• The word "money" is believed to originate from a temple of Hera, located on Capitoline, one of ancient Rome's seven hills.

    In my old 'Business Math' text book - a simple rhyme was used to remember the functions of money; "Money is a matter of functions four, a medium, a measure, a standard, a store."

    "Medium of exchange" is fairly obvious - used as an exchange of goods and services. "Unit of account" means that it is a standard (part 3 of the rhyme) numerical unit of measurement of the market value of goods, services. Ex. the going rate for babysitting is $X. Okay - makes sense so far. "Store of value" means that it must be able to be reliably saved, stored, and retrieved – and be predictably usable as a medium of exchange when it is retrieved. Hold on a minute. Fiat currency (money that derives its value from government regulation, law or decree - NOT by being backed by anything of intrinsic value) doesn't remain stable over time thanks to inflation. So money (really 'paper money') has lost (and is constantly losing) its definition as a 'Store of Value'. So what, Gary?

    Well, this is not a small detail. If currency is no longer a store of value than it is destroying the entire global monetary architecture... right in front of our eyes. If you can't see this then you are obviously watching too much television. What is 'inflation'? Inflation, technically speaking, is an increase in the money supply. Every major industrialized country is printing excessive amounts of their currency because by devaluing it they are encouraging their export trade... or they are doing silly things with the counterfeit money like paying their bills (monetization of debt). Notably after the Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Either/or it is being done in massive proportions and it is baaaad. The world is at an economic crossroads. It will soon reach a point where nothing looks the same as it did for billions of people.

    The 'Organic' evolution of money was those pesky Romans again - they used scrip money (any substitute for currency which is not legal tender) in the Marketplace BUT they converted wealth to Gold and Silver as their savings vehicle (store of value). Eventually 'coinage' evolved - then, as humans are prone to do, the Emperors tampered and debased it (see my article HERE) as has been done with every fiat currency since (all 692 of them, I believe). A 100% failure rate.

    Whether a plan of the bank of International settlements or not, we are being left with few options. Everyone can see that the current system is unsustainable. A deflation, at this point, would effectively destroy civilization. The ONLY way to avoid it is a 'free-floating' Gold transition (see my article HERE on Gold as the best argument against deflation) This is called 'Freegold'. It is NOT a Gold standard nor a Gold exchange system! It is certainly not the suppression of Gold pricing - as we have today (documented by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.)

    Freegold derives its name from a monetary environment where gold is set free, and has no function as money. Gold is demonetized, and has one function only: a store of value. The function of legal tender changes only slightly: it is a medium of exchange and unit of account, but stripped of the store of value function. In this environment, currency and freegold will coexist to supplement each other, without interacting with each other.