Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

The United States Still Lacks a Standard Unit for Wealth

Reprinted from DESTINY Magazine

In all transactions between men, in every field of commercial activity and international trade, there must be a standard unit of value that is capable of measuring wealth in goods, services and possessions. Only when that unit of value is a scale that remains CONSTANT can there be an equitable and just exchange of goods or services.

There is great need in the world for such a unit of value! Our nation has long recognized and accepted a standard of lineal measure which does not vary in length -- the yardstick; and a standard of weight that is constant -- the pound; as well as the measure of capacity -- the gallon. Men are forbidden to lengthen or shorten the yard or to increase or diminish the, pound. They may measure out more or less material, or give greater or less volume by weight, but the measure itself is constant and does not fluctuate. A yard is a yard and a pound is a pound the world around. The lineal value of one and the specific gravity of the other never changes.

Think for a moment what would happen if, after setting the standard of length and weight, we varied these measures from time to time by legislative enactment. The resulting uncertainty would bring a lack of confidence in present, past and future holdings with such confusion that the entire economic structure of men would collapse.

Now although we recognize the need of a standard fixed unit of measure, weight and capacity in dealing in goods, we have lost sight of the fact that there is a fourth measure as important and necessary in a sound economic structure as are these three. THIS IS A FIXED STANDARD OF VALUE. Thus, in an economic structure which would bring, justice to both the producer and the consumer, which would establish perfect and equitable distribution of wealth, four essential measures are absolutely necessary: a fixed unvarying standard of length, weight, capacity and value.

Our forefathers recognized this need when, in writing the Constitution, they stated that Congress shall have the power to "coin money (not print it), regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin"; also, to "fix the standard of weights and measures." The standard of weights and measures has been fixed. But every effort made to get Congress to assume its constitutional authority over the measure of value or money has met with such strong opposition that the question itself is rarely brought into open session and publicly debated.

Why?

What is value? It is a ratio, a ratio between demand and supply.

Unfortunately, this situation continues to exist because powerful interests find their financial advantage in a standard of value that fluctuates and is made to fluctuate, thus enabling them to manipulate the monetary and economic systems of the world that they may gain thereby. The tremendous resources and power, acquired as a result of this situation, have always been arrayed against all constructive moves for the people -- including any move made for a sound money system which would be a true and constant measure of value. If we fail to dislodge these money manipulators by instituting sound money with a stabilized unit of value -- which will remain as constant as the measure of length and the specific gravity in weight -- we will have lost the economic battle; while destitution, want and war will continue to be the lot of the people and nations of the earth.

If we are to realize a lasting economic recovery in this nation we must dislodge the financial dictators from their position through the institution of a standard of value which will be beyond their power to ever again manipulate to the disadvantage of men by which means, in the past, they have acquired much stolen wealth. But America must know the way out before steps can be taken against the subtle and evil scheming of those who are even now purposing to use the present situation to strengthen their strangle hold over the financial structure of the world.

Congress must move to carry out the constitutional requirements to coin money and regulate its value. To coin money is to stamp a piece of metal as to weight and fineness. To regulate its value is to operate on either the demand for, or the supply of, the metal the coin is stamped in. To change the gold content of the dollar is to recoin -- not to regulate. Once Congress coins money and regulates its value it will have a marked result upon world finance. It has been the failure on the part of Congress to do so in the past which has been responsible for depressions and many of our economic troubles -- causing sorrow and suffering for millions of our citizens.

Our nation must move to institute a standard of value comparable with the standard of weights and measures if we are to really win the peace and acquire economic security for our people. Let the light of unrelenting publicity be thrown upon the past and present evils of high finance and let the sordid story of its past and present manipulations -- and the methods by which they have been accomplished -- be told to our people and they will arise in their anger and compel action that will destroy an evil which has been responsible, according to John in Revelation, for the death of prophets, saints and all that have been slain upon the earth (Revelation 18:24).

In all the conflicts around the world that we are engaged in it will be easier to win the war of arms than to overcome the forces of financial evil which will not even stop from throwing the entire world into economic chaos before they will willingly relinquish the power to manipulate and control money.

One of the questions often asked regarding the coming new order is, What shall we use for money? This question is a result of fear engendered by the coming collapse of our present economic structure, as we know it, and a change in the use of gold as it has operated in the past in our financial structure.

Now people speak of currency as an interchangeable term with money, but they are not the same. Money is metal -- such as gold and silver and copper -- coined or stamped, and issued as money which serves as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, and a storage of wealth. Currency includes token coins, government notes and bank notes. To put it another way, money has value in itself, being a unit of wealth which automatically measures other value in terms of its own intrinsic value. Currency is tokens for money and promises to pay money, representing bank or government obligations to pay in money the face value of paper or notes which by law have been made legal tender. Currency can be a medium of exchange but NOT a measure of value or a reserve of value.

It is impossible to have a sound currency system until there is a stable measure of value; in other words, a sound money unit! For centuries, gold and silver have been used as money. By weight, these metals were the unit of value in ancient transactions. Abraham gave, in weight, four hundred shekels of silver for the cave of Machpelah. He was rich in flocks and in herds and also in silver and gold. Isaac, and later Jacob, were listed as possessing such wealth; and we are told that David, King of Israel, paid fifty shekels of silver for a threshing floor; and later, six hundred shekels of gold for the entire field in which the threshing floor was located.

Silver and gold were thus used as a medium of exchange, having an inherent value by weight and thus representing the value of goods, services and property in all business transactions.

While sound money was used and accepted as the basis of the system of currency (with silver and gold functioning as units of value in local and world trade), Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, sought to change the monetary system of the world when he gathered the financial representatives of all nations at Babylon in the first great economic conference of which we have any record. There he instituted gold as the standard of value, demonetized silver, and pronounced the death sentence for anyone who would refuse to abide by his ruling (Daniel 3:1-6). He had succeeded in cornering the world's gold supply through world conquest and then he proposed to retain world control by instituting gold, not only as the standard, but to be the only metal to serve as money. Thus, he who could control gold would control through gold world economics, the price of goods and the market value of property and land. This Babylonian system, instituted by Nebuchadnezzar, has continued unto this day.

Having demonetized silver and made gold the only real money, or coin of the realm, there came into being a monetary system which could be manipulated. Silver, which had served naturally to act as a balance for gold, had been removed from this function. Gold and silver without government restraint react like coal and oil or other competing commodities; they stabilize each other, but in the case of gold and silver, stabilization was all the more important because they measured other values. The control of gold gave control over prices, and control over prices gave power over the possessions of others. This system has brought economic evil upon the earth and to all countries and peoples.

By thus setting up gold alone as money there was instituted a rigid, inflexible monetary system and so, in accord with the law of supply and demand, instead of an increase in money or monetary wealth with the increase in goods and instead of a decrease in money or monetary wealth with the decrease in goods, prices fluctuated because of a rigid gold standard, regardless of the actual value of goods. This price fluctuation is the result of the failure of money, not currency, to expand in supply with the increase in goods or demand for money and to diminish with a decrease in goods, services and possessions. Those in control of gold were also able, because of this fact, to manipulate the price level and bring on periods of depression. Thus they continually dominate the purchasing power of money, the price level, regardless of the actual value of the thing purchased.

What is the remedy? Congress must act and assume its constitutional authority to coin money and regulate its value. To regulate the value in respect to a measuring unit is to stabilize it: which, if the coin is gold, means for Congress to provide legislation to keep the world value of gold as a commodity stable. Once that value has been stabilized, then we will have a unit of value which must not be tampered with nor changed any more than it would be right to change the standard of weights and measures, for we have established the length of the yard and the weight of the pound.

But how shall we enable money to expand and contract so that it will keep the Biblical requirement that goods shall have a value in a unit of measure that is constant? If this can be done, then the actual value in goods, services and possessions can be measured in a unit which will record a true and accurate relationship between all wealth, whether rendered in service or represented by goods and possessions. It will also record changes in value of each constituent of that wealth. Anciently, with gold functioning together with silver and maintaining a balance in the value of both, men had the required amount of money in circulation at all times for the transaction of business. Can this be again accomplished and sufficient money be put into circulation to meet all requirements of changing demand for money without dislocating its value in terms of property?

When it is recognized that the separation of gold and silver from operating together in the monetary structure was accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar for the purpose of control, the continuation of that separation serves only one purpose -- continuation of control. The fact that we acquired our present system through the lust for control accounts for the fact that control still exists and is one of the main reasons for the difficulties in the way of remedying the situation.

But, before true and lasting prosperity can be ours, we must return to the original method by which gold and silver functioned together and from the fact of its original operation we have a clue as to the solution of our money problem and a method as applied to our modern system of finance by which the price level can be stabilized. Prices of individual commodities will fluctuate so that God's way of fixing the supply to the demand can be carried out with a yardstick which will show how much the change is and that the change is in the commodity itself and not in the yardstick.

If the proper use is established for gold and silver so that the supply of money can be adjusted to the demand for money, we have the solution to the age-long problem of price stabilization and will be in possession of a medium of exchange that can expand and contract in accord with requirements.

What must be done to secure the blessings of a measure or unit of value that can thus operate as the basis of our money system? First Congress under mandate of the Constitution must set a standard of value equivalent to the existing standard of weight and measure. Now gold is an ideal metal for this purpose but should not be abused as it has been abused in the past, exposed to manipulation as it has been, but rather used as a unit of value through legislating a permanent gold content for the dollar after stabilizing the value of gold as a world commodity. When this has once been done, then that standard must remain constant and neither Congress nor anyone else should have further authority or power to tamper with it or change it just as they keep from tampering with the yard and the gallon or from changing the pound. We would then have four standard measures, all of which are absolutely essential in the carrying on of trade and commerce in our economic structure -- a measure of length, a measure of weight, a measure of capacity and a measure of value. Leave any one of these out -- or make any one of them uncertain or subject to variation -- and we will be faced with immediate economic problems which cannot be solved.

Now with the gold content of the dollar as the standard of value, when the demand for money increases silver should be used as a stabilizer in a scientific manner proposed to the Congress in a bill to which no tenable objection has ever been offered by any expert. Its value would be measured by gold, the standard of value set by Congress, and sufficient quantity of silver would be monetized and placed in the money supply to meet the sudden demands made upon gold when nations are on the gold standard. This would not be bi-metalism, for the value of silver would not be set but would be measured wholly by the unit value of gold and monetized in accordance with that value, which would be the market value of silver. Thus there would be one unit or standard of value only, gold, and the use of silver in terms of the gold dollar would regulate the purchasing power of gold. Money would thus always have an intrinsic but stable value and thus through the proper action of Congress, the price level would be stabilized.

When there came an increased demand for gold as reflected in a slightly rising commodity index silver would be purchased in the needed amount, monetized at market value and placed in circulation as part of our monetary system and such would act as though there had been an increase in the volume of gold. This method which could be reversed if prices declined would expand the monetary system to meet any and every demand made upon it by increased prosperity and production or artificial demand; while the price for goods, services and property would be stabilized. This expansion or contraction of the monetary system would keep the balance against changing demands made upon gold, and men could work and build, labor and trade, knowing that their labors would be rewarded in money of a sound and intrinsic worth without fear of depreciation in its purchasing value.

How different it is today! Under the present system, without a definite standard of the measure of value, and no means to adequately expand our money to meet increased demands, made the present system yield them billions of dollars in surreptitious profits are not going to let the people or their Congress change that system without a fight. They are opposed to sound money and an adequate credit system where sterling character and enterprise will enable men to secure credit and carry on successful business transactions free from fear of confiscation and destruction of their possessions by periodic depressions engineered by financial parasites.

But until, as a nation, we return to a monetary system based on a stable unit of value, allowing the supply to expand and contract in accord with the demand to keep the value constant, there can be no economic peace nor freedom from destitution and want in our land. Those who are responsible for the present situation and its continuation are greater enemies of our nation than even the dictators, evil as they are.

True wealth is represented in our possessions. And a true standard, an unvarying unit of value for measuring that wealth, is essential if our people are to be prosperous, contented, happy and free.

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Preparing the Way for the Return of YEHOVAH God and His Messiah!

Hope of Israel Ministries P.O. Box 853 Azusa, CA 91702, U.S.A. www.hope-of-israel.org

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