Competing Currencies
Ron Paul makes an excellent point in his bill which seeks to allow competing currencies. In essence he is saying that if we can’t “control” or audit the Fed, then the very least the US Congress can do is abolish the law that makes Fed Notes the only legal tender.
Instead, allow people to choose their own currency – which in Ron Paul’s view should be gold and/or silver.
Actually, while it may seem like a rather mundane thing to simply repeal legal tender laws, such a change could be profound. It could open the door to a raft of innovative currencies which, if based on gold and/or silver, would go a long way to helping people protect themselves from the constant erosion in value of the Fed Dollar.
I can easily imagine digital gold banking, where you have an account at a gold depository. They provide you with a debit card which can be used to spend your gold, and merchants throughout the land are enlisted to accept such cards (much the same way merchants were enlisted when credit cards first made their appearance all those years ago).
It’s all about acceptance. If you and I could easily spend our gold in ways that we want, then the barrier to using gold as money would be overcome. And I’m convinced this would happen quite naturally – if only the state gave up on its monopoly over money.
Don’t hold your breath. Ain’t gonna happen.
Who says we are waiting for any new laws? We’ve already started.
Mark
editor@dgcmagazine.com
Glad to note it. But until a wide range of merchants accept alternatives, all alternative gold-backed e-currrencies can only be fringe activities. Keep in mind that e-gold started all this back in 1998 (if I recall correctly) and I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of progress since then. But I’m firmly of the belief that gold-backed e-currencies would take off, if only wider acceptance of them could be achieved.