Comments on: Good Thing We Have No Federal Baking System

By: Félix

Félix — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:05:00 +0000

actually “wildcat” banks’ bills were heavily discounted. good banks had very wide circulation and hardly any discount. That’s precisely what should happen with competition.

with monopoly money you just get the lowest common denominator and no way of finding a safehaven (without going abroad.. ask the argentinians!)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:04:00 +0000

That’s brilliant! Or some other element with an even shorter half-life.

Think about the protection against inflation that that would provide! There would be a guaranteed, steady reduction in the money supply.

By: Gil

Gil — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 10:49:00 +0000

I believe jorod is saying roughly what I’m saying (assuming ‘that’ refers to private paper money). Is it not true that private paper money didn’t generally appear in the open free market? Or that any private paper currency that had any longevity was when the private issuer had a monopoly over a geographic location (e.g. scrip in a company town)? Private money issuers who have had success dealt commodity coins – gold, silver and copper. Other Libertarians quite easily point out that governments prefer token money over commodity money because they intend to inflate the money supply and give themselves ‘free money’ with which they can immediately purchase goods without anything in return. Hence you have coins that get mixed with base metal or Kubla Khan who seized the peoples’ gold and silver coins to force everyone on his own paper bark currency.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:56:00 +0000

well that bit of HTML failed

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:55:00 +0000

As I understand it, the guvmint wants us to spend money right now, rather than ~~hoard~~ save it.

I propose uranium as currency. Talk about burning a hole in your pocket. :p