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Thread: Top Alternatives to Paper Money

  1. #1

    Top Alternatives to Paper Money

    Laissez Faire Today
    The Laissez Faire Club Daily e-Letter
    Top Alternatives to Paper Money
    Jeffrey Tucker · February 25, 2013
    http://lfb.org/today/top-alternatives-to-paper-money/

    I’ve just left the Liberty Forum in New Hampshire, a three-day gathering of hundreds of people who are trying to find ways of living freer lives in times of despotic control. Among many things, this might be the world center for exhibiting monies of the future.

    I leave as the proud owner of three types of nonpaper, nongovernmental monies. They operate in competition with the government’s dollar. Yes, these include Bitcoin, the mind-blowing digital currency that has techno-geeks, edgy global traders, and even the World Bank buzzing about its potential to finally separate money from the state.

    Why are people working on alternative forms of money? It’s all about escaping a 100-year-old trend. Back in the day, the dollar was a name for gold, not just a paper ticket manufactured by a government-chartered central bank.

    Depression, war, and deliberate debasement have left us with a dollar that is a mere shadow of its former self. It keeps losing value, of course, rather than gaining value as it would in a free market.

    Just as critically, the dollar today serves as the enabler of all regulatory control over our economic lives. Using the dollar means dragging a gigantic and burdensome machinery along with you. It means tens of thousands of regulatory controls, government spying, confiscatory taxation, and endless burdens that are bad for businesses and individuals.

    Ideally, the dollar would be totally reformed, made good as gold, and restored to its former integrity. How likely is that to happen? The whole idea depends on the wisdom, good will, and public beneficence of the political and elite class of banking moguls.

    Is there any wonder that there is a clamor for the private sector to come up with something new? It’s been going on for several decades now, this discovery process we might call “monetary entrepreneurship.”

    People in ancient days had to discover the best commodities to get progress beyond mere barter. What would best serve as money: something to acquire not to consume, but to trade for other things to consume? Is it salt? Shells? Silver and gold? Many options are available, and only the best money can win the market competition over time.

    Something like this is taking place again today. Government money is risky, carries too much cost, and has an uncertain future to it. People put up with it for convenience and because nothing better seems to present itself.

    There is a real opportunity here for monetary entrepreneurs to get to work coming up with something new and letting the markets try it out. Over the last 10 years, governments have shot down a number of experiments in private money that used digital networks to monetize gold and silver. It’s been a brutal job to retain the government’s money monopoly.


    Entrepreneurs have learned. New monetary instruments have to protect themselves against government attempts to shoot them down in obvious ways. There are three general ways to do this: back to the basics with precious metals, onward to the future with purely digital money, and some combination of both of these.
    Read the other 2/3s of the article here http://lfb.org/today/top-alternatives-to-paper-money/

    Here is 1 of the 4 photos in the article.
    Jeffrey Tucker making a Shire Silver card with help from the company’s founder, Ron Helwig.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.



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  3. #2
    It doesn't matter who's the president, who are the congress thugs when we can use money that completely bypasses any of their threats.

    Mark my words, if there is a way to get our freedom cake and it it too it will be because we went around the system and rendered it irrelevant not because we fought it or tried to change it. And the sooner you join, the faster we can get there.
    My personality type: INTJ - please forgive my weaknesses (Not naturally in tune with others feelings; may be insensitive at times, tend to respond to conflict with logic and reason, tend to believe I'm always right, tend to be unwilling or unable to accept blame )

  4. #3
    The silence of critics when seeing one of their heroes seeing merit in something they can't is deafening.
    My personality type: INTJ - please forgive my weaknesses (Not naturally in tune with others feelings; may be insensitive at times, tend to respond to conflict with logic and reason, tend to believe I'm always right, tend to be unwilling or unable to accept blame )

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by hazek View Post
    It doesn't matter who's the president, who are the congress thugs when we can use money that completely bypasses any of their threats.

    Mark my words, if there is a way to get our freedom cake and it it too it will be because we went around the system and rendered it irrelevant not because we fought it or tried to change it. And the sooner you join, the faster we can get there.
    I think this is probably true.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by hazek View Post
    It doesn't matter who's the president, who are the congress thugs when we can use money that completely bypasses any of their threats.

    Mark my words, if there is a way to get our freedom cake and it it too it will be because we went around the system and rendered it irrelevant not because we fought it or tried to change it. And the sooner you join, the faster we can get there.
    Suppose I wanted to sell a product for bitcoins online or in person. How would I go about this? Or perhaps that is too big a question for this forum and you can direct me elsewhere?
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  7. #6
    At this stage where it still makes sense for businesses to instantly convert the bitcoins back to some fiat currency I'd advise using a service that does this for you automatically like:
    http://bitpay.com
    http://walletbit.com
    http://coinbase.com
    or even http://mtgox.com

    But if you want to hold bitcoins and be more like the do it yourself type, I'd suggest to either use http://acceptbit.com with the electrum (http://electrum.org) client or Bitcoin-Qt with Armory or Multibit (read more here: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-wallet-options/).

    So I guess it depends what you need.
    My personality type: INTJ - please forgive my weaknesses (Not naturally in tune with others feelings; may be insensitive at times, tend to respond to conflict with logic and reason, tend to believe I'm always right, tend to be unwilling or unable to accept blame )

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by hazek View Post
    At this stage where it still makes sense for businesses to instantly convert the bitcoins back to some fiat currency I'd advise using a service that does this for you automatically like:
    http://bitpay.com
    http://walletbit.com
    http://coinbase.com
    or even http://mtgox.com

    But if you want to hold bitcoins and be more like the do it yourself type, I'd suggest to either use http://acceptbit.com with the electrum (http://electrum.org) client or Bitcoin-Qt with Armory or Multibit (read more here: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/bitcoin-wallet-options/).

    So I guess it depends what you need.
    Is silkworm useful for buying or selling anything other than drugs?

    edit: not meaning to be facetious - I'm just ignorant!
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  9. #8
    Silkworm? I don't know what you are talking about.

    But if you mean Silk Road, I've seen a car being sold there and some people also sell books and porn and various other services.. But if you're really wondering why not go and see for yourself?
    My personality type: INTJ - please forgive my weaknesses (Not naturally in tune with others feelings; may be insensitive at times, tend to respond to conflict with logic and reason, tend to believe I'm always right, tend to be unwilling or unable to accept blame )



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by hazek View Post
    Silkworm? I don't know what you are talking about.

    But if you mean Silk Road, I've seen a car being sold there and some people also sell books and porn and various other services.. But if you're really wondering why not go and see for yourself?
    Lol. Yes, I meant silkroad. Silkworm is the Chinese missile.
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  12. #10
    Bitcoins are very dangerous, entirely fictional
    and one power outage/hack attack away from worthlessness.

    Shire Silver is an abject ripoff.
    They want $1.70 for a one gram card.
    That is the equivalent of paying $52.87 for one troy ounce
    of silver when silver is only worth about $30 !!!!!!!
    They charge $8.00 for a 1/10th gram of gold card,
    which equates to paying $2488.28/oz with gold at $1600 !!!!!!

    SCAMS !
    Last edited by Snowball; 02-27-2013 at 11:57 AM.
    "When Sombart says: "Capitalism is born from the money-loan", I should like to add to this: Capitalism actually exists only in the money-loan;" - Theodor Fritsch

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Snowball View Post
    Bitcoins are very dangerous, entirely fictional
    and one power outage/hack attack away from worthlessness.

    Shire Silver is an abject ripoff.
    They want $1.70 for a one gram card.
    That is the equivalent of paying $52.87 for one troy ounce
    of silver when silver is only worth about $30 !!!!!!!
    They charge $8.00 for a 1/10th gram of gold card,
    which equates to paying $2488.28/oz with gold at $1600 !!!!!!

    SCAMS !
    Remember when $30 worth of Liberty Dollars sold for $50? That's about the same as Shire Silver is. Remember how that Liberty Dollar unit was an ounce. The Shire Silver unit we are talking about is a gram. There are 28 grams in an ounce. That means Liberty Dollar was 28 times more of a ripoff than Shire Silver. It looks like Shire Silver is an amazing breakthrough in alternative currencies compared to Liberty Dollars. Should we sing the innovation from the mountain tops?

    On Amazon, a gram of silver goes from $4.90 to around 89cents. Though, that's just silver. With Shire Silver you get more than silver.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by hazek View Post
    The silence of critics when seeing one of their heroes seeing merit in something they can't is deafening.
    We don't need another currency, we already have a few perfectly acceptable forms of them that have been in use for hundreds of years (gold/silver/platinum/etc).

    Me personally, with the un-stability of our economy and the power we're letting our fedGov throw around now - I feel much safer holding onto physical gold/silver. If the power goes out for any reason, if the govt temporarily or permanently finds a way to shut down either the ISP's locally, or filters out sites you need to hit to manipulate your bitcoins - you are totally $#@!ed.

    If we didn't have such a (at this point) all-powerful central government, i'd be all aboard with bitcoins because it's a pretty good idea. But our government has been waging war for decades over sustaining the dollar as a world reserve currency. Don't fool yourselves into thinking our fedGov is gonna just let bitcoin overtake the dollar without some death, destruction, and mayhem being involved first.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Snowball View Post
    Bitcoins are very dangerous, entirely fictional
    and one power outage/hack attack away from worthlessness.

    Shire Silver is an abject ripoff.
    They want $1.70 for a one gram card.
    That is the equivalent of paying $52.87 for one troy ounce
    of silver when silver is only worth about $30 !!!!!!!
    They charge $8.00 for a 1/10th gram of gold card,
    which equates to paying $2488.28/oz with gold at $1600 !!!!!!

    SCAMS !
    Scam implies dishonesty. Can you point to any?
    The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

    "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." - Byron

    "Who overcomes by force, hath overcome but half his foe." - Milton

  16. #14
    Shire Silver being made at Liberty Forum.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  17. #15
    People are looking at this alternative currency thing as a business opportunity - plain and simple. You have to believe in the end coming to pay a 60% + premium for physical based on spot price shown on a chart on a website.

  18. #16
    Here is a video of Tom Woods making a Shire Silver card at Liberty Forum.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.



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  20. #17
    There is a photo of the article that is being quite popular on Facebook.

    "This might be the world center for exhibiting monies of the future."
    http://tinyurl.com/monetaryreform
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by cbc58 View Post
    People are looking at this alternative currency thing as a business opportunity - plain and simple. You have to believe in the end coming to pay a 60% + premium for physical based on spot price shown on a chart on a website.
    Money is a product, and to produce a product requires a profit to be made. The profit in Federal Reserve Notes is their power over you. If you prefer that kind of profit, go ahead and remain a slave. But if you want to be free, you need to accept that profit must be made and that it is acceptable in currencies as well as chairs or cars or computers or anything else that is man made.

    Also please remember that virtually no one is ever going to go back to using silver and gold coins as money. They're too cumbersome and hard to use, they don't fit well in wallets, and are not available in appropriate sizes. The market has spoken, and has chosen paper notes over silver and gold coins - it came to that conclusion a couple hundred years ago when Americans turned in their coins for bank notes.

    I see many people thinking backward about Shire Silver (and precious metals in general), especially sound money advocates that have been brainwashed with the idea that value = spot price. Shire Silver is a currency that just happens to contain silver and gold; that is, it is more than just the metal. It has the convenience of paper notes while being literally backed by precious metal.

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by rhelwig View Post
    Money is a product, and to produce a product requires a profit to be made. The profit in Federal Reserve Notes is their power over you. If you prefer that kind of profit, go ahead and remain a slave.

    Also please remember that virtually no one is ever going to go back to using silver and gold coins as money. They're too cumbersome and hard to use, they don't fit well in wallets, and are not available in appropriate sizes. The market has spoken, and has chosen paper notes over silver and gold coins - it came to that conclusion a couple hundred years ago when Americans turned in their coins for bank notes.

    I see many people thinking backward about Shire Silver (and precious metals in general), especially sound money advocates that have been brainwashed with the idea that value = spot price. Shire Silver is a currency that just happens to contain silver and gold; that is, it is more than just the metal. It has the convenience of paper notes while being literally backed by precious metal.
    I am guessing you are affiliated with Shire Silver. You would have to be to take this position and present that argument. Some of us don't buy it - literally - sorry.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by cbc58 View Post
    I am guessing you are affiliated with Shire Silver. You would have to be to take this position and present that argument. Some of us don't buy it - literally - sorry.
    What is it that you don't agree with? Do you have a specific objection?

    Yes, I created Shire Silver when I saw the Liberty Dollar fail because of a few things. One was that not enough people trusted the warehouse receipt model, so a lot of the sales were of the bullion. And of course the bullion isn't really usable in everyday trade because it is inferior to FRNs for most people. I know I tried for over 6 years to get people and businesses to accept it and its just too cumbersome. Also the centralized production and distribution system gave it a weak point that the government exploited. Shire Silver fixes all these problems and so is worth more than traditional bullion.

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by rhelwig View Post
    What is it that you don't agree with? Do you have a specific objection?

    Yes, I created Shire Silver when I saw the Liberty Dollar fail because of a few things. One was that not enough people trusted the warehouse receipt model, so a lot of the sales were of the bullion. And of course the bullion isn't really usable in everyday trade because it is inferior to FRNs for most people. I know I tried for over 6 years to get people and businesses to accept it and its just too cumbersome. Also the centralized production and distribution system gave it a weak point that the government exploited. Shire Silver fixes all these problems and so is worth more than traditional bullion.
    I can buy at spot and go out and use junk silver coins as currency. Plenty of them out there and don't have to pay 60-80% premium for your product. Coins are much more portable, less cumbersome to use and more widely accepted. I also have a 99% larger trade base from which to buy/sell/convert. If I were a business accepting your shire I would loose virtually all my profit on products sold simply by the variance between spot market price and the stated cost of your units. And I don't agree with statements like this which obviously skew facts because it's obviously flat-out false on a gram to gram comparison. The guy who wrote it should go work for the NAR to promote sales statistics to the gullible public. I didn't buy the liberty dollar either. Sorry.

    Remember when $30 worth of Liberty Dollars sold for $50? That's about the same as Shire Silver is. Remember how that Liberty Dollar unit was an ounce. The Shire Silver unit we are talking about is a gram. There are 28 grams in an ounce. That means Liberty Dollar was 28 times more of a ripoff than Shire Silver.
    Last edited by cbc58; 03-03-2013 at 07:48 AM.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by cbc58 View Post
    I can buy at spot and go out and use junk silver coins as currency.
    LOL! Have you ever tried it? Go ahead and try doing that. Seriously, you'll find out that except for a few die-hard silver junkies almost everyone will think you're crazy. Junk silver is a non-starter, unless you're willing to sell it for face value.

    Even if TSHTF most people won't believe that junk silver is worth anything because they aren't used to it. If you want to be able to use any alternative currency you have to build up the network, and *before* TSHTF is the time to do that so people will be able to look things up and verify it. And junk silver won't ever be used because it is a worse currency than FRNs, for most people's uses.

    But by all means, try it. Try building up a network of businesses in your area that will agree publicly to trade in junk silver or traditional bullion regularly. Show me that I'm wrong instead of just spouting off on the Internet. If you can do it you'll not only help your neighbors prepare for the coming hard times, but you'll also build up a local economy that will be more resilient and thus of more value to you.

  26. #23
    I have actually posted here a few times about trying to exchange silver coins at spot value for products... only worked once and the other times people looked at me like I had 2 heads. But that is exactly the point... anyone who knows the value of gold or silver isn't going to pay a 60%-80%+ premium for it. At least I wouldn't and I don't think there are many here who would either. Especially if their profit margins are only 25%-50%.. they'd be losing money on each deal. Would you do that if you were in business? Not to mention they can't pay their suppliers with it...
    Last edited by cbc58; 03-04-2013 at 06:36 PM.

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by cbc58 View Post
    I have actually posted here a few times about trying to exchange silver coins at spot value for products... only worked once and the other times people looked at me like I had 2 heads. But that is exactly the point... anyone who knows the value of gold or silver isn't going to pay a 60%-80%+ premium for it. At least I wouldn't and I don't think there are many here who would either. Especially if their profit margins are only 25%-50%.. they'd be losing money on each deal. Would you do that if you were in business? Not to mention they can't pay their suppliers with it...
    You've just made my two most important points for me.

    The first is that many gold-bug/liberty types are miseducated on value. They have been taught that there is such a thing as intrinsic value, and that the value of precious metals in trade is the spot price. But value is subjective, and there can be a multitude of reasons why someone might choose to price something differently than what "the market" decides. (And we've all heard enough evidence of manipulation to understand that "the market" might not be finding the true market price of gold and silver.)

    The second is that in order for any alternative currency to be accepted it takes work. The proponents have to go out and get people on board, get them signed up. Its not easy, and you have to start with people who are early adopters. As the network grows, the value of the alternative currency should grow as well - regardless of what it is backed by.

    I'm working on updating the marketing for Shire Silver to incorporate these points. One way to think of Shire Silver is as a coupon that happens to have a trade price, but it also has an embedded backing that should serve as a floor below which its price wouldn't drop. That means that even if the network shrinks or disappears altogether, it won't lose all its value. Compare that to something like the Ithica Hour or the newer Mountain Hours in Colorado, which can fall to zero if the network or the central distributor fails. But even though the price of Mountain Hours can fall to zero and its just a piece of paper, the guys behind it have gotten a network of people to accept and use it at prices thousands of percent above the value of the paper.

    And BTW, bitcoins are now trading over $40/bitcoin so those folks who bought in at Liberty Forum have already seen a huge increase. Time will tell if it was a good trade/investment, but all signs seem to be indicating that it will be excellent.



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  29. #25
    The first is that many gold-bug/liberty types are miseducated on value. They have been taught that there is such a thing as intrinsic value, and that the value of precious metals in trade is the spot price. But value is subjective, and there can be a multitude of reasons why someone might choose to price something differently than what "the market" decides.
    That's a stretch - but I understand you need this argument to promote your product to the public.

    Good luck with your efforts. I've stated my opinion as clearly as I can and if you choose to think differently that is your prerogative. Everyone needs to make their own decisions and those that are willing to pay you for your currency / system have made theirs.

  30. #26
    Here is 1 of the co-hosts of Free Talk Live using the Bitcoin ATM at Liberty Forum.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  31. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Snowball View Post
    Bitcoins are very dangerous, entirely fictional
    and one power outage/hack attack away from worthlessness.

    Shire Silver is an abject ripoff.
    They want $1.70 for a one gram card.
    That is the equivalent of paying $52.87 for one troy ounce
    of silver when silver is only worth about $30 !!!!!!!
    They charge $8.00 for a 1/10th gram of gold card,
    which equates to paying $2488.28/oz with gold at $1600 !!!!!!

    SCAMS !
    Thank you. + rep.



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