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IrishGold | 11-04-2003 12:12 PM
Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! LibertyDollarVille: Where The Revolution Has Begun! http://sierratimes.com/03/11/03/ar_alfii.htm By Wayne Hicks It seems that not a day goes by anymore without me receiving at least a half dozen emails from people who want to know when the revolution will begin. When will we, the People, finally wake up to the abuse of power we suffer at the hands of our "elected representatives" in government? When will we grow tired of having our rights violated, raped and plundered by those to whom we have entrusted power and authority? When will we stop 'putting up with it all', just to avoid the dangers that might confront us? My reply has lately been that, at least here in Northwest Arkansas, we've already gotten to that point. No, we haven't lynched any politicians (although I'm certain that there are many around here who wonder if we might). We haven't fired a single shot at anyone, we haven't barricaded any 'compounds', we haven't staged any standoffs; and yet, here in this little area I often refer to as New America, thousands of people are participating in a revolution against the evils of a corrupt government and its corrupt and fraudulent financial system. The reason is value-- the people here are rediscovering what real value, and real money, are all about;and the weapon of choice is a 'silver bullet' called the Liberty Dollar, which is in regular circulation here. The revolution began over a year ago, when I was faced with a need for prescription medicines for my wife, Lori. We had no money at the time, and our meager living was made on the Internet, where I had just launched www.ALFII.com . Since I have been a supporter of the Liberty Dollar concept for some time, I had agreed to accept Liberty Dollars for membership in the organization, and at this particular time, I had just received three Silver Libertys as partial payment for a new member. Nervously, I approached the local Wal-Mart pharmacy, and asked if they would take them, since the prescriptions I needed to fill cost almost exactly thirty dollars� and after some moments of checking with this person and that, they said "Yes!" Over the next few months, I spent Libertys there on every occasion, and since ALFII was growing, and I was receiving more and more of them, I often bought all of my groceries using the beautiful silver pieces. Then, as Christmas approached, I received a large supply of Libertys, and happily went to Wal-Mart to buy gifts for my family. I spent slightly over fifteen hundred dollars that night, and as I walked out to my car to carry the gifts home, I noticed squad cars rushing into the parking lot, and went back inside to find out what was going on. Now, as I made my purchase, a new young man asked me where I'd gotten the Libertys, and I told him honestly, and then handed him my business card which he was passing on to the officers as I entered the store again, saying, "He got away before we could catch him!" I identified myself to the officers, and then learned that same day, a bank in a nearby town had been robbed, and the clerk naturally thought it suspicious that someone would, that day, spend so many shiny new coins! Of course, the officers knew that this was not the product of any bank robbery, and the incident ended in excellent humor, but the very next morning, after Wal-Mart's headquarters were told about the incident, they ordered the store to accept no more Liberty Dollars. I was heartbroken. I had begun to feel very good about using money that had real value. I tried to negotiate Wal-Mart into taking them again, and even got to talk to their vice president of finance, but all to no avail. In the meantime, though, I had devised a plan, and began approaching local merchants about accepting Liberty Dollars, offering to 'buy back' any excess they might get. My first Liberty Merchant was a small company that owned a couple of convenience stores, and I was on my way. Over the next few months, I added more and more merchants to the list, and by June we were over thirty of them! Almost anything I needed, I could buy with Liberty Dollars, and the merchants were passing them back into circulation by giving them out in change. About that time, Bernard von NotHaus, the man who created the Liberty Dollar, came to Berryville to see what I had accomplished, and the result was that, a couple of months later, the Liberty Dollar Organization revised its entire business model to recreate what we had done. The Liberty Dollar now has a Digital Counterpart, as well, so that you can spend it at more and more places online, and even convert it back to US Dollars, via the ICIS Money Order system (http://icis.alfii.com) when you need to pay your light bill or mortgage! Now, today, with over one hundred merchants accepting the Liberty Dollar here locally, our area has reached a point where it remains in steady circulation. The local Chamber of Commerce freely admits that the Liberty Dollar has improved the economy of the county, and has agreed to use the fact that we are Number One in circulating Liberty Dollars in promotion of the City of Berryville and the rest of Carroll County. Two small manufacturers are looking us over with an eye towards relocating in a community where they can pay their employees, at least in part, with Liberty Dollars. I now have no less than three businesses here locally, and the employees of each are paid partly in Liberty Dollars, with one girl asking for all of her pay in Silver. Liberty Dollar supporters are popping up fairly often now, simply as tourists who enjoy spending their 'real money' without having to explain it to each person they show it to, and they often drop in to say hello while they're here. LibertyDollarVille is the new, promotional name of this historic town (it was burnt not just once during the civil war, but twice; once by each side!), and Berryville wears that name with pride! For, you see, here in LibertyDollarVille, we know one thing for sure: if you want to put the government back under the control of the People, then the first step has to be getting the money out of the control of the government, and since we are now able to use real, Silver-backed Liberty Dollars-- instead of Federal Reserve Debt Notes-- we're already on the road to re-securing our freedoms! LibertyDollarVille: where value is returning to life - one Liberty Dollar at a time!

IrishGold | 11-04-2003 12:16 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Here is the website for the Liberty Dollar http://www.norfed.org

drafter | 11-04-2003 05:12 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! I guess I'm confused. The article makes it sound like they are actually using silver dollars. Are they exchanging them for face value or the value of the silver? If they are exchanging them for face value, then of course the merchants are probably happy to take them creating an instant profit for themselves. Am I missing something here? If I was short on cash I don't think I'd be using my silver eagles at face value to buy things at the inflated federal reserve note prices.

Ander | 11-04-2003 05:37 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Could someone explain how this works? The bills arent silver, but are backed by silver? Are they backed by a certain quantity of silver, and do the creators of the bills actually have this silver, in physical form, to back it with (which would be essential for it to be true money)? For this to work correctly, each liberty dollar would have to be backed by some amount of silver (say 1/5th ounce), which would not fluctuate with the price of silver. This silver would have to exist safely in a warehouse(s) somewhere, owned by the creators (printers of the money) of the liberty dollars. If thats all true, then this is pretty awesome, and its good to see its catching on somewhere.

Ander | 11-04-2003 05:41 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Also, I note a problem. If this is truly backed by some fixed amount of silver, and thus inflation prrof, it effectively acts like a foreign currency. If the price of silver were to rise, this currency must rise in terms of U.S. dollars (or else everyone would convert U.S. Dollars to these, convert that to silver, convert that to U.S. dollars and profit, and repeat). So a currency exchange fix of 1 liberty dollar to 1 us dollar would not work...there would have to be an exchange rate,that people would know, if they existed in a system using paritally liberty dollars / partially U.S. dollars, and the silver price changes significantly. And of course, if its backed by 1 U.S. dollar of silver, then it doesnt have this problem, but is meaningless.

IrishGold | 11-04-2003 05:46 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! These are not the "silver dollars" or Silver Eagles as we know them. These are Liberty dollars. I will have to advise everyone that have questions, go to the website http://www.norfed.org and ask them. That's why it was posted.

Ander | 11-04-2003 05:51 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Ah, I see that the website adresses many of my questions. Thanks ;)

Ander | 11-04-2003 07:01 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! This is actually extremely interesting... Looks like there is already a growing, silver backed currency, which would likely begin to receive a lot of press if the FRN's start to suffer from high inflation. Very cool.

Halophyte | 11-05-2003 11:53 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! I believe the Libety Dollar is fixed to the fiat dollar - its backing (physical silver) floats in volume to the Liberty Dollar according to comex price. As the POS rises there's less physical silver needed to back the Liberty Dollar and visa versa. Am I correct in this assumption?

IrishGold | 11-05-2003 12:20 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Based on these three quotes from their website, I would say you are correct. Quote:
The new Silver Certificates fit in the cash register and function in the marketplace on a dollar-to-dollar basis with Federal Reserve Notes.
Quote:
The Liberty Dollar is a warehouse receipt for a specific weight of pure .9999 fine gold or .999 fine silver that is stored in a warehouse in accordance with the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). The warehouse receipt is your proof of ownership, which means if you hold the receipt, you own that gold and silver.
Quote:
Liberty Dollar silver certificates fit in the cash register and function on a 1-to-1 basis with the Federal Reserve Notes so they are easy for businesses to use.
But then, wouldn't the obverse of that be the same problem if you were circulating real gold and real silver? A gallon of milk is FRN$3.00 which, at FRN$5.00/oz. silver, would be 3/5ths of an oz. However, if POS goes to FRN$6.00, milk is now only 1/2 oz. of silver or, as the POS fluctuates, so does the price of milk? Which will it be?

Ander | 11-05-2003 10:35 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! I investigated the site a lot, since this was my main question. It actually is not completely pegged to the fiat dollar, rather, it is loosely pegged, and revalues each time silver has a significant price change. Read the section on the site "what happens when silver reaches 10$" or something like that. When silver gets near 10$, they issue a new set of silver certificates, which have "20$ silver" basis printed on them, instead of the current "10$ basis". The new certificates are equivalent to dollars at a 1:1 rate. The old 10$ silver notes are stil redeemable for 1/10 ounce of silver, the new ones for 1/20th ounce. People can trade them in for new bills, or (for a while) use the old ones, remebering to do the multiplication of value (provided both parties agree).

Savannah | 01-27-2004 05:20 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Quote:
Originally Posted by Ander I investigated the site a lot, since this was my main question. It actually is not completely pegged to the fiat dollar, rather, it is loosely pegged, and revalues each time silver has a significant price change. Read the section on the site "what happens when silver reaches 10$" or something like that. When silver gets near 10$, they issue a new set of silver certificates, which have "20$ silver" basis printed on them, instead of the current "10$ basis". The new certificates are equivalent to dollars at a 1:1 rate. The old 10$ silver notes are stil redeemable for 1/10 ounce of silver, the new ones for 1/20th ounce. People can trade them in for new bills, or (for a while) use the old ones, remebering to do the multiplication of value (provided both parties agree).
Correction and clarification: The current "$10" silver certificate may be redeemed at the bearer's demand for one (full) ounce of .999 silver. When the base price of silver maintains a level of $7.50 for thirty consecutive days, the $20" silver certificate becomes the circulating "one ounce base" certificate. The $20 silver certificate has been designed and is sitting on the shelf for future use, if necessary. American Liberty Dollar (ALD) also circulates $5 and $1 silver certificates and a $500 gold certificate (as well as a one ounce gold piece). The $5 silver certificate is redeemable for one-half ounce of .999 silver. A $5 (one-half ounce) silver piece circulates also. Although the $1 silver certificate is redeemable for 1/10th ounce of silver, I would suspect most bearers of $1 silver certificates would group them in tens, if redeeming, and take the one ounce piece. I hope ALD considers additional gold certificates with lower denominations than $500, such as $50 and $100 gold certificates. I'll leave ALD to work out the details; they seem to have done a good job so far.

IrishGold | 01-27-2004 05:38 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Quote:
Originally Posted by Savannah Correction and clarification: The current "$10" silver certificate may be redeemed at the bearer's demand for one (full) ounce of .999 silver. When the base price of silver maintains a level of $7.50 for thirty consecutive days, the $20" silver certificate becomes the circulating "one ounce base" certificate. The $20 silver certificate has been designed and is sitting on the shelf for future use, if necessary. American Liberty Dollar (ALD) also circulates $5 and $1 silver certificates and a $500 gold certificate (as well as a one ounce gold piece). The $5 silver certificate is redeemable for one-half ounce of .999 silver. A $5 (one-half ounce) silver piece circulates also. Although the $1 silver certificate is redeemable for 1/10th ounce of silver, I would suspect most bearers of $1 silver certificates would group them in tens, if redeeming, and take the one ounce piece. I hope ALD considers additional gold certificates with lower denominations than $500, such as $50 and $100 gold certificates. I'll leave ALD to work out the details; they seem to have done a good job so far.
Yes it sounds good, unfortunately it is still "a promise to pay" not "real money."

Joejeweler | 01-28-2004 10:54 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Yeah.....i'd still like it better IF a town somewhere started using 90% silver in it's everyday commerce.....with the rate of exchange based on market forces! Sure would improve the math skills of some of the young folks today! Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishGold Yes it sounds good, unfortunately it is still "a promise to pay" not "real money."

lhslancers | 01-28-2004 11:07 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Not enough of the stuff around Joe. That is unless you release some of that hoard you're holding. :haha:

Joejeweler | 01-28-2004 11:23 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Hehehe......like Irish i'm planning on "spending" it! There would be plenty for a small town or two.......only criteria for moving into the area is you have some real money available. ........my local dealer just let me know today that last week he brought down 11 Bags of 90% to his New Jersey refiner. He still had seven bags left today before i took three.......but those 11 bags are gone forever, as i doubt the refiner will market them as bags. This dealer did mention he would have kept them if he knew i was going to get so much! :ARMS1: Refiners do have the feduciary responsibility(i would think?)to deliver payment for the actual silver content, though it wouldn't bother me if i submitted bags to a refiner and they accurately weighed the coin and paid me 90% less a reasonable charge as IF they had actually refined it. This would keep all junk silver in circulation, though lower the availability of 1000 ounce good delivery bars for Comex! .....shame so much of it gets lost forever thru large dealers thinking they're overstocked sometimes. Oh.....while i was there this tall skinny young guy comes in and i was behind the counter with the owner/friend and he mentioned that kid was the one who bought over $400,000.00 worth of refiner bars last month! He was back for another 42K worth, and the dealer said he was probably getting a bit short on cash. Seems he inheritated the dough recently...... ........what a lucky guy......but being as he was about 19 years old i'll give him credit for having a lot more smarts and nerve than a lot of his generation! :albertein Quote:
Originally Posted by lhslancers Not enough of the stuff around Joe. That is unless you release some of that hoard you're holding. :haha:

Savannah | 02-11-2004 12:03 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishGold Yes it sounds good, unfortunately it is still "a promise to pay" not "real money."
I understand your reply and agree. Thomas Jefferson said that paper money ostensibly backed by specie is only the "ghost" of real money. I guess that Federal Reserve Notes are truly spiritual!! For information, I have learned that clearly 70 percent of the circulating American Liberty Dollars are real silver and gold pieces. The paper certificates (clearly shown as a warehouse receipt) merely provide for the need for consumer convenience of light-weight (paper) silver. The certificate's information reflects a "bailee" relationship, rather than a bank's promise to redeem in specie. The audit posted on ALD's website demonstrates that all silver and gold certificates cannot be issued without 100% silver and gold backing. That is, if every holder of a silver and/or gold certificate sent them to ALD to redeem them, American Liberty Dollar has the specie in the vault to do so. Many of the goldsmith-bankers of 17th century England started out this way, but evolved into fractional reserve (gold reserve) lending. I hope that ALD doesn't evolve in that direction. They do not appear to be interested in banking/lending.

Halophyte | 02-11-2004 09:55 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! >The paper certificates (clearly shown as a warehouse receipt) merely provide for the need for consumer convenience of light-weight (paper) silver. Yes !!! It's a non-fractional reserve currency. 100% backed by silver. .

shawndubya | 02-17-2004 12:04 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! I haven't been to Berryville aka LibertyDollarVille, but have heard it's pretty neat, everyone accepting real money. Austin is starting to become another of the towns where it's starting to kick off. The http://www.austinlibertymerchants.org site has a list of the places in Austin where they accept the Liberty Dollar 1-to-1 with FRN (or sometimes gives a discount!) It's a very small percentage of all the places in Austin, but it's still impressive to see the number of places which accept it. shawn.

Dissipate | 02-17-2004 02:57 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Folks this is how the liberty dollar works. NORFED let's you exchange FRNs dollar for dollar for ALDs, however the silver that you can redeem with ALDs is worth less than the face value of the ALD. Also, the $10 silver piece only has 1 oz. of silver in it which of course is only worth about $6.50. This is how NORFED makes money. For every dollar that it exchanges for an ALD it only has to have 1/10 of an ounce of silver in its warehouse. However, the ALD network is based upon liberty dollar redemption centers that are located all over the U.S. The way these centers work is they buy ALDs from NORFED but they get a 5% discount on them. In other words they pay 95 cents for every 1 ALD. Then people come into their shop and exchange FRNs for ALDs on a one to one basis, so they pick up a 5% profit. Even though the centers are not obligated to exchange ALDs for FRNs a lot of them do anyways. So you can go into one of them and get FRNs for your ALDs. The center takes a hit on this transaction but I think they provide this service so that people don't think that there is any funny business going on, the ALD has to be redeemable for people to have faith in them (at least in its infancy). NORFED itself never redeems ALDs except for the silver or gold that the certificate entitles you to. So that's how it works, NORFED's merchants rely on the fact that ALDs will remain in circulation and not be redeemed for FRNs very often. In this respect it is kind of like fractional reserve banking, but keep a couple things in mind. They only make a 5% profit on this, they aren't loaning out ALDs hand over fist. NORFED itself is not involved in any lending or fractional reserve stuff either, as far as I know. So it seems to be legit. I did a lot of searching online to try to dig up dirt on NORFED but couldn't find anything. In my opinion Berryville has to watch out for the feds though. If companies are starting to pay employees with ALDs the feds might start to get upset because they would think that tax evasion is going on. Consider this, if ALDs are in full circulation in Berryville, companies could pay their employees with ALDs which could then be spent in any number of shops. These ALDs would never be deposited in a bank or even EVER see the inside of a bank and the only record that there would be of them would be in private company records. In any event it will be interesting to see how the feds react. If the feds over-react and start investigating companies that pay employees with ALDs they could make martyrs out of the NORFED folks which would give the feds a lot of bad publicity which would make ALDs even more popular. Consider this, since ALDs are completely outside the banking system when people use them they help keep inflation down. Its actually a positive thing.

shawndubya | 02-17-2004 10:10 AM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! In general that's about right. However the whole argument of "worth" is a bit off. An ALD with one ounce of silver is "worth" 6.50 (wow, 6.67!) like a loaf of bread is "worth" the wheat that is inside it, and a $1 greenback is "worth" 4 cents. The reason a $1 greenback is "worth" a "dollar" is that people accept that it can be exchanged for a dollars-worth of goods or services. ALD works the same way: 1ALD is worth whatever can be exchanged for that, and it so happens to be a dollars-worth of goods or services. The problem with a greenback is that its value can decline to just about nothing since it is backed by something; the bottom limit of the ALD is the melt value of the silver inside it, and so will in reality NEVER be worth nothing. Sure, you've still lost 50% of its value, but it's better than losing 100% of a greenback's dollar. And certainly ALD is not for keeping and putting away -- its one and only purpose is circulation. If you want to store money for investment, better do 90% or something similar. shawn.

Dissipate | 02-17-2004 02:01 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Quote:
Originally Posted by shawndubya And certainly ALD is not for keeping and putting away -- its one and only purpose is circulation. If you want to store money for investment, better do 90% or something similar. shawn.
Right, this should be stressed more. A lot of people confuse the ALD with silver investments, it isn't intended for this at all. Its a currency which is meant to be spent sooner, rather than later. If you were to use the ALD as an investment vehicle you would pay big premiums on the silver. That's ridiculous. Get them and spend them like you do with FRNs. The biggest bonus to me about the ALD is that it is completely outside fractional reserve banking. So when you use them you know it won't end up in a bank and then loaned out for huge interest. Some people probably consider the fact that banks don't accept them as a detriment, I think of it as the exact opposite. Its a great bonus! The banks will probably never accept them because they can't get the Federal Reserve or NORFED to print 10 of them up when someone deposits 1 ALD.

shawndubya | 02-17-2004 05:36 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Quote:
Originally Posted by Dissipate If you were to use the ALD as an investment vehicle you would pay big premiums on the silver. That's ridiculous.
I completely agree. It's about as ridiculous as taking cash and storing it in a bank. Wait, hold on ........... :2in1:

Paine Reliver | 05-18-2007 03:11 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! :smile: . . .

Tragedy Trousers | 05-18-2007 04:33 PM
Re: Silver dollars circulating in Arkansas! Interesting that their webpage is still active then. http://www.myicis.com

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