Ron Paul at the Concord Monitor from Concord Monitor on Vimeo.

Very interesting. Not hard money, but it has many virtues:

Criticism:

* Dollar getting beat up.

* Gold / silver pull back because of pullback from Euro?

* Bernanke says, essentially “it ain’t money if I can’t print it.” Says people buy gold because of uncertainty. But Peter is buying gold b/c he is certain Bernanke is destroying the dollar.

* Bernanke claims dollar’s worth has nothing to do with America’s purchasing power. Is he nuts?

* By saying the U.S. will default if the credit ceiling isn’t raised, Obama tells U.S. creditors how low they are on the totem pole of who gets paid.

* Another NIA pump-and-dump scam.

It may not fold as conveniently as dollar bills, but the Utah House took a first step Friday to recognize gold and silver as legal tender.

It voted 47-26 to pass HB317 by Rep. Brad Galvez, R-West Haven, and sent it to the Senate. The measure would recognize as legal tender gold and silver coins issued by the federal government — not just their face value, but also their value in gold and silver or to a collector.

It also would order the state to study whether Utah should establish an alternative form of legal tender, such as one backed by silver and gold.

“This is a step in preparedness, a step in security,” Galvez said, “that allows us to be able to help hold up our economy as the dollar continues to shrink.” (Read more from sltrib.com)

There is no way Von NotHaus’s coins could be confused with money. Some of the coverage of this story is disgusting: Von NotHaus designed the Liberty Dollar currency in 1998 and the Liberty coins were marked with the dollar sign ($); the words dollar, USA, Liberty, Trust in God (instead of In God We Trust); and other features associated with legitimate U.S. coinage.

The FBI won a three-count conviction against precious-metals dealer Bernard von NotHaus on March 18 for the “crime” of minting memento “dollars” in silver, and the FBI charged in a press release that making silver coins is “domestic terrorism.” Jurors came to the unanimous verdict after only two hours of deliberation.

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Anne M. Tompkins said in a March 18 FBI press release boasting of the verdict.

Making silver coins is “domestic terrorism”? Really?

“While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” Tompkins added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.” (Read more from thenewamerican.com)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A North Carolina man was convicted for creating and distributing a counterfeit currency that was very similar to the real dollar, a U.S. Attorney said.

Bernard von NotHaus, 67, minted Liberty Dollar coins in the value of $7 million dollars. The conviction concludes an investigation that was started in 2005.

“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” Anne Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a statement on Friday.

“While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she said. (Read more from infowars.com)