-- Posted Friday, 3 April 2009 | | Source: GoldSeek.com
By R. D. Bradshaw
The tragedy of the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920s is discussed in the Goldsmiths, Part LV. Interestingly enough, I was first introduced to this issue as a boy back in the late 1940s. In those days, I was a stamp collector of sorts. Even now, I distinctly remember postage stamps from Germany which were in the billions of marks.
I remember one which was interesting because it had been printed at one high mark price and there was a subsequent printer’s block out and a new, higher price inserted. With a little thought, it was possible to understand what had happened. They printed the stamp with a certain value or price.
But before they could issue the stamp and have it used by the public, the price had risen substantially. Instead of destroying the batch of then obsolete stamps, they simply overprinted a black out of the old price and inserted a new price. At first I thought such a stamp could have value. But then I later learned that many of them were produced in that fashion.
In previously citing the story in the Goldsmiths, Part LV, on the woman and the wheelbarrow of money, I must add that the tragedy here is that this same situation is on the way to modern America; thanks to the ingenuity and manipulations of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. Already, we have reached the point that it is useless for me to try to save money.
With the current real inflation rate at around the double digit level (though our government lies to us and tells us that there is no inflation), and with savings earning virtually no interest return, it is insanity for me to try to save money at a local bank or savings institution. Like so many others, I too gave up trying to save money in US banks and savings institutions.
Back to Postage Stamps
In any case, this backdrop from Weimar Germany allows me now to return to my primary theme in this study. It is about postage stamps. By discussing the stamp collecting hobby, I believe I will be able to show how incredibly bad the Federal Reserve has been to America and Americans since it took over US money in 1913.
In August 1950, I entered the active US army because of the Korean War. Before that time, I was a boy in high school and concentrating on my stamp collecting hobby. In that context, I often used my nickels and dimes to buy mint, four-stamp, corner blocks of new commemoratives stamps coming out. Then, US first-class postage was three cents. So I could buy four of these in a corner block for 12 cents. So I tried to buy a block every time a new commemoratives stamp would come out. By the time I entered the active military in August 1950, I had a large collection of these stamps.
Being totally ignorant and uninformed on how the Federal Reserve Bank was working to literally destroy the US money and even the US itself, I had some foggy idea that my stamp investments would some day pay off. I just could imagine that over time I would see my new, mint stamps go up in value. But with the military phase of my life, I laid the stamps aside with no idea when I might resume the hobby. Actually, by then, I was concentrating on the military and on girls so there was no place for stamps in my life. But I kept the collection and the mint stamps that I had acquired back in 1949.
So the years passed and one day I decided that I would get my stamps out and sell all those mint stamps that I bought at three cents each. I can’t remember now but this was probably by the year 1960. Actually, by then the US first class postage ate had increased to four cents (this happened in 1959).
So I took my collection of new, mint, three-cent stamps down to a dealer and offered to sell them. The most the dealer would pay me were the face amounts, and even then he was not particularly interested. In fact, his advice was for me to use them as postage. So I invested valuable money in 1949, buying three cent stamps, held them for ten years or more, and they were still only worth their hypothetical face value of three cents each.
Of course, most of us familiar with US inflation from 1949 to 1959 know that it had gone up substantially. And this inflation rate was reflected in the first class postage rates that had increased by 33 1/3% (going from three to four cents). But that was not the end of the story. When I got ready to use the stamps, they no longer would even carry a first class letter as they would when I bought them in 1949.
Thus, when I used them it would take one of my three-cent stamps plus a 33 1/3 premium for me to mail a first class letter. And this happened, mind you, all the while that inflation was climbing into the sky in the years 1949 to 1959. Is it fair now to say that the banking Cabal running the Federal Reserve had ripped me off and stolen from me over that ten-year period? I think so.
But that ten year period was nothing compared to what has happened since 1959. Now, postage stamps are approaching 44 cents for a first class letter (a 1500% increase). And what would those three cent stamps be worth today? Well, probably not much more than their face value. So I would have really lost money if I would have held those stamps for another fifty years, to 2009.
The Alternatives
While I was ripped off and cheated in my dealings with the US government, thanks to the Federal Reserve Bank, I could not have done much better by putting my nickels and dimes in a savings account. I would have earned the 2-3% return annually which would have let me get back something more than my investment (but not much more). But, even here, it did not equal the inflation rate so I would be a loser over all.
There is only one place where I could have put my money and see it appreciate over the years. And that one place is in gold or silver (although we were not allowed to own gold in the US in 1949-1959). The increase was slow for the first few years but it was real and genuine and not a fake. Yes, it was an increase and it has accelerated recently. If I could have gotten my nickels and dimes out of the country to buy gold back then, and held it until today, I would have seen it go from $35 an ounce to $1000 an ounce.
Based on my experience, is it smart to buy mint US postage stamps and hold them in hopes of someday benefiting? How about a savings account—is this smart today? Now, how about some gold and silver?
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Back issues of the Goldsmiths, by the editor of the Analysis of News, can be accessed from a Google or Yahoo search engine by typing in “R. D. Bradshaw” Goldsmiths. Several hundred web sites can be found with the back issues and with translations to Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese and other foreign languages. Goldseek.com has most of the back issues of the Goldsmiths. Finally, the “Archives-Goldsmiths” of this website (www.analysis-news.com ) has all of the Goldsmith articles issued to date.
Besides the revelations contained in the Goldsmiths’ articles, the work of the plutocratic financial market manipulators to conspiratorially manipulate and control the financial markets (to make more profits and install a world government under their management) is also addressed at length in the periodic analysis of the news and in other articles produced at www.analysis-news.com. This website has an article of interest to any person interested in understanding the market Manipulators. It is the Hidden Secret of the Manipulators, why they succeed and how to follow their manipulations.
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-- Posted Friday, 3 April 2009 | Digg This Article
| Source: GoldSeek.com