You CAN print your own money

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 9 years, 10 months ago to Economics
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This is well-known. These are "community currencies" because you cannot trade with yourself. You need partners. But you are perfectly free to make your own paper money and let others accept it or not.

You also are free to make your own tokens, electronic cards, etc.

What you cannot do - and what Bernard von Nothaus was convicted of doing - is coining your own money. For some arcane and archaic reason, under US law, coins are synonymous with money. Paper is just a promise.

However, as we all know, you are perfectly free to strike your own commemorative tokens in any metal you want. You just cannot call them "money."

Ten years ago, I served on the Bay Bucks Committee of Traverse City, Michigan.
Their website is here: http://www.baybucks.org/
My story about it for the Michigan State Numismatic Society here:
http://www.michigancoinclub.org/Artic...

Ithaca, New York, is considered the paradigm with their Ithaca Hours:
http://ithacahours.com/

The theory was pushed first by the (very left wing, yet very libertarian) Schumacher Center for New Economics here:
http://www.centerforneweconomics.org/

Many others on Wikipedia here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

However, this is not new. Back when President Franklin D. Roosevelt closed all the banks, thousands - literally, over 1000 - community currencies were launched. People had the same assets and liabilities as before. They only lacked media to tally them. So, they created their own.
Read about it here:
http://depressionscrip.com/

And there was nothing new about it back then, either. Mines and railroads also created their own currencies. In numismatics, at our conventions, we have judged exhibits. These museum-quality displays are presentations by collectors of topics of interest, like a magazine article, but delivered as a set of display cases. I did one called "16 Tons of Communist Propaganda" touting the virtues of coal mine company store tokens.

(If you go to my blog, http://NecessaryFacts.blogspot.com and enter "numismatics" in the search box, you will find more truths than Murray Rothbard knew. See if you can find the image of the revolutionary paper money of North Carolina with Atlas on it.)


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  • Posted by RobertFl 9 years, 10 months ago
    Bitcoin.
    I can shop with it (overstock[dot]com)
    Donate to Rand Paul's campaign with it.
    Buy Gold/Silver with it (Provident Metals).
    I lend it and make interest off it (BTCJam)
    The Guberment can't touch it.
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  • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 10 months ago
    In Las Vegas, the casino chips used to be usable all over the place. You could carry your chips out of one casino and use them in another. You could even buy things with them.

    This ran afoul of government currency regulations and Nevada laws and now you can only use them in the casino that made them.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 10 months ago
      I heard similar stories, William. I would like to see your citation on the government currency regulations, though. Also, I think that the casinos just asked the Gaming Commission to make that rule for them, so that they did not have to hassle with one another's chips. The casinos do not have to be the bad guys: they can just point to the Gaming Commission and tell you that they are "not allowed" to accept outside counters.
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      • Posted by $ WilliamShipley 9 years, 10 months ago
        Like you I had heard that. The only documentation I found was a newspaper article from 2007 that said:

        "That culture started to change 20 years ago when Nevada defined tokens as the property of individual casinos and prohibited their use "for any monetary purpose" outside the casino. They were simply intended as stand-ins for cash, loaned to players for the sole purpose of gambling.

        The regulation was adopted to bring state law in line with federal rules prohibiting the creation of new currencies and with existing casino accounting procedures. The rule also has favorable tax implications for casinos, which aren't taxed on unreturned chips."

        I can't find any statement that the federal government got involved and am inclined to believe you may be right.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 10 months ago
    A really fascinating post. It opens up many possibilities, but it also creates the need to walk a careful tightrope, for surely the Feds will scrutinize it to the nth degree if one were to attempt printing whatever you'd call them. Surely not "bitcoins."
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 9 years, 10 months ago
    The hilarious part is the government doesn't make coins and hasn't since the mid sixties. To be a coin it must have intrinsic value usually silver or gold. What we call coins are tokens as Mike stated. Tokens have zero intrinsic value it is representative value as assigned by the government or a token. Clads are the current version. A facade of something shiny on the outside a patina which is also used in the definition of State or Fascist Economics. A thin patina of capitalism but with complete control and so is their money.

    Money which is a representation of your labor makes it easier to store excess to need amounts for later use. That excess is your wealth. Money is a tool to purchase at the store your daily needs. Nothing more than that. Money is not the root of evil that would be, properly quoted, the love of money is the root of evil. Government producing nothing of value loves money. Yours. Money is valued by it's worth or buying power. Let's suppose you walk into Walmart one day and there on each cash register is a sign. US Currency accepted at 70% of face value. The store has only 70% faith in US Currency. government currency has no credit and there is very little faith so that mis used cliche is also of no value. No gold, not enough land, nothing to back it's money except one standard. Fear.

    So why don't the stores put those signs on the cash registers? They don't have to. The Government did it for them by devaluing the buying power of the dollar. Its now worth about one cent on the dollar from a 1933 dollar last I looked. But we have more to buy and the wages are....up? Not really. how much AFTER TAX dollars now valued at 70% of their worth from 2008 does it take to buy you daily needs?

    Wasn't that nice of them. As the value of the dollar diminished they decreased it through inflation, devaluation and debt repudiation.

    You don't have to go into the store with one dollar and forty cents to buy a one dollar item. Exxon doesn't have to pump 7/10ths of a gallon because you are using US Currency.

    And if you buy into it you don't have to be afraid of what happened to your retirement plans or the impending 30 hour week with no benefits.

    After all you can go get another job. Instead of 40 work 60 for your fifteen an hours. before taxes and after devaluation.

    Just remember the Emperor has no clothes. Neither does his currency or tokens. As long as you are afraid what would happen and don't shout it aloud. Or ask the store what price if I use real money? Fear standard nothing more.

    It is not a collective agreement of poverty but ....

    If they to pretend to pay you can pretend to work and if the government pretends to provide value for 'your loan' of April 15th you can pretend to support the government.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 9 years, 10 months ago
    I disagree. Bernard von Nothaus was only convicted because he tried to convince people that "Liberty Dollars" were US dollars, and he got caught doing it. If he had called his coins "Liberty Gold Pieces", or anything that is not the name of a real government-fiat currency, I don't think the Feds would have had any problem with him.

    They might very well have decided that Liberty Gold Pieces are not money and therefore he had to pay tax on his sales, but that's a different matter.
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    • Posted by mspalding 9 years, 10 months ago
      He was originally convicted of counterfeiting. But who would mistake a US coin for a one ounce silver piece? Later the government admitted that he was innocent. Everyone was released from jail and they are in the process of returning the $4million of gold and silver that was confiscated.
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