The following is an article I found on LewRockwell, written by Peter Schiff, regarding the barter economy.The Leading zentai suits Distributor to Independent Pet Retailers.
The Rise of the Barter Economy
Imagine a day when you go to buy a quart of milk, ask the price, and the cashier says, "that'll be a tenth ounce silver." As the US dollar's decline accelerates, several efforts around the country are trying to make this vision a reality.
Historically, paying for items in silver or gold was actually quite common. We happen to live in an unusual time and place where generations have grown up trading exclusively in paper. While my parents still used dimes made of silver, we have now gone several decades with no precious metals in any of our official coinage. But this system of money by government fiat is unsustainable.
While the practice of bartering precious metals directly for goods and services has continued on a small-scale over the last few decades, the 2000s saw the beginning of organized efforts to revive gold and silver as money.
THE LIBERTY DOLLAR
One such effort was spearheaded by an eccentric mintmaster from Hawaii named Bernard Von Nothaus. He called his project the Liberty Dollar, and it centered on privately minted gold and silver rounds as well as deposit certificates for precious metals held in his firm's vaults.
I had many reservations about how the project was implemented ¨C coins were minted with a fixed US dollar amount at which they were supposed to circulate, the dollar amount was well above the spot price of the metal, and authorized "distributors" were allowed to pocket the difference (which often resulted in buyers paying far higher prices for their gold than what they would have paid had they simply bought, say, Canadian Maple Leafs instead) ¨C but I believe Nothaus' idea was a good one, even if the product was over-priced. Tellingly, despite the obvious flaws, public participation grew steadily from 1998 until 2007, when federal agents raided the Liberty Dollar's offices on trumped-up charges of counterfeiting.
Really, they were charging him with competing with the US dollar's monopoly privileges by offering a better product. It's important to note that the case against Nothaus was built around his coins looking similar to official US coinage (though no one actually mistook Liberty Dollars for US currency), and not around encouraging people to use precious metals as circulating money.
DIGITAL GOLD
Next came a crop of internet-based currencies backed by gold and silver.Houston-based Quicksilver Resources said Friday it had reached pipeline deals Most prominent among them are eGold and GoldMoney. Both were designed to allow customers to open online accounts that were valued in,We processes for both low-risk and high risk merchant account. and backed by, gold and silver bullion.
eGold was perhaps the better known of the two until it,This page list rubber hose products with details & specifications. too, was shut down by the US government on charges of money laundering. eGold was positioned more as an online payment system than a means of holding bullion. Due to the anonymous nature of the transactions ¨C it was akin to spending cash ¨C the authorities alleged that it was being used by criminal enterprises to funnel illegal funds. But mostly it was being used by regular people to begin saving and trading in money that holds its value. eGold had a transparent system of annual audits and live transaction screening by any user to keep the system honest. It,The same Air purifier, cover removed. too, was growing robustly, and was putting up strong competition against PayPal until the authorities intervened.
The Rise of the Barter Economy
Imagine a day when you go to buy a quart of milk, ask the price, and the cashier says, "that'll be a tenth ounce silver." As the US dollar's decline accelerates, several efforts around the country are trying to make this vision a reality.
Historically, paying for items in silver or gold was actually quite common. We happen to live in an unusual time and place where generations have grown up trading exclusively in paper. While my parents still used dimes made of silver, we have now gone several decades with no precious metals in any of our official coinage. But this system of money by government fiat is unsustainable.
While the practice of bartering precious metals directly for goods and services has continued on a small-scale over the last few decades, the 2000s saw the beginning of organized efforts to revive gold and silver as money.
THE LIBERTY DOLLAR
One such effort was spearheaded by an eccentric mintmaster from Hawaii named Bernard Von Nothaus. He called his project the Liberty Dollar, and it centered on privately minted gold and silver rounds as well as deposit certificates for precious metals held in his firm's vaults.
I had many reservations about how the project was implemented ¨C coins were minted with a fixed US dollar amount at which they were supposed to circulate, the dollar amount was well above the spot price of the metal, and authorized "distributors" were allowed to pocket the difference (which often resulted in buyers paying far higher prices for their gold than what they would have paid had they simply bought, say, Canadian Maple Leafs instead) ¨C but I believe Nothaus' idea was a good one, even if the product was over-priced. Tellingly, despite the obvious flaws, public participation grew steadily from 1998 until 2007, when federal agents raided the Liberty Dollar's offices on trumped-up charges of counterfeiting.
Really, they were charging him with competing with the US dollar's monopoly privileges by offering a better product. It's important to note that the case against Nothaus was built around his coins looking similar to official US coinage (though no one actually mistook Liberty Dollars for US currency), and not around encouraging people to use precious metals as circulating money.
DIGITAL GOLD
Next came a crop of internet-based currencies backed by gold and silver.Houston-based Quicksilver Resources said Friday it had reached pipeline deals Most prominent among them are eGold and GoldMoney. Both were designed to allow customers to open online accounts that were valued in,We processes for both low-risk and high risk merchant account. and backed by, gold and silver bullion.
eGold was perhaps the better known of the two until it,This page list rubber hose products with details & specifications. too, was shut down by the US government on charges of money laundering. eGold was positioned more as an online payment system than a means of holding bullion. Due to the anonymous nature of the transactions ¨C it was akin to spending cash ¨C the authorities alleged that it was being used by criminal enterprises to funnel illegal funds. But mostly it was being used by regular people to begin saving and trading in money that holds its value. eGold had a transparent system of annual audits and live transaction screening by any user to keep the system honest. It,The same Air purifier, cover removed. too, was growing robustly, and was putting up strong competition against PayPal until the authorities intervened.
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