“Ius novit curia!”
The Brussels Court of Appeal cannot tolerate that a fallible human judge is being replaced by an impartial golden one.
Nor, second argument, can it link the “monetary adjustment” of 1972 to the Belgian act/statute (loi/wet) of 23 December 1988 which severed the link of the Belgian franc to gold, thereby opening the road for the euro [to, not only do the same thing, but also to sever the link to (the) “sovereign states”] .
It is the gold reserves of the European “System” of Central Banksters (ESCB) which make the decisions that are best for the euro overall.
FreeGold meant for the behind-the-scenes architects of the euro, and still means, that the euro has a gold component and a paper component, but puts a “firewall” between both so that gold’s valuation as a wealth-preserving asset cannot be pulled lower by the inevitable inflation of the paper component of circulating currencies.
It is the (quarterly) marking to market (MTM) of the gold reserves of the Eurosystem (1), not to the Bretton Woods model of $42.2 like the USA central bank (originally $35), by the European Central Bankster (ECB) which provides that wall.
The point is that the Eurosystem’s response (volume expansion) to its current systemic threat (the debt crisis) is not surprising. Does this mean the euro will collapse (experience hyperinflation)? No. Because, for one reason, it has severed the link to the nation-state. The euro is behaving perfectly predictably in maintaining the nominal performance of its system through expansion,
but it cannot be forced to fund the future government profligacy of the PIIGS [Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain]
through volume-only expansion.
That link is severed.
[The euro is the first currency that has not only severed its link to gold, but also its link to the nation-state, said ECB president Duisenberg in 2002 upon receiving the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen. (5)]
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2011/07/euro-gold.html
The process of marking to market (MTM) the Eurosystem’s gold reserves has resulted during the FIRST decade of the Freegold (ECB MTM FLOATING gold price) “experiment”, in gold rising from 30% to 60% of the Eurosystem’s (international liquidity) reserves.
http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2010/07/gold-ultimate-wealth-consolidator.html
The euro and Freegold are coexisting to supplement each other, without interacting with each other.
That’s how the polity achieves its democratic legitimacy and speaks with one golden voice.
No harmonisation of politicians, bureaucrats or laws has been required to that effect. (2)
The ESCB is the European “System” of Central Banksters,
not the European “Service” of Central Banksters,
as Brussels Court of Appeal says in its 01 June 2011 judgment
Re: gold reserves of the National Bankster of Belgium, the Belgian central bankster.
http://www.nbb.be/doc/ts/enterprise/juridisch/arrest20110614.pdf
After having quoted (in small characters) on page 7 an applicable legal provision referring to the ESCB with its correct name, the court goes on (in normal characters), on the same page 7, to speak of the European “Service” of Central Banksters.
At the top of page 8, the court then quotes again in small characters the correct name.
Ceci n’est pas une erreur matérielle. Mesdames et Monsieur.
Dit is onwil in hoofde van het hof om het recht uit de hand te geven.
(The small characters have probably been typed by somebody else than the writer of the judgment.
The small characters are quotes, they have probably been typed not by one of the three judges, but copied by one of his or her secretaries (“griffiers” in Dutch, “greffiers” in French).
The normal characters have incorrectly been typed by one of the three judges who, the latter, don’t understand the ESCB.
The court does thus not understand the ESCB.)
By doing that, the said Court of Appeal has once again demonstrated that it cannot tolerate that a fallible human judge is being replaced by an impartial golden one.
A l’origine la monnaie a été conçue comme un instrument facilitant le paiement et remplaçant le troc.
A 19me siècle, le franc était défini comme représentatif d’une certain quantité de métal précieux et pouvait être échangé à la Banque de France contre cette quantité d’or et d’argent.
D’autre part, si le franc était l’instrument habituel de paiement, les parties pouvaient toujours prévoir un paiement avec une autre monnaie.
Une loi [française] du 12 aout 1870 est venue imposer le cours légal : le créancier est tenu d’accepter paiement en francs.
Une loi [toujours française] du 1er octobre 1936 a fixe le cours forcé ; les francs ne peuvent plus être échangés à la Banque de France contre une quantité de métal précieux.
De ces textes découlent l’interdiction pour les paiements internes, des clauses-or (paiement en pièces d’or) , des clauses valeur-or (paiement en euros, le montant de la dette variant en fonction du cours de l’or), des clauses en monnaie étrangère (paiement en euros, le montant de la dette variant en fonction du cours de la monnaie étrangère). Les paiements internationaux échappent à cette interdiction.
Depuis le 1er janvier 1999, la monnaie de la France est l’euro qui était divisé en unités nationales (franc en France) jusqu’au 1er janvier 2002. Cette nouvelle monnaie se substitue par simple changement de nom et conversion automatique.
(Rémy Cabrillac, “Droit des Obligations”, (oui Pierre, comme toi dans ta jeunesse), Paris, Dalloz, 2010, 9me éd, paragraphe 439
The situation under Belgian law is similar, says Van Ommeslaghe, though not identical, says Henri De Page. (3))
interdiction pour les paiements internes des clauses valeur-or (paiement en euros, le montant de la dette variant en fonction du cours de l’or) ?
IF the price IN euro is not allowed
to fluctuate in accordance with the price of gold,
THEN
it is the exchange rate (i.e., the price) OF the euro
which fluctuates in accordance with the price of gold.
By referring to the ESCB as the European “Service” of Central Banksters. the Brussels Court of Appeal has once again demonstrated that it cannot tolerate that a fallible human judge is being replaced by an impartial golden one. (4)
Au cours des années 1980, il est apparu que les principes gouvernant les sûretés traditionnelles étaient trop protecteurs des intérêts du débiteur [tel le banquestère central]
et des solutions de substitution [tel(telles?) Freegold] ont dû être imaginées.
(Dominique Legeais, “Sûretés et Garanties du Crédit”, Paris, L.G.D.J., 2011, 8me éd, paragraphe 15)
It is the gold reserves of the European “System” of Central Banksters (ESCB) which make the decisions that are best for the euro overall.
SECOND ARGUMENT
Thinking about the euro started after 15 August 1971 when USA president Richard Nixon repealed the Bretton Woods Agreements (and thus the IMF whose only function is to maintain the Bretton Woods Agreements). The Bretton Woods Agreements linked the USA dollar at fixed parity of 35 dollar to an ounce of gold and all other currencies to the said dollar. In August 2011, the fixed parity is of $42.2, the link of the said green paper to gold has thus not been severed
Hence , the court speaks in section 1, page 4, and section 10, page 10, of its judgment
of the “monetary adjustment” of 1972
but the court is unable to link this “monetary adjustment” to or with the Belgian act/statute (loi/wet) of 23 December 1988
which the judgment mentions in section 6, page 7
and
which severed the link of the Belgian franc to gold,
and which thereby opened the road for the euro to sever the link not only to gold, but also to the nation-state, i.e., to the “sovereign states” about which sections 8 and 9 babble on page 9 of the judgment.
“Ius novit curia!”
The euro is the first currency that has not only severed its link to gold, but also its link to the nation-state, said ECB president Duisenberg in 2002 upon receiving the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen. (5)
The [Maastricht] Treaty has mandated the ECB to keep safe the money of Europe’s citizens [not: of the monetary union of the guv'mints of euroland] (6)
(Le Traité [de Maastricht de 1992] a confié à la BCE le mandat qui de préserver la valeur de la monnaie des citoyens européens (7)),
confirmed ECB president Trichet in 2011 upon receiving the same Prize in the same city – the Prize being the Prize of the city.
Ivo Cerckel
honestmoney@maktoob.com
DISCLAIMER:
Ik ben geen advocaat bij het Hof van Cassatie van het Federaal Koninkrijk België.
NOTES
(1)
Le traité de Lisbonne a introduit le terme “Eurosystème ” dans les traités. Celui-ci est utilisé depuis le départ par la Banque centrale et est lié au fait que les textes fondateurs supposaient que tous les Etats membres de l’Union européenne adopteraient l’euro et que le Système européen des banquetères centraux se chargerait [tel Van Rompuy à l’avenir ?] par conséquent de toutes les tâches liées à la monnaie unique.
(Marianne Dony, “Droit de l’Union européenne”, Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2010, 3me éd, paragraphe 283)
(2)
As I said:
The euro and Freegold are coexisting to supplement each other, without interacting with each other.
That’s how the polity achieves its democratic legitimacy and speaks with one golden voice.
No harmonisation of politicians, bureaucrats or laws has been required to that effect.euro and Freegold are coexisting to supplement each other.
To paraphrase the 2011 authors of Wyatt and Dashwood
[concerning harmonisation of EU company law – Hi Bob!],
who don’t explain the euro :
It has always been possible to rationalise measures of ECB involvement in rescuing the bottoms of the ministers of the guv’mints established on euroland. It is more difficult to confirm the effectiveness in practice of such measures
(Wyatt and Dashwood’s, “European Union Law”, 2011, 6th ed., p. 700).
Koen Lenaerts and Piet Van Nuffel (Robert Bray and Nathan Cambien, eds.) “Constitutional Law of the European Union”. London: Sweet & Maxwell, 2011, 3rd ed.,
explicitly say “No bail-out”
Still the euro which is the result of the regulation, say Lenaerts and Van Nuffel, – nay, which would according to them and according to the talking heads (and their writing counterparts) guiding public opinion be the result of precisely of the regulation which is being violated – did not suffer from this.
How come?
Monetary policy in the Member States participating in EMU is fully determined by the European System of Central Bank (Eurosystem or ESCB), says section 11-039 of Lenaerts and Van Nuffel.
Section 11-040 of Lenaerts and Van Nuffel starts by saying that the four “basic tasks” of the ESCB are
to define and implement the monetary policy of the Union
to conduct foreign-exchange operations,
to hold and manage the official foreign reserves of the Member States without prejudice to the governments of Member States holding and managing working balances in foreign-exchange; and
to promote the smooth operation of payment systems.
Section 11-040 contains four more paragraphs.
One explaining the (1) of the first paragraph.
One explaining the (2) of the first paragraph.
One saying that the ESCB is also responsible for contributing to the smooth conduct of policies pursued by the competent authorities relating to the prudential supervision of credit institutions and the stability of the financial system; and
One saying that the ECB has the exclusive right to authorise the issue of banknotes within the Member States participating in the third stage of EMU.
The (3) which says that “one of the basic tasks of the ESCB is to hold and manage the official foreign reserves of the Member States without prejudice to the governments of Member States holding and managing working balances in foreign-exchange” is thus not being explained.
This is all the more surprising when one goes to the ECB website and then to ECB’s International reserves r External reserves
and realises that the foreign currency reserves (in convertible foreign currencies had at the end of June 2011 an approximate market value of 146,272, whereas Gold (including gold deposits and gold swapped)’s value was more than double the foreign currency reserves and valued at 361,442
http://www.ecb.int/stats/external/reserves/html/index..en.html
Jacques Delors erred.
The Stability and Growth Pact was not necessary.
(3)
Pour Henri De Page un “signe monétaire” qu’il n’y a pas lieu de confondre avec l’ “unité monétaire” a, en droit civil, “cours légal” lorsque la loi “lui attribue force libératoire dans les payements”
Pour ce juriste belge, il y a, d’autre part, “cours forcé” lorsque la loi précise qu’un signe monétaire, qui a cours légal, “devra être accepte par les parties dans les payements, nonobstant toute convention contraire ”
Et De Page d’écrire que cours forcé , au sens où il l’entend, et inconvertibilité du billet sont “presque toujours liés”, mais qu’il n’en est pas “nécessairement” ainsi. et ce qui le prouve, dit De Page, c’est que après que les alinéas 1er et 2 de l’article unique de l’arrêté royal belge du 2 aout 1914 aient, tout comme la loi française du 5 aout 1914
MAAR COURS FORCE WERD PAS IN 1936 INGEVOERD< ZEGT CABRILLAC – DAT HEEFT DUS EEN ANDERE BETEKENIS – AUTRE SIGNIFICATION QUE CHEZ CABRILLAC QUI DIT QUE LE COURS FORCE N’A ETE INTRODUIT QU’EN 1936
, lié le cours forcé et l’inconvertibilité, le Roi des Belges a, par Son Arrêté Royal du 25 octobre 1926 maintenu le cours forcé tout en rétablissant la convertibilité du billet.
On dira peut-être, dit De Page dans une note au paragraphe 461 que lorsque le billet est convertible, il n’y a aucune utilité a exiger des espèces métalliques, puisque le billet est payable a vue en valeur-or. Sans doute, et, nonobstant, le cours forcé subsiste. Cela démontre bien, dit-il, que les deux notions qu’il cherche à distinguer sont différentes.
(Complément au Traité élementaire de Droit civil belge par Henri De Page, Volume II, Complément aux Tômes II et III du Traité, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1951, Tôme III, paragraphes 460 et 461)
Pour Pierre Van Ommeslaghe, le conseil du Banquestère National de Belgique, dans son syllabus “Droit des Obligations”. p. 1987/972
le cours légal signifie que les débiteurs doivent accepter les papiers en paiement SAUF convention contraire
le cours forcé signifie l’obligation pour les débiteurs d’accepter les papiers NONOBSTANT tout convention contraire.
Van Ommeslaghe poursuit (dans son syllabus 1991-92), p. 1987/974 en disant que la loi du 23 décembre 1988 (donc postérieure à 1987) supprime la fiction selon laquelle les billets seraient représentatifs d’une créance en francs sur sa cliente.
C’est bizarre qu’aucun des auteurs cités ne parle des Accords de Bretton Woods signes 22 juillet 1944 à Bretton Woods
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accords_de_Bretton_Woods
Van Ommeslaghe enseigne, en outre, que ” la pratique a en effet crée pour les besoins de la vie des affaires particulièrement, des actes abstraits de leur cause, indépendamment de toute intervention positive du législateur, par le jeu de l’autonomie de la volonté”.
http://bphouse.com/honest_money/2011/07/14/gold-reserves-are-abstract-guarantees-bernanke-vs-paul-is-gold-money
Je n’ai pas encore trouvé le temps de lire ce que Dominique Legeais écrit au sujet des garanties à première demande. dans son ouvrage “Sûretés et Garanties du Crédit” (Paris, L.G.D.J., 2011, 8me éd), cité plus haut.
J’espère recevoir cette semaine (8-12 août) l’ouvrage suivant d’Amazon.co.uk par UPS: Inga Svarca. “First Demand Bank Guarantees: First Demand Bank Guarantees for the Security of International Contractual Obligations”, DM Verlag Dr. Müller (5 Feb 2010)
(4)
see also my review of the 2009 4th edition of Kapteyn and VerLoren van Themaat
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2OAOGVE688LBX
Ubi societas, ibi ius, February 14, 2010
By
Ivo Cerckel
This review is from: The Law of the European Union and European Communities (Paperback)
The back cover, which appears on this page under the “Editorial Reviews – Product Description”, says that, unusual for surveys of European law, this 4th edition of the classic “Kapteyn & VerLoren van Themaat” provides a detailed description and commentary on the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Dr Fabian Amtenbrink, a professor of European Union law at Erasmus University Rotterdam, wrote the sections 1, 2 and 3 of chapter X “Economic, Monetary and Social Policy” of the book.
Money is a substance, a thing to which we can refer by the use of the demonstrative phrase “this so-and-so”, readily acceptable in exchange by everyone in a given geographical area and is sought for the purpose of being re-exchanged.
Professor Amtenbrink says that the euro was framed so as to retain its value in order to maintain price stability. He does not say how the floating currency which the euro is retains its value. He evades the point of demonstrating what is the anchor which prevents the euro from floating away. For professor Amtenbrink, it is the law, the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, which provides the anchor for the democratic accountability of the managers of the euro. He can therefore only talk about the foreign exchange (forex) reserves of the euro not of its gold reserves. He does not say that soon after the 01 January 1999 introduction of the euro, European central banks, including the European Central Bank (ECB) and central banks from inside and outside euro area, but excluding the International Monetary Fund (IMF), concluded on 26 September 1999 the Washington Agreement whereby they said that gold would remain an important reserve asset and that they would therefore limit their gold sales.
Thinking about the euro started after 15 August 1971 when USA president Richard Nixon repealed the Bretton Woods Agreements (and thus the IMF whose only function is to maintain the Bretton Woods Agreements). The Bretton Woods Agreements linked the USA dollar at fixed parity of 35 dollar to an ounce of gold and all other currencies to the said dollar. Hence the IMF, which prohibits linking a currency to gold, did not sign the 1999 Washington Agreement.
Let me explain.
Money needs an anchor, an anchor in reality, not in the mind. Money cannot be itself the anchor if it has no reality. Money cannot be itself the anchor if it exists only in the (digital) mind. The reason why money needs an anchor is not to evoke, not to bring into the mind, the gold standard, but to anchor money by providing for a wealth reserve among the forex reserves. Calling this process “anchoring” relates to the way that ships down anchor to keep themselves in a specific place to avoid drifting way. Gold in the central banks’ strong-rooms has the same role to fulfil as the Mona Lisa at the Louvre, a wealth reserve in the strong room of a monetary union.
Under the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreements, money had such an anchor. The Agreements linked the USA dollar at fixed parity of 35 dollar to an ounce of gold and all other currencies to the said dollar.
On 15 August 1971, USA president Richard Nixon repealed the Bretton Woods Agreements.
“Houston, we’ve got a problem!”
Upon Britain joining the European Economic Community (EEC) in January 1973, that’s immediately after the repeal of Bretton Woods by Nixon, professors Dominic Lasok and John W. Bridge therefore started the Preface to the 1972 first edition of their “Law and Institutions of the European Communities” (Butterworths) as follows:
” ‘Ubi Societas, Ibi Ius’. To understand the nature of the law one must understand the nature of the society from which it emanates and which it purports to govern.”
At that moment, also began the long process of forming another world currency.
Realising that no gold or silver backed system can change human nature which dictates that no
money-issuing democratic majority can withstand the temptation to print more receipts than it has gold in reserve, thereby decreasing the value of the currency,
major thinkers came the conclusion that instead of maintaining the fiction of a (the?) gold standard,
which defined money as a certain quantity of gold,
with the somewhat fixed gold prices inherent in such a system,
it would be more appropriate to devise a system excluding, in the long term, the USA dollar from the forex reserves of their paper currency,
and to replace the dollar element of these reserves with gold.
Before the ECB was born on 01 January 1999, central banks of the world had traditionally carried their gold reserves at values that typically reflected their price at the time of acquisition or by legislative decree. With the birth of the euro, the ECB said it would begin carrying all components of reserve assets on its books on the basis of actual market value — which were then to be reassessed quarterly. The ECB openly marks its gold reserves to market. But there is no law about this. It has not yet been discovered how free-floating gold reserves can determine the value of a currency. The day the law will be enacted, it will become clear that by repealing Bretton Woods, Nixon “de facto” and “de iure” also repealed the IMF whose only function is to maintain the now-repealed Bretton Woods Agreements. (I wrote “Ubi societas, ibi `ius’ “, hence I am writing the classical Latin “de iure”, not the medieval Latin “de jure”.)
This does however not mean that the law determining how free-floating gold reserves determine the value of a currency will have to be enacted by EMU. The Chinese renminbi or yuan, the Indian rupee, the Russian rouble and others, among those others, most prominently and most recently the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) with its proposed single currency, are also looking for a mechanism achieving the same result.
This is a problem for 21st-century lawyers who, like professor Amtenbrink, decree that monetary policy in principle forms part economic policy (what is that “economic policy”? laissez faire, laissez passer, le monde va de lui-même?) and who then argue that the former policy has “ex ante” been delegated to the ECB, but that this “ex ante” delegation cannot suffice to provide the (”ex post”) mechanisms of the democratic accountability of the ECB. (pages 957-958)
“Democratic accountability” of monetary policy is professor Amtenbrink’s criterion.
Four decades after Nixon broke Bretton Woods and Britain joined the Common Market, also known as the EEC, (the) international society is still looking for way how free-floating gold reserves can (”democratically”, would professor Amtenbrink say?) determine the value of a currency.
Professor Amtenbrink knows that the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht on European Union drew up a monetary constitution so that the euro would retain its value in order to maintain price stability (see inter alia pages 901, 943, and 981). He says on page 899 that prior to the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, there was no sufficiently well-”anchored” basis in the EEC Treaty for monetary union which could go further than the level of a mere co-operation between Member States. He thereby expressly decrees that “money” cannot but have an “anchor” in legislation, i.e., the Treaty of Maastricht. But Amtenbrink does not say how the euro retains its value and maintains price stability.
In his 2009 book “The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency” (Yale University Press), of which the hardcover edition was very critically reviewed by this reviewer over at Amazon.co.uk, David Marsh speaks at least about “the gold and foreign exchange reserves” of the euro, but professor Amtenbrink dares not even mentioning the four-letter word “gold” and only speaks about the “forex reserves” of the euro.
Forex reserves consisting of worthless paper money can only possibly be used for intervention on forex markets. Such reserves are worthless, no, useless, to determine the value of a currency..
Not long after the introduction of the euro on 01 January 1999, fifteen, since the August 2009 renewal nineteen, European central banks, including the ECB and central banks from inside and outside euro area, but excluding the IMF, did therefore conclude the Sunday 26 September 1999 Washington Agreement on the sidelines of an IMF meeting. By this Agreement, the signatories declared that gold would remain an important part of global monetary reserves and agreed to limit their gold sales to no more than 400 metric tons (500 metric tons for 2004 – 2009, but 400 metric tons again for 2009 – 2014) annually for the next five years.
Up to this day, Britain still has not replaced sterling with the euro. Neither did Britain sign the Washington Agreement. Quite to the contrary, disregarding the 1999 advice from the Bank of England, disregarding also the 1972 “ubi societas, ibi ius”-advice from Lasok and Bridge, the British 1999 chancellor of the exchequer or minister of finance, one Gordon Brown, proceeded to sell on his own 400 tons of the Bank of England’s bullion, that was more than half of the country’s gold reserves, in a series of auctions between 1999 and 2002, when the price was at a 20-year low. (Note 4 for Editors of “HM Treasury News Release–7 May 1999 – Restructuring UK Reserve Holdings” speaks about “metric” tons. This would thus be the same amount (weight?) of 400 metric tons as the maximum amount (weight?) of the combined annual sales of all the signatories to the Washington Agreement.)
The Washington Agreement could not possibly have the status of a law as it sanctions the “de facto” and “de iure” repeal of the IMF by Nixon on 15 August 1971.
Professor Amtenbrink therefore dares not mentioning the Washington Agreement as this would destroy his criterion of the democratic accountability of monetary policy.
It is the market, not the undemocratic European Council, which will determine how free-floating gold reserves will determine the value of a currency.
The society from which the euro emanates is one which opposes the IMF.
From the dawn of philosophy to, and very much including the present, philosophers have been uninterruptedly engaged with, and uninterruptedly baffled by, the question “What is that which is?”. Now this question “just is” the question “What is substance?”. (Aristotle, “Metaphysics”, Zeta 1, 1028b2)
One of the four meanings of “substance” for Aristotle is “to ti èn einai”, the “what-it-was-to-be-that-thing” of something. (”Metaphysics”, Zeta 3, 1028b33) This suggests the idea of what something was all along going to, destined to, become. On page 83 of his “A `Briefer’ History of Time” (Bantam Press, 2005), professor Stephen Hawking writes with Leonard Mlodinow that gold is a remnant of supernovas that occurred before our solar system was born.
(5)
International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen for 2002
Acceptance speech by Dr. Willem F. Duisenberg, President of the European Central Bank, Aachen, 9 May 2002
http://www.ecb.eu/press/key/date/2002/html/sp020509.en.html
(6)
Building Europe, building institutions
Speech by Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the ECB
on receiving the Karlspreis 2011
in Aachen, 2 June 2011
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2011/html/sp110602.en.html
(7)
Intervention de Jean-Claude Trichet, Président de la BCE
à l’occasion de la remise du Prix Charlemagne 2011
à Aix-la-Chapelle le 2 juin 2011
http://www.ecb.int/press/key/date/2011/html/sp110602.fr.htm