Customer Reviews

Pieces of Eight : The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution

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Dr. Vieira is the most un-Harvard-lawyer-like Harvard lawyer you will ever meet. The "Dr." comes from his Ph.D. in chemistry from the same institution, which he earned a few years before he went back and got his J.D. He is among the foremost Constitutonal scholars in the U.S., and the undisputed expert on the history and Constitutional Law of Money and Banking.

If you *really* want to learn something about American History, the History of Money, or the devolution over the past 150 years of what passes for 'Law' in these united States, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Pieces of Eight is an exhaustive, detailed, and copiously footnoted (but highly readable, and routinely fascinating) compilation, synthesis, and exegesis of the history and Constitutional Law (and un-Constitutional 'law'!) of money and banking in the U.S, and is the result of a lifetime of research by a tenacious, literate, and scary-smart dude who is 3 for 4 in front of the Supreme Court.

If you want to know what the Framers of the Constitution *really* knew about money -- actually, quite a lot, certainly MUCH more than our purported "statesmen" today -- and why they put VERY specific language in the Constituton to ensure the proper rôle of money and banking consistent with a Free society, this book lays it out in stark, clear terms. In particular, if you want the definitive, airtight (and sordid) answers to politically incorrect questions such as "Why has nobody ever challenged the *clearly* unconstitutional Fed's constitutionality in court?", this book is the *only* place you're going to find them.

As Dr. Vieira mentions in his recent announcement at the gata.org website, the first printing came along at a time when our monetary, economic, and political situation was only marginally less dire than it is today, but even so, marginally enough that Pieces of Eight received less notice at the time than it so overwhelmingly deserves. In the intervening time, the book has begun to become recognized, and our situation has deteriorated to the point at which even the most obtuse among us have begun to sense that something is deeply, deeply, wrong, even if they can't put their finger on what it is. Pieces of Eight nails the source of the wrongness indelibly to the wall. In the words of an Amazon review appearing as of this writing: "Reading the last few chapters of this the 2d edition released in 2002 is like reading prophecy about the economic situation that the US is experiencing in 2009."

People who know me well know I'm definitely not one to go around spouting Bible verses, but in this case, one sticks out -- Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Dr. Vieira is taking the risk that there are a sufficient number of people out there who care enough about our Republic to take the effort to learn what TRULY went wrong, and how to fix it. If there are not, and the free market of ideas (what little is left of it and the 1st Amendment, anyway) does not choose to support it, then we are all truly, utterly, and completely screwed anyway.

Is that the case? Or will you do what is necessary, NOW, to read this book, and ensure that this powerful "sword of knowledge" does not remain sheathed?

This is a mammoth, exhaustive history of the money of the United States, from before the Constitution down to the present. It is the greatest work of erudition that I have every seen by a single person. It is two volumes and over 1700 pages with 6000+ cites. The author has read and analyzed all the court cases, Congressional debates, laws concerning money, banking, etc. through out US history. He tells the places where the US went wrong economically, constitutionally, and monetarily and what to do about it to correct it. The author is a lawyer who believes in original intent interpretation of the Constitution and is of the Austrian school of economics. Reading the last few chapters of this the 2d edition released in 2002 is like reading prophecy about the economic situation that the US is experiencing in 2009. This book is highly recommended. It is expensive to buy and can only be found used at this time. I got it on interlibrary loan.

I own a beautiful pristine copy and they are extremely well produced. Like Dr. Vieira, I have a law degree. I operate a financial website from the Austrian school viewpoint, receive thousands of visitors per day, have authored several academic pieces of monetary jurisprudence, speak internationally at investment conferences and have written my own book.

Pieces of Eight is THE definitive legal treatise on monetary jurisprudence. I have trained my own economic Padawans but Dr. Vieira is the Master Yoda of this branch of learning and Pieces of Eight is his seminal and impeccable work. This is an essential reference resource for anyone interested in money, currency and American law. These books are not for the intellectually lazy or undisciplined.