The Floating Dollar as a Threat to Property Rights

[Ragnarok]

Seth Lipsky, founding Editor of the New York Sun, weighs in.

This is a very interesting read.

Snip:
"TO BEGIN, consider one of the most important measures of property, the kilogram. It’s a measure of mass or, for non-scientific purposes, weight. According to the papers last week, a global scramble is under way to define this most basic unit after it was discovered that the standard kilogram—a cylinder of platinum and iridium that is maintained by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures—has been losing mass.

You may think that this is impossible. Of all the elements, iridium is the most resistant to corrosion, and the cylinder is kept in a facility at Sevres, France, where it is under three glass domes accessible by three separate keys. The cylinder itself is more than 130 years old and is what the New York Times calls the “only remaining international standard in the metric system that is still a man-made object.” The new urgency to redefine the kilogram comes from the fact that its changing mass “defeats,” as the Times put it, “its only purpose: constancy.”

The question I invite you to consider for a moment is what would happen if we just let the kilogram float? This is a question that was posed in an editorial last week in the New York Sun. After all, the editorial said, we let the dollar float. The creation of dollars, and the status of the dollar as legal tender, is a matter of fiat. Its value is adjusted by the mandarins at the Federal Reserve, depending on variables they only sometimes share with the rest of the world. This would have floored the Framers of our Constitution, who granted Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value in the same sentence in which they gave it the power to fix the standard of weights and measures—like, say, the aforementioned kilogram."

Read the rest here:

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2011&month=02

fyi & fwiw, R.

[DMac]

Interesting indeed, Ragnarok. Thanks

[dys]

Property rights? What property rights? Those disappeared a very long time ago if they ever existed at all.

dys

[po boy]

You gave them away.

[madfranks]

I think we should let the value of the inch and foot float too. That way when a builder doesn't have enough material to build a house per fixed units of measurement, he can use smaller inches, that way he can still build a complete house!

[Tom Roscal]

You gave them away.


i don't think anyone here at GSUS was around when property rights where taken away.

[keehah]

Since the basic measure of mass is defined as kilogram, not gram, it would seem this unit of measure has already experienced runaway inflation. ;D

[SLV^GLD]

A gram can be defined as one cubic centimeter of pure water at 4C at 1atm.

[po boy]

You gave them away.


i don't think anyone here at GSUS was around when property rights where taken away.

You have a Social Security # you gave 'em away, how bout a dl , voter registration, bank accounts, insurance, birth certificate.

These are the where and hows of your enslavement. Don't believe it oh well.As they say ignorance is no excuse.
Property has never been taxed in this country. Your labor is your property unless you have a SSN#.

Of course I could be whistlin' Dixie but what would be my motivation for doing so?

No friend you gave them away by ignorance or otherwise.

Don't shoot at the messenger, he shoots back.

[chad]

property taxes started in 1796 with the establishment of uniform capitation taxes. none of the things you listed such as ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. even existed then.

[Gaillo]

Re: Property "rights" - I would argue that you HAVE no property rights in an environment of taxation. The power to tax is not only the power to destroy, it is also the power of "ownership" - anything that it taxed in REALITY is being rented from the government. Don't believe me? Don't pay your property tax and see how long your "property" will remain in your control.

Re: The international mass standard and it's weight loss... fascinating! I found this article that goes into detail:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112003322

Here's an excerpt:


Please Don't Sneeze On The Kilogram

As it stands, the entire world's system of measurement hinges on the cylinder. If it is dropped, scratched or otherwise defaced, it would cause a global problem. "If somebody sneezed on that kilogram standard, all the weights in the world would be instantly wrong," says Richard Steiner, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.

If somebody sneezed on that kilogram standard, all the weights in the world would be instantly wrong.

- Richard Steiner

For that reason, the official kilogram is kept locked inside a secured vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. Scientists are so paranoid that they've only taken it out on three occasions: in 1889, 1946 and 1989. Each time, they've compared it to a set of copies. In 1889, the copies and the kilogram weighed the same, but by 1989, they had drifted apart. Based on the data, the kilogram appears to weigh slightly less than the copies.

The real crux of this problem is that it's impossible to tell what has changed over the past 120 years. The copies may have grown heavier over time by absorbing air molecules. But it's equally possible that the kilogram is getting lighter. Periodic washings, for example, may have removed microscopic quantities of metal from its surface.

Or it could be that both the copies and the kilogram are changing, but at different rates. There is no way to tell what's happening because mass is always calibrated against another mass, says Peter Mohr, a theoretical physicist at NIST who is working on the kilogram problem.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the change is extremely small, around 50 micrograms (billionths of a kilogram). "The actual ramifications for somebody going to the store will be negligible," Mohr says. But "for scientific work, it makes a difference."

So, apparently they're not really sure the international standard cylinder is losing mass, or if the copies it's compared to are gaining mass! :o

[po boy]

property taxes started in 1796 with the establishment of uniform capitation taxes. none of the things you listed such as ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. even existed then.


Property taxes are a myth, what you are talking about are ad volurum(sp) taxes.

[chad]

property taxes started in 1796 with the establishment of uniform capitation taxes. none of the things you listed such as ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. even existed then.


Property taxes are a myth, what you are talking about are ad volurum(sp) taxes.


okay then, ignore the uniform capitalization taxes that started in 1796 and go with ad valorum instead.

ad valorum really got kicked off in 1818 when illinois adopted it. it was fully rolling in most states by the 1830s. ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. didn't exist in the early 1830s either. birth certificates didn't even pop up on the radar until 1836 in england. in the united states it was 1893 in pennsylvania. ad valroum had been rocking for at least 60 years by then.

i get your point, but all of these "this document means you gave away property rights" is urban legend. what gave away property rights was people voting in piece of shit politicians.

[po boy]

property taxes started in 1796 with the establishment of uniform capitation taxes. none of the things you listed such as ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. even existed then.


Property taxes are a myth, what you are talking about are ad volurum(sp) taxes.


okay then, ignore the uniform capitalization taxes that started in 1796 and go with ad valorum instead.

ad valorum really got kicked off in 1818 when illinois adopted it. it was fully rolling in most states by the 1830s. ss numbers, voter registration, birth certificates, etc. didn't exist in the early 1830s either. birth certificates didn't even pop up on the radar until 1836 in england. in the united states it was 1893 in pennsylvania. ad valroum had been rocking for at least 60 years by then.

i get your point, but all of these "this document means you gave away property rights" is urban legend. what gave away property rights was people voting in piece of shit politicians.


Wait till you get around to reading the Social Security act and realize what you pledged.You did read it all before you signed up right? Before you got one for your kids (your most prized possession)right?

Do the kids have a birth cert? if so they aint your kids, you gave them to the state and you friend are babysitter for the STATES kids.How you like them apples.Fucken sucks don't it. The truth is painful but none the less reality.

Voter registration avoid it like the plague. Urban legend Okay if you say so , however I don't complain about what I gave away.

We still have a constitution. I heard the question how many different types of status are there in America the answer is 28 and the highest is an individual. The lowest being a felon. Where are you? How do you find out? Why even try?

Urban legend....okay if you say so.

[woodman]

You gave them away.


i don't think anyone here at GSUS was around when property rights where taken away.

You have a Social Security # you gave 'em away, how bout a dl , voter registration, bank accounts, insurance, birth certificate.

These are the where and hows of your enslavement. Don't believe it oh well.As they say ignorance is no excuse.
Property has never been taxed in this country. Your labor is your property unless you have a SSN#.

Of course I could be whistlin' Dixie but what would be my motivation for doing so?

No friend you gave them away by ignorance or otherwise.

Don't shoot at the messenger, he shoots back.


You are wrong. What was taken was taken. You can fancy it up any way you choose to make it sound like it is a choice. There is no choice. Show me a choice. Do you have a choice not to drive? No. Do you have a choice not to have a SS #? No. Do you have a choice not to pay taxes? No. You can ramble and drivel all you want but facts is facts and unless you are living like a bum and working for shit wages, getting paid cash, you are paying income tax. Anything you buy has taxes built into the price already, so you still pay for the income tax of the guys making and selling product. Inescapable.

[po boy]

Show me the law saying you have to have a SSN.

[dys]

Show me the law saying you have to have a SSN.


Our oppressors don't care about the law unless it suits them, that's the problem.

dys

[po boy]

Show me the law saying you have to have a SSN.


Our oppressors don't care about the law unless it suits them, that's the problem.

dys


The feeling is mutual I don't care for them either, and I have no problem with that! ;D