Originally Posted by
Steven Douglas
I think you're missing my point. I am not anti-banks, anti-lending or anything else of the sort. I am not arguing against the importance of banks (assuming they are solvent, of course). I am, however, anti-legal tender laws, and anti-counterfeiting, and anti-monopoly where currency "issuance" is concerned.
With sound currency, and sound monetary policy, especially in the absence of legal tender laws, people really could, and would in many cases, circumvent the banks. Private capital accumulation in most cases would NOT be for the purpose of renting that money out to others. That's not what "compete with the banks" in most cases would mean at all. A sound currency, especially in a growing economy, would naturally decrease the price of credit, and even the demand for it, as the value of the money itself increased. If banks had no publicly backed "counterfeiter of last resort" it would also decrease the available supply of credit. A Very Good Thing, because malinvestment would all but disappear.
Saving in a sound currency in a truly free market economy would facilitate a different kind of circumvention of banks most people, as people saved up for their own purchases -- because the time to do so wasn't artificially stolen from them. You really could take your time, work hard, and keep your money in a coffee can or under a mattress; which, incidentally, would be an incidental boon to spenders, because that would affect prices. It would not affect sellers who were not under artificial credit time constraints, because despite falling prices, the actual value of their goods and services would be virtually unaffected.
Savers would not automatically be considered "depositors", or lenders, and not everyone would feel a need to even be a lender, or otherwise have to "put their money to work", and all because some elite group of aggregate manipulating pinheads somewhere got together and decided to give currency an artificial shelf life. The old adage, "work hard and save" could actually mean something again, and would indeed be sound advice. Not in today's monstrosity of a lie.
I'm not anti-banks, per se. They have a proper place, and should compete. In their proper place, in a truly free market, as they assume full responsibility for all their own risks, with nothing but sound currencies circulating.
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