In addition to many other praiseworthy features, our nation has always been known as a productive marvel. People don’t come here to starve; they come to enjoy what could be called “the good life.” One key reason why prosperity has always been found in America is the existence of sound money. Its importance should not only never be taken for granted; it should never be allowed to disappear.

More than 50 years ago, economist Dr. Murray Rothbard stated the following very important fact about money: “Money is not an abstract unit of account, divorceable from a concrete good; it is not a useless token only good for exchanging; it is not a ‘claim on society’; it is not a guarantee of a fixed price level. It is simply a commodity. It differs from other commodities in being demanded mainly as a medium of exchange.”

The important word here is commodity, something possessing recognizable value unto itself. When a commodity is chosen to be money, it is selected because of its universally accepted value. Experience also shows that whatever is chosen as money should be durable, divisible, transportable, and relatively scarce. As soon as a commodity becomes accepted as money, the cumbersome and frequently unworkable system known as barter loses favor. A medium for exchange now exists. Now, a person can exchange his labor for money and use that money to buy goods from someone who didn’t need his labor. A farmer can sell his cattle and use the money to buy a carpenter’s furniture, and both are completely satisfied.

When money exists, commerce is no longer inhibited, as it is when barter prevails, by what Dr. Rothbard called “the need for a double coincidence of wants.” Smith can use money to purchase goods from Jones when those goods had previously been unobtainable because Jones had been offered something he didn’t want.

Immediately, we see that sound money spurs commerce, stimulates a wide diversity of labor, and helps mightily to advance civilization. Sound money is not the product of advancing civilization; it is a cause. John Birch Society founder Robert Welch made this point many years ago when he wrote:

When Tacitus said of the German aborigines nearly two thousand years ago, “we have taught them to accept money,” he was boasting justifiably of this step towards bringing the benefits of civilization to some barbarian tribes.

Sound money makes it possible for some to study medicine, become teachers, create art, perform as clergymen, produce food, or undertake a wide array of professions. In a barter system, if a teacher needs shoes but a shoemaker has no desire to be taught, the hoped-for transaction doesn’t occur. The teacher might then seek someone else who wants his lessons and will pay for them with something the shoemaker desires. The teacher will, therefore, accept that something for his lessons, not because he wants it, but because the shoemaker does. This is indirect exchange, a step on the way to having money.

When money is introduced into a system, the teacher who becomes employed and earns money for his efforts will find no problem using his money to transact business with the shoemaker or with anyone else. So too will a doctor, a musician, a painter, a clergyman, and many others who produce no goods but who receive money for their services and contribute to the advancement of civilization. As mentioned above, money acting as a medium for exchange allows for a wide diversification of labor, a great leap forward in any society. The claim that sound money is the cause of advancing civilization needs no further explanation.

History confirms the use of a wide variety of items for money. Valuable substances such as salt, sugar, cattle, tobacco, and shells acted as a medium for exchange in bygone cultures. But when the need for the money to be durable, divisible, transportable, and relatively scarce was recognized, experience showed that gold and silver were the best commodities to use for money. No government mandated this, nor did any economic guru make the decision. The wisdom of mankind operating in the marketplace settled on these precious metals as the best commodities to use for money.

Another important point about money is that once a commodity has been freely chosen to act as money, there is no need for government management. Gold and silver are commodities whose value and availability will be determined in the market place, just as will the value of any other commodity. Government management of the value, amount, and particulars of automobiles, shovels, gloves, refrigerators, etc. — all commodities — is never considered in a free and open society. In like manner, commodities such as gold and silver should never be encumbered by government decision making.

History also tells us that there are three basic kinds of money: 1. Commodity money (gold and silver) that we have already described; 2. Fiduciary or trustworthy money substitutes such as paper receipts, tokens, checks, and other financial instruments; and 3. Fiat money — money that is not backed by any precious commodity — that is a valueless substitute for commodity money and is made to seem valuable only by government edict or “fiat.” While fiduciary money opens the door for counterfeiting, a constant concern that is relatively controllable, the third type of money — fiat money issued by government — invites mass production and distribution (inflation) and immense fraud.

Our Own Nation’s Experience

In the years before they separated from England, our colonial forefathers experimented with fiat money and paid dearly for doing so. With no limitation on the amount produced, they experienced lost credibility, a slowdown in productivity, civil disruption, and widespread personal animosity and hardship. Viewing this obvious destructiveness, the British Parliament outlawed irredeemable paper money for the colonies in 1764. Immediately, gold coins from Europe began circulating within the colonies. With economic stability restored, commerce again flourished and the other problems always accompanying fiat money faded away.

After the Declaration of Independence and the need to finance the ensuing struggle with Great Britain, the Continental Congress issued fiat money. Called “continentals,” the new currency was soon discovered to have no backing, but was given temporary credibility when the fledgling government enacted “legal tender laws” to enforce their use. Even though the war ended in triumph, the problems caused by fiat money — slowed commerce, unemployment, person-to-person animosity, fear of losing assets, and loss of confidence in government — threatened to tear the infant nation apart. Once the war ended and the Founders decided to revise the existing government, one of their main goals was to bar the issuance of paper fiat money.

During the debates leading to the creation of the U.S. Constitution, Connecticut’s Oliver Ellsworth declared that it was “a favorable time to shut and bar the door against paper money.” Pennsylvania’s James Wilson agreed and stated that doing so “will have a most salutary influence on the credit of the United States.” New Hampshire’s John Langdon said that he would rather reject the whole Constitution than allow the federal government the power to issue paper money.

The resulting Constitution incorporated the demand to avoid fiat money. Not only was the newly crafted federal government given no power to issue money, it was granted no authorization to manage it. The government was awarded authority to establish a mint to “coin money” and to establish standards for its size, weight, and purity. That’s all. There was no authorization to issue money and, certainly, no authorization to delegate a non-existing power to some private entity such as the Federal Reserve. Even the states, jealous guardians of their own prerogatives, agreed to the Constitution’s mandates never to “emit bills of credit” (paper money), or to “make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.” And our infant nation prospered, becoming in a short time the world’s greatest producer.

There were other factors that contributed to America becoming the envy of the world. But sound money, unencumbered by government meddling, was among the most important. For 150 years, the American dollar was “good as gold.” And being labeled “sound as a dollar” was a welcome compliment.

During the 20th century, however, the dollar suffered transformation from being trustworthy fiduciary money to government-mandated fiat money. The result has brought on all of fiat money’s woeful consequences — slowed commerce, unemployment, person-to-person animosity, fear of losing assets, and loss of confidence in government. A return to sound money, the kind our nation once enjoyed and the kind our Founding Fathers mandated, must become one of the highest priorities for all who love America and cherish its freedom.

Stiff Right Jab contributing editor, John F. McManus, is president of the John Birch Society and publisher of The New American magazine.

Technorati Tags: murray rothbard, medium of exchange, bartur, politics, constitution, gold standard, labor, commerce, robert welch, tacitus, stiff right jab, stiff right features, civilization, economic philosophy, history, history of money, silver standard, precious metals, free enterprise, commodity money, fiduciary money, trustworthy money, fiat money, deficit spending, keynesian economics, counterfeiting, inflation, paper money, declaration of independence, continentals, legal tender laws, articles of confederation failures, james wilson, founding fathers, national credit, national strength, john langdon, federal reserve, coin money congress, bills of credit, sound money

"adobe"

"black hole"

Esses aqui também são considerados ambigramas:

"Good" e "Evil"

"Optical" e "Illusion"

"James" e "Joyce"

E agora, uns exemplos mais complicados:

"Angels & Demons"

"True" e "False"

"Earth", "Air", "Fire" e "Water"

Um guru dessa prática é Scott Kim. Ele também cria quebra-cabeças e jogos de pensar, o que dispensa qualquer comentário adicional sobre sua capacidade mental.

Outro rapaz conhecido no mundo dos ambigramas é John Langdon. Foi ele quem fez esses mais elaborados aí de cima. Curiosamente ele é um grande amigo de Dan Brown, e serviu de inspiração pro personagem Robert LANGDON, dos seus livros O Código DaVinci e Anjos e Demônios. Pra quem leu o segundo, conhece o ambigrama dos Illuminati, feito por John:

Além de um exercício agradável de se experimentar, acaba que isso se torna uma técnica interessante pra criação de logotipos corporativos. Algumas empresas já compraram ambigramas pra escrever seus nomes:

Claro que eu num pude resistir, e criei um usando o nome da minha esposa, Hanna:

Agora quem se habilita a tentar escrever "Caligraffiti" ?

The Center for Inquiry - Indianapolis chapter (with which Freethought Fort Wayne is affiliated) will be hosting the Third Annual Darwin Day Conference at the IUPUI campus tomorrow starting bright and early. I know some members expressed an interest in attending/carpooling. I'm not sure who is going but I won't be able to go to this either. I know I'm a non-participating bum but what can you do.

Check out the link to CFI Indy's full schedule but some of the highlights will be:

9:00  am—Ancient Roman Creationism: Scientific Pagans vs Armchair Christians—Richard Carrier

10:30 am—Hunters, Gatherers and Killer Apes - Another Adventure in How Science Works--Dr. John Langdon

There will even be a talk on the source of moral values and a panel discussion on Intelligent Design (aka Creationism)

All I can say is thanks to my Mom for the M, my Dad for the W, and to both for the lack of a middle name, the only thing sweeter than M or W is both of them together in my own personal ambigram, MW. John Langdon would be proud.

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/002383.html

Be sure to visit Marian's web site, as she's a wonderfully witty and clever artist.

Ambigrams in their modern form are a conception of John Langdon who compiled his work in his 1992 book Wordplay.

However, ambigrams were made famous through Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons.

I first came across the following ambigram in a copy of Omni magazine in the early 1980s

and found them to be a great mental excercise. Langdon discusses his technique in his article "Typographic Dopplegangers".

This is the most famous commercial ambigram in Canada:

Voice of Amercia also uses an ambigram for its logo:

Here is a hastily drawn ambigram of my first name:

I also recommend a very good ambigram blog Abigrams by Nagfa from one of my favorite countries, Singapore.  Here is one they graciously did for me:

I recommend playing with ambigrams yourself to increase your mental flexibility.