Tea Party is actually pushing to make gold the only legal currency
By Alex HeiglJune 3rd, 2011, 2:30 pmComments (26)
The Tea Party is currently lobbying for a return to the gold standard, insisting that economists and other people who've dedicated their lives to studying the painfully intricate world of economics are living in a made-up fantasy world.
Mike Pitts, a South Carolina statehouse representative, introduced a bill in April that would make gold and silver coins legal tender in the state. Pitts explained his reasoning behind this move to the LA Times.
"Quite frankly, I think that economists from universities are thinking within the confines of their own little world. They don't deal with the real issues."
I see. Real, pre-Industrialized issues that the rest of us face, like cattle rustlers and one-eyed loose cannons of federal marshals named Rooster Cogburn.
Similar bits of legislation are being pushed for over a dozen states, and include a Montana measure, voted down by a narrow 52-48 margin, that would have forced all wholesalers to pay tobacco taxes in gold, using electronic transactions backed by bullion held at depositories.
Utah said "fuck it" last month, when Governor Gary Herbert signed a law that said gold and silver coins minted by the government were considered legal tender. Whether or not this included those fifty-dollar gold and silver eagle coins advertised in the back of my Smithsonian was not covered.
Probably the most outright batshit push has come from Georgia, where the state is being lobbied to accept only gold and silver for all payments, including taxes, and to use the precious metals exclusively to pay all of the state's debts.
Look, this Tea Party shit has gone too far. It's one thing to make hypocritical statements about wanting to cut government powers and spending from your Medicare-purchased Rascal scooter, but it's quite another to advocate a return to an antiquated form of currency. Seriously, what's next, tobacco leaves? Anti-government sentiments are one thing, but this is pure lunacy.
Commentarium (26 Comments)
The inmates really are trying to take over the asylum
yes, but only because the doctors with degrees from internet colleges currently running it are doing such a fine job.
Now why exactly should we use gold as the legal currency? because it is prettier?
my thoughts exactly
Without all this propaganda what would all those toothless straw hat wearin' simple folk fill their education deprived brains with?
as if my pockets weren't already full with my wallet, iPhone, keys, and drug paraphernalia, I might have to start contending with gold ducats? sheeeeeeeiiiiit.
Screw money of any kind. Let's go back to bartering.
I like that idea, no more taxes.
A pointless argument, just what I was looking for. First a barter based system of exchange does not preclude taxes. In the US bartered exchanges are reported on the 1099-B form. It's also debated how many societies could be considered as having truly barter based economies. Your also ignoring the numerous downsides that come with bartering. Such as the fact that there would be no common measure of value, not all goods are divisible, and difficulty in storing wealth. A tomato today is worth something, both to the farmer who produced and harvested it, the grocer who sells it, and the consumer who purchases and consumes it. Now consider if that same tomato were not simply worth x dollars, but was x dollars. And that to aquire a tomato worth x dollars you have to exchange something of equivalent value. But the tomato will either rot losing it's value, be eaten losing it's value. You'd never be able to save up to put yourself through college for instance, as the perishibility of most goods precludes their long term storage.
There's also numerous downsides to to money system too. In my opinion, money system is just more efficient because of the huge global distance to trade. However, who much an object is worth really depends on the necessity, and at times that necessity is better measured by personal opinion than by an account made by the richer majority.
Now people are able to become billionaires simply because they are able to take advantage of those who actually work in production, whereas with bartering, people who are richer simply deserve to be with the developed ability of being able to meet demand. It's a much harder process to achieve than money system, and it requires more skill, but money system is more trickery than it is in natural rights.
Of course, it just depends on each individual society. At times, bartering is better, and a worldwide equalization of the money system is harming the hard workers while a weak few get to take advantage of it.
I'm actually for going back to the "gold standard", which means that paper and regular coin currency is backed by whatever the government holds in equivalent gold reserves; however, they lost me when they say they want to go back to paying with gold and silver coins... It's like the Tea Party is that guy in Econ class that slept through half the course, then gets a couple of drinks in them and tries to tell you how to fix the economy.
The gold standard does not replace paper currency.
It means that the value of the paper currency in your pockets is backed by gold held by the government.
Go do some research on Fort Knox and the gold standard.
You fuckwits never cease to amaze me with your ability to put just enough information into an article to make it dangerous in the hands of those who consider Hooksexup a viable source of news.
It's like giving a stick of dynamite and a match to a monkey.
And furthermore, none of you are smart enough to continue posting on this thread while I'm here, so just burn your computers now, you fuckwits.
In the article it uses examples of states that are literally wanting the mint to be gold or silver currency, which means that the people proposing the legislation are also confused about what the gold standard actually is too.
You could have just informed people and not called them "fuckwits."
I hope to fuck bartering was a joke.
However, I'm not altogether sure going back to a gold standard is necessarily a bad idea. Not that I think it's a good one either. It's something that probably does merit reexamination. I would however prefer not see a possibly merited idea dismissed out of hand, solely because of who suggested it.
Yes, it was a joke. :-)
Thank science, if it hadn't been I'd have such an aneurysm it would have registered on the Richter scale.
It's stupid, proposed by stupid, in the hopes of spreading stupid around.
A whole bunch of Rush Limbaugh/Neal Boortz/Glenn Beck listeners have bought gold and silver in anticipation of the apocalypse (or at least, Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation). They've done quite well in the last few years. But the dime is going to drop pretty soon, and that metal is going to drop in value with other commodities. It's a bubble, goosed by quantitative easing and a short-term flight to stability.
The gold bugs want government transactions to be done in gold to create additional artificial demand for the gold in their pockets. Forget for a moment that the additional demand for gold will come at the direct expense of demand for dollar bills, creating the inflation they've bought gold to avoid. We only have about $390 billion in gold reserves in the US -- more than anyone else, but only a few percent of the world's reserve. We have several times as much money circulating in foreign vaults than we have gold to cover it, if we switched over. China alone has about a trillion in dollar-denominated reserves. The instant we switch to a gold standard, we're bankrupt.
GAC you've made your case pretty solidly, I must say. But even so I'd still prefer further and more in depth research into the issue before it's simply dismissed. Not by you on a message board, but by the relevant government agents/ agencies. Knowing the admittedly small amount I do about economics of this sort, I'm inclined to say your correct. I don't see how US gold reserves would be able to cover the same demands currently placed upon our currency. It certainly doesn't look like it'd be anymore versatile. But even so, precious metals were the financial backing of choice earlier in history. And so I assume there has to be rational reason behind that choice, and I also assume that same reasoning might be worth examining now given the at this point established volatility of fiat currency backed by governments and deriving their valuation from their use in trade.
Also kudos on raising the point about alot of it's proponents having invested heavily in gold. I see and hear the damn commercials all the time, but for some reason none popped into head reading this now when it would have been relevant. Damn clever advertisers and their subtle insidious brain manipulations.
This story is unreadable. Is Mr. Heigl in middle school?
Sorry but is this article satire? If it's not I'm definitively writing the USA off as having any future as a world power.
Modifying all the vending machines, toll booths, etc to accept gold coins shouldn't be difficult. Look how widely accepted the half dollar and dollar coins are.
Do your homework article's author MAYBE via Zeitgeist.com..The Gold Standard is what the U.S. Currency was based on before it was sold out from us @ a secret meeting on Jekyll Island Ga see the book Creature From Jekyll Island..and mister author remember the wise words of Abraham Lincoln.."Sometimes it is better to remain silent and allow folks to suspect one is IGNORANT than to SPEAK AND REMOVE ALL DOUBT.."
You are correct. The decision to switch to fiat currency was made at a retreat on Jekyll Island 80 years or so ago, by Roosevelt and his advisors ... and then again by Richard Nixon when we went back to it after World War II. So what. It was the correct decision.
A fiat currency? Does that mean we should pay with small Italian cars?
Now you say something