Big Step Forward for Sound Money: Texas Picks Company to Run Bullion Depository

By Michael Maharrey

The Texas bullion depository took a major step closer to reality last week when officials formally announced the private vendor that will run the facility. The creation of a state bullion depository in Texas represents a power shift away from the federal government to the state, and it provides a blueprint that could ultimately end the Fed.

Gov. Greg Abbot signed legislation creating the state gold bullion and precious metal depository in June of 2015. The facility will not only provide a secure place for individuals, business, cities, counties, government agencies and even other countries to to store gold and other precious metals, the law also creates a mechanism to facilitate the everyday use of gold and silver in business transactions. In short, a person will be able to deposit gold or silver – and pay other people through electronic means or checks – in sound money.

Last Wednesday, Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar announced Austin-based Lone Star Tangible Assets will build and operate the Texas Bullion Depository. Officials say the facility could open as early as next January.

The company will initially run the depository out of its current Austin location, and will build a new vault facility in the Austin area. Hegar said customers will not have to travel to Austin in order to utilize the depository. The plan is to establish a branch-like system.

“We envision a network of licensed and insured depository agents to help Texans sign up for our services,” Hegar told the Texas Tribune.

Tom Smelker will serve as the state’s first Texas Bullion Depository administrator. He is currently the director of Treasury Operations in the Comptroller’s office.

According to an article in the Star-Telegram, state officials want a facility ‘with an e-commerce component that also provides for secure physical storage for Bullion in an existing facility or a newly constructed facility.’ Officials say plans for a depository should include online services that would let customers accept, transfer and withdraw bullion deposits and related fees.

By making gold and silver available for regular, daily transactions by the general public, the new law has the potential for wide-reaching effect. Professor William Greene is an expert on constitutional tender and said in a paper for the Mises Institute that when people in multiple states actually start using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve notes, it would effectively nullify the Federal Reserve and end the federal government’s monopoly on money.

Over time, as residents of the state use both Federal Reserve notes and silver and gold coins, the fact that the coins hold their value more than Federal Reserve notes do will lead to a ‘reverse Gresham’s Law’ effect, where good money (gold and silver coins) will drive out bad money (Federal Reserve notes).

As this happens, a cascade of events can begin to occur, including the flow of real wealth toward the state’s treasury, an influx of banking business from outside of the state – as people in other states carry out their desire to bank with sound money – and an eventual outcry against the use of Federal Reserve notes for any transactions.

University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus called development of a state gold depository a step toward independence.

This is another in a long line of ways to make Texas more self-reliant and less tethered to the federal government. The financial impact is small but the political impact is telling, Many conservatives are interested in returning to the gold standard and circumvent the Federal reserve in whatever small way they can.

The Texas gold depository will create a mechanism to challenge the federal government’s monopoly on money, and provides a blueprint for other states to follow. If the majority of states controlled their own supply of gold, it could conceivably make the Federal Reserve completely irrelevant.

State bullion depositories are one of four steps states can take to help bring down the Fed.

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center, where this article first appeared. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of ’98 – Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here.He is the author of the book, Our Last Hope: Rediscovering the Lost Path to Liberty. You can visit his personal website at MichaelMaharrey.com and like him on Facebook HERE


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11 Comments on "Big Step Forward for Sound Money: Texas Picks Company to Run Bullion Depository"

  1. Chuck (Smithfix) Smith | June 21, 2017 at 5:53 pm |

    Only a fool would put their gold in here! with the stroke of a pen, your gold is their gold.

    • Chuck, apparently you don’t understand fractional reserve banking, nor the current condition of the banking system. It takes less than a stroke of the pen for that system to come crashing down.

      Meanwhile, Texas’ wholly lawful process has required years of creation, months of crafting and passing legislation, and months more to select the contractor in a transparent and fair manner. It would, in other words, take many thousands of pen strokes to change the system which has been set up in Texas.

      It would take less than a minute for the Fed-based banking system to declare your deposited funds to be unavailable to you and/or devalued to whatever they say, including zero. Take your pick; my vote is for sound money, based on tangible valuable assets.

  2. This is great news for freedom, for Texas and for thinking people in the USA who are educated on the destruction which the Federal Reserve has wrought upon the USA. I hope other states whose citizens, residents and businesses value freedom and prosperity will follow suit!

  3. Disqus-helpsGOVTbreaklaws&kill | June 22, 2017 at 1:58 am |

    .

    The United States Constitution declares, in Article I, Section 10,
    “No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in
    Payment of Debts”.
    This means that no State can make something besides
    gold or silver a “tender in payment” (which means they cannot “make
    something else an offer as payment”) for any debts, which would include
    debts owed by and to the State. However, EVERY State in the United
    States of America HAS made some other “Thing” an offer as payment – they
    have by law declared that they will accept, and pay out, Federal
    Reserve Notes for any debts owed by or to them. Therefore, every State
    is in violation of Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution. Thus
    the need for the “Constitutional Tender Act” — a bill template that can
    be introduced in every State legislature in the nation, returning each
    of them to adherence to the United States Constitution’s actual legal
    tender provisions..

  4. The sooner the unFed is yanked away from the unholy goat worshipers that own it the sooner a thousand years of peace and prosperity will commence.
    They have brought :
    Vaccines that kill the auto immune system and cause diseases from cancer to neurological (autism).
    Expensive organ attacking synthetic drugs.
    GMO phoods that attack organs.
    Chemtrails (SAI) that sprinkle poisons every where and may destroy the lands and the seas.
    Perpetual wars causing death or dismemberment, so long as their chicken shit asses are out of harms way.
    Schools that teach communism and authoritarian b.s.
    Vile pedophiles one and all.
    Usury is unChristian.
    END the Fed and all zentral banks, the owners have sucked our blood for too long.
    Silver stakes required.

  5. NJguy - Proudly Deplorable | June 22, 2017 at 8:18 am |

    Did Texas actually get their gold back from the feds?

    Btw, why Austin? It’s a libtard shiittehole.

    • No. They didn’t.
      And from what I have read, they aren’t going to.
      Something about not being a member of the COMEX.
      Why they would have to be a member in order to obtain their own private gold bullion is never explained. Some one from Texas needs to contact the head honcho and demand an answer.
      Of course, the gold could already be gone, much like what “we” supposedly have at Fort Knox.

  6. Sounds to good to be true. Hope it is. If so its a real pipe dream. These, that run the fed also run the money world wide, Russia, China, even little Costa Rica. What are they going to do? just roll over? I could be making plans to move to texas if things break just right. Then on the other hand they killed kaddafi for much the same thing and, JFK, yea, that too. I dont think I will start packing just yet. What is the hidden hand hiding? besides being ugly.

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