The United States today operates with a dual monetary system. The first is the one which everyone is familiar with, Federal Reserve Notes printed by the Federal Reserve. The second monetary system may not be familiar but it does exist. It is the Silver Liberty and Gold Eagle COIN as mandated by the US Constitution. These coins are minted by the US Mint, under the authorization of Congress, and are 100% Legal Tender Real Money. These coins are Constitutional Money. Using these coins in everyday transactions, as a inflation proof alternative currency, is very simple.

In these examples I will be using Silver Liberty Dollars. In the beginning I expect most transactions to be less than $20.00 American Eagle. Naturally, as the program expands to higher priced items, more people will opt to use American Gold Eagles.

The Silver Liberty Coin is an essential protection against inflation of the money supply. Silver Liberty and Gold Eagle Coins can be used as a standard for expressing prices and changes in prices now, today, by anyone. To do so requires no act of Congress, no court decision, no new law of any kind. Silver Liberty Coins are Legal Tender, currently circulating MONEY of the United States. Anyone who wishes to adopt silver and gold as his own, personal standard of prices can do so immediately. Here is all he needs do; 

(1) Start with the current price of an ounce of silver. As of today, 11/25/2008, you can exchange 15.61 FRN for one Silver Liberty Silver. The "spot" price of silver is 10.30 Federal Reserve Notes (FRN). Store owners can independently set their "conversion rate" to whatever amount they choose. I would recommend using a conversion rate higher than what the consumer would be able to receive converting the Silver Liberty back to FRN's thus keeping the Silver Liberty more valuable as MONEY than converting to FRN's.

(2) To transition to a constitutional standard, all you need do is start expressing prices in terms of Constitutional dollars instead of paper dollars. To do this, simply divide the FRN price of anything by the conversion rate of a Constitutional dollar. For example, because the current conversion rate of an Silver Liberty is $15.61 FRN, the "Dollar" price of anything is one-fifteenth sixty-one of the paper-dollar price. If the conversion rate of a Silver Liberty dollar were $20 , the Constitutional dollar-price of everything would be one-twentieth of the FRN price. If the conversion rate of a Constitutional dollar were $40, the Constitutional Dollar price of everything would be one-fortieth of the FRN price. The essential formula is: 

Constitutional Dollar price of any good = FRN price of the good divided by conversion rate of Constitutional dollar.

The series of tables, below, illustrates the use of the Silver Liberty as the standard of prices of goods. The tables are based on paper-dollar prices of an ounce of silver of $12, $15, and $20 respectively. The examples used in each case include Federal Reserve Note price and Constitutional Dollar prices of a gallon of milk, a gallon of gasoline, and a restaurant meal for four. The silver dollar price of the Federal Reserve Note itself, which is particularly significant, is also included. It ranges from a low of $0.05 American Eagle cents (when the FRN price of an ounce of silver is $20) to a high of $0.08 American Eagle cents (when the FRN price of silver is $12 per ounce.) The Constitutional Dollar price of the paper (FRN) dollar is an indication of the extent of the depreciation of the paper (FRN) dollar. 

To accept Silver Liberty coins at their true value would make it obvious to everyone, every time he went shopping, just where the problem of rising prices lay--namely, with the paper dollar. In the face of such evidence people would turn away from paper money: they would demand that money due them be payable in Constitutional dollars not paper dollars. Indeed, in the face of a growing preference of the public for Real Money, paper money could be kept in circulation only by restoring its redeemability on demand in silver and gold. 

While probably nothing can educate the public concerning the nature and causes of inflation as effectively as a side-by-side comparison of silver & gold and paper in making purchases, informing people of the difference in the prices they would pay if payment in American Eagles cannot fail to have some significant educational value. Every merchant who would make such information available to his customers would be doing them and everyone else a real service.