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Metal Madness: Dallas Minters Pushing Crow, Lakota to Adopt “Sovereign Currency”

Last updated on 2013.10.21

Libertarian metalheads pretending to mint currency for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe are also spreading their scam to the Crow Tribe in Montana. Eddie Allen, "director" of "Sovereign Economics," has been working since March with Crow officials to help him sell his copper, silver, and gold keepsakes—er, establish their own sovereign currency:

Ceivert LaForge hopes that people buying and selling goods and services on the Crow Indian Reservation are soon dealing with "scouts," not with U.S. dollars.

The scouts would be copper, silver and gold coins created and issued by the Crow Tribe, a "sovereign currency" for what is already a sovereign nation.

"We're not looking to trade clams or wampum anymore," LaForge said. "We're looking at trading gold and silver."

...LaForge has been working on the project since March with Eddie Allen, director of Sovereign Economics, a Dallas-based business that helps "nations, states, communities and groups around the world" establish their own currencies, according to the company's website.

They are not looking for instant results, LaForge said, though he acknowledged that they hope to make quicker progress than the Lakota Nation. That tribe's currency is still little used on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, six years after it was first issued with Allen's help [Ed Kemmick, "Not Dollars But 'Scouts': Crow Tribe Hopes to Have Its Own Currency," Billings Gazette, 2013.08.16].

The Crow Tribe already finds its Dallas partner failing to deliver on its promises: Allen's partners at Mulligan Mint didn't finish a set of copper coins in time for the launch of Crow "currency" at the 95th Crow Fair.

Precious metals peddler Rob Gray, whose name has appeared in the shadows of Free Lakota Bank, posts transparent marketing propaganda below Kemmick's article:

This is bad news for the US Dollar. Once other tribes see that issuing a sovereign currency is the perfect way to promote self-determination, it won't be long before this spreads like wild-fire [Rob Gray, comment to Kemmick, 2013.08.16].

Yeah, right, Rob. Fast Eddie writes four sentences about the "success" of your Free Lakota Bank's currency and ridiculously calls it a "case study." But the coins you've been trying to sell via Free Lakota Bank haven't exactly spread like wildfire through West River. (Readers, has anyone tried to pay you with any Lakota currency?) Free Lakota Bank itself still isn't registered to do business in South Dakota.

Neither are Lakota Currency Exchange or Lakota Dollar Store, which I find Rob Gray's American Open Currency Standard website touting as on track to open soon:

In the next few weeks, the Lakota Dollar Store will open its doors on the Pine Ridge Reservation, serving as the rallying point for the Lakota sovereign currency. At the new Dollar Store, patrons can shop for high-quality shelf-stable food and dry goods and cash a check, send money or convert dollars at the onsite Lakota Currency Exchange, a duly-authorized financial services business in the heart of Pine Ridge.

After more than five years of development, the time, money and energy invested in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and the projects in that country are maturing. Stay tuned for a few important updates and more detail on the developments from the Free Lakota Bank ["Kira," "Opencurrency Update: Exciting News from Lakota!" OpenCurrency.org, 2013.08.12].

I can't find any web presence for this Pine Ridge business other than mentions by Open Currency minions. Supposedly the Lakota Dollar Store will open at 100 Crazy Horse Drive on Pine Ridge. And holy moly! It's even supposed to have a "full-service aquaponic facility" built by Colorado Aquaponics. (I knew something fishy was going on.) Neighbors, anyone care to drive by there and send me some pictures of the new store... and maybe some tilapia and cucumber?

Whatever game Gray, Allen, and others may be playing with the Lakota and Crow people, I can guarantee that creating a new currency won't solve anyone's economic problems. Adding new currencies to the local economy introduces inefficiency, as surely as using different measurement systems. And gold, silver, or copper as currency is as much a fiction as paper. The U.S. dollar at least offers the backing of the richest, most powerful nation in the world. The "currencies" Gray and Allen are pitching to the Crow and Lakota are backed by nothing more than the wishful thinking of libertarian end-timers who think their custom-made shiny discs will stop the Mad-Max marauders from shooting them dead and eating them after the great dollar-killing cataclysm.

Lakota neighbors, Crow friends, trust me: if you want economic development, don't fall for a private currency scheme that always fails. And if you want to stockpile items you'll find useful after the White man's strange profit-culture destroys itself, forget gold and silver: buy steel, forged into guns, knives, and spare parts.