Gold is money: New court ruling in Ohio allows for return of gold clauses in rental agreements

Ever since the Federal government took the U.S. off he gold standard in 1971, political and financial agencies have tried their best to program the American people to believe that gold has no monetary value. This of course was done to ensure trust and confidence in the fiat Federal Reserve Note, and to propagate the illusion that debt was money, which allowed for a continued expansion of both the currency and government spending.

But an interesting court ruling last month in Ohio may be changing society’s belief in gold as a Federal judge ruled that rents tied to gold clauses are now once again legal after nearly 80 years of being deemed null and void following the confiscation of gold in 1933.

A gold clause is an agreement where the rent of a commercial property can be raised or lowered in accordance to the price of gold at the time of renewal. And for the agreement made in 1919 at the Commerce Building in downtown Columbus, OH, this means that the property holders can legally raise the rent on the business leasing the office space to a sum tied directly to the current price of gold, which now stands at around $1240 per ounce.

A Downtown Columbus office building is worth its weight in gold, according to a federal judge who upheld a nearly century-old lease that tied rent to the current price of the metal.
Last month’s ruling means rent paid by the company leasing the Commerce Building at 35 E. Gay St. from a group of five property owners could jump from $6,000 annually to more than $300,000.

At issue is a so-called “gold clause” included in the original 1919 lease. The provision, common at the time, linked rent to the price of gold to account for inflation, similar to today’s consumer price index.

“This really is a vindication of property rights,” said Washington, D.C.-based attorney Peter Patterson, who represents the five owners.

In 1919, the value of gold was $20.67 per ounce, compared to more than $1,200 per ounce today. The property owners have been charging a yearly rent of $6,000 since that original lease, which was assumed by Commonwealth Investments in 1990.

That deal, Patterson argued in a 2014 lawsuit, has resulted in a windfall for the group, since their more than 40 tenants are charged $900,000 annually.

In 1933, in the midst of the Depression, the gold clauses were prohibited as part of efforts to reform the monetary system, which also included a ban on private ownership of gold from 1934 until 1973. – Columbus Dispatch

While this isolated event has little intrinsic effect on lease agreements as a whole, it opens the door for the growing movement by individual states and agencies who are working hard to see a return to gold backed money. And with the current front-runner in the race for the Presidency already having accepted gold as a deposit for a lease in one of his New York commercial buildings, the likelihood of gold returning to its original monetary form becomes more and more a reality in the very near future.

The Daily Economist
April 25, 2016