MONEY: Gooferment can’t print a barrel of oil

Tuesday, July 28, 2026

Doug Casey’s International Man

*** begin quote ***

But the fundamental problem facing the oil market cannot be solved with derivatives, interest-rate cuts, newly created money, or manipulating the market.

A massive volume of oil has been removed from the global market as the Strait of Hormuz is essentially closed.

That supply will not be easily replaced.

Alternative pipelines have limited capacity. Spare production cannot be activated overnight. Tankers, ports, refineries, and storage facilities all face physical constraints.

Governments can print currency.

They cannot print a barrel of oil.

*** end quote ***

“There is an old German saying that goes, ‘Whoever does not respect the penny is not worthy of the dollar.’ It expresses the sense that those who neglect or ignore the small things cannot be trusted with larger things, and fittingly describes the problems facing both the dollar and our nation today.” — Ron Paul

Why is there no more “penny candy”, “nickel cigars”, “dime comic books”, or “quarter a gallon gas”?

Because the Gooferment “printing press” (i.e., the FED) … … 

 … … The Federal Reserve Bank is a misnomer. IT ain’t “federal”. It reserves nothing. And, it ain’t a “bank”. It is a private cartel of the elite banks run for their benefit and that of the entrenched politicians. … … 

… … allows the Federal Gooferment to “spend fiat money” without limit.

Argh!

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MONEY: Her accounts and savings were nowhere to be found

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/your-money/fidelity-investments-fraud-alert.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dlA.2bK0.gN47H93flP5j

How a Systems Glitch at Fidelity Caused One Woman’s Savings to Disappear

  • How did this happen? Fidelity Investments notified a customer that her phone number and email address had been removed from her profile. When she logged in, her accounts and savings were nowhere to be found.

Tara Siegel Bernard
April 25, 2026, 5:02 a.m. ET

*** begin quote ***

Nobody thinks about the enormous amount of faith we put into the invisible infrastructure that continuously tracks and documents our financial accounts, until that one day when things go very wrong.

For Ms. Gruntmane, a 35-year-old physician assistant, that moment came on the Friday morning before Easter, as she was getting ready to take her daughter to school. Fidelity Investments sent messages alerting her that her phone number and email address had been removed from her profile — and to contact Fidelity if she hadn’t done it.

*** and ***

From here on in, she said, she’s going to be sure to keep physical evidence of her accounts and balances in a secure place. Her tale serves as a reminder that we all should adopt that habit.

Tell us about your financial dilemma.

*** end quote ***

I’d have been stroking out.  Clearly, there’s now a case for EVERYONE to keep at least one printed statement for EVERY account you have.  Physical printed copy!

I’m going to that in conjunction with my tax return compilations. 

YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary!)

p.s., the NYT wants your horror stories.  It might help others and it may scare the Financial Institutions as well.

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MONEY: Going cashless is a very BAD situation

Saturday, April 11, 2026

FROM FACEBOOK

A cashless is a very BAD situation. We should absolutely resist it. While it may feel convenient, the amount of monitoring and control it gives the government over your money is frightening.
 
Do not give any business to businesses that don’t accept cash!
 
By the way, at this time it is illegal in NJ for most businesses to refuse to accept cash, and you can report them. They will be fined.
 
# – # – # – # – #
 
Have to look into this.
 
Robert Wood Johnson has gone cashless across all their practices and locations?
 
Argh!
 
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MONEY: Paper money has zero intrinsic value; hard money prevents chaos

Sunday, January 18, 2026

https://joehoft.com/up-in-smoke-irans-currency-totally-collapses/

UP IN SMOKE – Iran’s Currency Totally Collapses
January 13, 2026 by Joe Hoft

*** begin quote ***

The crisis for the Islamic Iranian regime just got worse as the country’s currency totally collapsed. It’s virtually worthless.

The International Business Times reports on Iran’s currency crash:

The Iranian rial has effectively collapsed, plummeting to an unprecedented low of more than 1.47 million per US dollar on unofficial markets this week. The currency crash has triggered a wave of nationwide ‘revolutionary’ protests, as the cost of basic survival spirals out of reach for millions of Iranians.

On Monday, 12 January 2026, the dollar was quoted as high as 1.47 million rials in the ‘free market’ of Tehran, marking a catastrophic decline from 2025 levels. For comparison, the rial traded at roughly 70 to the dollar during the 1979 revolution; it has now lost approximately 20,000 times its value over four decades, according to The Economic Times.

*** end quote ***

The Dead Old White Guys were very right when they said that money should only be gold or silver.  Their wisdom is on display for anyone that cares to see.

It the Iranian rial was a gold coin, then it would be very hard to start a panic.

I believe that one of the reasons that Gaddafi was deposed from Liberia was that he wanted to be paid for his oil in gold. The first time I heard about a golden dinar was when he was agitating against the Petro dollar.  His mistake was making it public.

I hope everyone has a few silver eagles stashed away for the “hard times” when they come.  And they will come because paper money always returns to its intrinsic value —  zero!  “Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.” — Voltaire 

William Rusher, the editor of the conservative National Review, quoted economist Milton Friedman as saying that “if the government were to take over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand in five years.”

“Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money.” — Daniel Webster

“But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy. Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them. Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” — George Washington

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Welcome to the age of paper money, where governments and central banks can manufacture as much money as they want without limit. Gold was the last limit. Its banishment as a standard unleashed the inflation monster and leviathan itself, which has swelled beyond comprehension.” — Llewellyn Rockwell

“He chose poorly.” A mammoth understatement by the Grail Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/quotes

What form of money do you choose to save in?

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MONEY: Spend Gold Freely Again

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

https://www.goldback.com/spend-gold-freely-again-did-we-fix-money/

Spend Gold Freely Again: Did We Fix Money?

Written by Kim Coleman, Director of Strategic Relations

*** begin quote ***

Goldback is making it possible to spend gold freely again. In this short series, we will examine how gold freedom was lost, what the Constitution authorizes and prohibits regarding gold freedom, and what steps can be taken, with your help, to make it possible to spend gold freely again.

“Specie [gold and silver coin] is the most perfect medium because it will preserve its own level; because, having intrinsic and universal value, it can never die in our hands, and it is the surest resource of reliance in time of war.”

Thomas Jefferson

The State of Money Today

Despite their best warnings, it wasn’t long before paper became the predominant currency. There is almost nothing left resembling the intent to base the nation’s monetary system on gold and silver. In fact, the government rejected it entirely when it seized private gold in 1933, ended redemption of Federal Reserve Notes for physical gold in 1934, and removed the U.S. dollar from the gold standard in 1971. This resulted in a full fiat currency system that has suffered the same issues our Founders described.

We see it. We feel it everyday. The green piece of paper we hold in our hands purchases much less than it did even five years ago—25% less!1 Americans are losing their purchasing power and hopes for future prosperity. But there are options to regain that power, and Goldbacks can play a key role in that.

*** end quote ***

Fiat Money —  paper —  allows the Gooferment to spend without restraint.

“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — Milton Friedman

“Inflation is theft, you’re stealing value from people who save money.”-Ron Paul

We don’t need ANYONE setting interest rates.  Least of all the FED!

(The Federal Reserve Bank is a misnomer. IT ain’t “federal”. It reserves nothing. And, it ain’t a “bank”. It is a private cartel of the elite banks run for their benefit and that of the entrenched politicians.)

Time to heed the wisdom of the Dead Old White Guys!

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MONEY: A dollar bill, it has no objective value

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-intelligence-outgrows?publication_id=2863167&post_id=181390292&isFreemail=true&r=58ecz2&triedRedirect=true

The Big Think Interview with Yuval Noah Harari

  • What happens when intelligence outgrows its creators
  • We built genius machines, and gave them our blind spots.

Big Think
Dec 13, 2025

*** begin quote ***

If you consider, for instance, a dollar bill, it has no objective value whatsoever, at least not for human beings. Maybe termites can eat it, but humans can’t eat dollars, they can’t drink them. There is nothing useful you can do with them. They nevertheless have value because the greatest storytellers in the world, the finance ministers, the bankers, the investors, they tell us a story that this piece of paper is has value. I can use it to buy bread or potatoes or bananas or anything else.

As long as millions of people believe in this story, they are willing to work, for instance, on constructing and nuclear reactor because at the end of the month, they get these few colorful pieces of paper. Today, of course, it’s not even paper. Most of the money in the world today is not paper notes and metal coins. It’s just digital information moving between computers. But as long as people still have trust in the story about these digital information, it works.

*** end quote ***

As the tin foil hat survivalists preach, at some point in time, “We, The Sheeple” will recognize that:

  • “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — Milton Friedman

  • “Inflation is theft, you’re stealing value from people who save money.”-Ron Paul

  • “The gold standard did not collapse. Governments abolished it in order to pave the way for inflation. The whole grim apparatus of oppression and coercion — policemen, customs guards, penal courts, prisons, in some countries even executioners — had to be put into action in order to destroy the gold standard. Solemn pledges were broken, retroactive laws were promulgated, provisions of constitutions and bills of rights were openly defied. And hosts of servile writers praised what the governments had done and hailed the dawn of the fiat-money millennium.” — Ludwig von Mises

And, when the SHTF, people will seek band aids, beans, bullets, and bullion.  The farmer, the carpenter, the electrician, and the plumber will thrive.  The politicians, bureaucrats, celebrities, and influencers will starve.

Hope I never have to live thru it.

But it seems unavoidable.

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MONEY: Remember penny candy? I do!

Thursday, November 20, 2025

https://thehill.com/homenews/nexstar_media_wire/5602348-why-the-us-is-minting-its-last-penny-and-what-happens-now/

Why the US is minting its last penny, and what happens now
by Addy Bink – 11/12/25 3:10 PM ET

*** begin quote ***

(NEXSTAR) — The day has finally come: the U.S. Mint is pressing its last pennies on Wednesday. It comes as retailers across the country are already facing empty penny slots in their cash registers.

*** end quote ***

https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2025/11/12/what-fdr-did-to-our-money/

What FDR Did to Our Money
By: Jacob Hornberger|Published on: Nov 12, 2025

*** begin quote ***

For more than 125 years, the United States had a gold-coin, silver-coin monetary system. No, it was not a paper-money system backed by gold, as so many mainstream commentators have been taught to believe. It was a system in which gold coins and silver coins were the official money of the American people.

*** end quote ***

# – # – # – # – #

Penny candy, Nickel cigars, Dime store comics, and Quarter a gallon gas!

Hopefully, this action by the mint will drive home to “We, The Sheeple” that they have been robbed of their birthright.

Prior to FDR, one could stack gold coins and save for your old age secure in the knowledge that your wealth could nit be silently stolen by the Gooferment via “inflation”.

The Dead Old White Guys knew what we have apparently forgotten as a society.  Having lived thru an era of “not worth a Continental damn”, they knew that papa money was the Devil’s spawn.  

I’ve posted many blog posts about “pony candy” and well-remember life was better when money was “honest”.

Perhaps, ₿itcoin will replace the “Federal Reserve Note”?

Save your nickels because they are the next to disappear.

Argh!

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MONEY: A suggested little L libertarian boycott of small change?

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

https://survivalblog.com/2025/10/29/survivalblog-readers-editors-snippets-236/

survivalblog.com
SurvivalBlog Readers’ & Editors’ Snippets
Pure-Gas.org has a list of gas stations that sell ethanol-free gasoline.
James Wesley Rawles
October 29, 2025

*** begin quote ***

Libertarians have many of the right answers to the problems facing the United States and need to be heard loud and clear above the confusion disseminated by the mainstream media and their lackeys in government, all bought and paid for by the crony capitalists of Wall Street.

If all of the nickels and pennies in circulation rather suddenly disappeared, it would generate a lot of media attention and curiosity on the part of the public. It would be a brilliant protest against the devaluation of our currency and the debasement of the Republic by the bankers and their ilk. Change could be made only to the nearest dime.

There are roughly 140 billion pennies and 28 billion nickels in circulation. It would “cost” only $2.8 billion dollars to remove them all from circulation. If we can find 2.8 million libertarians to each accumulate $1000 of pennies and nickels, we will be heard loud and perhaps clear. I use the quotes on “cost” to indicate that it actually could be quite profitable to remove these coins from circulation.

*** end quote ***

I’m in for that boycott!

And, the Mint is stopping making pennies soon.  Next year? 

Count me in!

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p.s., Shoprite in Marlboro is also requesting that if you have any extra pennies to spare, donate them at the customer service counter so they can continue to make proper change. 2025-Oct-31 1036

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MONEY: The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a Federal Benefit Payment?

Friday, October 24, 2025

https://x.com/michellemaxwell/status/1951822943446614464?s=12

Michelle Maxwell ™
@MichelleMaxwell

*** begin quote ***

A woman dies at age 65 before collecting one benefit check. She and her employer paid into the system for almost 50 years and she collected NOTHING. Keep in mind all the working people that die every year who were paying into the system and got nothing.

*** and ***

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”

This is NOT a benefit. It is OUR money , paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too! It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. (This should be enough for you to forward this message, If not read on.)

If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.

If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both you and your employers contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you’d have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved.

This is your personal investment. Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration.

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you’re 98 if you retire at age 65)! I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did (or Lyndon Johnson).

*** end quote ***

I love beating a “dead horse” or in this case the BIGEST Ponzi scheme.  Makes Ponzi, Made-off, and every two-bit fraudster look like a chump in the comparison.

Social Security “Insurance” is just a racist inter-generational wealth transfer (Ponzi) scheme that transfers wealth from poor minority men to rich white women. Note that if it was a privately held investment account, then upon the early death of the exemplar poor minority man, his heirs would receive his estate.  Building capital formation with his family heirs.  It could be to fund buying a house, getting an education, or invest in some productive asset.  Anything like a substantial estate of some number of millions could fund multiple priorities.

Anything would be better that allowing the Gooferment to waste the blood, sweat, and tears of the working class.

Argh!

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MONEY: Arizona GOLDBACKs Limited Early Release – Now available

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Interesting. 

Goldbacks are now coming in new denominations  —  3, 2, and ½ of a goldback. 

This to me indicates that there is some demand.  I know in Keene that at least 120 businesses are taking them.  And, not just the odd balls running businesses.  I see that there are also more merchants taking them in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.  Seems like a groundswell to upset the FRBies. 

Last time something this big happened was when Bernard von NotHaus started NORFED and the FEDs railroaded him into jail and seized all the assets. They hung their charges on the fact that he called it a “dollar”.  I wish I was on that jury. 

Notice how the folks behind the GOLDBACK have avoid that particular pothole!

Wonder how they will try to suppress this rebellion?

# – # – # – # – #

Interesting fact is that “dollar” is a corruption of the German word “Thaller” which was a one ounce silver coin minted by Joseph Thaller way back when.  So where does the FED get off usurping that word for their paper fiat junk.

# – # – # – # – #

The Federal Reserve Bank is a misnomer. IT ain’t “federal”. It reserves nothing. And, it ain’t a “bank”. It is a private cartel of the elite banks run for their benefit and that of the entrenched politicians.

# – # – # – # – #

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

So clearly, the Dead Old White Guys didn’t intend for the Federal Gooferment to issue money?

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