created a new kind of tax, and in an amicus curiae brief, had made the argument: "The Sixteenth Amendment removed the restriction of apportionment as to such income taxes as before were subject thereto." The Court, in their opinion, in which there was no dissent, and noting this "confusion", declared this to be an "erroneous assumption" on the part of the government, and "wholly without foundation". The Court declared that "it was settled that the provisions of the Sixteenth Amendment conferred no new power of taxation"; and that the amendment simply prohibited the income tax from being taken from the category of indirect taxation, and being placed into the category of a direct tax.

It was also explained that the Congress of the United States had no intention of destroying the two great classes of taxation by the wording of the Sixteenth Amendment, but placed an income tax into the category of taxation in which it inherently belonged; the indirect class, or excise, and because the tax is not apportioned, nor subject to the census or enumeration, it is an excise tax, a tax upon the exercise of privileges, such taxes not being subject to the condition of apportionment to the States.

If you have a problem with the opinion of the Court, then maybe you should take it up with the Justices who wrote it. I didn't write their opinion for them.

"This method lays the burdens on those possessing the ability to pay, and compels those who reap the largest harvests under the sunshine of our generous institutions to give more of that harvest for the common good. ...an income tax will not touch a hair upon the head of a laboring man in the United States" — Congressman T. J. Hudson Congressional Record 15 January 1894

"An income tax places burdens upon accumulated wealth, where they can be most easily borne. It is right, because it exacts tribute of accumulation and not of endeavor. ...The artisan who goes forth to labor for his daily bread must pay upon the tools he works with; the brickmason upon his trowel, the carpenter upon his chisel and plane, the wood-chopper upon his ax, the miner upon his pick, and so on through all the list of wage-earners, yet none escape taxes upon what they eat and wear." — Congressman Fithian Congressional Record 24 January 1894

"The view taken by the Congress which passed the tax law in question is plain on its face. The object was to redress in some degree the flagrant inequality by which the great mass of the people were made to furnish nearly all the revenue, and leave the very wealthy classes to furnish very little of it in comparison with their means. Of course, nothing, therefore, was to be taken from the wages of labor" — Attorney James C. Carter Pollock v Farmers Loan & Trust 157 US 429, 517 (1895)

The federal "income tax" was legislated to lighten the burden of taxation on the working man, and place the tax upon those who are more able to pay, but there are those who would argue vehemently that they want to pay that tax too. You're not one of "those", are you?

 

[RetiredGySgt]

There are 2 methods for ratifying an amendment, one is by vote of the people in the individual States or by voting of the legislatures of the states.

when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress;

One of the two methods was used or the Amendment would not be valid. In either case the Amendment creates the power as specifically stated to tax. Any decision before said amendment is null and void. Any argument about taxation before the amendment is again null and void.

Further the court can not make an amendment to the Constitution Unconstitutional, they do not have that power. The Amendment is crystal clear, it is simple and straight forward.

In another thread someone posted the ratification process for this particular amendment, it was legally ratified within the time specified and by enough States to make it legally binding. But I will make a google search and see what I find.

The link to the Constitution.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlev.html

Article V being the operative Article.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Easiest link.

Ratification process

The Populist Party "demanded a graduated income tax" in their 1892 platform,[10] as did the Socialist Labor Party in 1887.[11] The Democratic Party, led by William Jennings Bryan, advocated the income tax law passed in 1894[12], and proposed an income tax in their 1908 platform.[13] Democratic Congressman Benton McMillan accused the Republicans of extravagant government spending and excessive reliance on tariffs for revenue.[citation needed] President Taft proposed a constitutional amendment in an address to Congress to allow federal income taxes on individuals and an excise tax "upon the privilege of doing business as an artificial entity and of freedom from a general partnership liability enjoyed by those who own the stock" on June 16, 1909. [14][15]

The resolution proposing the Sixteenth Amendment was passed by the Sixty-first Congress and submitted to legislatures of the several states on July 12, 1909.

The presidential election of 1912 was contested between three advocates of an income tax.[16]

On February 25, 1913, the Secretary of State Philander Knox proclaimed that the amendment had been ratified by the necessary three-quarters of the states, and thus had become part of the Constitution. An income tax, the Revenue Act of 1913 was shortly passed by Congress.

According to the United States Government Printing Office, the following states ratified the amendment:[17]

1. Alabama (August 10, 1909)
2. The Commonwealth of Kentucky (February 8, 1910)
3. South Carolina (February 19, 1910)
4. Illinois (March 1, 1910)
5. Mississippi (March 7, 1910)
6. Oklahoma (March 10, 1910)
7. Maryland (April 8, 1910)
8. Georgia (August 3, 1910)
9. Texas (August 16, 1910)
10. Ohio (January 19, 1911)
11. Idaho (January 20, 1911)
12. Oregon (January 23, 1911)
13. Washington (January 26, 1911)
14. Montana (January 27, 1911)
15. Indiana (January 30, 1911)
16. California (January 31, 1911)
17. Nevada (January 31, 1911)
18. South Dakota (February 1, 1911)
19. Nebraska (February 9, 1911)
20. North Carolina (February 11, 1911)
21. Colorado (February 15, 1911)
22. North Dakota (February 17, 1911)
23. Michigan (February 23, 1911)
24. Iowa (February 24, 1911)
25. Kansas (March 2, 1911)
26. Missouri (March 16, 1911)
27. Maine (March 31, 1911)
28. Tennessee (April 7, 1911)
29. Arkansas (April 22, 1911, after having previously rejected the amendment)
30. Wisconsin (May 16, 1911)
31. New York (July 12, 1911)
32. Arizona (April 3, 1912)
33. Minnesota (June 11, 1912)
34. Louisiana (June 28, 1912)
35. West Virginia (January 31, 1913)
36. New Mexico (February 3, 1913)

Ratification (by the requisite thirty-six states) was completed on February 3, 1913 with the ratification by New Mexico (but see Delaware and Wyoming below). The amendment was subsequently ratified by the following states, bringing the total number of ratifying states to forty-two:

37. Delaware (February 3, 1913)
38. Wyoming (February 3, 1913)
39. New Jersey (February 4, 1913)
40. Vermont (February 19, 1913)
41. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (March 4, 1913)
42. New Hampshire (March 7, 1913, after rejecting the amendment on March 2, 1911)

The following states rejected the amendment without ever subsequently ratifying it:

1. Connecticut
2. Florida, which rejected the amendment after it had already been ratified by three-fourths of the states
3. Rhode Island
4. Utah

The following states never took up the proposed amendment:

1. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
2. The Commonwealth of Virginia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixtee...ited_States_Constitution#Ratification_process


If you whine about the source be specific about why the ratification process doesn't apply.

Further read the entire entry and you will find that at least two courts has agreed the 16th Amendment was not necassary to allow the Federal Government the power to lay taxes on income. It just removed any requirement for apportionment between the States.

Another source for Ratification of the Amendments.

http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.html#Am16

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Some of my own history.

In 1909 progressives in Congress again attached a provision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Conservatives, hoping to kill the idea for good, proposed a constitutional amendment enacting such a tax; they believed an amendment would never received ratification by three-fourths of the states. Much to their surprise, the amendment was ratified by one state legislature after another, and on February 25, 1913, with the certification by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, the 16th amendment took effect. Yet in 1913, due to generous exemptions and deductions, less than 1 percent of the population paid income taxes at the rate of only 1 percent of net income.

from this.. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=57

 

[RetiredGySgt]

You may have more luck trying this tact...

http://16thamendment.blogspot.com/

This fellow claims the Government never properly ratified the 16th Amendment.

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt posted:

You may have more luck trying this tact...

http://16thamendment.blogspot.com/

This fellow claims the Government never properly ratified the 16th Amendment.

I have never argued that the sixteenth amendment was not ratified. Nor have I argued that the "income tax" is unconstitutional.

 

[indago]

Concerning the American "dollar":

I posted this on an ACLU message board a few years back...
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In an article in the Wall Street Journal, 12 December 1979, entitled A Picture of Inflation, Professor Roy W. Jastram, School of Business Administration, University of California, wrote: "In 1965 President Lyndon Johnson had decided to finance the Vietnam war by letting the economy inflate, a tactic with precedents that go back to the currency debasements of the Roman Emperors. Some of the world-wide monetary events that followed over the next 15 years can be traced on the chart where three lines tell the story." The 3 lines showed:

$ price of oil 1965=100
$ price of gold 1965=100
gold price of oil 1965=100

The Arabs, seeing the value of the dollar depreciate in the marketplace, and having no remedy, tied the value of the barrel of oil to gold, which, in 1974, put the barrel of oil "at nearly four times its previous level" in respect to the dollar. By 1979, the gold price of oil was near the same value as it was when President Johnson began his debasement policy, although the dollar price of oil had increased severely. The Arabs were not stupid. They merely placed the value of their product on something that had value in the marketplace. Our government thought that they could pull the wool over their eyes, but it backfired, bigtime; and the Americans paid for it, bigtime.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Government is doing the same thing all over again — flooding the marketplace with paper money, and it is continually depreciating — and the price of oil is skyrocketing again.

Robert A. Ellison, writing for the Cycles magazine, a periodical of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"Previously, conventional investment and economic measurements used the dollar or other paper units as a basis for calculation. But the use of inconsistent or unreliable units of measurement produces useless data. All economic data - the gross national product, a company's profit-and-loss statement, or investment data from security or commodity prices - are distorted and misleading when measured in terms of currency. Moreover, long-term strategies and investment policies derived from spurious measurements are not only useless, they are downright foolish. ...Figures for the money supply are equally deceptive. The term "money" itself is even more deceptive. Money supply, M1, represents the total legal tender in circulation plus "checkbook" money - instant purchasing power in the form of demand deposits in banking institutions, including money market funds. But it is not money that circulates. Since its invention in the seventh century B.C., money always has meant coinage. This concept of money was incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. The coinage of gold or silver (or depository receipts therefore) was the only legal tender in the United States until 1934. Today, the principal legal tender in circulation is the Federal Reserve Note - a promise to pay nothing, issued by an autonomous institution; a promise without substance, without maturity, and without means of redemption. Bank check money consists of the deposit liabilities of individual banks, some of which may be of doubtful worth."

"The constancy of human nature has led me to conclude that economists may be no different than alchemists: both are charlatans. Alchemists recognized that gold was a valuable commodity to be exchanged for other things at a relatively constant rate. They were devoted to the search for the Philosopher's Stone, which they believed would permit them to transmute base metals into gold. In contrast, economists denigrated gold and asserted that they could more accurately measure value with an elastic paper money system. Science and history have taught us that both ideas are preposterous schemes to create something out of nothing. Both groups have their tools, formulas, dogmas, and rituals to achieve this end. But the computer term most aptly describes the results: garbage in, garbage out."
--------------------------------------------------------

 

[indago]

RetiredGySgt posted:

Further read the entire entry and you will find that at least two courts has agreed the 16th Amendment was not necassary to allow the Federal Government the power to lay taxes on income. It just removed any requirement for apportionment between the States.

There is only one Supreme Court, and lower courts were never granted the power to overturn a Supreme Court opinion. They are "inferior" courts, as described in the Constitution of the United States.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

RetiredGySgt posted:

There is only one Supreme Court, and lower courts were never granted the power to overturn a Supreme Court opinion. They are "inferior" courts, as described in the Constitution of the United States.

2 Supreme Courts made the decision but do pretend otherwise.