By Brandon Smith
I think one of the great misconceptions about economic crisis is that solutions are always dependent on centralized government action. In truth, most financial disasters are actually caused by too much government action and involvement. Central banks like the Federal Reserve are also primary culprits; as I outlined in last week’s article their machinations, which are independent of government oversight, fall into the category of deliberate sabotage. The Fed bankrolls corruption through fiat money creation while government officials and corporations utilize that money to wreak havoc on our living standards.
Ending the Fed would solve the fiat money problem, but there’s still a host of agenda driven politicians and bureaucrats to deal with before our nation can right the ship.
One clear way to fix our system would be to first force government to interfere less. As a point of reference, consider the common media narratives surrounding the covid pandemic. Along with the White House the media has been the premier driver of irrational fear over the spread of covid, which ended up being a minor threat compared to the hype as the average Infection Fatality Rate was no more that 0.27%. Yet, in response to a virus that was a mortal danger to less than one-thrid of 1% of the population, bureaucrats declared a national emergency requiring insane and unconstitutional lockdowns.
The lockdowns damaged the economy in ways people are only now beginning to comprehend, with hundred of thousands of small businesses lost across the country. Not only that, but the establishment responded to the economic implosion they created by printing over $6 trillion in new money through the Fed in 2020 alone. This helicopter money or beta test for UBI (Universal Basic Income) has expedited a stagflationary disaster and helped to push prices on necessities to 40 year highs (the official number).
The media claims it is “covid that is causing the crash,” but this is a lie. It was the RESPONSE to covid that is causing the crash. The virus was incidental to the economic sabotage initiated by governments and central banks. As we saw in conservative red states that defied the lockdowns and the vax mandates, economic activity thrived while leftists blue states suffered. And what did these blue states get in return for their economic sacrifices? Nothing. Covid infections continued to rage in blue states and deaths often outpaced red states with similar sized populations.
In other words, the lockdowns, the mask mandates and the attempts force vaccinations through medical tyranny saved ZERO lives and possibly made things worse. This is the legacy of government micro-management (And yes, let’s not forget that Trump went along with these lockdowns in the beginning of the pandemic also. Biden is just the dirt-bag that continued the measures despite the massive amount of evidence that they don’t work).
While the covid event illustrates my point in a big way, there are a lot of deeply rooted problems that government intervention has caused that add up to one big fiscal calamity. Many of these threats require a basic but sweeping return to fundamentals that government elites will rarely address and will try to stop at all costs. Here are just a few examples…
Inflation And Stagflation? Back The Dollar With Hard Commodities
The federal reserve and their minions have spent the better part of a century trying to convince the public that a gold standard for our currency is what caused the Great Depression and what could cause future depressions. They claim that limitations on money printing strangle liquidity and disrupt velocity. This is a lie.
Former fed chairman Ben Bernanke openly admitted in 2002 in a speech in honor of Milton Friedman that it was the CENTRAL BANK that actually caused the deflationary collapse of the 1930s, not the existence of the gold standard. This rare moment of truth from a fed official was perhaps due to the sheer amount of evidence that Friedman often cited that contradicted the original anti-gold propaganda. Or maybe it happened because the banking elites did not see Friedman as a particular threat, and figured no one among the public would read Bernanke’s speech anyway.
In fact, a commodities foundation held the American economy together for centuries until the Fed came along and the government slowly began removing gold from the picture. All subsequent economic crisis events have been exponentially worse ever since. When a commodities standard is employed, stability always follows. Just look at what has happened in Russia recently; their currency was on a downward spiral due to international sanctions, yet, when they reopened markets this past week the Ruble skyrocketed back to normal. Why? Because Putin had the currency coupled to gold. It’s really that simple.
The US and parts of Europe are facing their own inflationary disasters and this is largely due to the unchecked avarice of central bank stimulus and government spending. The ONLY way to secure the dollar’s existence as a stable store of wealth would be to back it with hard commodities like precious metals (among others). This might kill the dollar’s world reserve status because fiat printing would be impossible from that point on, but I got a news flash for those that hate the idea of grounding the dollar in commodities: We’re going to lose world reserve status anyway, and it’s going to happen soon.
One third of the world’s population including Russia, China and India are already breaking from the dollar in bilateral trade. The US might as well accept this is the reality and prepare to mitigate the coming currency collapse by supporting the dollar with commodities.
Oil Shortages And Energy Inflation? Stop Interfering With Oil Exploration
In early February of this year the Biden Administration made legal filings which halted new oil and gas leases including exploration due to conflicts over “climate costs.” This interference with America’s oil independence is only one of many instances starting with Biden’s sabotage of the Keystone Pipeline in 2021. Interestingly, with gas prices doubling ever since Biden entered office, the White House now claims that they have nothing to do with energy inflation and are not preventing drilling in the US.
During the same period Russia was establishing a decades long oil and gas contract with China and laying the groundwork for a major pipeline to be finished by 2025. And yes, China DOES in fact have the capacity along with India to absorb most of the oil and gas that might be shunned by Europe should they follow through with energy sanctions. Russia was planning ahead while the US was shifting from energy independence and net exporter status to once again becoming dependent on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. Why?
Biden’s excuse is usually climate alarmism. The Earth’s temperature has only risen by ONE DEGREE CELSIUS in the past 100 years according to the NOAA, so the main argument against oil production in the US is based on the fallacy that man-made carbon has any bearing whatsoever on climate changes. But maybe the carbon fraud is just a distraction from something else?
To fix any supply and demand issues in the US, we only need to start producing once again at levels which were easily obtainable in 2020. But what if the issue of supply contraction is not the main cause of oil inflation? I would note that the dollar is not only the world reserve currency but also the global petro-currency. Until recently, almost all oil was traded internationally using dollars. The decline or collapse of the dollar’s buying power due to money printing and runaway inflation is more likely the direct cause of rising oil prices, and supply issues are secondary.
If the dollar was about to collapse due to inflation, oil would be one of the first early warning indicators. With the establishment blocking new oil production and hindering the most cost effective method for oil transport (pipelines), an engineered decline in supply becomes a very effective smokescreen for the death of the dollar. The crisis caused by the government and the Federal Reserve’s currency destruction could then be blamed on supply chain issues and climate “peril.” This is the reason why the establishment will not allow any future growth in US oil production. They cannot allow the public to realize the precarious position our currency is in.
Supply Chain Interdependency Leading To Shortages? Bring Back Manufacturing
There are a lot of reasons why manufacturing has left the US, from greedy and corrupt labor unions driving up wages to higher taxes and land costs to extremely cheap shipping from overseas exporters. There is also the theory that US factories were outsourced to places like China in order to deliberately force the public into a global interdependency scheme. In other words were are stuck with the supply chain we have, not because it’s the best system, but because the globalists want it that way.
It’s unlikely that the federal government and the elitist establishment would ever allow real manufacturing to come back to the US in a way that would make us more self sufficient. As long as our country relies on outsourced goods and raw materials from other nations we remain beholden to the global chain for our survival. Being completely independent might be impossible, but we could be producing far more domestically than we are today.
State governments could create incentives to manufacture within their borders by removing property taxes, reducing state taxes and protecting businesses from certain federal obstructions such as carbon restrictions. As long as those companies do not support anti-freedom initiatives with the money they make, they should be aided so that real jobs and real production make a comeback in the US.
I would also note that if states want to survive the coming financial crisis that is about to strike, they are going to have to start ignoring federal restrictions on land use and the production of raw materials (like oil or coal). Some environmental rules are good, but some are pointless and are only designed to control rather than protect. States will have to stand in defiance of these rules if anything is going to change for the better.
Debt And Liquidity Crisis? Let States Establish Their Own Banks And Currencies
The state of North Dakota has an interesting model for economic independence, which utilizes a state sponsored bank designed specifically to help businesses in ND. I would say it’s bizarre that this idea has not become popular across the nation, but I understand that if it did the federal government and the central bankers would be very unhappy.
Here’s the thing, while it is true that the constitution explicitly states that the US Treasury be the only issuer of US currency, this was done at a time when our currency was backed by gold and silver and there was no corrupt middleman in the form of a central bank. In truth, the Treasury is now second fiddle to the Federal Reserve, and the constitutional regulations on money have already been broken. It’s time for a new currency model and new banking model.
An official bank in each state could decentralize power away from the Federal Reserve in terms of how debt and interest rates are handled, creating something closer to free market discovery of interest rates rather than a rate dictatorship control by the Fed. By extension, each state could also issue currency scrip legal for use only within the borders of those states. This would create a secondary safety net against inflation in the dollar.
In other words, we decentralize the banking system and we offer state alternatives which function not so much as competing currencies but as parallel or complementary currencies backed by and exchangeable in certain commodities. I believe very strongly that this model (along with a couple dozen other measures I don’t have space to cover here) could save our country from decades of economic mismanagement and bring us back from the brink of inflation and debt catastrophe.
States could do this without the permission of the federal government or the Federal Reserve, but I have little doubt that the elites would be in an uproar. Make no mistake, states will have to move to decouple from the national financial system and build alternatives as soon as they realize that the dollar is tanking and stagflation is here to stay. And when they do, the establishment will declare such actions on par with “insurrection.”
In the meantime, there are numerous preparations each individual can make in their local communities to insulate themselves from economic dangers. There are those that will say that local measures are only a stop gap and more national action needs to be taken. They are partially correct; in the long run there needs to be wider organization towards free markets once again, along with redundancies in state economies. In the short term we must do what we can.
Ultimately, the most clear solutions to our fiscal fate are not pursued because the elites do NOT WANT to save the economy, at least not in a way that ends up with them having less power. They want even more power and centralization that extends beyond national boundaries into the realm of global management. Fixing the system can’t happen because they won’t let it happen.
This means that the fix that will save us in the long run will be the one that allows all others to progress; and that fix is to remove these people from positions of influence and authority. You can’t really repair the body in the wake of an illness until the offending disease is eliminated. For now, all we can do is keep the country on life support until a cure is applied.
If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch. Learn more about it HERE.
After 14 long years of ultra-loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, it’s no secret that inflation is primed to soar. If your IRA or 401(k) is exposed to this threat, it’s critical to act now! That’s why thousands of Americans are moving their retirement into a Gold IRA. Learn how you can too with a free info kit on gold from Birch Gold Group. It reveals the little-known IRS Tax Law to move your IRA or 401(k) into gold. Click here to get your free Info Kit on Gold.
You can contact Brandon Smith at:
You can also follow me at –
Parler: @AltMarket
Gettr: @Altmarket1
“In early February of this year the Biden Administration made legal filings which halted new oil and gas leases including exploration due to conflicts over “climate costs.” This interference with America’s oil independence is only one of many instances starting with Biden’s sabotage of the Keystone Pipeline in 2021.”
..
Where the HELL did Biden get the legal power to do this?! As far as I know, according to that trashed paper called the U.S. Constitution, the President / Executive branch only has the power to execute the laws, not to write laws or regulate commerce. Those are powers restricted to the legislative branch. LET’S GO BRANDON!
Anyway, another brilliant article.
Sadly, I agree with just about everything in the article. Another valuable article. Including the recommendations, which wouldn’t be necessary if globalist traitors, or their naive supporters, weren’t developing and implementing policy.
Regarding the Constitutional requirement that the US Treasury be the only issuer of US currency, for any reader who is unaware, the Federal Reserve system is in violation of this law. Also, a state or local currency is not a US currency and is not in violation. I’m not a Constitutional law expert so please correct me if I’m wrong in this regard.
For anyone who has more recently become aware of the globalist elites and the reset agenda (in the last 5-10 years) and who hopes that freedom and liberty can be preserved, it’s important to understand how their ideologies have become pervasive in today’s culture, in contrast to decades ago when vast the majority of Americans would have openly and publicly rejected collectivist and radical progressive ideologies. The following link is to a 1997 article by D.L. Cuddy Ph.D titled “The New World Order A Chronological History”. It gives tremendous insight regarding our current situation, simply by quoting the words and writings of influential globalists who have played a key role in forming government policy, education policy, and other aspects that directly influence how we are governed and how/why perception has been modified over time, towards aligning people to a collectivist global system. Understanding this is fundamental to understanding how to counter the elite agenda, who realized that forceful change would not work. Today, those who want to preserve liberty are now facing the same challenge. If we want to reverse the tide, forceful.change may not be effective. The following article can play a significant role in helping that process by informing people that among other concerns, most people have been subject to an indoctrination program via public education. I recommend that anyone reading this share it far and wide:
https://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/90/
Article 1 SECTION. 10.
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver
Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts;
This is the limit of the prohibition AND the solution.
Thanks for the detail! Yes, it does make it obvious that there are many solutions that citizens can crwate and adopt.
As you wrote in that article: “The East-West divide is about the dollar, not nuclear war”. What else?!
Concerning “insane lockdowns”, here’s a sinister example from China:
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/china/the-worlds-busiest-shipping-port-is-closed/
In Great reset way, China and Russia are playing very well their role…
Living in western europe, with “economic war on russia”, i can say you it: it gets more and more difficult for middle class. And, it’s only the beginning.
Here is some information from a guy much smarter than me. Dr Joseph Mercola was ridiculed my the media for suggesting people hold back on their mad rush to take the vax. Looking at countries like Australia and NZ I think its quite clear variants of Covid are going to target the vax’d going forward. I just left a message in the comments section of this site about Ivermectin. Get some now and hold on to it. Either Pony paste or 1% injectable but it is ONLY to be taken orally. The paste usage weight is on the plunger. For the liquid about 1cc/ml per 200lbs. Unfortunately there’s a lot of storms circling over us now. This is just one of them. I have a feeling this is going to wreak havoc at some point. Put this stuff in your kit while you can.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/04/joseph-mercola/fda-and-pfizer-knew-covid-shot-caused-immunosuppression/
And apologies for getting off topic, great read as always. Mentioned Covid and its effects on the economy. I’m just saying these bastards may not be done using it. I am almost convinced that it was a kill switch. Get people’s immune system wore down and release the next wave. Planned to stop people from exercising frustration and anger. You read Mercola’s take and its hard not to think they knew. I am no expert in immunology but I have learned about ADE and Original Antigenic Sin (OAS). If I know about you better believe the bastards responsible for this do.
Brandon, I have been been on your site for a decade, keep on, your are Right. Thank you.
If, say, Texas came out with their own dollar, wouldn’t it accelerate the collapse of the US dollar?
If it was only legal tender in Texas, no, it wouldn’t.
I understand several states have their own Goldbacks; bills implanted with gold. I wonder if these will be viable currency?
It’s a good idea but come to find out the premium for Goldbacks are something like 3X spot!
“Trump went along with these lockdowns in the beginning of the pandemic” Trump imposed no federal mandates in response to the pandemic except to restrict travel from China. All lockdowns were imposed by the Governors of the States: Should Trump have not allowed the States to make their own rules? You state “One clear way to fix our system would be to first force government to interfere less”. Which is it? Presidents should micromanage State government, or damage caused by the bad policy of State governments is the responsibility of the people in those States?
Trump agreed with the initial lockdowns and promoted their implementation, just as Biden did. If he had spoken out against them from the very beginning, they never would have happened. The CDC takes its marching orders from the White House. This is a fact. Also, you are creating a strawman: I never said Trump should have interfered with state lockdowns, but he did not have to support them or support the experimental vaccines, which he still does to this day. Set aside your naive hero worship for a moment and take a step back into reality.
Like any politician, look at their 9/11 record to reveal who they are. On 9/11, Donald was in NYC. He did a street interview where he stated that planes alone couldn’t have brought the towers down. He said explosives had to have been involved. However, with the world as his audience as president, he never mentioned it once. Instead he kept talking about how Americans need to see the missing pages revealing the “Saudi involvement.”
While campaigning for president, he helped solidify the Muslim narrative by telling people he saw “dancing Muslims” celebrating on 9/11 rather than the “dancing Israelis” that were spotted and arrested.
He hires Rudy Gulliani as his lawyer while in the white house. Rudy was mayor of NYC on 9/11. He was a former federal prosecutor. He knew how important forensics are. The day after 9/11 he allows metal beams to be hauled away from a crime scene before they could be tested by forensic experts. They would have found evidence of thermite, an explosive element on the beams. Check Donald’s 9/11 record and its all you need to know about him.
“As a point of reference, consider the common media narratives surrounding the covid pandemic. Along with the White House the media has been the premier driver of irrational fear over the spread of covid, which ended up being a minor threat compared to the hype as the average Infection Fatality Rate was no more that 0.27%. Yet, in response to a virus that was a mortal danger to less than one-thrid of 1% of the population, bureaucrats declared a national emergency requiring insane and unconstitutional lockdowns.”
——–
What is truly sad is that there was no way for anyone to stop the government and its agencies. Even the legal system refused to do their job under the premise that they didn’t have enough info or expertise to involve themselves! So much for checks and balances.
You must have never heard of Bundy Ranch.
Ever get a chance to go and listen to Bundy speak. Forgot his first name. Little bit different point of view then the media. Interesting speaker.
Do believe that Utah will accept gold or silver coins to pay state taxes at the going market value. Most people that live here are not aware of this fact. Other details that I have forgotten go along with this state law. Think it may have passed over 10 years back. Thoughts on how that might affect the central bank controls.
“It’s unlikely that the federal government and the elitist establishment would ever allow real manufacturing to come back to the US in a way that would make us more self sufficient. As long as our country relies on outsourced goods and raw materials from other nations we remain beholden to the global chain for our survival. Being completely independent might be impossible, but we could be producing far more domestically than we are today.”
——–
C’mon! No one will pay the cost of a product that is manufactured in the USA.
Yes they will, and they did for decades because we used to make some of the highest quality products in the world. Also, you are assuming that products will be made in today’s inflated dollars and that will not be the case.
Excellent piece. However, my observance of my fellow Americans throughout the COVID scamdemic, up to and including recent encounters with physicians and other “experts” demonstrates the biggest threat to accomplishing even one of these remedies isn’t global elites, but a mis-educated, misinformed and indeed indoctrinated citizenry which is perpetually dependent upon government to “solve” problems. That leads to fearful, ignorant individuals who trade illusory “security” for their birthright, which is liberty. They are easily bullied and intimidated.
Citizens are no longer cognizant of their rights and duties in a free country governed by laws, not men, and have a deep-seated need for “messiahs” everyplace but where they should long for the Savior, Jesus Christ. Face it: most people do not want to be free, or independent, and have we enabled them! I do not know how to counter that! Try discussing elimination of 75% of the annual federal budget’s entitlement and social welfare spending and watch people stare back in horror. I want to believe Americans want to govern themselves, but all evidence is to the contrary. Why am I being stuck with Social Security, Medicare and the rest of it? I didn’t vote for this or vote for anyone to continue it! I would like these monsters to go away, yet millions misapprehend government’s role and continue to insist this is an appropriate role for the federal government?
I never attended public schools, and perhaps for that reason I can unequivocally state that public education in 2022 poses a direct threat to liberty. Happy Easter!
If this platform had a rave system you’d get a thumbs up from me.
You must live in a blue state. In the red states we were free from covid mandates almost immediately after they started. I don’t think the people in Montana put up with the situation for more than a couple months before they ignored the lockdowns and the masks entirely. The situation is not as dire as it might seem if you are surrounded by leftists in a major city or blue state.
I agree. I live in California, and from a blue state perspective everything Alecto says is correct. But then I went to Montana for a week in October 2021 and absolutely could not believe the difference in COVID policy AND the peoples response to COVID. Thank God the whole country is not like California and I will be forever grateful that the red states pushed back as hard as they did.
@quarter
And the permission right there for states to create a currency in gold or silver. A state could start minting state coins, presumably in silver for smaller sums and small gold coins for larger sums. It could also issue a certificate that allows the holder to trade in for the equivalent in gold or silver so people don’t have to walk around w bags of coins.
Hi Brandon,
Regarding Russia pegging the ruble to gold, I’ve seen some writers suggesting neither this nor demanding rubles for oil is what stabilized the ruble, but rather that the ruble rebounded simply by virtue of Russia finding ways around the sanctions. Also, one writer on ZH mentioned that “if European nations trade euros for rubles and then rubles for oil, that’s no different than the original system of trading euros for oil. Russia, after all, would just trade those euros for rubles and you’d have the same scenario.” How do we know it has more to do with pegging the ruble to gold?
..
Also, other writers are suggesting that Russia’s move to accept gold for their oil and to peg the ruble to gold could lead to separation between the paper and physical gold markets and even a moonshot in physical gold prices. Just as the pandemic was starting, you penned a piece about how physical gold would soon separate from the paper gold market in a spectacular fashion. Do you still believe that? And, if Russia moves forward with this, do you think we could finally see that?
..
Lastly, I’ve been curious in recent weeks to know what you believe the ratio may be of paper gold certificates to physical reserves? I am seeing estimates as high as 200 oz of paper gold to every 1 oz of physical in reserve. One of your readers commented two articles ago that they believed it is no less than 150 to 1. Is this realistic? Thanks!
1) Europe is actively positioning to sanction Russian oil and gas. This completely overshadows the temporary Euro for Rubles trade; and beyond that the Ruble collapsed WHILE the Euro/Ruble trade was active, so that theory falls apart when the facts are considered. What changed over the time that Russian markets were closed? Not the Euro/Ruble trade, that’s for sure. The only factor that was NEW during that period of a week or so and independent of the Euro trade that could have propped up the Ruble is the peg to gold. I think the writers you are citing forgot to take timing into account when developing their theory.
2) I don’t think the big moves in gold will happen until it becomes clear that China is dropping the dollar. It will trend up, but it will skyrocket once this happens (and it will). And yes, I think physical markets will completely decouple from Wall Street paper and ETFs as inflation continues to climb.
3) I don’t know if anyone knows for sure what the exact ratio is. I know that many experts in ETFs have indicated a silver-to-paper ratio of around 200 ETFs per 1 ounce of silver, so I would not be surprised if the same were true for gold. This would easily put gold in the tens-of-thousands of dollars per ounce range if accurate.
Thanks so much for these answers, Brandon! These are all great points and make perfect sense – especially your points about the timing of the peg to gold vs. the euro/ruble trade and the timing of China dropping the dollar in regards to the physical and paper gold market separation. Happy Easter!
It never did make any sense to me why imports are cheaper than domestically made goods, especially when we have the exact same resources and means to manufacture the very things being imported.
Makes perfect sense to import everything from the globalist/elitest perspective. Eroding the industrial base leads to lower productivity resulting in lower wages and thus a lower standard of living which eventually makes a great reset mmore palatable.
“Oil Shortages And Energy Inflation?”
It’s on run (a very good post by F. William Engdahl following ):
https://journal-neo.org/2022/04/11/nato-sanctions-and-the-coming-global-diesel-fuel-disaster/
The Euro is an artificial currency and I would not be surprised if it collapses before the USD.
P.S: This “single currency” should rather be called the “new” German Deutsch Mark (i.e. “DM 3.0”).
German industry(1st european economy) has been benefited a lot until now.
The dollar will get hit first; it is the world reserve and this makes it the easiest to undermine in terms of market value and inflation at home. All it takes is for China to dump the dollar in exchange for exports and trillions of greenbacks will come flooding into the US from overseas, multiplying the inflation problem a hundred-fold.
Thanks for clarifyed and argued reply, Brandon.
Not too mention future’s contracts and other derivatives such as stocks and bonds. All tools for accounting. So let’s just boil this down to it’s essence, accounting. Money is an accounting tool. You can actually work for someone who just sits there and the compensation makes your toil just.
I think the best was yet to come until recently, the public block-chain. But that wasn’t private enough until it was encrypted. Now we’re talking!
Relegate money back to being the money-mark of accountancy and totally privatize it and our money-problems will be solved. IMO.
No, money is also a store of wealth, not an accounting tool, which is why fiat is a failure as money. If you don’t have a hard commodity backing to a currency then it is nothing more than an empty measure of “accounting” that can lose its purchasing power at any given time. Blockchain and encryption changes nothing. Anyone can create a cryptocurrency from thin air with the same exact qualities as any other coin. They are essentially worthless except for branding. Encryption does not add value to anything. It is nothing more than adding an extra function to a string of digital nothings.
Excellent article Brandon, as usual. There is some historical precendent for states regulating circulating currency. In 1849 California prohibited Banks from issuing notes and paper to circulate as money. Also in California, during the Civil War gold or silver (including privately minted coins) were the generally accepted money. The people of California leery of depreciating greenbacks generally refused to accept them, even though they were deemed legal tender by the Federal government. Interestingly, in 1862 the California Supreme Court ruled that communities could refuse greenbacks as payment for taxes. In 1863 the state passed the Specific Contract Act which said contracts agreed to be payable in gold were not bound to accept greenbacks.