Gyroscopic Investing

gold and silver and? being used as currency?
http://www.connectmidmichigan.com/news/ ... ?id=481793

interesting trend i wonder if it will catch on..

Alternative currencies were used during the great depression as well. Part of the reason the US govt. has a collectibles tax on precious metals is, I feel, to make it uncompetitive with paper dollars. If this tax was removed and paper had to compete with metal specie I suspect the paper would lose.

craigr wrote: Alternative currencies were used during the great depression as well. Part of the reason the US govt. has a collectibles tax on precious metals is, I feel, to make it uncompetitive with paper dollars. If this tax was removed and paper had to compete with metal specie I suspect the paper would lose.

Interesting you say that craigr.  I saw somewhere that Jim Rodgers said that rather than try to get back on a gold standard we could just eliminate any tax on gold and it would instill the same discipline as being on the gold standard.  In other words, it would force the paper dollar to be more competitive with gold by way of better fiscal and monetary policy.

Pkg Man wrote:

craigr wrote: Alternative currencies were used during the great depression as well. Part of the reason the US govt. has a collectibles tax on precious metals is, I feel, to make it uncompetitive with paper dollars. If this tax was removed and paper had to compete with metal specie I suspect the paper would lose.

Interesting you say that craigr.  I saw somewhere that Jim Rodgers said that rather than try to get back on a gold standard we could just eliminate any tax on gold and it would instill the same discipline as being on the gold standard.  In other words, it would force the paper dollar to be more competitive with gold by way of better fiscal and monetary policy.

He's correct. Competition makes people behave and deliver better products. If they don't do this people leave for greener pastures.

the picture in my avatar is emperor Norton, famous for declaring himself emperor of the united states, and issuing his own currency that was accepted by the local businesses in San Francisco...

i think that having competing currency would be a good thing as well, at the same time i am not terribly encouraged by seeing something people did in the great depression making a come back right now... 

On a somewhat related note, a couple years ago there was a great Wall Street Journal article on prison inmates using canned mackerel as currency:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122290720439096481.html

The gist is that the inmates aren't allowed to possess cash and get paid into an escrow account that can only be used at the commissary.  Rather quickly they found that, of the items on the menu, canned mackerel makes for the best currency for private transactions.