Printing money while a needed vise of gov't is one that is easily corrupted; case in point the Weimar Republic printed 'unbacked' paper causing the Depression, 'Great Depression' in America due to FDR's attempt to spend borrowed money to get out of it.

Any unbacked money, which U.S.A. is not actually printing, is very bad for society and the economy. The U.S. has backing of its money; it is called the 'sweat equity' of its citizens and it is about used up after Obama's reign.

What would be best is a solid asset back monetary system, such as we had pre-1972.
But, we cannot get that with the current makeup of our gov't; Senate and Congress both are elected by the populous and this means they try to 'buy' their seats with 'pork'.

We would need to repeal the 17th Amendment and give the power of the Senate back to the States. Then we would have to shrink the federal gov't and drastically cut fed level spending; some people will die due to it. We cannot afford to pay for those that DO NOT WANT TO WORK OR FOR THEIR FINANCIAL MISTAKES.

We as well have to secure the borders and all entry points. Once we rein in our debt we could go back to a securely backed monetary system.

So, in closing I am for the gov't 'printing' money; but only securely back money.

There is a huge difference between speculating with savings (what a person actually earned) and speculating with others' savings (what one borrows). The former is the mentality of a producer, the latter of a looter.

I would actually argue that bank runs are quite easily predicted: they are the result of the sudden loss of confidence in a financial institution. People want to recover what they entrusted to such entities. Such is IMO an entirely rational and self-interested desire. What one really has to look at is whether or not the loss of confidence in the first place is justified. That may be the irrational part.

The question then becomes whether it is better for a government to “print” unbacked money or “borrow” money by issuing interest-paying bonds . For example, would the U.S. have been better off directly covering all of its deficits by paying them with unbacked currency? This would have had the upsides of no $20 trillion national debt and no need for a central bank. Are there any corresponding downsides, and if so what are they?

Business is about the present also. If a business is open today it’s because that business expects to sell goods and services today. Business is speculation only in the sense that crossing a street is speculation (that you won’t be knocked down by a careless motorist). It’s not in the same category as, say, investing in a penny stock.

If debt is the seed of civilization, investment is its soil. Once a seed matures into a plant, it is no longer a seed and has different requirements for its long-term survival. An environment suitable for a seed may no longer be suitable for a plant. Today the world is suffering from too many seeds (debts) and too little civilization.

I promise to deliver to you 1000 widgets at $2.95 each. My factory burns down. I want to pay you $2950 and you refuse to accept that, demanding instead the 1000 widgets which do not exist and which now may never exist. I think that you are throwing a temper tantrum and the courts will agree.

Also, you have conflated "objective" with "Objectivist." Ayn Rand said in her interview with Henry Mark Holzer that Ancient Rome was an example of objective government because the laws were publicly posted and inflexible. She allowed that the laws were not primary concerned with individual rights or even mostly so, but they were nonetheless objective. That is different from the subjective laws of a totalitarian bureaucracy.

Government courts need to have an objective definition of "money" of "legal tender" in order to know whether a debt has been discharged according to law. Congress created and creates all manner of gold and silver objects which never were intended as money or legal tender.

Debt is the seed of civilization.
http://necessaryfacts.blogspot.com/20...

Business is all about the future. Business is speculation, by definition. The common claims here about gold and silver and hard money are examples of what I identify as the Physiocratic Fallacy." In the days of mercantilism, a nation's wealth was the measured as the coins in the king's treasure chest. Adam Smith exposed that fallacy in The Wealth of Nations.

The government certainly would have the right to create its own money for its own purposes. It also would have the right to borrow money.

It is true that the government might choose not to do either of those. In 1800 and 1802 radical Republicans in the Senate sought to close the US Mint as being an unnecessary public expense. The Spanish Dollar was plentiful and could have served as the common currency. In fact, the Spanish Dollar and then the Mexican Peso were legal tender -- as were several other foreign gold and silver coins -- until 1857.

Businesses do not just borrow money when they are short of cash. Many large corporations borrow short-term (24 hours, for instance) to make payrolls. The reason is that their cash on hand is worth more than the cost of borrowing.

The same applies to the government, of course.

It is all speculation. Even cash-in-hand is acquired as a means to buy something else, which is expected to be a better value that than which was sold. Business is all about the future.

As for "bank runs" they are a curious phenomenon. Despite the fact that shoes were also bought on credit from manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers to consumers, I am not aware of shoe panics. Bank panics are like witch-hunts: lots of people get involved, but it is not rational.

It's the Treasury Department's interpretation, not mine. See Section B, pages 2 and 3 of the pdf ("Contracts Between Private Parties"), along with footnote 17 and the last page. It's all there.
http://www.goldensextant.com/Resource...

Where do you get your BS. Here is the statute http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/91Sta...

Nice conspiracy theory. Actually do some research.

I am still learning about government debt and finance relative to economies. I have learned that we should have a productivity based economy and not a debt based economy and that a fiat economy is not good. The amount of currency in days gone by were based on gold reserves which in effect would be a productivity based system. The money that should be printed ought to be based on the amount of resources produced and in the economy. Printing money based on the country's GDP seems to make sense.

Wrong! A 1977 law (Public Law 95-147) invalidated that requirement. A 1982 Treasury Department report stated: “A clause in a contract, requiring payment in a particular coin or currency, or in gold or silver, may be enforceable, but only if the underlying obligation was created on or after October 28, 1977.”
http://www.goldensextant.com/Resource...

It is not a definition of "legal tender." It assumes a definition. What is that? What is legal tender? I know what it is. This law does, of course, rest on that. But that is the question here. The question is not whether or not FRNs are "legal tender" but what "legal tender" is.

Your reply assumes the hypothesis.

How clever - you did not read the statute. That Statute, which controls, says that you have to accept it. This means that if you write a contract to be paid in gold, but the other party refuses, then the court can force you to accept legal currency.

Inflation == the hidden tax that affects everyone, especially those on fixed income... Printing money (without adding any value) creates inflation. Paying off debt with or without interest considered reduces funds for other needs, Health and welfare, military/defense, infrastructure, etc. Which is worse (printing money or borrowing money)? They are both unacceptable. "The problem isn't that we don't have enough money. The problem is that government spends too much." Ronald Reagan. Our solution for the day: stop spending more than you take in. Period.

According to the Treasury Department, “This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services.”
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-cen...

This doesn’t really address the issue of debts denominated in something other than U.S. dollars, such as foreign currencies or gold. If I take out a mortgage in Euros, can I pay it off in dollars at the current exchange rate? Of course I could convert dollars to Euros and pay it off that way, but am I legally obliged to?

Neither is desirable, but borrowing is probably preferential to printing because market forces will somewhat auto-correct governmental spending - at some point the cost of borrowing exceeds the government's ability to pay and presumably some sanity would return.

During a major calamity, such as 2008, that may not be an option, there may be no one willing to lend. In the case of the US, we can print money and people will still value the currency highly because of its status as the de facto reserve currency for the world. Other nations don't really have that option with skyrocketing their inflation, so results may vary.

Ultimately in the US, we tend to not go to far down one path or the other over time. If you look at the long horizon of US history, we generally vacillate between the left and the right. We over-corrected with the democrats in the last cycle and Trump was elected. My gut feeling is that he will ultimately be a fiscally conservative person with some moderate leanings on social issues and we may find a sweet spot there for a while.

I'm backing up that statement by the left's absolute beyond-belief reaction to his election. They are scared shitless (I think) that the economy will get back on track, people will go back to work, taxes are going to go way down, and revenues will go way up by getting dependent masses of people off the government's monthly liabilities list. The country longs for the Reagan years, Trump may be the first one to have come along since Reagan that doesn't owe favors to everyone under the moon.

If the left sincerely thought he would fail in cataclysmic fashion, they would just be setting up people on the bench for a 2020 run. Instead, Hillary is eyeballing the New York City Mayor's race, Kane has disappeared to the Island of Misfit Toys he was on before she plucked him out of it, and Lurch (John Kerry) gives a completely incomprehensibly stupid narrative of the Obama years miscategorizing and misrepresenting the "good" parts of the Obama years and completely omitting the failures, and Holder appears to be now in the political consulting & whoring business. I don't think they will even mount a defense in 2020 and they know it.

Government printing money is no different from Bender "dinging" Moe Cieslak's cash register.

You can't follow a definition or a statute You incapable either reading or logic

You're floundering, trying to support a weak position.

DID you read the statute??????????

Nope. The dictionary has no legal authority over what the provisions of a contract are.

Hi jdg,.
If a corporation issues more shares due to a stock split or a stock dividend ,I don't think it is theft.
If new shares issued for a secondary offering at a price above book value it is not theft and is an equity infusion to the co.
I do have an issue with large stock options granted to top executives who hire the compensation advisors. That is theft. My opinion

Printing it is a phantom tax. So, that would get my vote.