Month: May 2011

Fiat Money of the Past, Part 4

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 19 of 31 in the series 2011B

Fiat Money in the American Colonies

If someone wanted to create a control group to experiment with differing forms of alternative money it would be difficult to put together a better set of ingredients than existed in the colonial times of the American continent. Their situation was a little like the group in the parable who didn’t have the gold. They had to improvise.

We must remember that England, France and other nations were not investing in America out of the spirit of good will – just to help them advance into prosperity and freedom. Just the opposite is true. They didn’t give a hoot about the comfort the colonists may or may not have had. Instead, they were in it for the money – the profit.

The dominant mother country, England, did everything in its power to insure the maximum amount of gold and silver that found its way into the colonies was shipped back home. Essential goods and taxes had to be paid in coin yet the flow was one way, for English laws prohibited sending coins to America and even discouraged colonies from trading with each other. England wanted all available commodity wealth for herself with as little as possible going to the colonies. Most of the gold and silver money that found its way to the colonies came from pirates or trade with the Spanish West Indies. Other coins came from the Netherlands, the German States, France and other foreign countries. In turn, many of these coins went back to England.

This illustrates one of the weaknesses of gold and silver money. Their quantity can be manipulated so those gaining the favor of the bankers and powers-that-be have all the advantages whereas a lesser power such as the colonies have a monetary famine.

Fortunately, the colonies did not just roll over and play dead, or America as we know it may have never been. Their independent spirit shined forth in their creation of numerous alternative and fiat currencies that allowed them to prosper and continue their growth.

They tried using various non-metallic commodities as money but people wanted to pay with the least desirable available and this caused problems. They tried monetizing tobacco but the different quantities available from the various harvests created inflation and deflation. In 1639 when a bumper crop threatened severe inflation they decided to burn half the crop. What a waste!

Something else had to be done or it seemed the colonies would turn into a poor man’s slave camp whose only purpose was to serve the crown.

One of the not so well known experiments with non metallic money were bills of exchange where farmers or manufacturers could use bills drawn up for the promised sale of products and use these like cash in trading or purchasing.

Another item used as money were “shop notes,” also called “notes of hand.” When a merchant sold some something on credit he drew up one of these notes and often traded it to someone else for other items he needed just as if it were money.

Massachusetts was the first to come up with the fiat paper money solution in 1690. They printed paper bills from copper plates, which were called bills of credit. These were promissory notes based on no present commodity, but a future delivery and supported by the full faith and credit of the government. This allowed the colonists to buy supplies and pay labor so agriculture and production could move forward.

Within ten years other colonies saw the new prosperity in Massachusetts through this fiat currency and a number of variations appeared in Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

The Massachusetts money was at first issued in moderate amounts (starting with 7,000 pounds) and the money held its value well for 20 years. Then they got a little greedy and dramatically increased their issue until it reached 420,000 pounds. On top of this counterfeiters jumped in and added a significant amount of false currency. Inflation crept in but, even so, the economy hummed along much better than it did before the fiat currency.

In 1723 Pennsylvania (followed by Delaware, New York and New Jersey) successfully created another type of money, seemingly out of thin air that was more stable and successful. The State created money by the shear power of fiat and loaned it out to citizens at 5% interest. These were more secure than bills of credit as they were loaned against collateral, which was usually the plentiful supply of land available. They were also issued more responsibly so the money supply was not excessive. The issuance of this new money not dependent on any precious metal but only upon the fiat of the government and the resources and labor of the people.

Instead of the interest going to private banking it went to finance the government. From 1723 to 1750 Pennsylvania citizens had to pay no taxes as all government expenses were financed by the interest paid by citizens. This money system worked very well and little or no inflation occurred.

It wasn’t long before the authorities back in England sensed a problem. The injection of new money caused the colonies to trade more with each other and to cease relying on or even seeking gold and silver coin. England felt their trade and flow of new cash was threatened by the new money and also upset at the inflation in Massachusetts. In response King George II in 1751 issued a ban on creating any new colonial paper money.

This made things more difficult but fortunately they were still able to use money in circulation and the governors were lax in enforcing the ban so some new money was still added to circulation. Several years later Franklin was forced to make a trip to England to petition Parliament to lift the ban. When he got there he saw that the economic situation of the common people in the mother country was dire.

The situation in the colonies was much different as related by Congressman Charles G. Binderup in a radio address in 1941.

He first quoted Franklin

“There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”

When Benjamin Franklin went over to England to represent the interests of the Colonies, he saw a completely different situation: the working population of this country was gnawed by hunger and poverty. “The streets are covered with beggars and tramps,” he wrote. He asked his English friends how England, with all its wealth, could have so much poverty among its working classes.

His friends replied that England was a prey to a terrible condition: it had too many workers! The rich said they were already overburdened with taxes, and could not pay more to relieve the needs and poverty of this mass of workers. Several rich Englishmen of that time actually believed, along with Mathus, that wars and plague were necessary to rid the country from man-power surpluses.

Franklin’s friends then asked him how the American Colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poor houses, and how they could overcome this plague of pauperism. Franklin replied:

“We have no poor houses in the Colonies; and if we had some, there would be nobody to put in them, since there is, in the Colonies, not a single unemployed person, neither beggars nor tramps.”

His friends could not believe their ears, and even less understand this fact, since when the English poor houses and jails became too cluttered, England shipped these poor wretches and down-and-outs, like cattle, and discharged, on the quays of the Colonies, those who had survived the poverty, dirtiness and privations of the journey. At that time, England was throwing into jail those who could not pay their debts. They therefore asked Franklin how he could explain the remarkable prosperity of the New England Colonies. Franklin replied:

“That is simple. In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one.”

The information came to the knowledge of the English Bankers, and held their attention. They immediately took the necessary steps to have the British Parliament to pass a law that prohibited the Colonies from using their scrip money, and then ordered them to use only the gold and silver money that was provided in sufficient quantity by the English bankers. Then began in America the plague of debt-money, which has never since brought so many curses to the American people.

The first law was passed in 1751, and then completed by a more restrictive law in 1763. Franklin reported that one year after the implementation of this prohibition on Colonial money, the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployment and beggars, just like in England, because there was not enough money to pay for the goods and work. The circulating medium of exchange had been reduced by half.

Franklin added that this was the original cause of the American Revolution – and not the tax on tea nor the Stamp Act, as it has been taught again and again in history books. The financiers always manage to have removed from school books all that can throw light on their own schemes, and damage the glow that protects their power.

Franklin, who was one of the chief architects of the American independence, wrote it clearly:

“The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War.”

(Author’s note: This exact quote cannot be verified though Franklin did express this thought in different wording.)

This point of view of Franklin was confirmed by great statesmen of his era: John Adams, Jefferson, and several others. A remarkable English historian, John Twells, wrote, speaking of the money of the Colonies, the Colonial Scrip:

“It was the monetary system under which America’s Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: ‘Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.’”

John Twells adds:

“In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from America its representative money, forbade any further issue of bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in coins. Consider now the consequences: this restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and assets its rights.”

Another writer, Peter Cooper, expresses himself along the same lines. After having said how Franklin had explained to the London Parliament the cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, he wrote:

“After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament exacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decision brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and Stamp Act.”

The next step in fiat money came though the Continental Congress on May 10, 1775 in creating the first fiat money for the nation – the Continental Currency. Money historian
Alexander Del Mar sees this as a major ingredient of the revolution

“…the creation and circulation of bills of credit by revolutionary assemblies…coming as they did upon the heels of the strenuous efforts made by the Crown to suppress paper money in America … constituted acts of defiance so contemptuous and insulting to the Crown that forgiveness was thereafter impossible . . . There was but one course for the crown to pursue and that was to suppress and punish these acts of rebellion. There was but one course for the colonies; to stand by their monetary system. Thus the Bills of Credit of this era, which ignorance and prejudice have attempted to belittle into the mere instruments of a reckless financial policy were really the standards of the Revolution. They were more than this: they were the Revolution itself!”
History of Money in America; Alexander Del Mar 1895, Page 96

They started with $2 million and reached a total of $200 million. In addition to this coined and colonial money continued to circulate.

Continental Currency has received a lot of bad press because of the massive inflation associated with it but we need to take a breath and reflect with reason and see that there would have been no way to fight, let alone win the war without it. There just was not enough gold and silver coin available to the government to fight the most powerful kingdom on the planet.

$200 million was a lot in those days and this amount would have caused inflation but it was not enough to cause the bottom to fall out by the end of the war. Two other events were responsible.

First is that the colonial states began printing their own scrip in massive amounts. At the beginning of the war there was about $3.8 million in colonial scrip and at the end there was $209 million – more than the total amount of the continental currency. Congress realized this additional scrip would be a problem and asked the states to discontinue printing, but they mostly ignored this request.

Secondly, they faced and even greater threat from British counterfeiting. Benjamin Franklin wrote of this time:

“The artists they employed performed so well that immense quantities of these counterfeits which issued from the British government in New York, were circulated among the inhabitants of all the states, before the fraud was detected. This operated significantly in depreciating the whole mass.”
Kenneth Scot, Counterfeiting in Colonial America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 259–60

They shipped special presses from England for this specific purpose and distributed massive amounts of bogus, but high quality currency for some time before the colonists caught on to the sabotage. Throughout the war the British distributed this a much as possible, sometimes by the wagonload.

It is a mystery as to exactly how many counterfeit bills wound up in circulation. For some reason the British government to this day has never revealed any data on it. Judging by the stories and the amount of inflation that occurred Thomas Jefferson concluded there must have been as much counterfeit as there were authorized continentals.

If not for the vast inflow of bills not authorized by Congress the Continental would not have failed.

There is another reason for the great inflation. During wartime, especially a war of survival, resources and labor are directed away from production that brings wealth to society and is directed toward war materials that create no wealth but only serve to defeat the enemy and afterwards become mostly useless or destroyed in the war itself. Most of the labor during such a war produces no wealth. A fiat currency is backed up by the wealth of a nation and if the wealth is diminished inflation will occur no matter what.

At the beginning of the war the was only $9.2 million worth of coins in all the colonies and only a tiny amount was in the hands of congress to fight a war – a war that required much more money than they had if they were to win. Despite having an inflationary $400 million added to circulation in addition to the $200 million continentals this fiat scrip saved the day and paid our soldiers to fight and financed the war for six years. A final loan from France then saved the day and allowed us to continue the final six months until victory was obtained.

We owe the foundation of our nation and the victory over the crown to the Continental. There’s no way we could have won the war with a handful of gold and silver coins.

It would be interesting to see how the results would have been different if $200 million worth of continentals would have been circulated as the main currency in a time of peace with no counterfeiting and competing bills from the colonies. Instead of $600 million spent mostly on war we would have had $200 million on production, transportation, manufacturing, farming etc. If the Continental had the advantage of being backed by lots of new wealth the results would have been much different.

Nothing destroys a money system or economy like a war of survival. After any such a war there is rebuilding with a restructured money system and progress toward prosperity begins anew.

This happened to the United States, which was on the fiat system with some coins. After the Revolutionary War they rebuilt and prospered. It also happened after World War I when all nations were on the gold standard. Here the economies of the world were devastated despite reliance on gold, but they rebuilt and prospered.

Fortunately there is no war, no disaster or human screw up so bad that it cannot be surmounted by the best that is in us.

Sources:

Web of Debt by Ellen H. Brown, 2008

The Secret World of Money by Andrew M. Gause, 1996

The Lost Science of Money By Stephen Zarlenga

Money Masters Video. Transcript at: http://www.no-debts.com/anti-federalist/files/moneymasters.txt

History of Money in America; Alexander Del Mar 1899

Kenneth Scot, Counterfeiting in Colonial America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000)

Greenback, Jason Goodwin, 2003

Read This entire series. Here are the links.

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Index for Recent Posts

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Fiat Money of the Past, Part 3

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 17 of 31 in the series 2011B

TALLY STICK MONEY

The tally stick was a unique form of money that seemingly existed on the power of thin air through the fiat principle.  They were most prominent in medieval England and also used to a lesser degree in France, Germany and numerous other nations and settlements of ancient times.

Tallies in one form or another have existed from prehistoric times but the most significant use of them was began by King Henry I in England in 1100 AD and were in use for an amazing 726 years. The split tally was accepted as legal proof in medieval courts and the Napoleonic Code of 1804 still makes reference to the tally stick in Article 1333.

The tally sticks owed their prominent financial use to King Henry’s response to a dire economic situation when he assumed the throne.  He discovered that the Crusades had siphoned off most of the gold and silver that could be used as money. He found himself in a similar situation to Lincoln before the Civil War. He either had to borrow at excessive interest from the money lenders of the day or improvise with a system of his own.

Just as Lincoln chose to create a fiat money that did not borrow from any lender even so did Henry create a tally system that was backed by no commodity and was interest free.  There was a huge difference on how the two financial instruments were used.  The greenbacks bought war materials that were either destroyed or of little use after the war.  These added little or nothing to the nation’s actual wealth.

On the other hand, many of the tallies were used to finance agriculture, construction and essential trades that helped the people live more abundant lives.

Some critics of fiat money have claimed that the tally stick was not fiat, or even money but merely IOUs that had to be paid off in gold or silver coin.

This presentation is extremely misleading and distorted.  First there was very little gold and silver in the kingdom as most of it was shipped out of the country for the Crusades.  Many of the tallies were redeemed for commodities instead.

As for whether they were fiat or not – let us examine how they worked and see.

“A tally was a stock about nine inches or so long with each of the four sides about ½ inch wide. On two of the sides, the value of the “tally” was carved into the wood. On the other two sides, the amount was printed in ink.
“The tally was then split in half lengthwise. One half remained in the treasury and the other half was given to soldiers for their pay, to farmers for wheat, to armorers for armor, and to laborers for their labor.
From War Cycles – Peace Cycles by Richard Hoskins, Virginia Publishing (2000)

There were a number of advantages for using the tally sticks.

(1) They could be used like money, but they were interest free.

(2) They were virtually impossible to counterfeit.  Each tally had different grains in the wood and different records and notches engraved that appeared on both halves. To be legal you had to match your half with the King’s half.

(3) They did not need any gold or silver to back them but were backed by commodities that did not even exist at the time of issue.  These commodities could be future produce, something manufactured or even gold or silver that the person hoped to acquire.

(4) They were basically inflation proof.  Unlike money in our current system they could not be produced in unlimited amounts.  The number of tallies made would be limited by the estimated production or wealth of the people.  Then when the tallies were turned in for taxes or payment during Michaelmas (the harvest time) they no longer existed within the system and new ones had to be created. There could only be an increase in tally sticks if there was a corresponding increase of anticipated production and since each person was responsible for the value of his tally stick there was little desire to inflate its value.

(5) Tally sticks were widely accepted by the people for two reasons.  First, tally sticks of some kind have been used for elementary record keeping since civilization began and people trusted them.  Secondly, the king insured its equivalency to money by issuing a fiat that they can be used to pay taxes.  In addition the various kings used tally sticks for money themselves.

It wasn’t long before the value of tally sticks in circulation far exceeded gold and silver money. Richard Hoskins (cited earlier) estimates that by the end of the seventeenth century the tallies in circulation had a value of about fourteen million pounds yet the coined metals at the time never exceeded a half million pounds in value.

By 1694 the tally sticks evolved into being represented by paper bills and by 1697 they circulated interchangeably as money with banknotes and bankbills.

The amazing thing is that life was a good during the height of the tally system.  Contrary to popular belief the people prospered and had to work much fewer hours to make a living than they do today.

Monetary author Ellen Brown makes this interesting observation:
“Modern schoolbooks generally portray the Middle Ages as a time of poverty, backwardness, and economic slavery, from which the people were freed only by the Industrial Revolution; but reliable early historians painted a quite different picture. Thorold Rogers, a nineteenth century Oxford historian, wrote that in the Middle Ages, “a labourer could provide all the necessities for his family for a year by working 14 weeks.” Fourteen weeks is only a quarter of a year! The rest of the time, some men worked for themselves; some studied; some fished. Some helped to build the cathedrals.
Web of Debt by Ellen H. Brown, 2008, Page 60

She continues:
“Economic historians like Rogers and Gibbins declare that during the best period of the Middle Ages – say, from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, inclusive – there was no such grinding and hopeless poverty, no such chronic semi-starvation in any class, as exists to-day among large classes in the great cities . . . . In the Middle Ages there was no class resembling our proletariat, which has no security, no definite place, no certain claim upon any organization or institution in the socio-economic organism. Page 61

The great cathedrals were not only built with mostly unpaid voluntary labor but they were also maintained by volunteers. The people had free time and used it to increase the wealth of the kingdom and took pride in keeping public buildings and works of art in good shape.

They also had free time for learning, which explains why many great universities, libraries and centers of learning were established during that time.

There is an interesting book in the public domain by James J. Walsh called “The Thirteenth, Greatest Of Centuries” detailing how this was actually the most wonderful century in which to live that set the foundations to many of the amenities we value today. This was also the century when the use of the tally stick matured and came into almost universal use and acceptance in England.

The tally stick worked great and everyone was happy except the bankers.  They were not getting their cut in interest from the tallies and decided to act as soon as they had the opportunity.

That opportunity came near the end of the seventeenth century after lengthy and costly wars with France and the Netherlands. The tally sticks did a great job of keeping the internal economy functioning, but external wars demanded large expenditures of gold and silver which were accepted outside the country. Goldsmiths were charging 30-80% interest on small loans and what coinage was left was clipped about 50%. The public lost millions of pounds because of goldsmiths going bankrupt.

Bankers proposed creating a Bank of England to solve the money problems. With a name like this it sounded like a government bank but in reality it was a private bank composed of private investors. The bank practiced fractional reserve banking and loaned the government money that it could have created for itself.  Government debt went from 1.4 million pounds in 1694 to 16 million in 1698. The prices of most things doubled.

It is interesting that tallies were one of the sources used to finance this bank yet after it became established the bank saw the tallies as competition and from that point on sought to destroy them.  Even so, some continued to be used until 1826 when they were removed from circulation and stored in the houses of Parliament.

In 1834 the tallies were ordered to be burned in the two furnaces in the House of Lords. This wound up starting a fire that got out of control and burned down both Houses of Parliament. It almost seemed like divine retribution for trashing a money system that worked so well.

Those with a negative view of fiat money cannot deny that the tally system was successful so they save face by saying that it was not fiat money at all, or not even money but merely like a promissory note.  Others have said they were used like a modern day credit card.

No matter how you look at it the fiat principle was behind the use of the tally stick.  Yes, the tally stick was like a promissory note, but a note authorized to be used as money. Many promissory notes of today or yesterday are not backed by gold, silver or any commodity. They are a promise to pay only backed by fiats of the issuers and the power of their good names.  Just like our fiat dollars today are promissory notes from the Federal Reserve and are used as money even so were the tally sticks individual promissory notes also used as money.

There was a huge difference however.  The tally sticks did not involve interest and never drove the government deeper into debt and did not contribute to inflation. This was why they were successful for numerous centuries.

Then the tallies had the fiat of the King authorizing  them to be used as money to pay taxes. It’s difficult to see the reasoning as to why some critics do not see the Tallies as fiat money when two different fiats were involved and they were virtually backed by thin air. Just because they do not exactly fit the parameters of fiat money of today does not mean they were not based on the fiat principle.

Another criticism is the tallies were not even money because they were sometimes discounted or that discounting them was as bad as paying interest.

If an owner waited for the tally to mature then he received the full value but if he needed the value early in or if he had to use it in another country he had to trade them at a discount for commodities or coins. For internal use they were traded as money at a standard value just as money is today.

The occasional discounting does not alter the fact that they were used as money and had a more consistent value than does the fiat money of our age. Even in our time promissory notes and contracts are used as money on a number of levels, but the tally had the additional legal monetary authorization of the King.

The tallies were not in the same category money loaned at interest today for they drew no interest. First, only a small number were discounted whereas all new money today is created through loans at interest. Secondly, the tallies did not add to the public debt as is the case with today’s money.

Unless one takes the path of splitting hairs there is no other way to view the era of the tally sticks then as one of a successful fiat money.

Sources:
War Cycles – Peace Cycles by Richard Hoskins, Virginia Publishing (2000)

Web of Debt by Ellen H. Brown, 2008

The Thirteenth, Greatest Of Centuries, James J. Walsh

The Secret World of Money by Andrew M. Gause, 1996

The Lost Science of Money By Stephen Zarlenga

The Tally Stick: The First Internal Control? by Nicholas Apostolou and D. Larry Crumbley http://www.bus.lsu.edu/accounting/faculty/lcrumbley/Tally%20Stick%20Article.pdf

Money Masters Video. Transcript at:
http://www.no-debts.com/anti-federalist/files/moneymasters.txt

 

Read This entire series. Here are the links.

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

Copyright by J J Dewey

Index for Older Archives in the Process of Updating

Index for Recent Posts

Easy Access to All the Writings

Register at Freeread Here

Log on to Freeread Here

For Free Book go HERE and other books HERE

JJ’s Amazon page HERE

Gather with JJ on Facebook HERE

Fiat Money of the Past, Part 2

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 16 of 31 in the series 2011B

CHINA – THE FIRST FIAT PAPER MONEY

China deserves a mention for their fiat money even though their use of it is considered a colossal failure by gold standard anti fiat advocates.
What is not pointed out is that every money system has had its failures. In fact, every advance that humanity has made has had failures along the way. Perfection is achieved when the causes of failure are examined and the lessons learned are incorporated.

Take our space program for example. We had all kinds of failures with the early Jupiter rockets as we competed with the Soviets. Did we throw our hands up and run away from creating a system that could orbit satellites?

Of course not.

We looked at the principles involved and knew that we could achieve stable rocketry if we worked out the bugs.

The same applies to fiat money. The principle is sound, but the obstacles to the principle working soundly must be discovered and removed.

China invented paper and was the first to use paper currency that was backed by metals as well as pure fiat money.

Their first paper money was way back in 140 BC though little is known about it outside of the fact it existed.

During the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD), paper money surfaced again. During the reign of Chengtsung in 997-1022, the Chinese beat our bankers to the punch in creating fractional banking and issued more paper money than was covered by bullion. To make sure there was not a run on the money they restricted redemption to once every three years The people called these notes “changelings” to describe their uncertain character. They also called it “flying money.”

Wars that took three quarters of the tax revenues and the increasing bureaucracy made the temptation to print up excessive money too great to resist and they began to suffer from inflation.

They tried to rectify the problem by legalizing metallic money again but this was siphoned off to Korea, Southeast Asia, Japan, and Vietnam leaving the country with a famine of the metallic money supply.

With little money left for redemption in 1189 AD they changed the fractional money with redemption to 100% fiat with no redemption. They seemed to have no other choice.

This was not a planned fiat currency but was a desperate attempt to save their financial system. Attempting to go back to gold, silver and copper didn’t work so maybe a fiat system would.

As one would expect the people felt cheated. They felt lied to for they were told they could redeem their money for coins and now they could not. Obviously in this situation the currency was doomed to failure and by 1197 AD the situation was dire.

In a desperate move they minted coins of all the silver they could get their hands on but inflation just became worse. Nothing seemed to work.

In this weakened state they were invaded and conquered by the Mongols.

Despite the discontent of the people with paper money the Mongols liked the paper money idea and continued with it. When you think of it this comes as no surprise for it has obvious value for convenience alone and that convenience continues to be a positive factor to this day.

In 1260 they passed laws making the use of copper, silver and gold coins illegal while claiming their paper money was backed up with gold, silver and silk floss.

This Yaun Dynasty called the money the “Yaun” which is term is still in use today. This money then gained wide acceptance not only in China but neighboring countries.

Because gold and silver money was illegal the people mainly redeemed the paper money for metals to be used as jewelry, or perhaps as a secure investment. Because of the low redemption rate it appeared the government could issue large amounts of paper and not worry about a run on their reserves.

They didn’t seem to anticipate another problem though which was inflation. They allowed provinces and private enterprise to also issue money which created more problems. Del Mar says:

“Many kinds of paper were in circulation – government, provincial, and private – besides many counterfeits; and the government was powerless to limit the circulation. The notes therefore continued to depreciate.”
A History of Money in Ancient Countries from the Earliest Times to the Present By Aleander del Mar Page 31

This system sounds like a combination the U.S. monetary policy in the 19th century and FDR after 1933. In 19th century America there were many private banks issuing many different versions of banknotes some securely backed and others fraudulent or counterfeit. Then after 1933 U.S. citizens were forbidden to own gold and use it as money but the dollar was supposedly backed by gold.

By 1351 a monetary crises was exacerbated and reform was attempted, again with no positive results. The Yuan Dynasty fell and was replaced by emperor Hongwu the first of the Ming Dynasty.

Even though paper money had major problems from the beginning Hongwu decided to use it again, but this time with a communist style very authoritarian approach controlling all aspects of life. They prohibited the citizens from using gold and silver as money and in 1374 AD created a fiat currency, this time backed by nothing but the authority of the emperor. Even though the money was not backed they tried to create the illusion of it being backed by assigning the notes, called “Da Ming baochao,” a value equal to one ounce of silver or a quarter ounce of gold. The people didn’t buy this and seemed to think the emperor was pulling a fast one on them.

It helps to put yourself in the situation of a peasant in those days who was used to seeing silver as money or the value behind money. Then the government takes away this money and gives him a piece of paper and says, “Here. This piece of paper is like one ounce of silver which you can no longer have.” One can see here why the common people in that age didn’t have faith in this from the beginning.

Within nine years the depreciation was astounding. Within 25 years it had become virtually worthless but circulated until about 1450 AD. The people, and then the government, switched over to bartering with silver and commodities which became their main form of money for some time.

It is interesting to break down this turbulent economic period of 450 years. During this time, except for a couple decades, the kingdom used paper money backed by gold and silver or the coins themselves. There were only a couple short decades where 100% fiat money dominated, yet this whole paper money period is pointed out as an example by many as a time where fiat money ran amuck.

Using this same logic one could say these times illustrated gold and silver backed paper money and coins themselves are not workable since they dominated most of the tempestuous period.

Reasonable investigators will acknowledge that both conclusions fall short of the true picture, which is this. The Chinese made a great discovery in using paper money. They tried to implement it in turbulent uncertain times and they had no instruction book to follow. They experimented, and, as with all innovations, a lot of mistakes were made.

The fact that there were problems did not mean paper money was useless. We know it is not for without it civilization as we know it would not exist. They had problems with gold and silver coined money also, but these have been useful for thousands of years. Even so, for two short periods of time they had problems with 100% fiat money. Again this is far from enough evidence to condemn this type of money.

Outside of using some bad judgment the problems they had stemmed from a shortage of precious metals for coins. The creation of paper money, fractional banking and fiat money were all moves designed to improve the money supply. In the process they created too much money on one hand, and, after failure, they wound up with metallic shortages again on the other.

This problem has plagued all civilizations since money first appeared in history and is with us today. Lack of enough sound money still creates havoc and no solution seems to be in sight.

To understand why fiat money didn’t work in China it is helpful to realize there are two ways it can be created.

The first is through debasement of currency. In this situation the people are led to believe their money is either backed by a commodity or has a certain value and then by fiat that value is diminished or removed. When this happens the people feel cheated and are reluctant to accept the money at the decreed value. This was the type of fiat money that appeared in China and it is usually doomed to failure.

The second is fiat money that is not a debasement of current money with promised value, but a new creation using no deception, debasement, or short changing the people. Its introduction should not go against the will of the majority.

This second fiat system can work as long as excessive money is not moved into the economy.

Greece and Rome’s early fiat money operated on this second system and was well accepted because the people did not feel cheated. Next we’ll give a few more examples.

Sources:
A History of Money in Ancient Countries from the Earliest Times to the Present By Aleander del Mar

The East Asian maritime world 1400-1800: its fabrics of power and dynamics … By Angela Schottenhammer

Imperial China 900-1800, By Frederick W. Mote

The Chinese Monetary System: From Ancient Times to the Early Modern Period By Sarah Gruen 2004

A History of Money by Glyn Davies, 1994

Read This entire series. Here are the links.

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Fiat Money of the Past, Part 1

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 15 of 31 in the series 2011B

Successful No interest Fiat Money of the Past

Before we explore fiat money more deeply let us give a definition of it to avoid confusion – as, at present, the term is used in a variety of ways.
The word “fiat” comes from the Latin, which literally means, “let it be done.” The common modern definition is expressed by Dictionary.com as: “an authoritative decree, sanction, or order.”
Fiat money is often defined as unbacked money created by government decree or sanction but technically this extends to any money that is not fully backed by a commodity. So for the sake of clarification and purpose of this treatise we’ll define it as follows.

“Fiat money is any money, paper, coin, substance or digital creation which is not fully backed by a commodity. It exists only because of a decree or sanction made with enough authority to cause the people to accept it as money.”

That said we must now ask if it is possible to create a feasible fiat money system as illustrated in the parable. Many fundamentalists think not and feel that every possible form of fiat money is doomed to failure.

And why is this?

Basically because they look at the surface of a few examples of failed money in the past and lump all fiat money into one category. They pretty much call it the god-awful bad category. This is basically where their analysis begins and ends.

Let us look below the surface and first ask ourselves why fiat money has received such bad press.

Here are three reasons various economies have had problems with fiat money in the past and present.

(1) Too much money is printed or created and placed into circulation. If there is more money in circulation than the value of goods and services needed there will be inflation. If there is a shortage of money there will be deflation. If the right amount of money is in circulation the prices will be stable.

This runs contrary to the party line of some thinkers who believe that all fiat money is inflationary. It is not. It is only inflationary when too much money is added to circulation. For instance, during the Great Depression we had a contraction of the fractional fiat money in circulation and prices went down, not up.

(2) The second problem is the government borrows the fiat money from banks and burdens its taxpayers with paying the accumulating interest rather than creating interest free money itself.

(3) Because the money is easily created the temptation of governments to overspend by borrowing too much money is great. This straps their people with not only high interest payments but a large amount of debt.

These problems may seem significant enough to make us think we should ditch fiat money and go with a gold standard until we look at the problems of maintaining such a gold standard. Earlier we covered the gold standard and we discovered even more problems there.

Some simply state that fiat money is bad because it has always failed in the past. They count as failure every money system that is no longer with us but overlook the fact that money systems have often changed in history, not because they failed but because a new king or power comes to the throne. War and conquest has also greatly altered money systems of the past. Sometimes a good money system has been replaced with a bad one. If a new king saw the system benefitted the people more than himself then the temptation was to install one that was unstable but good for the elite.

Gold and silver backed currencies (as has been previously illustrated) have their own set of problems and one could also argue that they have all failed because they no longer exist. There is not one country in the entire world that has a gold or silver backed currency. The last one was Switzerland which backed its money with 40% gold reserves but in the year 2000 they had a referendum and the people voted to go off it. Now they merely have gold reserves for security purposes just as we do.

One might ask that if gold and silver backed currencies are so great then why has every nation on the planet abandoned them? If they are so stable and bring prosperity (as advocates claim) then why hasn’t one nation seen the light?

With all things considered a growing number of thinkers are considering that interest free fiat money represents the best hope for a permanent money system that allows for unlimited expansion of prosperity. To create this, a definite change from the one in use today is required. That is, instead of our government giving away its power to create money to private banks it will instead reserve that power to itself. It will then be able to create money for the people’s welfare, which will be interest free and debt free.

The Federal Reserve notes of today are a promise to pay. The new notes will not contain any promise to pay but will be real constitutional money.

Has there ever been any such debt and interest free fiat money in the past that we can examine to see how it worked?

Fortunately, the answer is yes. Let us look at a few.

SPARTA

For the first example let’s look way back to the foundation of the ancient Spartan way of life originated by its king Lycurgus around 800 BC. Because his story is almost larger than life some historians believe he was a fabled character but this is not likely as Plutarch wrote in detail, about him quoting historians Eratosthenes, Apollodorus, Timæus, and Xenophon as sources. No less than Plato and Aristotle also wrote of him.

There is no dispute though that an ancient powerful lawgiver created the legendary Spartan way of life along with a most unusual fiat interest free money system.

Plutarch presents Lycurgus as a dedicated spiritual leader who sought not for power but to elevate the minds and hearts of the people in a system of discipline and equality. He believed that riches, especially gold and silver, were a major detriment to the spirit. Plutarch says he banned “ownership of any gold or silver, and to allow only money made of iron. The iron coins of Sparta were dipped in vinegar when red hot to make the metal brittle and worthless. Merchants laughed at this money because it had no intrinsic value, so imports of luxuries stopped. Robbery and bribery vanished from Sparta instantly.

“All useless occupations were banned in Sparta. This law was hardly necessary, because along with gold and silver, all of the evil creatures that accompany them went away too. Who would come to practice fraud, fortune-telling, prostitution, jewelry, or the other trades of luxury and larceny, in a country where there was no gold and silver money? So luxury, deprived little by little of the fuel that fed it, gradually died out. The rich had no advantage over the poor because wealth was useless.”

The only money left in Sparta were iron discs called Pelanors. They had no intrinsic value as did gold and silver for the vinegar made them useless for anything except fiat money. Lycurgus set their value by fiat and this was their only money for centuries. During this period the Spartan city-state and way of life flourished.

Plutarch gives his reason for the end of this money system:

“For five hundred years, Sparta kept the laws of Lycurgus and was the strongest and most famous city in Greece. But eventually gold and silver were allowed in, and along with them came all of the evils spawned by the love of money. Lysander must take the blame, because he brought home rich spoils from the wars. Although not corrupt himself, Lysander infected Sparta with greed and luxury, and thus subverted the laws of Lycurgus.”

From Plutarch’s Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans, Lycurgus chapter

ROME

When Numa Pompilius came to power as the second king of Rome around 715 BC he contemplated a major problem that lay before him. To facilitate prosperity for his people he needed money and lots of it. The problem was that the authorized money of the world was composed of gold and silver.
Why was this a problem?

Because most of the gold and silver was in the private hands of the various religious temple cults or eastern religions and merchants. These private interests had power over the money and if he wanted an increase in the money supply he had to play the beggar and humbly strike his best bargain while placing Rome as collateral.

What do do?

Numa formulated an ingenious plan. He would decree that gold and silver would merely be commodities in his kingdom. They could be traded as commodities as unmarked coins or bars but the real money would be bronze, an alloy composed of mostly copper which was abundantly available.

Numa monetized bronze and the citizens used this internally for money or nomisma. In early Rome they called it nummi. Because his name was so close to “nummi,” some historians think Numa was his adopted name rather than given one.

Gold and silver was used internally for jewelry, medallions, ornaments etc and for trade with other governments. Since gold and silver were used for money outside Rome their reserves were used for necessary trade but not for internal money.

The brass money took on various shapes at first but eventually evolved into coins bearing an image. As long as Bronze was the designated money gold and silver coins and bars were blank and merely traded by weight with foreign interests or for practical internal use.

From the time of Numa the nummi had more monetary value than the commodity value of the bronze and the fiat value increased over time until the time of the second Punic war (218-202 BC) a one ounce bronze coin was worth 30 ounces of the commodity. In other words, over 96% of its value was fiat rather than intrinsic.

No one complained of being cheated during this fiat money system because the money was based on law and not the product of debasement as happened later in the Roman Empire. When the people expected a certain weight and percentage of gold or silver and the size or content was reduced then the people felt cheated and rejected the money. But because the bronze money was based on the fiat principle from the beginning and the value was established by law the people accepted it from beginning to the end of its dominance.

After war depleted their resources and plunder increased Rome’s supply of gold and silver, silver, and later gold, gained a legal status as money and by 146 BC Rome ceased producing bronze money.

So we had a period of over 500 years where bronze fiat money financed the rise of the longest lasting world power in recorded history.

During this period of time the people had their greatest freedom and were enterprising as they created a great nation state. Then when silver and gold became money hundreds of thousands of slaves were added to the kingdom – many of them mining for gold and silver to increase the money supply.

Then came the money changers which included the likes of which Jesus chased out of the temple.

The ratio of the value of gold to silver in Rome was usually set at 12:1, but in India and Asia it was set around 6:1 or 7:1. This meant that a money changer could take six pounds of silver to India and trade it for a full pound of gold. Then he could return home and trade that pound of gold for 12 pounds of silver and double his money. Then by repeating the process over and over he could become rich without producing anything.

Over time this created instability in the gold/silver money systems in both the East and West.

Contrary to the belief of many inflation was a problem on the gold/silver standard of Rome. Zarlinga tells us that “soldiers in the 2nd century BC got 110-125 denarii per year. A hundred years later, their pay doubled to 225; after another hundred years to 300; and by the 3rd century AD had increased to probably 600 denarii per year.”

Up to about 250 AD the silver content of coins remained fairly consistent but then started dropping. By 270 AD it had dropped to 4% of its original value. At this low point Diocletion instituted wage and price controls in an attempt to force people on pain of death to accept an inflationary currency. In the process many businesses were destroyed.

In 312 AD Constantine began minting the pure gold solidus, which gained the reputation of being the longest circulating coin in history – over 700 continuous years. This period was not immune to inflation as during periods of plunder there were excessive amounts of gold coins added to the system. Some think this contributed to the fall of Rome. The solidus was in circulation beyond 1000 AD long after the fall of Rome during our darkest age. It weighed 4.5 grams and was never debased and desired and accepted by all.

This gold standard did little to save the empire during the time of Rome’s greatest decline. It also did nothing to prevent a descent into the period we call the Dark Ages. It is interesting that during these two periods the world had the purest most consistent gold standard in the history of the world.

BUT… during the period of Rome’s greatest progress and individual freedom they were fueled with fiat currency.

Data on Roman money taken from
Lost Science of Money By Stephen Zarlenga

History of Monetary Systems by Alexander Del Mar, 1895

“The Imperial Foundations”. Coins in history : a survey of coinage from the reform of Diocletian to the Latin Monetary Union. Porteous, John (1969)

A History of Money by Glyn Davies, 1994

Read This entire series. Here are the links.

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Questioning Mormonism

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 14 of 31 in the series 2011B

Fred asks:
Was Joseph Smith a real prophet, is the Book of Mormon more than fiction, was there a restoration of the Gospel in the early 19th century, and what happened to the leadership of the Church?

Are they still guided by God (and if not, why not–what happened to all the promises of guidance and direction)?

JJ
As a whole these are not the type of questions I ask for myself.  Let us take your first question for example. “Was Joseph Smith a real prophet?”

If a true believer feels the answer is yes then in his mind this means that every teaching he gave out, as a prophet, is true.  It means the end to seeking any further on those statements but to just accept.

This is not my approach to Joseph Smith or any other teacher.  My approach is to examine each teaching given out and see them as separate entities and run them by my soul.  If my innermost self confirms it to me than I go with it.

LWK referenced some writings I gave out about Joseph’s teachings about man and God, for example.  These register very strongly with my soul

On the other hand, plural marriage does not.  Either his teachings were altered on it or he made some mistakes as I see it.

Then you ask, “is the Book of Mormon more than fiction.”

This is good in that instead of just asking if the book is true you are fairly specific.

When I was in the church I followed the advice given and asked God if the Book of Mormon was true.  I didn’t receive an answer to that question but I did receive a lot through the Holy Spirit as I read the book.  Here are a few things.

(1) I am entitled to receive truth directly from God just as were the ancient prophets.

(2) Babies have no sin and do not need baptism to be saved.

(3) Christ does have other sheep.

(4) God speaks to all the peoples of the earth.

(5) No human servant judges whether we enter the kingdom of heaven.

(6) It teaches us to do good and elevates the spirit.

(7) Moroni’s warning that the United States would be in danger because of corruption and conspiracy.

Is the book historically true?  I think it is in part but not 100%.  I believe that Joseph lived a number of past lives as an ancient American Indian and with concentration could retrieve many ancient memories.  I think parts of the Book of Mormon were a retrieval of his past memories.

Were all the stories of the gold plates, visitations, visions accurate?  I do not know but do believe he had a number of supernatural experiences, but just not sure they were presented to us accurately.

I think Joseph was a sincere man doing his best but it appears he was deceived into thinking that it was all right to mislead in order to further the Kingdom of God. He was not the first prophet to do this, as such a teaching is a staple of the Muslim faith.

Then Fred asks, “was there a restoration of the Gospel in the early 19th century?”

Joseph did restore a number of things the most important of which is that all are entitled to revelation from God.

As far as authority goes I think Nephi from the Book of Mormon had it right when he said, “And the Holy Ghost giveth authority…”  I Nephi 10:22

Notice that this is the source of all authority in that book?

“Next Fred asks, “what happened to the leadership of the Church?”

The same thing that happens to every inspired movement.  It deteriorates just as the Principle of Corruption illustrates in my book Eternal Words.

Look at our country for instance.  When, except in its founding, has there been the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,  James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and many others dedicated to the same goal for the good of the people?

Even though we have a hundred times more people to draw from our government is lucky to have a hundredth part of the talent and intelligence as the initiators of this country.

The same thing has happened to the church.  The real thinkers are putting their attention other places than church leadership.

Fred: “Are they still guided by God.”

I think they receive some inspiration from time to time but nothing like as believed by the rank and file LDS.  Most of the time they just use their best judgment and sometimes it is right and sometimes not.

My book, Infallible Authority” which I sent you should give you a more complete answer to your questions.

To Fiat or Not Fiat

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 13 of 31 in the series 2011B

Okay, says the critic, gold and silver money (or commodity based money) is not perfect but it is a lot better than fiat money. Your fanciful parable sounds good but in actual reality fiat money has always led to disaster. Just look at the current debacle with our economy, which is based on fiat money. Do we want to create just another version of what we have now? I don’t think so.

The problem with this point of view is one has to accept a number of misconceptions to embrace it. Among them are:

(1) There were halcyon days in the past we can point to when there was no fiat money where the economy was stable.

The Reality Is: In all the history of the United States where any semblance of civilization has existed there has been fiat money or thin air money. This also applies to most of the history of the civilized world.

What is a good example of a period where there was no fiat money?

The darkest of the dark ages – not too good of an example.

(2) All fiat money is the same and equally bad, or nearly so.

The Reality Is: There is a huge difference in different types of fiat money and they all produce different effects.

There are two main divisions of fiat money which are:

(A) Money created by private banks or institutions and loaned out at interest. Most of our national debt is created this way. The Federal Reserve creates the money by fiat and loans it to the government at interest.

(B) Interest free money created by the government.

When one considers that we are paying over $450 billion just on interest per year then the advantage of the second type become blatantly obvious.

The last time we have created the second type of fiat money was in the creation of the Greenbacks by Lincoln during the Civil War. Since then all fiat money fits in the first category.

In the past century the banks have had a monopoly on fiat money, but there have been numerous examples in history where interest free fiat money has been used quite successfully. We’ll be elaborating on these.

In addition to the four main categories there are two subcategories of fiat money.

The first category is pure fiat money decreed to be legal tender by law but neither tied to or backed up by any commodity.

Since Nixon took us off any semblance of the gold standard in 1972 this is the type of money the United States and most of the world has had

The second type is money that has its value set by gold or some other commodity, but is not redeemable by anyone. The commodity such as gold merely determines the value of various bills. Ancient China used this method.

The third is where the value of the money is set by a commodity and can be redeemed by other banks institutions and nations, but not by individuals. This was the type of money the United States used from 1933-1972.

The fourth is usually called fractional banking rather than fiat money creation. This is where more than the value of the commodity, usually gold, is placed in circulation. The money can be redeemed in gold by all including private individuals. The amount of money created from a dollar’s worth of gold may range from $4.00 – $10.00, but many unscrupulous banks used a higher ratio – sometimes going up to 1000 to 1.

If a bank creates ten dollars for each dollar’s worth of gold then $9.00 of that is only backed by thin air and it can be argued that this money is as fiat as money can be. If all the banks’ customers come to redeem their money for gold then only the first ten percent would receive anything. 90% would get nothing.

During the entire history of the United States from colonial times until the present there has always been some type of fiat (or thin air) money in circulation. Those who advocate that we return to the past where we had a pure gold or silver standard just do not know their history. We have never had such a standard. For the purest possible gold standard we would have to go way back to the dark ages.

There are a number of views on the ideal money but what the idealist rarely admits, when defending his view, is there is a common flaw that has adversely affected money of every type throughout history. That flaw should be obvious to all and needs to be encapsulated.

Money is power and power corrupts. Unless checks and balances are put into place a large percentage of those who are in charge of the money will abuse their power for selfish gain – even at the expense and suffering of their customers and their nation.

This problem, an offshoot of human weakness, threatens all money whether it be fiat or gold backed, whether it be private or public, whether the basic system is sound or unsound.

Are we doomed then to be forever, manipulated by unscrupulous money managers? Should we just throw our hands up and give up?

Of course not.

What shall we do then?

The first thing is to create the soundest most beneficial money system. This is essential, for without a sound system the economy will stagnate even with honest people in charge.

The second is to not place blind trust in any central, regional or local authority who has power over the money supply or storage. The power to create or borrow money that places taxpayers at risk must be held in check by the people or some other means.

If these two points are realized then a sound money can be had by all and there is no reason that an optimum system will not last as long as the nation does. In fact a good money system will strengthen the nation and extend its life.

Read This entire series. Here are the links.

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Boise Gathering 2008, Part 9

Joseph Dewey
This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Boise Gathering 2008

JJ: Okay let us try Larry now. Larr-y, there are two basic sounds here, actually AA, L-A-RR-Y.

Audience: Sounding out Larry.

JJ: AR sounds out Air and air is associated with the mind like for instance air itself is associated with the mental. Lets say LARR-E. Lets say the name several times and get a feel for it.

Audience: LARR-E several times.

JJ: When we say Larry which ends with an E I think of WE which is associated with people and Larry is a people person and always wants to involve other people in everything he does.

When you think of LARR it is kind of a gathering name and WE is the group. From what I know about Larry he is very interested in forming groups and getting people together. So whenever you say that name think of that gathering and getting groups of people together.

Audience: Saying the name LARR-E several times.

Lets divide it now. LAAARRR———-EEEEEEEEE.

Audience: LAAARRR——–EEEEEE

JJ: Concentrate more on the E.

Audience: Complies

JJ: Relax it a little bit more.

Audience does this.

JJ: Now just charge him up with his name saying it over and over like cheerleading.

Audience does this.

Martha is up next.

Martha: For most of my life I have disliked my name.

JJ: Did you dislike it because it was kind of an old fashioned name like Martha Washington?

Martha: No Martha Leah and Martha was the one that did it wrong when the Christ came. Martha Leah was the one that her husband did not want.

JJ: Martha also did one of the most spectacular things that any woman ever did. Do you remember what that was?

Martha: What was that?

Larry: She expressed the faith that helped Lazarus get raised up from the dead.

JJ: When Jesus went to raise Lazarus from the dead He had to pull the guy out of the tomb there and Lazarus was just laying there all wrapped up in his burial clothes as they did in those days with the dead and who did Jesus turn to, to perform this great miracle?

Martha: Martha

JJ: Jesus turned to Martha before He performed the miracle and said, Martha do you believe that I can raise Lazarus from the dead? And Martha said I believe that you can do most anything and if you say that you can raise Lazarus from the dead than I believe that you can. Now why did Jesus ask a woman if she believed in Him?

Because every miracle is a combination of male and female energy and even the strong males need the female energy to fill the gap in order to perform a great miracle. Whenever you have somebody that really believes in you – don’t you feel that you can do almost anything?

Audience: Yes

JJ: When I first fell in love with Artie I was teaching a class and I looked down and Artie was looking at me in such a way that she was expecting something great. After seeing the anticipation in her eyes I looked at my notes and thought, “oh boy I am in trouble!

Audience: Laughing!

JJ: I thought I have to talk about something great and all of a sudden the words Divine Carelessness came to me. So this is what I talked about and this was the best class I had ever given. When somebody believes in you whether male or female it really motivates you into performing. You think and feel, “I have to do great” and it draws more energy from the soul and the reason it draws more energy from the soul is because you are involving more than yourself. This thinking of just you as one does not allow this but when somebody else comes into your life then you think of more than just yourself and this becomes more important and more powerful than this thinking of just yourself.

Martha needed to do the nuts and bolts work. I find that everybody wants to do the fun stuff but the nuts and bolts people are the glue that hold everything together. Maybe Jesus realized this, He may have thought Mary was a little bit of dreamer but Martha, “if she believes in me than I can perform this great miracle.”

Okay, Mar, I can see why that is the negative aspect of the angels. If you have mar then you have something wrong with you, right? So we have to turn to the positive aspect of this, Mar. Separate it, Mar. Separating them and turning this sound into a positive. MARRR. So when you visualize the name Martha then go Marrrtha.

Audience: When I visualize the name Martha I associate it with what I feel and not with what I see.

JJ: You need to associate it with positive things and positive thinking.

Audience: Mars is a very powerful energy and a very powerful planet. I never thought of Mars being marred against anybody and I have always thought of Martha as being a very powerful energy.

JJ: She was one of the two greatest women in Bible history, Mary and Martha. Okay associate it with Mars if you would like. Mars is a good energizer and it gives energy and vitality. Okay, Mars….

Audience: Mars….

JJ: Please say her whole name first, Martha.

Audience: Martha, Martha.

JJ & Audience saying Martha with positive energy almost like cheerleading. Martha, Martha, Martha!

Now moving into a softer sound of Martha.

Thoughts of a good person with passion and life force.

JJ & Audience back to cheerleading with saying Martha as if they were at a pep rally.

JJ: Okay we will do Bil next and then do the second half after lunch.

JJ & Audience going into pep rally mode with the name Bil.

Bil: That is Bil with one L mind you!

JJ; Okay now please say, I Love Bil!

Audience: “We Love Bil” in pep rally mode.

JJ: Okay now I am doing most of the talking here, does anybody have any impressions about Bil?

Audience male member: I have an impression about Bil that is like a football player and Buffalo Bill type but not the killer.

Audience female member: It is like it starts and it stops where it is and there is not a lot there. What you see is what you get, Bil. There is no hidden, there is no silent G or J H, just Bill.

JJ: Any other impressions about Bill?

Audience female member: Ah big bill that comes once a month.

JJ: Throw that out of your consciousness!

Audience female member: Bill is money and money is good energy!

JJ: So becoming rich, you are going to rich with not only money but with friends, socially and anything you want here in the physical world.

Larry Woods: Well, the Bill is putting information out there, right like posted, marketed and so on.

JJ: He can bill the world.

Audience female member: A legislative change.

JJ: Just bill it out to the universe and let the universe take care of it.

Audience male member: his middle name is David, so you could just add the D to the end and then you have build.

JJ: He throws in David quite often and I have noticed that whenever he signs something he signs “Bill David” then his last name.

Audience: Sharón says that with the hyphen it brings the best aspects to the meaning of the David to the individual.

JJ: Especially when it creates the word build.

Let’s break Bill down.

JJ & Audience breaking down the name Bill, b-i-l-l and then going to bill, then to building in pep rally mode.

Okay to begin this session we are going to have Larry Woods give us a musical number of some kind, we do know what but we do anticipate it will be good.

Larry Woods: I am not quite sure what I am going to do here, I wrote a song and since I do not have my guitar and I have some throat problems right now, so I cannot sing very well at this time so I will just read it you. Years ago I was asked to sing some cowboy songs and at that time I did not know any cowboy songs so I sat down and wrote one. Do you remember when John Travolta was riding the iron bull in that movie “Urban Cowboy”? I wrote this song around that time back in the 70’s.

The lyrics to the song:

“I guess I will take this cowboy hat and stomp it down with these pointed toe boots, because it is not where my head is at and my heart knows this is true. What makes a cowboy man?

Is it the clothes that he wears? Or is it that he has been somewhere and are you really one, is the thing I want to know and I guess I am just a cowboy want to be.

My friends all square dance now and they ride the bull downtown, not one of them owns a cow. Yet they are cowboys of re noun.

Is it the clothes that he wears or is it that he has been somewhere and are you really one, is the thing I want to know. And I guess I am just a cowboy want-to-be.

Soak end shirt and dangling spurs can really make the grade, they will gawk at you for sure and they will know you’ve got it made. But what makes a man a man?

Is it the clothes that he wears or is that he has been somewhere and are you really one, is the thing I want to know. I guess I am just a cowboy want to be.

Audience: Applauding!

JJ: Sorry about your voice, it was your wife that suggested I do this.

Audience female member: I have an e-mail that was sent to me from a friend and I found it to be pretty amusing and I forwarded it to Artie and she found it amusing as well and so now I am going to read it: There were three good arguments that Jesus was black, He called everyone brother, He liked gospel and He could not get a fair trial.

Audience: Laughter

Female member: There were also three arguments that Jesus was Jewish, He went into His Father’s business, He lived at home until He was thirty three and He thought His mother was a virgin and His mother was sure He was God.

Audience: Laughter

Female member: then there were three equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian, He talked with His hands, He drank wine with His meals and He used olive oil.

Then there three equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian, He never cut his hair, He walked around barefoot all the time and He started a new religion.

Then there were equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian, He was at peace with nature, He ate a lot of fish, and He talked about the Great Spirit.

Then there were three equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish, He never got married, He was always telling stories, and He loved green pastures.

But the most compelling evidence of all is in the three good arguments that Jesus was a woman, He fed a crowd at a moments notice when there was no food, He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men that just didn’t get it, and even when He was dead He had to get up because there was work to do.

Audience: Applause

JJ: Very good! Are there any other people that have some entertainment for us?

Larry Woods: I have one thought; it says in the scriptures that Satan was a woman. In the Book of Job it says that Satan was a-broad in the land! Chuckling!

JJ: Abroad meaning that you are all around the place in the land. Chuckling.

Did you know that it says in the Bible where God came from?

It says in one of the versus, I can’t remember which one but out of the blue it says that God came from Teman or something like that. That is some land in the Bible. I can’t remember for sure which verse but I posted it once on the Keys about eight years ago. Do a search on the internet, God came from and it should come up. Teman is some land in the Bible.

(Internet search: Habakkuk 3:3 “God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Peran. Selah. His glory cover the heavens and the Earth was full of His praise.”)

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

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