GOLD - THE GREAT WARRIOR

"For more than two thousand years gold's natural qualities made it man's universal medium of exchange. In contrast to political money, gold is honest money that survived the ages and will live on long after the political fiats of today have gone the way of all paper."

---Hans F. Sennholz---

Throughout centuries, men have experimented with the idea of money and they have tried thousands of different things as money but the only thing left standing today, as money, after all that time and after all that struggle, is Gold. This shiny yellow metal is in fact a great warrior and it has defeated the mightiest of the mighty who tried to manipulate its value; it still remains today, as strong as ever and as valid as ever. Gold has defeated every fraud on the face of the earth to assert and reveal its real value since thousands of years. There is no other substance that by its intrinsic value can compare to gold. Gold is the ultimate money and it has stood the test of time but what is it so about gold that makes is so?

This shiny yellow metal chunk is no ordinary metal but it has certain qualities and certain special virtues that make it the best candidate to be considered as money and as a store of value. Before we find out why gold is the only real money, let us first understand what is money?

Money is a common medium of exchange of value of goods and services. Money is not only a medium of exchange but it is also a medium of saving the value of your goods and services over the time. In short, money is a medium of storing wealth in a very portable way. Gold is the most ideal form for storing wealth for the following reasons:

#   Gold is durable and does not rot even if kept for thousands of years.

#   Gold being a metal is malleable and can be made into jewelry and hence is used to wear as ornaments which is a great way to store your wealth.

#   Gold is desirable: The luster and the shine of this metal is unique and something that people desire very much of their free aesthetic sense. It is a medium of exchange acceptable to all and thus can be used to buy things anywhere and anytime.

#   Since gold is a metal it is homogeneous and divisible in such a way that each part will retain all the properties of the metal. This makes it very easy to mold into any shape or size and denomination.

#   Gold cannot be printed hence no government or bank can duplicate it.

#   Gold is very valuable: Gold is valuable because it is present in exactly such limited quantity and it perpetually remains so much in demand. An ounce of gold can buy a lot more than a truck load of iron. 

#   Gold is portable: Since it is homogeneous, divisible and valuable, it can store a large amount of wealth in a tiny quantity. One can easily carry it in one’s pockets and hold it in the palm of one’s hand.

Today in the world, there is yet another war against Gold. This war is being waged by the banks and the government. They have replaced gold with currency backed by nothing. Initially currency was backed by Gold. When a currency is backed by gold it means that the government can only print currency proportionate to the physical Gold it has in its vaults. This restricts the amount of currency that the government can print because Gold is limited. A gold standard currency is always limited in quantity and hence it cannot be inflated and people who hold such gold backed currency will not have to face the brunt of inflation and their purchasing power will not be harmed.

Unfortunately today we are on currency which is no more backed by Gold and the government and the banks are able to print unlimited amounts of it thus creating massive inflation and robbing people of purchasing power. The world we live in has limited resources and thus limited goods and services is what we can produce and when we print unlimited currency, then more currency chases the limited amount of goods and services and thus the price increases and this is inflation. Inflation kills savings and pushes out savers and forces people to gamble with their currency. Because when you put currency in the bank and you get 8% annual interest on your currency but the real inflation is 12% you are then in effect losing your purchasing power by 4% annually. So you would be forced to take the money and put it in risky investments such as bonds, stock markets etc.

Why do I use the word ‘currency’ above to denote what the government and banks print and not money? The reason is that both are quite different. Currency is printed on paper or it is stored in computers and books in the form of electronic blips and numbers but with real money you cannot do that. With Gold you cannot do that, you cannot print it on paper and you cannot store it in an electronic form on computers. It is physical and it cannot be duplicated.  Consider this example; suppose you are walking down the road and on the side walk you find a stray piece of soiled paper then would you pick it up and clean it and keep it in your purse?  But suppose you are walking along the road another time you find a piece of gold fallen on the side walk, would you pick it up or just walk on avoiding it? The answer is obvious that you would not pick up any stray paper but you would definitely pick up a piece of gold no matter how deformed it is or in whatever shape it is. The paper that we call currency is just a paper with some print and once you remove the print all you have is ordinary paper and nothing more. That’s how fragile the modern day currency is. Initially, when currency was gold-backed, the print of the paper called currency meant something because by law it was backed by an equivalent amount of gold stored away in the vaults, but the present day currency is backed by nothing. It is a big joke. All of us working so hard to earn some pieces of paper backed by nothing, having no intrinsic value and which continuously go down in purchasing power due to inflation, is simply ridiculous. Modern day currency is a scam designed to steal away people’s produce and hard work and make them poorer. Modern day currency is in fact an impostor parading around as money which it is not. History has shown that there have been many such impostors in the past and they have all been beaten time and again by Gold.

Gold as money or even Currency solidly backed by gold, i.e., gold standard is the only moral and practical way for people on the earth to live together under a system that has freedom and justice for all etched deeply at its core. The only money which cannot be manipulated or printed by any authority is the money that will be good for people. People who work hard need something that will store the value of their hard work over the time and when needed can be readily exchanged. The price of gold a hundred years ago in terms of dollar was $20 an ounce. Suppose you kept those 20 dollars in a box and that one ounce Gold too in it and opened it today then which would retain its purchasing power, the $20 or the ounce of Gold? The answer is simple. Gold is the ideal form of money and it entails economic freedom. Under gold standard, neither the government nor the bank can confiscate people’s wealth in a hidden way. People’s wealth earned by their hard work will remain safe and their purchasing power will not be diminished or stolen away by inflation created by excess currency printing. For an economy to function in the most efficient way, one of the most important things to be ensured is that the monetary system is a just and fair one and which does not take away the people’s wealth.

Once again, the world finds itself in the midst of one such great war of Currency versus Gold. Will Gold win this war too? I leave this for the reader to decide. All I will say is that the answer is there in the reading of history. Gold has always won and defeated the scourge of fiat currency time after time and the conditions this time are very similar too. As the governments and the banks of the world are struggling hard to keep this world going on a fraudulent system, will Gold once again provide justice and will it avenge the truth and honesty that the system has attempted to destroy. This great war of Gold versus Currency is underway right now. Let’s buckle our seat belts and see who wins. Gold is the hero of the people while fiat currency is the stooge on the side of the governments and banks. It is a war essentially between good and evil. On which side do you wish to stand? Good or Evil!?

VOLUNTARY TAXATION - THE ROAD TO REAL PROSPERITY

"Government should NEVER be able to do anything YOU can't do."

---Ron Paul---

Voluntary taxation is an alien idea to most. The idea is so alien and so blatantly opposed to our way of ingrained thinking that most would feel outright scandalized. Voluntary taxation means that you pay taxes only if you want to and no one will pressurize you or threaten you if you choose to not pay.

We all have been living in a system where taxation is not only compulsory but is considered criminal if one does not pay it. Do we ever question the validity of this kind of taxation? Why is it that this idea is so prevalent and why is it that our taxes perpetually keep on increasing? Why does it never happen ever in history that one day we wake up and the government tells us that our taxes will be reduced now onwards? We need to ask the question whether all this taxation through the centuries has helped us get really prosperous as we should or could we have done better? What is the real equation of taxation? This article will unravel the crux of this matter and explain how our prosperity and happiness are connected to something such as taxation. 

Human needs include not just food, water and air but many other things and the greatest among those needs is ‘happiness’. All human action directly or indirectly is aimed towards a single endeavor – The achievement of happiness. But there are so many of us here each having infinite desires but we live in a world of limited resources. What is the best system under which we can make the most of what we have and none of human labor or wealth goes to waste or in the hands of those who have not rightfully earned it? 

Let us try to understand how it works by imagining a little story which is as follows;

Imagine that you are renovating your house and you intend to get it done in the best possible way and in the least possible time and cost so that you can start to live better and enjoy the wonderful newly renovated ambience of your home. Well, first of all you would need to hire a competent interior designer and an equally competent workman like the carpenter, the painter, the electrician etc. When each of them do their respective jobs properly and in mutual sync then the house will get renovated efficiently and quickly. 

Now suppose you have a society watchman whose job is no more than to provide security and who suddenly forces you and takes over the job of interior designer. This watchman being illiterate and absolutely new to the field of interior aesthetics and has no expertise whatsoever. Just imagine how the renovation work will proceed. Well, he begins his work as a designer and in his ignorance and arrogance, he first designs badly and has no work plan so he overrides your wishes and also disregards the pleas of the workmen and rejects all their advice. He forces the carpenter to do the painting work and the painter to do the electrical work and the electrician to do the carpenter’s work. What do you think happens as a result? What you get is total disaster and your house interiors in a messy state.Would you like to hire an able and expert man of your choice to do the work or would you like to be bullied by someone like the watchman in this instance into hiring him despite his lack of expertise to renovate a house. The answer is obvious! 

This seemingly fanciful example has a stark parallel to the reality we live in. We all live in this world together which has limited resources and we all desire to achieve the maximum prosperity and growth for each of us. For this we need to use our resources with maximum efficiency and we cannot hire the watchman in the above story to do the job. We are constantly renovating the world and our lives through the resources we have at hand. But today by slow process of inaction and inability to challenge validity of the accepted idea of compulsory taxation we have unfortunately given the reigns of renovation to the watchman who in character is same as the government. In real world the situation is even worse than that of the story above because here the government not only has taken over the renovation but has started to dictate things and intrude in our lives beyond its moral eligibility.

Money is an objective equivalent of the wealth that we create. When your money is taken away forcefully by a third party in the form of taxes on the pretext that your money will be used in your favor then be assured that it won’t be used as promised. The widely accepted idea of compulsory taxation in truth is an affront to the idea of democracy and is immoral. To forcefully tax people and use that money not according to their wants is taking power away from the people. Voluntary taxation is an idea exactly opposite of this. Under voluntary taxation, people hold total power and money is not wasted because it allows people to use their money to sort out their problems as they wish and no outsider can understand the problems of the people better than the people themselves.


Suppose you want to make a piece of furniture, like say a chair and you give your money to the milkman to do the job instead of the carpenter then not only will the quality of work be compromised but also your time and money will be wasted and would result in diminished productivity because the milkman has no skill in the making of a chair and he cannot make it as efficiently as the carpenter and of equivalent quality. The same thing the government does… it taxes away your money and re-allocates a miniscule amount not according to the actual free market need of the people but according to the whims and fancies of the central planners . The remaining major chunk of tax money just disappears somewhere. The next year the government again taxes you but the tax must be higher this time because of inflation and because the government has opened newer departments and started other schemes supposedly to help you so it needs more funds. So eventually the people have to give larger and larger shares of their earnings as taxes and hence they have to work more and more for less and less, thus leading to a kind of financial bondage. Just ask a farmer who is forced to commit suicide if he is interested to send a spaceship on the moon or if he is interested in Commonwealth Games, while his family is dying of hunger. This system never helps people in reality and it has never alleviated poverty because it is a system that reduces investment money and thus reduces growth and constricts the economy and thus diminishes the prosperity of the people.

Voluntary taxation would work like a super voting machine and the only reason that people will be incentivized to pay taxes voluntarily would be if they see that it will actually benefit them and if their ‘self interest’ is served. If there is garbage and water stagnation in your locality and if it hurts you enough then out of your own self interest you would want to get it cleaned and you would offer to pay for it. Voluntary taxation will empower the people with true power as it should be in a real democracy. People vote not merely with their ballot but also with their money. Whatever people will want, their money will flow towards it to make it happen. A central government cannot know what the problems of the people are and how to best solve them. Today the governments are very large and they are increasingly interfering with different aspects of our lives. To fund all its activities, the government needs to tax people more and more and must force them increasingly. This tax money does not come from the people’s consumption capital but from their savings, i.e; their investment capital. When this investment capital is diminished and taxed away, that would simply mean less money for investment which in turn would mean lesser productive enterprises and lesser job opportunities and lesser growth. This creates a huge economic distortion of such epic proportions that to maintain it becomes increasingly difficult and more and more laws are enforced on the people and their taxes must keep on increasing and at the same time majority of people become poorer.

The biggest question that comes to mind whenever the idea of voluntary taxation is brought up is that who will build the public utilities and who will support the military and where will the money come from. It is generally thought that if voluntary taxation is implemented and if no one pays taxes how will the government carry out its activities. The answer to that is that the people will build the roads, hospitals and schools etc. People can do this by forming small local groups and collecting money for such purposes. When people start building like this from funds collected with voluntary consent then money and resources get used with maximum efficiency as you cut out the watchman completely out of the picture and thus a lot of money can be saved. When you ask the watchman to do the same work, he will not only deliver a very poor quality of performance but will siphon off huge amounts from your funds for his personal benefit.


Under voluntary taxation, one of the greatest fear is that what if people won’t pay any tax or pay very less tax. The first thing to understand is that under such a system the size of the government as compared to what it is today would be extremely small. The government job would roughly include no more than to maintain the army, the judicial system and the police system to ensure its enforcement to maintain law and order and apart from that the government will not be allowed to interfere in anything. The amount of money needed to maintain this would be extremely miniscule, thus leaving people with a lot of surplus savings. A tiny portion of these savings, people can use to build and maintain public utilities, social welfare, military etc. Even after all this, people would still be left with huge surplus savings which will get reinvested in new enterprises and create greater growth and job opportunities. No one would want to put their money into offshore tax havens such as the Swiss Banks any more because their money is safe here, so all that money will stay within the country and fuel further economic growth of the nation.

Why would people pay voluntarily? For the same reason that people pay voluntarily for Mediclaim, insurance, the maid, the sweeper, the tailor, the garbage collector, the milkman, the doctor etc.; because it is in their ‘self interest.’ A frugal government that does not step outside its justifiable bounds and which does not stifle economic activity by unjustifiable interference and which gets no incentive to siphon off people’s money will be a government in every one’s interest and benefit. Such a government will only be possible under a system of voluntary taxation where the true power at all times is vested in the hands of the people. Under such a system, there will be a great outburst of economic activity and innovation, that will change the course of the nation and the people’s lives in a positive and dramatic way. A nation of people who can utilize their resources with maximum efficiency and who can keep their earnings as they wish and who no more live under fear of their wealth being confiscated will be a nation of people who are on the road that leads to true prosperity.

Voluntary taxation is a system that has far reaching implications. It is the only system that can achieve the greatest efficiency in utilization of resources and thus achieve greatest real growth. It is the only system that truly empowers people in all respects by enabling people to vote with their money. It is a system that will check the massive corruption that goes on in our country. It is a system where people can work and keep their earnings and have freedom to achieve their highest potentials. It is a system that can spark a new era of great economic activity benefiting people from all walks of life. It is a system that will truly set people on the road to freedom and prosperity. It is a system of the future, if mankind ever wants to live free.

BLACK MONEY - A DECEPTIVE IDEA

The words ‘Black Money’ catch almost everyone's attention instantaneously and arouse curiosity as to the story behind it and about those involved. If someone’s name gets connected with hoarding black money, we tend to look at them with disdain as if the person has committed a big crime. The general thinking is that black money is bad.

The intent of this article is to present a contrary view on the very idea of black money and to prove and affirm that Black Money is not actually so black and tainted as many people are led to believe. In this article, we will find out how the idea of labeling unaccounted money as black is deceptive, what constitutes this deception and who stands to profit or to lose from it.

What is Black money?
There are many prevailing definitions of black money, among them, the most common is that black money is money that is earned illegally and not disclosed for taxation. The general perception among people is that illegal is always wrong but in truth it is not so.

To understand black money, we must first understand what is illegal. Illegal is not necessarily something that is wrong but it is something that is done outside the government set laws. Hence, the illegally earned money does not necessarily mean that the money has been earned by dishonest means but rather that it is the money which has just not been disclosed to the government. Hence, a reasonable definition of black money would be, ‘The money which is unaccounted to the government is called 'Black Money.'

Who is it that wants so desperately to label the unaccounted money as 'black' and make it sound so ominous and dishonest? Who stands to gain the most by labeling unaccounted money as black money? Surely, it is not the people who stand to gain but in fact it is the government which profits by labeling unaccounted money as black money. The government wants huge amounts of money to function for which it must tax people to the maximum and therefore it requires an account of all their earnings. However, the important question one must ask is whether the government itself, in reality, ever gives a fair accounting of the amount it collects as taxes. There is no such accounting.
 

It is stated that the idea of black money is most needed to indict criminals who make huge sums of money by unscrupulous means; but then why penalize the entire population for the misdeeds of a few?! The idea of black money is in actuality a means to facilitate more taxation of people’s earnings.

Money is money and most of the money is usually earned by honest trade among people. The idea of black money is a flawed idea. It is put into place in order to deceive everyone into thinking that black money is necessarily dishonest money and people who have this kind of money are definitely dishonest too. If the government lets people keep what they earn then the people will not be forced to hoard money in order to escape excessive taxation. On the contrary, they will invest freely in new enterprises, thus creating even greater and more sustainable growth. It is wrong to think that the government can do a better job at utilizing the tax money than the people themselves. History demonstrates that the governments have never been able to utilize tax money more efficiently than its free willed citizens. It is precisely because of the government's inefficiency and lack of accountability, that results in a perpetual rise in taxes, leaving lesser money in our pockets. The idea of projecting black money as always necessarily being bad is nothing but a cheap gimmick to tax everyone at an ever increasing rate.
 

If only people could keep and utilize their earnings as they wish, there would be without doubt great prosperity for all but this can never happen until the idea of black money is exposed and rejected, thus paving the way for a free economic system where one can unhesitatingly unleash one's productive abilities without fear of anyone taking away their rightfully deserved earnings.