Report that Russia Has Issued Gold and Silver Coins Which Can Be Used As Legal Tender

Unfortunately I do not read Russian so I have not yet completely verified this, but I thought it was interesting enough to pass along on the face of it, since it is 'making the rounds' of the internet, and some have asked me about it.

Here is the reported document in Russian.

As they are not coins for general circulation but rather coins to commemorate the Russian Olympics I do not see this as signficant perhaps as the blogger quoted below. Also it appears that they will be issued in rather limited numbers so will probably price as a collectible and not as currency. That is how it is with commemoratives in limited edition.

Here is the sentence from the document that provoked such a strong reaction in some circles.

"The coins are legal tender cash payment in the Russian Federation and must be accepted at face value in all kinds of payments without any restrictions."

I have not yet done all the math to determine the equivalent 'face value' of the coins in other currencies, but I have taken an initial swipe at it.

In the case of the 50 Rouble gold coin, it is 7.78 grams, or 0.25013 troy oz.

At $1700 per ounce, that would make the gold coin worth about .999 x .25013 = .25 ounce of gold, or roughly $425 for a face value coin of 50 roubles.

That is about 8.5 dollars to the rouble. And I don't think many would take that exchange, since the US dollar is now trading at about 30.77 roubles.

Much ado about not too much I am afraid. This strikes me as the $50 face value on the gold American Eagle. I don't even need the legal tender guarantee to make me want to honor that exchange.

Note: A Russian reader informs me that ALL such coins have always been considered legal tender there, as if it matters, given their largely symbolic face value.

Well Aren't These Fine
By Demetrius Tucker
19 December 2012
Tallinn, Estonia

It seems 2012 is not yet done with its surprises. The Central Bank of Russia has issued three values of bullion (300,000 31.1g silver pieces with a 3RUB face value, 300,000 7.78g gold pieces with 50RUB face, & 100,000 15.55g gold pieces with a 100RUB face value) that can be used as legal tender beginning, well, TWO DAYS AGO!

If you don’t yet understand the ramifications of such a move, don’t worry, it’s not too late. But you want to begin reading now – starting with the history of metals as money...

Read the entire report here.

Here is a Google translation of the Russian document.

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia)

Department of External and Public Relations

107016, Moscow, ul. Neglinnaya, 12, tel.: (495) 771-4417, 771-4669, fax: (495) 771-4932; http://www.cbr.ru

INFORMATION

On the issue of investment appeal of precious metal coins

Department of External and Public Relations of the Bank of Russia informs that on 17 December 2012 in the framework of the monetary program "Sochi 2014" Bank of Russia issues a bullion coins dedicated to the XXII Olympic Winter Games 2014 in Sochi: 3 Rubles silver, gold nominal 50 and $ 100, with the year of issue "2012".

Investment silver coin of 3 Rubles (fine metal content 31.1 g, fineness 999, catalog № 5111-0247) has a rectangular shape with rounded corners, length 35.0 mm and a width of 23.0 mm.

On the front and back of the coin is raised.

The obverse of the coin features the relief of the State Emblem of the Russian Federation, there are inscriptions in two lines at the top of "the Russian Federation", below face value coins - "RR 3" and the year of issue - "2012", indicate the metal in the periodic table of elements D. I. Mendeleev, fineness, the mint trademark and the fine metal content...

The coins are legal tender cash payment in the Russian Federation and must be accepted at face value in all kinds of payments without any restrictions.

December 17, 2012

Using materials reference to the Department of External and Public Relations of the Bank of Russia is required.

Audacious Oligarchy Reprise - A Question of Balance

Once again, that great summation of the Anglo-American experiment in crony capitalism by Robert Johnson.

If you can do nothing else, stop making excuses for those who promote the oppression of the financial interests, and stop listening to those who do.

Law is how the just associate to protect themselves against injustice and the wickedness of the world.

And if you charge forward, as happens from time to time, to willfully and recklessly tear down the laws in the name of some misbegotten ideology, and you stop and turn round, the winds of oppression that blow across the land will knock you down, no matter who you are, or how self-sufficient and powerful you may imagine yourself to be.

When you take an admirable concept and blind it, taking it to some imbalanced extreme by sticking an 'ism' on the end of it, you all too often unleash the madness, and the whirlwind.

If government has stopped working for the public interest of justice for all you reform it, you do not further weaken and burn it to the ground and destroy it in the vain hope that something better will accidentally come forward from some well-spring of natural goodness in the worst of us who serve only themselves, and the will to power.

You can believe what you will, but you will be accountable for what you believe.

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."

Edmund Burke

If there is any significant weakness in this model I have constructed it is that it does not easily represent the extreme position of anarchism, or its little brother, libertarianism. I think that it is because they are 'no model' or rather a model of social disorganization. But I am giving it some thought.

But they stand in no middle ground, but an extreme on another scale. And I say they care naught for individual rights, because they adopts the law of the jungle, that might makes right and that each person stands alone. It is a romantic, almost utopian, view of the world that sounds good to an adolescent, but which one might quickly outgrow as they reach adulthood and start a family.

On the other end of that scale would be total government, or statism, which is part of the basis of the model below. As most extremes, the statists and the anarchists are so off center that they see only one another, and anyone who is not them appears the other. This is how most ideological groups tend to coalesce as they become something self-observing and self-perpetuating.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - End of Year Train Wreck Underway

This is part of the end of the year book making. The stock market gaming is equally blatant. Short term these jokers can keep rolling, but longer term they will crash, and then attempt to make someone else pick up their tab.

Making the Innocent Pay for the Crimes of the Elite

Why do they do it? Because in this case, crime pays. And that is crony capitalism.

Geithner Told of LIBOR Manipulation in May, 2008

Below is a video of a train wreck caused by a mudslide in Washington, USA. Do you think they might have had a little more care for the composition of that hillside before it came down on a moving train filled with chemicals?

A mudslide from a hill of overhanging loose earth in a state noted for its precipitation. Who could have foreseen this?

Infrastructure. You don't need it while the profits are rolling in. And when it collapses, declare an emergency and stick the public with bill.

A similar situation is currently underway in the monetary composition of the US dollar. Gold is the video camera.

One major difference is that the jokers who are making the profits from the rail line of fraudulent financial instruments are also placing bets that the mudslide of fraudulent mispricing of risk will derail the train and cause a tragedy in the real economy.

Its a win-win, for them. And a serious loss for many.

How could anyone imagine that powerful, well educated and highly connected people could do such a thing? Have you been sleepwalking for the last ten years?