A Montana state
lawmaker is asking that he be paid in gold coins because of his lack of faith in
the U.S. dollar amid a rising deficit.
Jerry O’Neil, a
Republican just reelected in his northern Montana district, says his
constituents told him he was not honoring his duty to uphold the U.S.
Constitution, which O’Neil and Gold Standard supporters say requires the
government to print money backed by gold.
“I believe that
if you take a look at the Constitution, that’s what it says,” he told POLITICO.
“I think we’ve gotten a tremendously long way from it.” “If we don’t start
paying that debt down, we’re going to lose the country.”
So he wrote a
letter to the state Legislature asking to be paid his public salary in gold and
stating: “It is very likely the bottom will fall out from under the U.S. dollar.
Only so many dollars can be printed before they have no
value.”
A former
supporter for Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-Texas) failed bid for president, O’Neil said he
hasn’t heard back from the Montana Legislature about his request. Politico
FACTS & FIGURES
The U.S. dollar
is a declining currency. In the last 100 years it has lost over 96 per cent of
its purchasing power. This process accelerated after 1971 when President Richard
Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard.
If the U.S. were
any normal country, its currency would now be in complete collapse and it would
be arranging for IMF bailouts such as Greece and Ireland saw recently. But
because it is the world’s reserve currency, the U.S. has one big advantage: it
can just print more dollars.
There are calls
for an end to U.S. dollar hegemony and to determine a new world reserve
currency, and possibly even bring back a gold standard. The calls have ranged
from the IMF, the World Bank, and many countries including France and Germany
and China. Even Saudi Arabia has joined a group of countries seeking an
alternative for the pricing of oil solely in U.S. dollars. China and Russia are
now conducting trade between themselves in Yuan and
Rubles.
With the
explosion in debt and money and the decline in the purchasing power of the U.S.
dollar, society has become more divided. Income and wealth is increasingly
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
General wages in
the U.S. have been stagnant for at least the past two decades and those living
on fixed incomes have seen a constant decline in their living standards.
Meanwhile, those involved in the creation of money particularly at the banks and
investment management companies have seen an explosion in their wealth and pay
packages. goldseek.com
Source: PressTV - MT lawmaker: Pay me in gold, please
