Alternative currencies

[adams101]

Furthermore, since we live in a tech age - one other business platform that is viable and important: honest holding companies who integrate themselves with various banks and credit card companies.

This way, metal need not be carried around but held in deposit accounts and ownership moved around digitally. No different (COSMETICALLY) then the way the market works now - but simply with a more stable (and HONEST) underpinning.

Of course this also leads (can) to the sequestration of accounts into both savings and deposit accounts. This would allow for interest rates to be locally driven based on the supply of savings that commercial banks and credit unions can attract into their coffers.

This, of course, challenges the entire world order. But ahhhh well - so is the plight of the revolutionary thinker.

What's an "honest holding company"?

[adams101]

We simply need SEVERAL competing currencies. Some digital or paper against holdings others just solid precious metals. We can have quite a variety and let the "market" decide which ones will be successful. Personally I think we need to get back to currency being cumbersome for quite some time until any of us are going to trust a "system" we can't see, touch or feel run by strangers far away. I think credit lines with stores, merchants, utilities etc are fine and can take care of most of our transactional spending but should be paid in hard PM currency.

The most important thing is we let the FED and their fractional reserve banking go off on their own. If anyone wants to deal with them then fine but the rest of us need several options.

We definitely need to make sure every " of currency that goes into the stockmarket is transfered out of US dollars and into a completely backed currency. This crap of creating money out of thin air then multiplying it by 10 crap is for the birds. They play the stockmarket like a slot machine using worthless slugs.

To me letting strangers hold or manage my currency is as logical as letting them hold or manage my children. The essence of the entire thing will just never work out for very long before there are problems. They are simply too easily corrupted and too hard to keep secured.

[Steven Douglas]

Personally I think we need to get back to currency being cumbersome for quite some time until any of us are going to trust a "system" we can't see, touch or feel run by strangers far away.

You hit on two keys there:

"...we can't see, touch or feel..."
"...run by strangers far away..."

There is something to be said, I think, for a small committed group willing to circle the wagons in defense of one another's property--in addition to their own. That's what I want to put to the test in a way that I don't think has ever been tested before.

[BAllen]

Yes, but a big difference is that a mutual fund is an investment in activity, with the possibility of a return, whereas this currency promises nothing but the existence of its underlying, privately owned assets, and would pay nothing. It's pure warehousing as bailments, with all holdings losing a fixed percentage of value (actual metal allocations) over time as bailment fees. (0.00002738% per day if the rate is 7/8 of 1% per annum). If you wanted to rent it out to someone at interest that would all be external, privately and individually handled. (banking, credit, finance, etc., will never be mixed with the storage, physical allocation and management of the currency itself).



I would say highly unlikely, but of course it could. A lot of people think precious metals are in a bubble, with a lot of different rationale as to why they believe that. Just not many here, as this place is chock full of metalbugs (yours truly included).

If you look at the long term, however, all the short turn ups and downs average out into an exponential curve that becomes undeniable and self evident. It has less to do with the exchange value of the PM as it does the loss of exchange value of the exponentially inflated fiat currency it's priced in. So if you're talking long term, not a chance. Not unless you're betting that the fiat currency supply is going to be choked. If that was ever the case, the price of gold would go down--for anyone with two dimes to rub together (read=hardly anyone)--in the midst of a massive deflationary depression where the entire Ponzi economy is catastrophically full of defaults and wrecked for a time.



By following a Keynesian policy (which Keynes himself viewed with favor at the time), by tying the fiat currency to promises that increased the national debt. Hitler appointed a man named Hjalmar Schacht to be the Reichsbank President in 1933, and together they created Germany's then-version of a deficit spending Ponzi scheme economy, with Germany's new Bills of Exchange. Unlike Fed dollars, that earn nothing, Germany's Bills of Credit circulated like Treasury bills circulating as currency. They were like Lincoln's greenbacks, in that they were a fiat currency printed out of thin air, but instead of promises to later pay in gold, Germany's bills promised to pay 4% interest (in that fiat currency, of course).

What many defenders of this scheme fail to acknowledge (or realize) is that any Ponzi economy, as this one was, can start out with a strong boom, with everyone believing in its magical powers to "create" wealth out of thin air and belief. But then the realities of its fundamentals kick in, and it ultimately ends in a bust. For Germany, there was a bust that covered that inevitable bust in the form of Germany's defeat in WWII.

Well, that explains it. It was about the same thing we have here. What about the Confederacy? We had different currencies in each state. How would that work? We know it didn't then b/c of the loss of the war. But, is it a feasible currency option?

[erowe1]

Well, that explains it. It was about the same thing we have here. What about the Confederacy? We had different currencies in each state. How would that work? We know it didn't then b/c of the loss of the war. But, is it a feasible currency option?

Should states even be involved in currency at all?

If they are involved, then what exactly should the state do, beyond simply having a policy of what currency it uses in its own transactions? Did those states have legal tender laws? If so, that might be more of the cause of their problems than multiple currencies. If the currencies are all commodity-based, and none of them are given a legal monopoly status, then they'll be interchangeable, and people, wherever they live, will choose to use the currencies that are most widely accepted and trustworthy when exchanging them for metals.

[Steven Douglas]

To anyone that sent me a PM and didn't get a reply, check your inbox, it's full! Small quota on this system, and I can't send a reply.

Well, that explains it. It was about the same thing we have here. What about the Confederacy? We had different currencies in each state. How would that work? We know it didn't then b/c of the loss of the war. But, is it a feasible currency option?

That's the whole historically misapplied point of a "standard". It's just intended as a convenience, to make trade more efficient, with UNITS that can be referred to that relate to a commonly traded weight and purity for a given UNIT.

If everyone is following the same standard, the flow of trade is supposedly made more efficient, as we all refer to the same predictable UNITS. Fortunately, we have all the standards we need. We didn't ever need EAGLES, DOLLARS and CENTS in the first place, except perhaps as a branding mechanism, to distinguish them from other currencies. Troy ounces and grains (or any other metric) were always sufficient. The problem (for currency debasers only) is that you can't change a Troy ounce (or a gallon or an inch) into something else. Unless your Great Britain and you start with a thing called a POUND STERLING, and it ends up eventually having a meaning that has NOTHING to do with its original.

As for actual standards of weights and measures, we have evolved, and have all that down pat now. There is no problem with transporting and trading gallons of milk across state lines, or even deciding to package and measure them as liters, and going back and forth between the two. A gallon is a gallon, and a liter is a liter, and everyone knows what they are, and it's easy enough to convert between the two.

We're not in Confederate times, and technology has all but eliminated many of the former problems of currency inefficiency. Go to pay with gold and/or silver junk coins to someone who accepts it regularly as payment, and watch what they do. They won't count the coins. They won't bite them, or examine the ridges. They'll pull out an electronic scale, and calculate the PM contents for themselves. And for many you can pay in jewelry and flatware, and once they know that it's genuine (quick acid tests) they'll do the same with that.

Should states even be involved in currency at all?

If they are involved, then what exactly should the state do, beyond simply having a policy of what currency it uses in its own transactions?

That, and whatever the courts will "make" currency by default in adjudication, absent specific tenable terms in a contract that declares otherwise. Constitutionally that is nothing but gold and silver coin. But all states disregard the Constitution on that little explicitly stated sticking point. Beyond that, there is no need for state involvement. What private parties choose to use as current money is between those two parties alone, and ostensibly voluntary on both parts, with the state NOT a party of interest.

[adams101]

Should states even be involved in currency at all?

If they are involved, then what exactly should the state do, beyond simply having a policy of what currency it uses in its own transactions? Did those states have legal tender laws? If so, that might be more of the cause of their problems than multiple currencies. If the currencies are all commodity-based, and none of them are given a legal monopoly status, then they'll be interchangeable, and people, wherever they live, will choose to use the currencies that are most widely accepted and trustworthy when exchanging them for metals.

With the current technology available "paper" currency is simply WAY too easy to counterfeit. That is just with domestic crooks but the largest problem you have is international crooks and foreign governments counterfeiting the currency. We constantly find tens of millions and even billions in counterfeited currency and Treasury Bonds overseas.

We are on the absolute very last leg of using paper or digital currency at all. They are both so easily corrupted/counterfeited a couple teenagers could do it. Current paper reproduction and digital security breaching technology is simply too cheap and easily attainable. You have to remember the Federal Reserve and World Bank crooks have trillions in real estate, corporations, stocks, PM's etc etc etc. These people are global terrorists and crooks beyond anything the innocent sheeple of this country could comprehend.

I mean these people will invade a country, assassinate its leaders and slaughter 600,000 civilians to keep a small middle eastern government using the US Dollar for oil transactions. What chance do you think a paper or digital currency stands against these human holocausts? I have no doubt these people will resort to heinous crimes beyond our comprehension to get back into power.

No thanks.... the paper and digital crap is playing right into their hands. We have to K.I.S.S..... keep it simple stupid. Drag around and hide PM's or such and have monthly types of credit lines for daily and monthly type transactional business. They are simply not going to go digging up backyards and beating open safes but the second you "CENTRALIZE" anything they are on it like a dog on a bone. At this point only a complete fool would centralize any currency competing with the FED bankers. They would "eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti".

It is imperative to TOTALLY decentralize the "payment of goods/services" situation with multiple tangible transactional commodities. If one becomes unstable we simply move to another one. The damage is minimized.

[BAllen]

Good point about paper money. However, gold standard can be just as crooked. In earlier times, nations would plunder another's wealth just to get their gold, so they could create more money to expand their empires. England used fractional reserve banking in the 1600's, so they could expand the economy without having to do that.
Ron Paul did make a good point on a talk show one night when gas went up to about $4.00/gallon. He said he could get it down to a dime a gallon. The host asked how, he said: How much is an old silver dime worth? About $4. So there is stability with pm currency. I heard of one company that paid its employees with pm coins. They reported the face value to the IRS, so they didn't show much income to pay taxes on.

[Elwar]

I LOVE the entire concept of Bitcoins and Bitcoin technology, for reasons that only partly apply to its utility. While I don't think anyone can predict exactly what place Bitcoins will ultimately have, or what other forms it will take, there is no question in my mind but that they are here to stay, and will fill specific needs and take a very valuable place in the overall conglomeration of economies worldwide. It's not going away. As purely a transfer and conveyance mechanism, it's ability to eliminate an oligopoly of middle men bankster controllers and their fees is quite powerful.

While Bitcoins addresses a number of important needs, it is not a panacea. The existence of Microsoft and Apple did not preclude alternative products and applications, or even "sandbox" products that fill niches, like Java, Flash, etc.,. In that regard, the "store of value" aspect of Bitcoins remains a valid question. My focus has always been how to tap into key parts of the Bitcoin concept, and adapt that to a commodity backed local currency in a way that it makes the currency debasement-proof, to every possible degree and extent that it can be on that level.

The current plan involves the use of modified Bitcoin technology (and all equally open source) in the context of a purely local, commodity-backed currency. On a local level there would be central management, but it would be scripted administration, never real control. And "LOCAL" is the only place where any kind of "centralization" (always independent cells of small scale) makes any sense to me at all anyway. The technology would be modified to fit the application, so, for example, since the scarcity component would arise on the basis of real tangible, physical, locally vaulted commodities, there would be no 'data mining' function to it. Your GPU cannot produce currency in this case. But it would be just a rigid in terms of physical allocation (down to every atom accounted for) with no "currency" issued on the basis of promises--past, present or future, and no contradictory or counter-party claims of any kind involved.

You could get local merchants to accept a local currency "backed" by Bitcoin. Just create an alternative client or app that uses the Bitcoin blockchain but has the local logo or currency name. I spoke to the guys at bitpay who said that they may be able to create a sort of "gift card" that has Bitcoin value behind it. There are also printable bitcoin bills and bitcoin coins that could be traded.

If the local merchants all accept it and use it, then it would thrive as a local currency. There is a guy in Berlin working to get several restaurants and stores to accept Bitcoin, he has 4 so far.