SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
A bill recently introduced in Texas seeks to obliterate the Federal Reserve's much-maligned monopoly on currency by establishing gold and silver as legal tender — but the groundbreaking legislation, if passed, would also prohibit those precious metals from being seized by State authorities.
[...] Senator Bob Hall introduced the bill last month, which, the Tenth Amendment Center explains, "declares specifically that certain gold and silver coins are legal tender, and prohibits any tax, charge, assessment, fee, or penalty on any exchange of Federal Reserve notes (dollars) for gold or silver. The bill authorizes the payment of taxes and fees in gold & silver in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit the seizure of gold or silver by state authorities."
Would this matter in a nation where money is mostly plastic nowadays anyway?
Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/texas-bill-gold-silver-money-federal-reserve/
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:39PM (6 children)
"In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever?"
History.
"Even more worthless than gold: gold certificates"
Agreed; that's just promissory note, and promises don't have to be kept.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Scrutinizer on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:49PM (1 child)
Recent history, as well.
Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre [blogspot.com] authored a book about his life during the 2001 economic collapse of Argentina, and specifically noted that gold was accepted in trade for necessities. Among his "hindsight wishlist" items was a stockpile of plain gold wedding bands, as while gold coins drew attention, "nobody thought anything about some poor soul wandering into a pawn shop and pulling off the gold band on his finger to sell for cash".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @07:04AM
He got that idea from David Bowie in "The Man Who Fell to Earth".
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:04PM (1 child)
When? If you're thinking "after the fall of Rome", you are very very wrong: the things that everyone cared about for centuries after Rome were arable land, food, weapons, and (in deserts) water supplies.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday April 17 2017, @06:04AM
Early Roman dinari were close to pure silver. Over time they were debased, until at the end of the empire they were bronze with 5% silver. This made the currency worthless, and was a significant contribution to the fall of the empire. So Roman "silver" coins would have been worthless in that period, but people would always accept precious metals as currency.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)
"In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever?"
History.
Whether or not this works depends on (1) how far the collapse goes, and (2) who you're trying to trade with.
A lot of modern economic failures have been major disruptions for modern life, but they haven't always led to complete breakdown of civil order. In the latter scenario, weapons, food, etc. are the only "currency" that any rational person will want.
And even if the breakdown isn't that severe, for the lower classes who may literally be starving, trying to trade a "nice shiny rock" for something they actually value probably won't work. It's like any number of movies where you see some idiotic character trying to drag a chest full of gold out of a desert or whatever... and dying. That's not what you need in a desert. You need water and food and protection against the sun, at a minimum. Anyone who has those things won't want your shiny rock unless they know they can still get out of the desert.
Similarly, for struggling people in an uncertain economic situation where social order has somewhat broken down, they have no guarantee that others will accept your shiny rock for payment when they want to buy more food or water or guns or whatever.
History shows that gold or any other "precious metal" tends to only be useful as a currency among the upper classes, particularly in times of social discord. The rest of people know where actual value resides in things humans actually need.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday April 17 2017, @06:08AM
Yes, if things are bad enough all you can trade are lead and steel. Short of that however gold and silver will work. In the worst parts of WWI and WWII people were starving to death, yet they would accept gold and silver as currency for anything they could spare.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek