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EVE Online’s largest player-controlled virtual bank, Ebank, just can’t seem to catch a break these days. A few months after it was revealed that the company had been defrauded of a staggering amount of cash, it turns out that the institution’s digital vaults are far more barren than many realized, leading to an in-game freezing of accounts for any individual or organization that happened to have invested any InterStellar Kredits (ISK) with the bank.

Early this summer, it came to light that a veteran EVE player (known only as “Ricdic”) had embezzled —and then sold in the real world— over 200 billion ISK from Ebank, causing a run on the virtual financial institution. However, this was just the beginning of the problems for the player-owned bank. Recently installed Ebank Chairman Ray McCormack admitted that the bank had been mismanaged, and rules, safeguards, and controls were not enforced. As a result, it’s been revealed that Ebank is 380 billion ISK poorer thanks to a number of defaulted loans. Because of the aforementioned mismanagement, it apparently took the bank’s new officers a while to figure out just how far in the red their institution is.

At the moment, customer accounts will remain frozen until the bank manages to stabilize. According to McCormack, “withdrawals will be allowed once the bank achieves a maintainable equity status of 90% (1.8t currently); they will be stopped again should that fall below 80%.”

The main problem with Ebank’s account freezing is that it could do some serious harm to the game’s economy, mainly because players won’t be able to withdraw their funds in order to pay for in-game goods and services. Exactly how long a recovery will take is currently anyone’s guess, though, as it turns out that the board of directors revealed that the bank is currently facing a deficit of roughly 1.2 trillion ISK, with the amount increasing by approximately 12 billion ISK a month.

Fiat money is fiat money. Without strict property rights enforcement and a decentralized and competitive free market you will inevitably have these problems.

I’d like to see one of these online communities create a commodity based currency.

http://www.usatoday.com/…

A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.

Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.

The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.

Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.

Ed Collom, a University of Southern Maine sociologist who has studied local currencies, says they encourage people to buy locally. Merchants, hurting because customers have cut back on spending, benefit as consumers spend the local cash.

Seems the public is just as economically ignorant as those in power. In the least it’s good as an attack on the Fed’s monopoly on money.

September 30. 2008
Alert #29: Aloha Liberty Dollar

Now I am not usually a doom-and-gloom guy. I developed the Liberty Dollar to bring a real solution to the currency situation that I realized in 1974… some 34 years ago! And for all these years I have strived to bring about a proven, positive, peaceful and profitable solution to our country’s controlled fiat monetary system.

And while I greatly appreciated your support (ala the Choir), at almost every turn there has been an invisible force that has thwarted the Liberty Dollar development and larger use. At first you may think, I mean the government. That is not the case. The government had been amazingly supportive up until the raid. The most disturbing “invisible force” is bunch of traitors who confess to have the very ideals that you think they endorse. Unfortunately, most of the time I found our supposed “leaders” to be vain little men, who were much more interested in maintaining their position than saving the country.

Who are these traitors who have steadfastfully blocked or secretly worked to undermine the Liberty Dollar and its ideals? Well over the years I have made several lists, but I am now on Tour and time has long dulled that list… but it is easy to list a few and you may know a few more from your own efforts with the Liberty Dollar.

List of Bellybuttons:
Lew Rockwell, Von Mises Institute
Mark Skousen, Newsletter
Bill Bonner, Agora Publishing
Addison Wiggin, Newsletter
John McManus, John Birch Society
Ed Crane, Cato Institute
Jack Pugsley, Sovereign Society
Vin Suprynowicz, Las Vegas reporter
Charley Reese, Orlando reporter
Sheldon Richman, writer
Doug Casey, Newsletter
Franklin Sanders, Moneychanger-my-ass
Jim Cook, Investment Rarities
Peymon Mottahedeh, Freedom Law School
Ron Paul, Politician

I contacted every one of these bellybuttons. Each had the opportunity to really advance the ideals of liberty but didn’t. They are liars and traitors to the ideals that you may think they support. I would never trust any of them. None will address the issues or even state their objections to the Liberty Dollar. Most will not even reply. A few have said I don’t like them because they would not endorse the Liberty Dollar. Hell, I have never asked for an endorsement from anyone and don’t care if someone endorses the Liberty Dollar or not. But I brand these traitors as bellybuttons because they stonewall, back stab and take adverse positions against the Liberty Dollar while publicly stating that they support the very same ideals but refuse to enter a discourse to move a viable solution forward.

As a student of Austrian Economics, I was particularly drawn to the Mises Institute so I made an appointment to meet Lew Lockwell. When the day finally arrived, his secretary kept me waiting for an hour, then he stood me up and had me forcibly evicted into a driving Alabama rainstorm without a car. Nice business manners, eh?! For that and ten years of behind-the-scenes of negativity, I name Prickwell king bellybutton of the government controlled opposition. Skousen, Bonner, McManus, Crane and Casey are not far behind. Be very careful of whom you ask advice. If you have any doubts, just ask this list of American traitors, because I have and they all made me sick.

Contrary to these lying bellybutton traitors, there have been a great many “ordinary Joes” who have exemplified the greatness of our original Founding Fathers. These men and women have won my heart, not because they support the Liberty Dollar, but because they have devoted their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to furthering the ideals as represented by the Liberty Dollar.

I don’t know what happened at his appointment nor do we know why he’s pissed at the rest of those listed but I’m not getting the feeling that it was anything to garner this kind of response. In my opinion the Liberty Dollar little more than a scam. Selling a one troy ounce silver round for $50 is 3.66 times the spot price of $13.64 (bought in 50 to 100 troy oz batch) at the time of writing. They then attempt to use the $50 face valued coin as if it was worth as much as a $50 FRN. As the cost of silver rose so did the profit margin when it was re-minted with a higher face value. It is no wonder that these individuals didn’t want to associate themselves with von NotHaus and the Liberty Dollar. It’s obviously of questionable legality (not that any of those listed agree with that status but they likely don’t want to be directly affiliated with that) and it questionable morally too. If someone wishes to invest in metals the Liberty Dollar is a complete waste of money and if you wish to use metals as a currency or barter buying generic rounds is not only significantly cheaper but it doesn’t have the legal issues. Those “ordinary Joes”, of which I know a few personally, who are RCOs or are purchasers and users of the Liberty Dollars were suckered into a pyramid scheme.

The idea is right but the implementation is just too off to be an honest business.