A Silver Stackers Experiment – Do Producers of Real Goods Understand Value?

by Matt, SGTreport.com

I’ve made the argument before that if the REAL producers of the world could escape government control of the money then we could live in a much more prosperous world. Goods and services could be transacted without extortion so that producers and consumers could live in peace and prosperity.

In our Republic, the government’s ONLY job (at least as Thomas Jefferson viewed it) is to protect the liberty of the people. A job incidentally, that our current government spectacularly fails at.

Gold and Silver have been money for over 5000 years. People tend to use the term ‘fiat experiment’ to describe the temporary, soon to be extinct, monetary system. But it’s not an experiment. We know what the results will be. Every 40 years or so, Gold reasserts itself as MONEY as the fiat currency implodes (hyperinflates) — and it is a brave (or clueless) man that would bet it’s not going to happen this time.

So back to those REAL producers … and REAL money: PHYSICAL precious metal.

I decided to try a little experiment. I live in a little village. Next to this little village is a slightly larger village. Still with me? Good. That should weed out CNN viewers.

Every Thursday a little farmers market gathers to sell produce that is either homemade or direct from the farmers. No doubt you have one similar near you but every week people who make their own pies, cakes, cheeses and cuts of meat turn up and set out their stalls to sell their collective efforts to those of us not graced with their skill set.

These are the people that are going to be vital to silver stackers in the future. You may have a stack the size of the JPM Morgan building but if you can’t grow potatoes or bake to save your life then you are going to need the skills of other people.

I fit right into this category. So I made the trip to my local farmer’s market recently.

The plan was to visit as many food stalls as possible with some £5 bills and set of ¼ oz Silver coins. I was going to pick something around £5 to purchase from any given producer and offer them two options for payment

1. Some ¼ oz of 999 fine Silver, true historical money for 5000 years.

Or

1. Some plastic printed garbage with the queens head emblazoned across the front accompanied with the word £5 embossed on it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I invite you to take your guesses as to what happened.

Being a future Pulitzer Prize winning journalist I’d done my homework. That very morning I’d learned the spot price of Silver, which was $16.98. Plus VAT and that makes a single ¼ coin worth £4.20 at spot. Apmex will sell you one for around $5.50 spot plus the usual post and packing etc.

Over here you can’t buy one for less than £5.20 or so.

Yet think about what I’m offering here. The Romans used to dish out 1/10 oz of Silver to the their battle soldiers per day. The denarius used to pay a man, for a day, to march and fight in all manner of conditions to uphold the ‘glory of Rome’. The strongest and fittest men were prepared to do this to earn the monetary power that 1/10 oz silver would offer.

I was going to be offering at least 1/5 oz for some fruit.

I’d selected my first target. It was a small stall selling a vast array of pies and cakes. Home-baked and everything looked delicious. I perused for a few moments, finally selecting a steak pie and an egg custard tart. The total price was £4.75. I handed them over to the, as yet, completely unsuspecting stall owner.

I’m paraphrasing here but the conversation went something thus;

Stall Owner: That’ll be £4.75 mate.

Me: Excuse me kind Sir, I have here before me (proudly holding aloft) a five pound note and a ¼ oz fine Silver and wonder which you might prefer as payment?

Stall Owner: You what?

Me: As a fine purveyor of goods I have selected a sample of your most delicious looking produce and now wish to pay. I wonder perchance if you would prefer payment in Silver, historical money since the dawn of our civilization. You can of course take this piece of paper.

Stall owner: I’ll take the fiver. Here’s your change. Thanks for your custom. Come again. Next.

And that was that. No hesitation. No secondary thoughts and no interest (pun intended). He barely paused. It never occurred to him as to why I was asking, nor was there any inquisitiveness on his part. I am preaching to the converted here maybe, but I’d bet that silver coin that the average SGT Report reader would have at least asked as to why I was doing it.

OK. So that guy was selling pies and the production from baking. Maybe this guy, the butcher, would understand real value and be more inquisitive of what he trades for his efforts.

Nope.

I selected a string of sausages in a two for one deal Total price, £5. Same question. Same result.

My quest was to try all manner of different types of traders of goods. I approached the fruit and veg stand walking casually past the small guard dog gauging the threats from passers by. Having cats, this miniature ‘would be’ Cerberus sensed my preference for an inferior form of pet and scowled profusely.

I selected my favorite fruit, the strawberry and chose a few others to accompany a soon to be delightfully colourful fruit bowl. As before I held aloft the five pound note and the Silver and asked again. Same result, absolutely no hesitation.

The nearest I got was the man selling fish. He at least asked what the thing that wasn’t the £5 note was.

I showed it to him, “So that’s Silver then? That’s the first time I’ve been doing this that someone has offered me Silver for fish”. The guy looked about 50. He took the fiver.

He was inquisitive up to a point. He wondered what I was holding aloft, but no there was no sense that it might develop further into WHY I might be offering it. Although that might have been due to the developing queue of ‘tutting’ people.

I tried all manner of different professions butchers, bakers, fruit, veg, cheese, bread and fish sellers. None of them seem at all interested in exchanging their wares for real money.

I ended up with;
20 sausages, a bowl of fruit, a steak pie, an egg custard tart, some lovely looking cod, a block of cheese, some pork pies and several house bricks of bread, as well as a load of vegetables.

All paid for with paper.

Conclusion.

I’m left with a consolidating feeling of what I suspected anyway. That the average person, even those who really work for a living, producing goods and services of REAL value are still completely clueless when it comes to getting payment for their efforts.

Historically at least I was offering two days of labour, crystallized in a metal that has been money for several millennia and nobody was even curious really.

The end of Keynes’ grand masterplan will eventually fail and we are perilously close to the end of it. Eventually these people will work it out with the rest of the citizenry but by then, it could well be too late to preserve their comfy western way of life.

This experiment has had an added bonus though. At the moment I’m the crazy guy with silver. But in the coming monetary catastrophe this type of thinking could well flip. With a collapsing banking system the community food producers could well come to recognize real value when they see it. Don’t think so? Just ask a Venezuelan citizen.

Socialism Nightmare: Venezuelans Now Eating Dogs, Cats and Pigeons to Survive

Thus I may go from being an amusing tale of the ‘guess what happened to me at work today’ variety to someone who they will readily trade with, preferentially in most cases I shouldn’t wonder.

I have to say, as interesting as this was to do I look forward to doing it during a period when the banks aren’t working and the cash machines are having problems. I wonder if I will get the same responses?

Matt is a valued daily contributor to the SGT report news feed, he is also a valued member of team humanity.