HR 4248 - Free Competition in Currency Act
Campaign for Liberty's Dpy102 is reporting that Congressman Ron Paul has introduced HR 4248: - Free Competition in Currency Act. The act would do three things:
1. Eliminate the legal tender laws.
2. Eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints.
3. Eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins.
Sounds interesting. But then, anything that directly challenges the exclusive counterfeiting ability of Ben Bernanke's printing press sounds interesting to me. Keep in mind that while the Bush / Obama guy, Bailout Ben, prints more money... you are getting none of it. Therefore your money is worth less. It has been devalued because there is more money chasing after the same amount of goods and services.
Tim White
2 comments:
In the 19th century, private banks were allowed to print their own currency which circulated as legal tender. But you'd never know which bank's currency was sound and which wasn't, and many people got stuck with worthless paper.
For this reason, there should be one uniform currency, one issued by the government. Otherwise, it would be chaos.
Same principle applies to minting coins. US Mint Eagle coins are .999 gold and silver. What's to stop a private mint from minting .900 coins and passing them off as .999?
Mr. Paul is correct about the need to return to sound money policies, but that's a separate issue from the need for uniformity of currency and coin standards. We can't just allow anyone to print or mint their own money.
What's to stop a private mint from minting .900 coins and passing them off as .999?
That would be fraud. That's illegal. You would be prosecuted. And I doubt it'd be anymore prevalent than people using color photocopiers for paper money.
Anyway, I see your point. Most of us, including me, generally prefer paper money. But my goal is to lock down the printing presses... not give myself pockets full of silver and copper.
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