Tag: Gold

‘Pirate Money’ in Ohio: The way to fight back against a failed Federal Reserve and inflation-based big government economy

The question that often arises in discussions about state-issued currencies is whether such initiatives, like those proposed in Kentucky or Ohio, are constitutional. They function as a form of currency that could serve as a pillar of stability for our nation, especially in an era where federal monetary policy has led to rampant inflation and economic uncertainty. I found myself pondering this deeply during a recent visit to the Ohio Statehouse, where I reconnected with old friends who work there. It was a serendipitous encounter that led me straight into the office of Senator George Lang, a man I’ve always admired for his sharp intellect and unwavering commitment to conservative principles. Lang and I have shared many conversations over the years, often diving into the world of books—recommendations that challenge the status quo and inspire action. On this particular day, as we caught up, the discussion turned to a topic that has been gaining traction among legislators and economic thinkers alike: a return to sound money through a state-level gold standard.

Lang handed me a copy of a relatively new book by Kevin Freeman, titled Pirate Money. The Blaze publishes it, and Freeman, whom I’ve followed through his economic commentary on that platform, draws from his extensive background advising the Pentagon and military leaders on financial warfare. I’ve known people at The Blaze over the years, and Freeman’s insights into global economics have always struck me as prescient. This book isn’t just another treatise on monetary policy; it’s a call to action, proposing an innovative way for states to reclaim control over their currencies using gold and silver, bypassing the Federal Reserve’s failures. As Lang and I talked, he mentioned that he’s been encouraging his colleagues in the legislature to read it by passing out copies from his office. The concept resonated with me immediately, especially after my own harrowing experiences with banks in 2025—a year that exposed the ugly underbelly of the financial industry in ways I hadn’t fully appreciated before.

You see, I’m not inherently anti-bank; they’ve served a purpose in facilitating commerce. But last year, I encountered the kind of predatory behavior that makes you question the entire system. Hidden fees, arbitrary account freezes, and a lack of transparency revealed the “ugly people” behind the polished facades—executives and regulators who prioritize control over service. This isn’t isolated; it’s symptomatic of a broader issue tied to the Federal Reserve and its monopoly on money creation. Freeman’s book delves into this, explaining how the Fed’s policies have enabled entities like BlackRock to amass unprecedented power, launder printed money through Wall Street, and impose agendas such as ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) criteria on corporations. If a CEO steps out of line, they risk deplatforming or worse—losing access to banking services based on social media profiles or political affiliations. I’ve seen this firsthand; banks now scrutinize applicants’ online presence, denying services to those deemed “undesirable.” This social credit system, imported from communist China, has infiltrated American finance, and it’s out of control.

My conversation with Lang covered a lot of ground, but the gold standard idea stood out. Freeman argues for a “constitutional backdoor” via Article 1, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from coining money or emitting bills of credit but explicitly allows them to make “nothing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”  This clause, rooted in the Founders’ distrust of fiat currency following the inflationary disasters of the Continental Dollar during the Revolutionary War, grants states the authority to establish gold and silver as legal tender. Freeman’s proposal builds on this: states could create vaults where citizens deposit gold, which is then used as backing for a digital debit card system. You’d buy gold with dollars, store it in the state vault, and spend it via a card that deducts the equivalent value in real time, adjusted for market prices. No need to carry physical coins; it’s as convenient as swiping a credit card, but insulated from inflation.

A new kind of gold card

This isn’t a pie-in-the-sky theory. Texas has already paved the way with its Texas Bullion Depository, established in 2015, a state-run facility for storing precious metals.  In 2025, Texas advanced further with House Bill 1056, enabling gold and silver deposits to be spent via debit-style cards, creating a digital payments platform backed by physical bullion.  By January 2026, the Texas Comptroller was seeking industry input on this system, aiming to implement it by May 2027 without state funding, relying instead on service fees.  Ohio is following suit. In April 2025, Representatives Brian Lorenz, Mark Johnson, and Josh Williams sponsored House Bill 208 (though some records refer to similar legislation as HB 206, sponsored by Representative Jennifer Gross), which aims to establish a transactional currency based on gold and silver.  The bill has been circulating but is currently stuck in the Judiciary Committee, needing leadership to push it forward. Lang and Gross are key supporters, with Lang distributing Freeman’s book to build momentum. This isn’t just for the wealthy; it’s a democratizing force that allows everyday people to protect their savings from erosion.

To understand why this is urgent, we must revisit the history of America’s monetary system—a tale of stability lost to central planning. In colonial America, currency was scarce and chaotic. The British Crown restricted silver and gold inflows to the colonies, forcing settlers to rely on foreign coins, barter, or makeshift scrip. The most common was the Spanish “piece of eight,” or eight-reales silver coin, minted in the New World and prized for its consistent value.  Pirates played a surprising role here; they plundered Spanish galleons, circulating these coins throughout the Atlantic world. Freeman draws the title Pirate Money from this era, noting that “pirate money”—looted Spanish silver—fueled early American commerce by evading royal monopolies.  These coins were often cut into “bits” for change—a one-reale bit equaled 12.5 cents, hence “two bits” for a quarter.  This decentralized, metal-backed system contrasted sharply with the inflationary paper-money experiments, such as Massachusetts’ pine-tree shillings or the Continental Congress’s fiat notes, which collapsed under overprinting.

The Founders, scarred by hyperinflation during the Revolution—where “not worth a Continental” became a proverb—enshrined sound money in the Constitution. Congress was granted the power to “coin money” and regulate its value, while states were barred from issuing fiat currency but were allowed to accept gold and silver tender.  The U.S. adopted a bimetallic standard in 1792, with the dollar defined as a specific weight of silver or gold. This stability propelled economic growth until the 20th century. But cracks appeared with the Civil War’s greenbacks, fiat notes that depreciated rapidly. Post-war, the U.S. returned to gold in 1879, enjoying decades of low inflation and prosperity.

The turning point came in 1913 with the Federal Reserve’s creation, ostensibly to stabilize banking, but it granted a private cartel monopoly over the money supply. Critics, including Freeman, argue this enabled endless printing, detached from real assets. Then, in 1933, amid the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, confiscating private gold holdings at $20.67 per ounce, only to revalue it at $35 shortly after via the Gold Reserve Act of 1934—a 69% devaluation that transferred wealth to the government.   This severed the dollar’s domestic full gold backing, though international convertibility persisted under Bretton Woods.

The final blow was the “Nixon Shock” in 1971. Facing gold outflows and inflation from Vietnam War spending, President Richard Nixon suspended dollar-to-gold convertibility on August 15, 1971, effectively ending the gold standard.   This unleashed fiat money, where dollars are backed only by faith in the government. The results? Catastrophic inflation. In the 1970s, prices soared, with annual rates peaking at 15% in 1980.  A dollar from 1970 buys just 13 cents worth of goods today—an 87% erosion.  Over the last century, the dollar has lost over 96% of its purchasing power since 1913.  From 1925 to 2025, it’s declined 95%, with stark generational impacts: $100 in 1975 is worth $16.40 today. 

This inflation isn’t accidental; it’s baked into the system. The Fed targets 2% annual inflation, but real rates often exceed that target, especially post-2020, with COVID stimulus flooding trillions into the economy. Homes, once affordable on a single income, now price out young families. Everything’s too expensive because money loses value yearly. Freeman highlights the shift from a production economy—making stuff—to a finance economy, where wealth comes from trading paper assets, interest rates, and debt manipulation. BlackRock exemplifies this: managing trillions, it influences CEOs via asset control, pushing agendas that prioritize globalism over American interests.  During the pandemic, the Fed hired BlackRock to manage bond purchases, raising conflict-of-interest concerns by blurring the lines between public policy and private profit.  

Compounding this domestic rot are external threats. President Trump understood this, cracking down on Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada to protect the dollar from attacks. Why Greenland? Strategic resources. But the real adversary is China, propped up since Nixon’s 1972 visit, which opened the door to currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.  Freeman, an expert in economic warfare, warns that wars today are fought through finance, not just bombs. China has been waging a stealth assault on the dollar: dumping U.S. Treasuries, stockpiling gold, and promoting the renminbi as a reserve currency.   In 2026, Beijing issued directives for financial institutions to divest Treasuries en masse, spiking yields and straining U.S. debt financing.  Allies like the BRICS nations follow suit, accelerating de-dollarization. If the dollar falls, America’s global clout crumbles—exactly China’s aim.

Trump provided a reprieve from 2017 to 2021, stabilizing the dollar amid these assaults. But with Democrats pushing centralized planning and Republicans sometimes complicit, the direction is toward more control. The Great Reset, championed by globalists, envisions a world where you “own nothing and be happy,” with currencies digitized for surveillance. Freeman’s Pirate Money counters this: states like Ohio and Texas can rebel by creating gold-backed systems, using the cashless infrastructure against the centralizers.

Imagine: You deposit your paycheck into an Ohio vault, converting it to gold at current prices. Your “black card” deducts value for purchases—gas, groceries, PlayStation—without inflation’s bite. Gold appreciates, so savings grow. No more losing 2-5% per year; your money retains value. This forces the Fed to compete, curbing excesses. It’s not Bitcoin’s volatility; it’s stable, tangible gold, recognized worldwide since antiquity.

Critics say it’s for the rich, but Freeman argues otherwise. Centralized bankers thrive on monopoly, leveraging inflation to steal value. By decentralizing, more people retain wealth, reducing inequality. In Ohio, HB 208 needs champions. Knock on Lang’s door; he’ll give you the book. Gross is sponsoring related efforts. With Vivek Ramaswamy as governor in Ohio and in partnership with a Trump administration, support could surge.

This isn’t radical; it’s constitutional. States have the right, and the time is now, while Trump stabilizes the dollar. Democrats should back it too—protecting value benefits all. If we wait, inflation will devour more. As Freeman notes, pirates used gold to win independence; we can too.

In conclusion, Kentucky’s notes—or any state’s gold tender—are constitutional under Article 1, Section 10. They stabilize our nation against Fed failures, BlackRock’s influence, and China’s attacks. Ohio, lead the way with HB 208. I’ll be one of the first to sign up. 

Footnotes

1.  U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10: “No State shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts…” 

2.  Kevin D. Freeman, Pirate Money (The Blaze, 2025), pp. 45-67, discussing colonial use of Spanish coins.

3.  Executive Order 6102, April 5, 1933, by Franklin D. Roosevelt, requiring the surrender of gold at below-market rates. 

4.  Gold Reserve Act of 1934, revaluing gold from $20.67 to $35 per ounce.

5.  Nixon Shock: Suspension of gold convertibility, August 15, 1971. 

6.  Inflation statistics: Dollar lost 87% value since the 1970s; peaked at 15% in 1980. 

7.  BlackRock’s role in Fed bond programs, 2020. 

8.  China’s Treasury divestment, 2026 directives. 

9.  Texas Bullion Depository, established 2015; HB 1056, 2025. 

10.  Ohio HB 206 (or 208 variant): Gold and silver transactional currency. 

Bibliography

•  Freeman, Kevin D. Pirate Money: The Constitutional Path to Sound Money. The Blaze, 2025.

•  Griffin, G. Edward. The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. American Media, 1994.

•  Rothbard, Murray N. What Has Government Done to Our Money? Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1963.

•  Eichengreen, Barry. Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919-1939. Oxford University Press, 1992.

•  Lowenstein, Roger. “The Nixon Shock.” Bloomberg Businessweek, August 4, 2011.

•  U.S. Constitution, Annotated Edition. Library of Congress.

•  Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). “Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar.”

•  Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. “Request for Information: Digital Payment System Backed by Bullion,” January 2026.

•  Ohio House of Representatives. “H.B. No. 206: Establish a Transactional Currency Based on Gold and Silver.”

•  Freeman, Kevin D. Advisory Reports to Pentagon on Economic Warfare, Various Dates.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an independent writer, philosopher, political advisor, and strategist based in the Cincinnati/Middletown, Ohio area. Born in Hamilton, Ohio, he has worked professionally since age 12 in various roles, from manual labor to high-level executive positions in aerospace and related industries. Known as “The Tax-killer” for his activism against tax increases, Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

He publishes the blog The Overmanwarrior (overmanwarrior.wordpress.com), where he shares insights on politics, culture, history, and personal stories. Active on X as @overmanwarrior, Instagram, and YouTube, Hoffman frequently discusses space exploration, family values, and human potential. An avid fast-draw artist and family man, he emphasizes passing practical skills and intellectual curiosity to younger generations.

The Danger of Big Banks to American Infrastructure: Why gold is the color of freedom

Over the last two months, I have spoken to a collection of the most intelligent people on planet earth, internationally, including senators, representatives, bankers, lawyers, engineers, former Fed members, supreme court judges, governors, CEOs, and top investors, trying to solve a big problem that is a major infrastructure problem in America.  That is the need for banking reform, and all things considered, regarding how we measure and distribute money as a free country.  The problem, as it has been presented, arises when a huge American bank, tied to various global standards, purposely attempts to remove private, relational ownership from its portfolio, using every trick in the book to convert the business into the open market.  As a large bank with international ties to central banks, big banks have become increasingly aware of their role and are acting in a parasitic manner toward American private ownership of industry, pushing them into conglomerations.  The problem with the situation I am involved in is that the company is an aerospace manufacturer with direct connections to a lot of important work that is critical to American infrastructure. These banking policies, unveiled during the COVID-19 crisis, pose a direct threat to American security.  It’s the same kind of radical ideas that central planners had when they thought they could use COVID to change human behavior, how we work, how we conduct recreation, and how we manage economies.  Taking the example of the Fed, it stops the economy, then prints fake money through quantitative easing to saturate the market with economic losses and hide inflation with phony interest rates.  And for banks to survive, they must use the chaos to undermine the concept of private ownership in America and fulfill one of Karl Marx’s key objectives: the state acquisition of the means of production.  And when we talk about the state, we’re not talking about elected governments, but banks that consider themselves the secret rulers of the world because nobody understands money the way they do. 

All this came to a dramatic head as we considered the recent executive order from President Trump on bank reform, which has raised concerns about the potential for demonetizing individuals and companies based on their political ideology.  Banks should never have had that kind of power, but they have become very radical.  I know of a few good bankers who have not fallen into this dark place, but most of them are playing the game to win from their perspective, and that entails destroying private ownership in America toward the global goals of socialists around the world and managed economies where financial institutions are really in charge of everything that happens.  We can elect representatives to build roads and figure out if there should be a death penalty for serious crimes.  However, when it comes to financial matters, financial institutions often view themselves as the rulers of the world, and if you want to play along, you have to buy into the woke agenda they present.  Trump’s executive order was a sign that things could improve and that he was taking steps in that direction, which was a positive development.  But the situation is much worse than just that woke banking policy.  A much bigger can of worms was being exposed, and the Fed is a big part of that problem.  Many people have attempted to reform the Fed over the years, but the issue has been detaching gold from our issued money and relying on centralized planning to cover the real costs.  And central planning doesn’t work, anywhere.  We essentially have communist ideas, the same ideas that collapsed the Soviet Union, running our central banks, our Federal Reserve, and our financial flow for all American businesses. 

People criticize Trump’s love of gold.  But I love how he has decorated the Oval Office, and over the years, Trump’s love of gold is more than an appreciation for an interesting color.  Gold represents freedom because, when measured in terms of money, it decouples individuals from the speculative tendencies of money managers.  And they make a killing off the chaos of money creation and its distribution.  So, of course, they don’t want to see any reforms to the industry because it’s a rigged system that benefits them.  Meanwhile, people are chained to the administrative bureaucracy that flows down to us through centralized banking.  In the case I brought up after speaking with all those brilliant people, most of whom have advanced degrees, the cost of regulation prevents big banks from dealing with small companies, so they prefer public ownership simply because it allows them to shoulder their responsibility to the customer.  However, that situation didn’t happen by accident; it was purposeful in the policy-making process to impose those kinds of restrictions on our economy. This has really only been exploited once all the other masks have been removed, revealing all the bad behavior that had been hiding in plain sight all along.  Trump’s love of gold is a love of the freedom that comes with attaching money to a precious metal, as it shields against interpretations of tyranny that allow money manipulators to alter values and acquire power over others.  Such as what BlackRock and other large money managers have done, which is work directly with the Fed to print a lot of fake money and wash that money through the system by buying up real companies and controlling their boards and CEOs with radical leftist policies.  That money came from printed money controlled by central banks, which gave them power over individual businesses and aligned with the communist goal of maintaining control over the means of production.  

If you are very savvy, you can survive in this hostile banking environment, and that will undoubtedly be the case with the situation I have been involved in.  However, what has been alarming is that this is a common practice, and it is no wonder that private ownership is becoming increasingly rare across the country, as it struggles to survive these open hostilities, which Trump’s executive order only begins to address, albeit just the tip of the spear.  The truth is that we need very aggressive banking reform if we want to run a free country.  And we can’t allow international centralized banking, to which all American banks are tied, to control our governments and our lives by managing our money.  Trump’s love of gold is more of a love of freedom attached to a stable value that piratical financiers and money manipulators cannot openly rob people of their political targets just because they can, and they can write the rules that everyone else has to follow.  And if we ever wondered about the intent of these aggressive financial administrators, remember how they all acted during Covid, for which the world has not yet recovered.  They fully intend to control the lives of the people who need money.  And they have the ability, through the Fed, to print as much as they want and distribute it to whomever they wish to, thereby gaining control over entire markets.  And suppose they don’t like American manufacturing returning to North America. In that case, they will find ways to prevent funding that growth, thereby halting the positive economic activity that Trump is trying to restore to our nation.  Only the big banks can fund many of these endeavors, and they are attached to international wokeness, decoupled from the gold standard, and they can make up the rules as they go to gain control over entire markets.  It’s a huge problem that requires serious reform.  And it’s a problem that everyone is aware of, but considers too significant to address at present.  And in the process of fixing it, they don’t want a target painted on their back for fear they might become the next victim.  And that’s not how a country should run under any condition.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

He Who Owns the Gold Rules: Why the Pentegon won’t be able to get rid of Pete Hegseth

I was thrilled that Pete Hegseth got rid of Susan Rice at her Pentagon job.  I disagree with Bill O’Reilly when he says that the military brass in the Pentagon will run Pete off from his new Secretary of Defense role, as Trump appointed him to reform the military.  I don’t think they will be able to, and here’s why, and why everything that Trump is doing is going to work—he who owns the gold rules.  The administrators are not in charge.  And they are being exposed, and they have lost their leverage.  Susan Rice represents that era of administrators who purposely sought to give away America’s gold so it couldn’t rule the world.  I heard a very funny interview recently from a British reporter trying to challenge Natalie Winters from the WarRoom about America and its place in the world, and let me just say, there are a lot of people who are in for some hard lessons.  Never forget that the real issue is socialism against capitalism, and to make socialism and communism work, there have been many globalist types who have purposely given away America’s gold so that it wouldn’t be able to rule.  And when this globalist reporter couldn’t talk down to Natalie as a young woman, he was exasperated by her arrogance.  But she knows, and everyone else is learning, that the key to stopping globalism is to stop giving away American values to countries that don’t deserve it.  Susan Rice’s firing by Pete Hegseth is part of a larger pattern emerging from the Trump administration, and it is precisely why we voted for him.  People like Susan Rice, a former U.S. National Security Advisor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under President Obama, are not going to be allowed to run the Pentagon in favor of policies that weaken America and strengthen the rest of the world that has adopted socialism and communism.  And she won’t be the last to go.

The national security issue is a simple one; I talk about it all the time with my gunfighter at the bar metaphor.  The gunfighter can have his back to the room and not worry about everyone trying to kill him, because everyone wants to find some way to get what he has, because he has value.  As I say, “he who owns the gold, rules.”  Other people may try to steal that gold, but they dare not when you have a superior military or a reputation for being the fastest with a gun, because it’s too risky to confront.  They would rather wait until you sleep and try to steal it that way.  And in the case of our Pentagon, people like Susan Rice have been undermining American independence for decades.  And if we had put some regular general in the system of Pete Hegseth’s current role, we’d get another nobody giving away American wealth to achieve peace.  As a communications expert, Pete Hegseth knows how to sell America to a new recruiting class, and his value has already seen a sharp increase in recruitment.  But for the pretentious people who work at the Pentagon and love to spend a lot of time in Georgetown eating and shopping with inflated wages and lifelong appointments that they don’t fear losing, the old days are over, and they are never coming back.  Globalism has been a bad deal, and one of the most significant bleeding wounds America has had has come out of the Pentagon from people like Susan Rice.

Negotiations with other countries are simple.  Do they have gold?  No.  They have crappy economic systems because they adopted Marxist ideas, which is the case in most of the world, including that English reporter who was interviewing Natalie Winters.  The truth is, America has the most excellent economy, even with far fewer people than China, and that is because of our capitalist markets.  And the bureaucratic administrators of the Washington D.C. culture have been working to undo that, and they will not be allowed to.  They don’t have the power anymore and won’t have the power to eliminate Pete Hegseth from his position.  They have been trying to create a scandal to pressure Pete and leak information to the media to accelerate that pressure.  But this is where things get fun, that’s why Trump put a media star in that position so that he could undo the rumors and pressure, because he knew from the beginning where the threats were.  And those people won’t be able to get rid of Pete Hegseth.  But Pete can undo them, which he started with when he fired Susan Rice.  Who cares what other countries think, or how fair it is for them?  They don’t get a seat at the big boys’ table if they don’t have gold.  Those are the rules of the world, and the only way to get gold in a capitalist economy is to become competitive and have things that the world wants.  Not to wait for globalists like Susan Rice and the Pentagon losers from the administrative state to steal gold from America and give it to the worthless and corrupt so that they can feel like they have a seat at the table.  No, they need to grovel like all the other Marxists. 

This is The Art of the Deal, as Trump has known and written about it for many years.  You have to know your leverage point and not allow others to think they are equal.  If you have something the world wants, you have some leverage to negotiate with.  We don’t need a governing Pentagon and a United Nations stealing American wealth, then lecturing us about sidewalks and roundabouts.  The administrative state has no value in such a world, and to destroy it, Trump is exposing that in favor of those with real value, and Susan Rice and the gang can’t compete on that level.  The English reporter talking to Natalie can’t either.  And they find such a concept of competition reprehensible, because they have been trained as Marxists.  But that house of cards is coming down and being exposed for what it always was.  Remember what I said many years ago about Trump’s second term?  If people wanted to understand it, just read The Art of the Comeback, where he was underwater by billions of dollars, and a homeless person sleeping on the street was much richer than he was.  And how he climbed out of that dire situation, and pretty quickly.  A few years later, he was the star of the hit television show The Apprentice, now on Amazon Prime.  Everyone should watch it and learn, because that is happening at the Pentagon.  And the world with the Trump administration knowing economics better than most practitioners anywhere.  If you want to be valuable in the world and have a seat at the table, find something you do well and use it as leverage to make a good deal.  Don’t grovel like a bunch of Marxist losers.  That trend is over, for America.  And we are never going to return to that policy.  And those guilty of it, like Susan Rice, will be fired for poor performance. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707