Thoughts From DJ "Some Fun Facts" 3-22-2021
DJ: DID YOU KNOW?
Here are some fun facts ....
The total amount of currency in circulation (cash and coin) as of the end of 2020 is around $36 trillion (In its simplest circulating form, known as “narrow money”). The amount of currency in circulation depends on the public demand for currency.
As of Feb 10th, 2021, there was $2.05 trillion worth of Federal Reserve notes in circulation. The Federal Reserve estimates that between one half and two-thirds of the value of U.S. currency in circulation is held over-seas. More than 70% of the paper notes issued by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving each year are used to replace old or damaged notes going out of circulation.
Global debt went to an all-time high at the end of 2020 at $281 trillion or more than 355% of global GDP, (Gross Domestic Product) per the Institute of International Finance.
If you do the math it’s easy to see why the global currency structure is in peril and do for a change. $36 trillion in cash (narrow money) and $281 trillion in debt. The old adage of “living within your means” is totally out the door. (U.S. public dept. has risen 20% just over the past year) Currency has to be adjusted to par with the dept.
And reverting to a gold standard, theoretically, would solve the problem. Obviously gold holds its value and paper currencies do not. No country is on a gold standard today, the last being Switzerland which left it two decades ago.
Gold is a tool for the preservation of wealth. So why are we not switching to a monetary system based on gold and disciple? Or is it happening slowly and we don’t see it? There are two reasons.
One, if a country would shift to a gold standard tomorrow, its currency would appreciate versus other countries, which would cause trade turmoil and is unacceptable. Countries will not shift to gold until their debt to GDP ratios have decreased, and there is no other option due to social instability. Then, they can shift to gold all at once to restore stability.
Two, gold reserves need to be evenly distributed internationally for an equitable and durable monetary system based on gold or the new system would be unstable from the start. If the system collapses, the gold stock can serve as a basis to build it up again.
When we talk about a “gold standard”, it refers to either a “classical gold standard” or a new model. Possibly crypto currencies or SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) through the IMF. (SDRs (in XDR units) are made up of a basket of 5 currencies: U.S. Dollar 41.73%, Euro 30.93%, Renminbi (Chinese yuan) 10.92% added in 2016, the Japanese yen at 8.33% and the British pound at 8.09%)
The U.S. uses something called “Book Value” or “Statutory Value” when valuing its Gold deposits. (31 USC 5116-5117)
The statutory value of gold in the U.S. treasury has been the same since 1971 at $42.222 per Fine Troy Ounce. Market value and statutory value are completely different. While the U.S. Treasury holds 261,498,927 ounces of gold the Federal Reserve owns the title on the gold. But the Fed’s Treasury Gold Certificates are odd. They were issued at the statutory value. They do NOT provide the Fed with a claim on a fixed weight of gold held by the Treasury but rather they provide the Fed with a claim on $11 billion dollars’ worth of gold.
And that $11 billion worth of gold is based on the statutory value of $42.222 per/ounce. What that means is the Treasury, at any time, can redeem those gold certificates for roughly 6.3 million ounces (at today’s market value of roughly $1725 per/ounce) to satisfy the Fed gold certificates and retain the title or ownership of the remaining 255 million ounces. This is why the treasury doesn’t want to raise the “statutory value” until the Fed certificates are redeemed. It’s a huge piggy bank for the treasury.
All that being said one can now grasp the actual complexity of a GCR/RV. Existing monetary gold (Gold in the money system) must be redistributed evenly as possible throughout the world (In process for almost 50 years). Retrieval of gold assets hedged against government issued instruments (Historical Bonds and currencies) to fill in unequal gaps of the gold distribution globally.
Create a centralized financial data base globally (That happened roughly 6 weeks ago). Create an I T system to process and monitor the implementation of a new system for millions of transactions per /sec (Quantum Configurations or QFS).
It all may sound technical BECAUSE IT IS!!!
P.S. HR. 5404 (115th Congress) Introduced Aug 27, 2018. The summary reads, “This bill requires the Department of the Treasury to define the dollar in terms of a fixed weight of gold, based on that day’s market price of gold. The federal Reserve Banks shall make Federal Reserve notes exchangeable with gold at the statutory gold definition of the dollar”.
It was re-introduced in the 116th congress under H.R 2558 May 7, 2019 (the same definition and language of the previous bill) it has yet to be re-introduced in the 117th congress.
Any bill not voted on in any particular congress is cleaned from the table and must be re-introduced into the current congress.
The kicker to how bills are passed is that congressmen or senators can take an existing bill that has been previously introduced and add or change the verbiage in the bill and call it an amendment. This way they can hide an unpopular bill in one that appears harmless on its surface. And the public, unless actually looking for it, would not notice the changes. They call that “Pork”.