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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: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:50PM (2 children)
Except that neither the Great Depression nor the Great Recession of 2008 were caused by unsecured loans. In the case of the Depression, what was going on was that people were taking on credit secured by the stocks they were buying with that credit. In the case of the Recession, everything was ultimately secured by the homes the mortgages were based on. The problem in both cases is that the financial economy was not being sufficiently propped up by the real economy (i.e. people doing work to make stuff and sell stuff).
Also, the period I mentioned, 1917-1920, was World War I, a full decade before the Great Depression.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Scrutinizer on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:42PM
If the price of your collateral crashes (or is fraudulent), it's effectively the same as an unsecured loan. Fraud is a regular tenant throughout the US' financial history.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20PM
That's partly accurate. My college history class was about the 1920s and this [virginia.edu] was the textbook (full text at the link, and a very good read). Chapters X through XIV explain the stock market crash and its cause.
I still have the copy I had to buy in school.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience