There is only one difficulty: abstract ideas are like soap bubbles, absolute and perfect in their beauty and symmetry, a totally enclosed and unified system—but when you try to touch them they disappear. The medieval alchemist failed because he foolishly tried to manu- facture real gold from nothingness, but the modern money doctors think they have succeeded because they have gone beyond real gold to what they think is the far more impressive concept (men- tally) of the idea of gold. The common money of the United States, the Federal Reserve The Color of Gold 55 note, and the proposed new international money or "drawing rights" controlled by the IMF are just such abstractions. They are defined in terms of gold but can never actually be redeemed in the metal.'5 They are intended forever to remain abstractions—evidences of debt that can never be repaid. Money is to be debt and debt is to be credit, and the debt is evidenced by interest-bearing notes or bonds. When due, the principal and the interest on the bonds are paid from the proceeds raised by the sale of more bonds. The more we get into debt the richer we are to become. The IOU's, called bonds, are deposited in the banks where they are called "assets," and therefore more "money" can be created from these assets to make new loans, and new loans mean more assets, and more assets mean more money—and so on into infinity. It is the perfect system, unified, self-contained, abstract—but if we try to touch it, it may one day disappear. Lenin is said to have predicted that the free world would eventu- ally destroy itself by debauching its own currency.

Whatever else may be said of this Marxist Machiavelli, it is obvious that he was an astute observer of history. There is an old Swiss saying, "Good money is coined freedom." These hardy mountain people have also learned the lessons of history well. They know that their destiny depends, as did that of the ancient Byzantine Empire, on the world's respect for their money rather than for the military power they can display. It is no accident that the Swiss have be- come the indispensable bankers to the world; they have the world's most reliable money—backed 100 percent by gold. They sum up their future very simply: "No gold; no Swiss." But if good money still circulates in parts of the West, despite the inflationary illness that has become chronic with us, the same can no longer be said of good intrinsic-value coin. Credit and monetary inflation can seldom be contained within the borders of those countries that originated it. The paper dollars of the U.S., when they can no longer be exchanged for intrinsic-value coin or bullion at home (our gold coins were taken from us long ago and nearly all our subsidiary silver has disappeared into the hoarder's vaults), reach out for the good coin of other countries."s Despite laws to the contrary, the silver and gold coins of Canada, Mexico and even Switzerland, for example, have been exported to the limit. And as a result, their mintage eventually had to be stopped and these coins replaced with base metal tokens, as in the United States. Gresham's Law respects no boundaries. Laws for- bidding the movement of money, gold, and silver across interna- tional boundaries are and will be no more effective than were the laws forbidding the manufacture and importation of alcoholic beverages during the Prohibition era of the United States. Good coin still exists in the Western world, but seldom anymore as legal tender.