Spectator's Journal
SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL A Sound Dollar A cryptic note in a recent issue of National Review was the first mention in the popular press of something currency speculation insiders have known for years:...
...All correspondence (manuscripts, subscriptions, threatening letters, federal grants, etc...
...ISSN 0148-8414...
...So what could possibly be the point of an anti-Somoza demonstration on a peaceful Midwestern university campus...
...Death to the U.S...
...KO'L The Ignoble Savage Hard-core environmentalists in recent years have found the American Indian a useful scourge with which to flog the errant rest of us...
...Of those who propose keeping the door open to continued contacts it may be asked: Is it not unrealistic to expect the delegates from the Soviet Union to attend with the openness of mind and the dedication to the free exchange of ideas so necessary to this conference and yet so severely limited by their own government...
...These and other unexceptionable sentiments floating through the humid air caused us to wonder about the reason for it on such a hot muggy afternoon...
...But now, alas, come three scholars from Montana State University to demonstrate that it is more fable than truth...
...bills with Confederate money...
...After all, that very morning we had heard on National Public Radio that our government had stepped up pressure on Somoza to resign and had even established formal contact with the Sandinistas, looking to their early coming to power...
...dollars trading at par-a fact unknown to most Americans and unremarked even in the financial press -and after a period of stability in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S...
...Death to the Shah...
...Publisher Baron Von Kannon of the Saturday Evening Club General Manager Ronald E. Burr Managing Editor Steven C. Munson Assistant Managing Editor Erich Eichman Business Manager William B. Head Production Manager K J. Gooderham Executive Secretary Deborah S. Grubb Circulation Manager Janet M. Novey Senior Editors A. Lawrence Chickering, Adam Meyerson, Karl O'Lessker, Kent Owen Art Advisor Sheila Wolfe New York Editor Whit Stillman Americana Editor Joseph P. Duggan Associates Robert Asahina, Jameson G. Campaigne, Jr., John R. Coyne, Jr., Stephen Miller, Alan Reynolds Contributors Aram Bakshian, Jr., Christopher C. DeMuth, Terry Eastland, Jerry Gerde, K.E...
...currency offered in exchange...
...Power to the Nicaraguan people...
...He will return next month with ' The Continuing Crisis.'' speculators but ordinary Americans looking for a sounder currency in which to hold their savings...
...An improving and cautionary tale...
...Second class postage paid at Bloomington, Indiana, and additional mailing offices...
...Though many scholars may have an individual interest in simply getting into the Soviet Union, the political scientists from the West who wish to build "bridges of trust and confidence" should understand the point of view of their hosts...
...Unyielding, at least, and no very good pillar for a viable bridge...
...dollar) at an annual rate averaging nearly 15 percent-doubling in value every five years...
...Shakhnazarov also sees fit to use the upcoming meeting to attack Western capitalism: As for capitalism, the demands of progress are leading everywhere to the need to overcome the social system based on private property and exploitation...
...And they couldn't do better: Since 1965...
...Denominations of five dollars and up can sometimes be acquired at substantial discounts-even below par...
...I am indebted to him for the information on exchange rates reported here...
...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL A Sound Dollar A cryptic note in a recent issue of National Review was the first mention in the popular press of something currency speculation insiders have known for years: The U.S...
...Nowadays only out-and-out reactionaries defend the thesis about the perpetuity of capitalism [emphasis mine...
...It was just another neat bit of anti-American, pro-Marxist political symbolism, crafted by professors and graduate students who draw their pay from the oft-rifled pockets of Hoosier taxpayers...
...the Confederate dollar has outperformed even such blue-chips as the German mark, the Swiss franc, and the Japanese yen (Figure III...
...As for Mr...
...but by November 1977 the word "alternative" had acquired such an esoteric fragrance that in order to discourage unsolicited manuscripts from florists, beauticians, and other creative types the Club reverted to the magazine's original name...
...It is not unusual, for instance, for unofficial currency exchanges to give slightly different rates for large bills than for small ones, but this discrepancy is very marked for those buying Confederate bills...
...This may or may not be true...
...A one-year subscription (twelve issues) costs $12, outside the United States $13...
...dollar to the Confederate...
...imperialists...
...Indians, so the argument goes, had that profound, almost instinctive concern for preserving the natural environment without which they would have been -and we inevitably shall be- doomed...
...Microfilm editions of The American Spectator are available from Xerox University Microfilms, 200 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106...
...Remember the vanishing buffalo...
...In 1967 the Saturday Evening Club took it over, rechristening it The Alternative: An American Spectator...
...Taking our post-luncheon constitutional, we first heard only the rasp of a portable loudspeaker and the indistinct chant of a crowd, and we wondered what it was this time...
...Instead, it is only one more nail in the coffin of the myth of the Noble Savage...
...Volume 12, Number 8, August 1979...
...citizens who put their money into Confederate dollars in 1965 have seen them rise against the U.S...
...G. Shakhnazarov, President of the Soviet Association of Political Science and Deputy Chief of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, outlined his view-and therewith the Party view-of the upcoming meeting: This [the decision to hold the meeting in a socialist country] is a manifestation of the growing prestige of Marxist-Leninist social theory...
...The leader-with a portable loudspeaker and Spanish accent-was shouting out slogans and two dozen or so sign-carrying marchers were dutifully repeating them...
...dollar at an average annual rate of 7.4 percent, comfortably outpacing the rise in the cost of living (Figure II...
...No cozying up to reaction this time...
...The American Spectators now published monthly at 102 West Sixth Street, Bloomington, Indiana...
...And isn't that what academic freedom is all about...
...Another anti-nukes...
...Other advocates of participation suggest that boycotting the World Congress will in no way alleviate the repression of academic, political, and civil rights in the Soviet Union...
...Or, like the "Robber Barons' " most scandalous displays of conspicuous consumption, Indians killed additional thousands of buffalo to take but their skins and horns, leaving the rest to rot...
...None of which is intended by the editors of the "Spectator's Journal" to be taken as encouragement to ravage the environment...
...Box 877, Bloomington, Indiana 47402, (812) 334-2715...
...A NOTE TO OUR READERS R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., is currently on sabbatical doing research for a book on the restaurants of Nicaragua...
...We found out a few minutes later when the slogans changed: "U.S...
...In short, Indians, no less than the rest of us, reacted as "economic men" to economic stimuli-a lesson which neither socialists nof environmentalists have yet been able to master...
...Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by self-addressed stamped envelopes...
...Well, it wasn't the white man with his infernal weaponry who contributed most to the buffalo's disappearance, but the red man, whose idea of good sport was to drive the animals by the thousands over cliffs for little more than the sheer fun of it...
...Death to Somoza...
...nickel...
...What accounts for "the Confederate miracle...
...This solid performance is bound to lead to an even greater flight from the U.S...
...Grubbs,Jr., Neil Howe, Roger Kaplan, William Kristol, Leslie Lenkowsky, A. James McAdams III, Robert McTiernan, Judy Mathews, William H. Nolte, Terry O'Rourke, Marc F. Plattner, Peter J. Rusthoven, Benjamin Stein Legal Counsel Solitary, Poor, Nasty, Brutish & Short • • • • The American Spectator was founded in 1924 by George Nathan and Truman Newberry over a cheap domestic ale in McSorley's Old Ale House...
...How can currency backed by a government defunct for over a century be sounder than one backed by the government in Washington...
...J.R...
...Confederate officials aren't saying, but they seem to have learned a lesson from the severe inflation of 1862-1865...
...still less with freedom for the Nicaraguan people...
...Although the South in the 1930s may have been, in FDR's phrase, "the nation's economic problem number one," Southerners who'd saved their Confederate money were holding a currency appreciating (against a sound U.S...
...The end of World War II saw the Confederate and U.S...
...There is, however, no corresponding discount for those buying large U.S...
...should be sent to The American Spectator, P.O...
...Copyright (c) The American Spectator 1979...
...Other examples of environmental despoliation by our forerunners on this continent include the massive slaughtering of jackrabbits and vast "hunting fires," which blackened millions of acres of plains land each year...
...The practice of building socialism and communism, and the course of events in the world constantly supply proof that this theory provides a correct picture of historical development and serves as a reliable instrument for knowing and transforming existing reality for the sake of a better future for mankind [emphasis mine...
...dollar resumed its decline...
...Clearly, the Communist leadership views the IPSA meeting in Moscow as an opportunity to enhance the prestige of its party line...
...KO 'L...
...Hands off Nicaragua...
...imperialists out of Nicaragua...
...It didn't have much to do with Somoza after all...
...In announcing the Moscow meeting in Pravda on January 17, 1979, Mr...
...Foreign air mail rates sent on request...
...It turns out, according to Professors J. Baden, R. Stroup, and W. Thurman of the Center for Political Economy and Natural Resources at MSU, that Indians behaved toward the environment just like everyone else does: In hard times they nurtured and protected it, in good times they wasted and despoiled it...
...Art Kaufman Coalition for a Democratic Majority Miami Welcomes Somoza The closing days of June saw yet another political demonstration on the Indiana University campus in Bloomington...
...But today, on the specialized exchanges dealing in Confederate currency (like the one run by Colonel Grover Criswell in Florida's Ocala National Forest), a Confederate one-dollar bill costs eight dollars U.S.* The Confederate dollar's remarkable comeback began about the 1920s (Figure I...
...As the Yankee dollar is eaten away by inflation, Confederate money should begin to attract not just currency * To minimize purely numismatic con siderations, I shall refer here to the prices asked for the garden-variety one-dollar bill printed in Richmond from 1862 to 1864, bearing the portrait of Clement C. Clay, in "average circulated condition...
...dollar has shown a dramatic long-term decline against Confederate money...
...New York office, (212) 724-3799...
...Shakhnazarov's characterization of the choice of meeting place, it may be said that those scholars who suffer brutality and torture under the Soviet system would hardly agree...
...No turning our back on human rights for the sake of American investments...
...Moscow Conventioneers At its annual business meeting the American Political Science Association {APSA) decided to participate in the World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) to be held in Moscow this month...
...They have not gone on the gold standard, but there are strict controls on the growth of the money supply, coupled with a fiscal policy which produces a balanced budget every year...
...Instead (we mistakenly thought) it was an anti-Somoza, pro-Sandinista affair...
...Investors should note that the prices apply regardless of the condition of the U.S...
...One hopes there will be a good many "reactionaries" at this meeting who will defend not only economic liberty, but political and civil liberty as well...
...Editor-in - Chief R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...The Confederate dollar was mere scrap paper in 1865, and even 60 years later could be picked up for a U.S...
...SPECTATOR'S JOURNAL (continued from page 2) ties, ideologies, and political systems...
...Long live the Sandinista freedom fighters...
...Vanover {The author, appearing here under a pseudonym, is a financial wizard also known as the "gnome of Carrboro, " who passes the time on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill...
...Disinvestment in South Africa...
...Colonel' Criswell, whose mailing address is Fort McCoy, Florida, is the current president of the American Numismatic Association, the author of Confederdte and Southern States Currency, and probably the leading specialist in this market...
...The first question, however, is not whether a boycott is an effective means of protest, but whether such a meeting in Moscow fulfills the goals of those who seek to participate...
...Published remarkably without regard to sex, life-style, race, color, creed, or (most redundantly of all) national origin...
...As we drew closer we found it was none of these...
...Though many prominent members of the APSA voiced their disagreement with this decision (as well as with the decision to shun Chicago for its national convention because of the Illinois legislature's failure to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment), the APSA agreed with the Executive Committee of IPSA about the need for building " bridges of trust and confidence between different socie(continued on page 42) It should be noted that there are anomalies in the market for Confederate currency which suggest that amateur investors should proceed with caution...
Vol. 12 • August 1979 • No. 8
