The following article was written on October 25. I wanted to read it over once more before publishing it, then got busy with other things and forgot about it. In the roughly six weeks that have passed since the writing of this article, the Bitcoin prices have gone from roughly $200 to over $700. There have been fluctuations, as there are with all currencies, and particularly so since this is a new currency, but the overall trend is up, and in fact, Bitcoin is skyrocketing, as we predicted. People will say, well, it is fluctuating, as if that means that it is not stable. That is a foolish view, since all currencies fluctuate, and more importantly, because the overall trend has been to astronomical growth. What other currency do you know that increased its value twenty fold in just over a year, and then increased another 400% in less than two months? That’s right, none. If you had bought Bitcoins in November of 2012, they would have cost you $10 each, and they would now be worth almost $800 each. Can you think of any other investment or currency that performs remotely as well? This is extraordinarily rare. Those who are ahead of the curve tend to catch the best opportunities, and Bitcoin is no exception. Sociology and political-economic implications aside, which are very large and possibly quite profound, Bitcoin is giant in terms of investment and savings opportunities. From what I have seen, the analysis below still holds, and in fact is re-affirmed by the accuracy of its predictions as to the continued rise of Bitcoin, which we have seen in its nearly 400% jump in six weeks. Bitcoin has great potential, in a number of important ways, and we would be wise to look more into it.
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I first came across Bitcoin from the website of Max Keiser. Since Max seems to be the single most lucid person on the planet when it comes to global finance, I thought, this must be something worth looking into. Then last night my brother-in-law started talking to me excitedly about Bitcoin, and he is a pretty smart guy, so I thought, it is definitely time to look into this. And it turns out, it is a phenomenon that is exploding. Even the habitually staid and blinkered investment community is taking notice.
(Courtesy of Getty Images)
“Bitcoins are a virtual currency that can be used to pay for goods and services around the world. To participate in the bitcoin market, one needs a digital wallet, which can be filled either by purchasing bitcoins for goods, services or currency, or by acquiring them through a complex process known as “mining.” (Better termed, “minting”.) The bitcoins can then be used to purchase goods or services, or sold on an exchange. While virtual currencies have traditionally been used to purchase illicit substances, like guns and drugs, they are now accepted by numerous legitimate businesses for everything from gift cards to jets and yachts.”
– Forbes
Until recently, Bitcoin was an obscure alternative currency that seems to have been used primarily for online trading, purchases and sales, among the few businesses and individuals who have decided to make use of it – anything from illegal drugs bought and sold on Silk Road, which the FBI just took down, to wine and muffins, as one Forbes columnist described it.
But now, Bitcoin is being accepted by pubs in Berlin as a form of payment. A Federal US judge in Texas has ruled that Bitcoins are a form of money – a bit slow on the uptake, but better late than never. And the giant internet company in China which is the peer of Google, has started to accept payment in Bitcoins. So the threshold has been reached. Bitcoin seems to have definitely arrived.
Businesses like Bitcoins because it saves them money. Using Visa or Amex as a means of financial exchange costs businesses 2-3% per transaction. That may not sound like much, but for a small business, and even for many large businesses, that can add up to large, painful costs. By comparison, businesses can accept Bitcoin as a method of payment, and it only costs them 1%. That is very attractive to business owners.
Bitcoin came under some negative press due to the Silk Road trade in illegal drugs using Bitcoin, and the price or exchange rate of Bitcoin compared to other currencies dropped for a time, but it has since risen. Business owners and investors seem to feel better now that Silk Road is gone and the currency is not associated with drug trade.
But really, that would be an insane reaction on the part of the public to shy away from Bitcoin because a few of the people who use it, use it to buy or sell drugs. The main currency used for the global drug trade was US dollars until recently, and it is still one of the two main currencies used for the trillion dollar a year illicit drug trade and the money laundering that goes with it, the Euro now being reportedly more popular among big time drug traffickers.
All of the big banks are involved with laundering drug money – hundreds of billions of dollars of it a year – and they handle drug money mainly in US dollars and Euros. But nobody says, I cannot use US dollars or Euros, because that is drug trade money. The irrationality comes out of ignorance and denial. Bitcoin, as far as I can see, is every bit as legitimate as US dollars, Euros or Yen, and probably more stable.
In fact, after the FBI raided Silk Road, they confiscated millions of dollars in Bitcoins. So the US government, and specifically the FBI, is now one of the biggest investors in Bitcoin, holding roughly five percent of the global currency. Strange bedfellows indeed.
But governments and the big banks do not tend to like Bitcoin (despite the fact that the FBI is holding billions of dollars in Bitcoins) because it threatens their control of the global financial system. So the backlash is on. However, if government and the big banks are attacking Bitcoin, then we can reasonably guess that it is because it threatens their power, and for that reason, Bitcoin may really have the potential to liberate the people from the money masters who now rule the world, or at least help in that endeavour.
“Bitcoin, an enticingly anonymous “cryptocurrency” designed to wrest the international currency system from the hands of central bankers…must face a force far larger and immensely more powerful than mere lobbyists. The status quo that cryptocurrencies threaten is the international monetary system. Its opponents are therefore the current custodians of that system — namely the governments of the world. Bitcoin was never subtle about the challenge it posed. The very first sentence of the abstract in Nakamoto’s 2008 paper promised to “allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.” The paper then described a way to originate — that is to “mine,” or perhaps more accurately to “mint” — Bitcoins. Yet history teaches that sovereigns of all stripes guard two prerogatives with particular zeal: the right to wage war and the right to mint currency. Bitcoin thus explicitly threatened one of the two fundamental, defining powers of government.”
– Bruce Abramson, Forbes
What Abramson failed to mention, in his otherwise excellent article, was that the Federal Reserve is not part of the US government. It is a private bank, controlled by the Wall Street and London banking elite. In fact, the majority of central banks in the world are private. That means that the banking elite control the printing of money, and not the people, through a publicly owned central bank, run and overseen by a democratically elected government.
The founding fathers of the United States felt so strongly about keeping control of the printing of money in the hands of the people, and not private banking elites, that they wrote it into the Constitution that no one shall have the power to print money other than Congress.
The banking elite tried to get the central bank of the US privatized early on. Thomas Jefferson fought them and defeated them. Abraham Lincoln fought them and defeated them, and some have felt that he was assassinated for that reason. Andrew Jackson fought them and defeated them, and also took a bullet for it, but lived. He even had it written on his tombstone: “I killed the bank.”
Then, as the History Channel and others have recounted the story, The Money Masters, the most powerful business elites in the US, met together on Jeckyl Island, and hatched the plan to finally succeed in gaining control over the money supply. Woodrow Wilson was duped into going along with it, and in 1917 signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, which created the private central bank which became known as the Federal Reserve. Woodrow Wilson later came to profoundly regret his error, and said that he had effectively destroyed his country without knowing it.
Now the control of the money supply and the right to print money is in the hands of the banking elite – and whoever controls the money, effectively controls the nation – or, by now, the world.
It used to be the case that “He who holds the gold makes the rules.” But after the US unilaterally abolished the gold standard, things have changed. Now the fact of the matter is this: he who controls the printing of money rules the world. And that makes the banks very happy. It should make the rest of us shudder.
As US President James Garfield said, “He who controls the money supply controls the nation.”
Or as one of the members of the leading banking elite family dynasties in the world, Mayer Amschel Rothschild said, “Give me control of a nations money and I care not who makes the laws.”
Or as the former Prime Minister of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King said, “Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation’s laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”
Reclaiming control over the money we use to buy and sell and trade, is therefore of supreme importance. Bitcoin may indeed become a part of the answer to that central and critical task.
The more central task is for the people to reclaim their governments and their democracy, and having done that, to restore the power to print money to the hands of the people, through a public central bank, owned and governed by the people through their elected representatives in Congress or Parliament. All talk of social change, justice, democracy or freedom is both idle and futile until and unless this is recognized and acted upon.
But let’s have some more history and information on Bitcoin before we consider such monumental changes to our world, and the potential liberation of human beings from the banking elite who now dominate the planet and effectively rule the earth. (See the Swiss systems analysis study, which I have written about earlier, and which confirmed that a handful of corporations, mainly banks, effectively dominate the entire world economy, if there is any doubt as to the accuracy of such a statement.)
The alternative currency known as Bitcoin has seen its price rise from $10 per Bitcoin in November 2012, to over $200 in less than a year. While other currencies are highly unstable for a number of reasons – including the US dollar, the Euro, the British Pound, and also the Canadian dollar, which is foolishly tied far too closely to the US dollar and the US economy – Bitcoin may prove to be much more stable. It does not compare to gold or silver for stability, but it may prove to be a safer bet than the paper money which the global economy now floats on, which is a bubble that is about to soon burst.
(see my previous articles on the rise and fall of the petrodollar, the global economic crisis, and one that I think was titled, Stock broker shocks BBC reporter, saying, The collapse is coming, and Goldman Sachs rules the world.)
I have only begun to look into Bitcoin, but it certainly seems to show some promise, and definitely warrants further investigation, for anyone who does not want to see their bank account or their money go up in puff of smoke when the paper currencies fall, as they most assuredly will.
(See Max Keiser and Gerald Cenente for more on this.)
What we definitely need is an alternative currency which is stable and can be used for savings, purchases, sales and trade at the local level, nationally and also internationally. The presently ruling paper currencies are simply unstable and unreliable, as anyone knows who has looked into the subject in any depth. Gold and silver are stable and hold their value well, but it would be far more convenient to trade in an electronic currency than in gold or silver coins. Bitcoin just might provide a much needed, and in fact, an urgently needed solution.
Until and unless national governments, or local communities, create stable currencies which are not pure fiction, and which have more value than the paper they are not printed on, we need an alternative currency. And probably even after governments get their financial acts together, alternative currencies will remain important, as a safeguard. Do not put all your eggs in one basket.
The US dollar is definitely going to crash, and when it does, it will bring down virtually all other currencies in a cascading collapse, because all of the central banks of the world are chocked to the gills with US dollars as reserves. The shell game of moving money from one currency to another will not save us, nor will it last much longer.
This all seems inconceivable to most people, and cryptic as well as unbelievable. But it is easily understood. A fourth grader can understand it, if it is explained in simple terms and the official jargon and doublespeak is stripped away.
Look at what happened in the Weimar Republic. The German government was in debt, and started printing money at an accelerating pace to pay the debt, until finally, the value of the currency collapsed, and you literally had to take a wheelbarrow of money to the store to buy a loaf of bread. That is what is coming. Your money will soon be worthless.
The over-printing of money always devalues and ultimately destroys a currency. And that is exactly what the US Federal Reserve and the other major central banks are doing. As Max Keiser said, the paper money apocalypse is coming. And as Gerald Celente has said, it will mean a greater depression than the Great Depression.
To give the Fed some credit, they simply have no choice, or so they believe, but to continue to dump billions of dollars a month into the economy – namely, by flying a helicopter over Wall Street and shoveling money out the door: dumping billions of dollars a day into the biggest banks to keep them afloat, and in the process, keeping afloat the deceitful and dishonest ideology of trickle-down economics. (Trickle-down should really be called trickle-on: the money goes to the rich, and the poor and middle class never see it – they just get yellow rain.)
The Fed seems to believe they have no choice but to do what they are doing, because if they stopped dumping money into the economy, the economy would collapse. And they are right. They could give billions a day to home-owners and citizens, and stimulate the economy that way, but they choose to give it to themselves – the banking elite. But one way or another, they have to keep pumping money into the economy to keep it from collapsing.
But – and here is the catch – by pumping money into the economy, they have to first have money from somewhere to put into it, and as they lack that – or at least, they are unwilling to use their own multi-trillion dollar private assets which sit in offshore accounts – they have to resort to printing money out of thin air. And when you print money out of thin air, you devalue the currency. So the Fed is printing money like there is no tomorrow, in order to prop up the economy and keep it from collapsing, but in doing so, they are devaluing the currency, which is guaranteeing that the currency will collapse. By trying to stave off a major market readjustment, meaning, an economic collapse and a depression, they are guaranteeing that when the collapse does come, it will be utterly severe and simply catastrophic in its impact.
They know this perfectly well. They know full well that their wild printing of money is going to cause the dollar, sooner or later, to be devalued, and to collapse, as holders of US dollars and Treasury Bonds lose confidence in the currency, for obvious reasons, and begin to divest themselves of this worthless paper.
The sell off which will ensue as the world flees the sinking US dollar will mean the dollar will become worth only one or two percent of its present value. This is exactly what happened in the Wiemar Republic, when precisely the same pattern of over-printing money brought on radical devaluation of the currency, and the German Mark became worth only one one-thousandth of its former value, and hyper-inflation set in.
Of course, when a depression hits, the financial and business elite have an orgy of looting and a feeding frenzy, buying up real estate, businesses, factories, farms, homes and other assets at fire sale prices, so they are perfectly happy with this result.
The banking elite love disaster – they feed off of it. So do not think the Fed or the rest of the banking elite are going to protect you from an economic collapse. They are the ones bringing it on, and they are the ones who are going to benefit astronomically from it when it comes.
Ben Bernanke said of the last Great Depression, and the role of the Fed and the private banking elite who control it, in that Depression, “We did it.” The banking elite who control the Federal Reserve and the money supply created a credit bubble by flooding the country with cheap money and credit, then they pulled the plug and burst the bubble, by contracting credit and cutting off the money supply. The result was the Great Depression. Massive human suffering was created across the Western world, but the super-rich got even richer, so they won, while everyone else lost.
We should take a lesson from history, and not allow the money masters, or “the monied aristocracy”, as Thomas Jefferson called the banking elite, to do this again. But I am afraid that the people are not yet sufficiently awake, or awake in sizable enough numbers, to reclaim their power before the manufactured disaster is upon them; therefore, I would say that the collapse will not likely be avoided, and that it is a virtual fact, due to the passivity of the people themselves.
The paper money we rely on is going to fail us. You can be sure of that. We had better start thinking about what we would do if our paper money becomes worthless, because it is going to.
Gold and silver are the smartest places to put your money, next to land you can garden on, and mortgage-free, rent-free accommodation. But Bitcoin may well be the next best place to diversify savings, and not have them disappear.
There are other alternative currencies, such as LETS, Ithaca Dollars, Toronto Dollars, etc, and they definitely merit attention as well. Most of them are strictly local currencies however, and they probably will need a secondary currency of some form for inter-community, national and international trade, even if they ever do become the main currency in use in a given town, city, county or region. Again, Bitcoin may bridge that gap.
But again, I am new to the phenomenon, so while the need for a stable alternative currency is real and great, even urgent, whether or not Bitcoin fits the bill is something I am not yet sure of. Do your own research, would be my recommendation. It is my recommendation for every topic, in any case.
In sum, the importance of Bitcoin, if it really does prove to be a stable currency, is that it is stable, while all others – with the exception of gold and silver – are not. That means that it may prove to be a safe haven, and a way that we can continue to buy and sell and trade goods and services – to get paid for our labour and to buy things we need – after the paper money collapses.
It is definitely strongly advisable to shift money from paper money to land, tools, solar panels, wind power, seeds and garden tools, and secondarily, into gold and silver. It may be very smart to look more into Bitcoin as well, and I would say it would be wise to invest in Bitcoins as well.
Two new phenomena may end up transforming the world of banking, money and finance, and they are crowd-sourced funding and Bitcoin. The former is a definite strong contender as a catalyst for serious, major social change. Bitcoin my turn out to be the sister element to a whole new global economy, but again, I would have to look into it much more to say that with any confidence. Right now, it seems to be just a possibility – one scenario among many that could unfold in the near future.
As Forbes said, “Smart money always bets on government in the short term and technology in the long term.” The government seems too big to fail, but we know from history that governments can and do fail, and their currencies and economies as well. Look at France in the late 18th century: the government was in serious debt, and the Treasury finally went bust – that was the trigger which brought on the French Revolution. In Germany under the Wiemar Republic, the government failed utterly, the currency collapsed, and instead of a popular revolution, the German people and the world got fascism and the Nazis. So things can go either way when governments, currencies or economies collapse – a liberating revolution may ensue, or we may end up with tyranny and fascism, depending on how the people react. But what is certain, however it unfolds and whatever follows, is that collapse can and does happen. And it is coming.
Whatever you do, take your money out of banks, put it in credit unions and co-op banks, or better, in a safe – and divest yourself completely of your paper money, keeping only as much as you need for liquidity, and daily or monthly purchases, and putting the rest into something safe: like land, tools, silver and gold, and maybe Bitcoins as a minor element as well.
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What is the significance of Bitcoin?
Security, Investment, and Revolution
Bitcoin seems to me to have three major points of significance as a social phenomenon. First, it offers people increased material security. The paper currencies which now dominate the global economy and which people rely on to buy their daily bread and whatever else they may want or need and can afford, if they can afford it, are simply unstable. In fact, with the currency wars that are being waged now, currencies are being systematically devalued, which means the purchasing power of paper money, or fiat currency, as it is properly called, is shrinking, prices are rising in relation to purchasing power, which is called inflation, of course; and worst of all, with the fiat money paper currencies being systematically devalued, they are guaranteed to collapse, and soon. Bitcoins are not subject to such radical devaluation or collapse, because they are in limited supply, unlike the paper money which is being printed in the trillions of dollars. So Bitcoins can be used as a safe place to store money when virtually all other forms of investment and all paper monies are extremely unstable and heading for collapse. That is the first significance of Bitcoin – it provides increased financial and material, economic security for people who are smart enough, or have enough foresight, to make use of it.
Secondly, Bitcoin offers investment opportunity. Bitcoin’s value has risen 200% over the past year. The New York Stock Exchange is at an all-time low in relation to Bitcoin. While the paper money of fiat currencies approach collapse, and the global economy approaches collapse, meaning most investments and also savings will be wiped out, Bitcoin remains strong and continues to rise in value, along with gold and silver. Bitcoins were trading at a price of just over $10 in November of 2012. As of this October they are selling for over $200. [As noted, this figure is as of October 25, 2013, when this article was written. When the article was reviewed by the author on December 10, 2013, the value of Bitcoins had risen to nearly $800.] With a limited supply of Bitcoins and falling values of paper money currencies, the price of Bitcoins is likely to rise to over $1,000.
Remember that I advised people to invest in gold and silver in 2006, when I warned that an economic collapse was coming – predicting the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, while virtually everyone was saying that things are just rosy. Silver and gold have doubled and tripled their value since then, respectively, and of course, the severe global economic crisis that I predicted did hit, and hit severely. So when I say, buy Bitcoins, and buy gold and silver, there is a proven track record of accurate predictions to back that up. This is not coming out of thin air.
Thirdly, Bitcoin may prove to be truly revolutionary. That word is wildy over-used, and used to puff and promote and hype everything from toothpaste to toilet paper, but in this case, it just may apply. We will see. Bitcoin certainly has the potential to challenge the global dominance of the banking elite in their world hegemony over the global economy and monetary system. If enough people start to use Bitcoin, then it could empower the people, while reducing the excessive powers of the global financial elite; and this, in combination with other grassroots political and economic actions, could actually bring about a much-needed revolution. Bitcoin could be one more powerful tool which the people have, with which to reclaim their power, and to dethrone the bankers and other business elites who have essentially taken over the global economy as well as the political parties, governments, media and nations of the world.
Can Bitcoin be stopped? The banking and corporate elite, and their henchmen in government certainly would like to stop it, since it threatens their power, their global dominance and their astronomically high profits, but I don’t see how it can be stopped. Bitcoin, like the internet, has no single focal point, but rather it is distributed and decentralized. The internet was built by the Pentagon’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to be a fail-safe that could not be destroyed, by reason that if one node goes down, data would flow through another route, as Max Keiser has also described. Being based on the internet and being decentralized, Bitcoin is the same. The only way Bitcoin could be stopped, Max said, would be to shut down the entire internet – but even then, Bitcoin could work offline, on thumb drives. So Bitcoin appears to be unstoppable. And it is exploding in growth, with people using it every day all around the world.
Whether or not Bitcoin helps to spark a revolution, it certainly tips the scales back in favour of the people, and away from the global business elite, and that is most definitely a good thing. It is one more way that the people can empower themselves.
And in the process, it can also give people more economic security and improved material well-being, and in these uncertain and difficult times, that is also a very good thing.
J. Todd Ring,
October 25, 2013
Forbes has some interesting articles on Bitcoin here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/10/23/five-possible-reasons-for-bitcoins-most-recent-surge/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2013/10/24/why-this-entrepeneur-thinks-bitcoins-are-here-to-stay/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/08/the-bitcoin-backlash-is-underlay-by-a-quivering-status-quo/
But don’t take Forbes word as gospel, of course. Far better, listen to what Max Keiser has to say about Bitcoin – the man who has the most-watched financial analysis TV show on the planet, the most widely trusted financial analyst in the world, the insider’s insider who wrote the software for the New York Stock Exchange, and probably the person who understands the global financial system better than anyone alive.
Max Keiser on Bitcoin Currency | Interview with Max Keiser
Is Bitcoin money? – Max Keiser
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-keiser/is-bitcoin-money_b_2849031.html
Writings of J. Todd Ring 