I did not suggest the Fed print silver certificates. The premise was to replace the Reserve Note with silver certificates printed for the government by the treasury in an effort to forgo paying intrest on the debt.. As for housing, to me the most likely way for houses to depreciate in value is if there were an overproduction at price levels the potential home owner could not afford resulting in a surplus of houses thereby causing price deflation on newly built homes but minimal price deflation on existing homes which have mortages which are current. Building houses does not compare to printing money
There shouldn’t be any law forcing people to use gold as money. If you make a gold-denominated contract, then the risk of a huge gold mine discovery should be factored into the contract. Any potential increase in the supply of physical gold is part of the risk of owning gold.
If I’m concerned that the price of gold will sharply tank, then I should use silver or something else as money.
When you bought your house, you should know that other people might build more houses, driving down the value of your house.
Under a free market, there would be a natural equilibrium for gold mining. The value of labor spent extracting gold, plus the value of gold reserves in the ground, equals the market price for gold. If gold is too expensive, people will mine more gold. If gold is too cheap, people will stop mining gold. A REALLY free market takes care of everything.
From 1933-1971 there was no free market for gold. Unable to sell their gold for the fair free market price, many gold mines shut down.
With fiat money, the Federal Reserve can print a $100 bill for $0.03 and immediately sell it for $100. Government violence forces me to accept this trade.
The immoral agent is the Federal Reserve and government, demanding I accept Federal Reserve Notes at face amount and banning me from using other forms of money. Similarly, if you forbid me from building houses because you’re concerned about the value of your house, that’s also immoral.
If there was no government violence forcing me to use Federal Reserve Notes as money, then why should I care what the Federal Reserve does? Let them print all the money they want, provided I’m not forced to use it.
Is this how the king of strawmen admits defeat?
You exchange your productive services for money, and in the case of fiat money, you’re pretty much forced to use it. Printing more of it and lowering its exchange value whilst binding your hands in being able to switch to another currency means in effect your labour now can buy less than it could before, all for the sake of the beneficiaries of the fiat money system - and there is nothing you can do about it; or precious little in the case that you’re informed enough. Isn’t that a form of theft, or even slavery? There are next to no avenues out of the system; as you said, it is forced association.
-Jon
Actually they would decrease prices, as their own margins increase they could do this and still make a relative profit - not in all instances, however - so, to say that the market would “stall” seems odd, but not because they would “increase prices.” That goes against supply and demand.
I don’t understand the “slight inflation is needed.” I never have.
If margins increase, then prices you must decrease!
There’s a potential way out by getting rid of the Fed altogether or establishing a completely free market without any government involvement.
I have to agree though that the Fed printing more money is equivalent of stealing. Flooding the economy with more money simply means that my purchasing power just went down. In essence, the Fed just stole from me. Granted, nobody walked up and took my wallet or emptied my bank account, however, my 100 Dollars all of a sudden don’t have the same purchasing power anymore. And I have no choice but to use dollars to buy anything…
Yea you could just outright get rid of the Fed but maybe that wouldn’t be the prudent thing to do with out first having a backup currency and yes we could just do away with the government and participate in a free market but maybe the rest of the world doesn’t want to be as free and will comtinue to support their governments. If so it would be really hard to participate in the market without some viable currency.
Actually, the law that authorized the President to directly issue United States Notes was repealed/amended. Technically, the President no longer has the authority to directly issue money. Since when has that stopped the executive branch from doing whatever it wanted?
If you really want to boycott the Federal Reserve, you should use sound money and work completely off-the-books, avoiding income taxes. This is the whole point of agorism.
could you be so kind as to provide the citation that repealed EO# 11110 or the law in which you spoke of?
RTFG. A brief seach uncovered it.
http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-234026.html
However, by this time the remaining legislative authority behind E.O. 11,110 had been repealed by Congress with PL 97-258 in 1982.
thanks, for the help bro [Y]
My understanding would be that price deflation would only be “bad” in the sense that reduced profits would result in higher unemployment. The problem with the neo-Keynesians is that they believe that overproduction is the proper way to produce, rather than obeying demand. Loose inflationary monetary policy practiced by the Fed sends inaccurate signals to the market, telling the market that more money is available, but in fact that money is in the form of debt, not increased wealth. Production cannot continue to grow indefinitely, a point of equilibrium will be reached. Computers are a good example, their price has dropped considerably, but we are constantly bombarded by sellers who insist we must replace them far more often than necessary. Except for those who use their machines for very demanding tasks, such as movie making or genetic research, for example, most people have not-brand-new computers which suit their needs, and most homes have at least one. My dad, for instance, has had the same computer for 10 years, and does not feel compelled to buy a faster one, as he just surfs the net and e-mails a little. My needs are a bit more demanding, and my unit is considerably more powerful than his, but mine is hardly brand new. The technology has reached a point where there are diminishing returns for incrementally smaller advances in performance, and the market has reflected that in decreased demand for new machines. (unless you have Vista, which hogs down the fastest of machines. I think that was it’s purpose–lol)
I wish to thank you for your help. After reading both laws I have gained a better understanding of why each was implemented.
Really? Why were they implemented? There’s only one reason laws are passed. A good law benefits a handful of people at the expense of everyone else.
No, it’s not theft. As I have already stated numerous times, forcing a currency upon someone is wrong. But the act of printing money isn’t theft.
Let us assume that we barter for your labor. I will give you 10 apples per an hour of work, we agreed. However, there is an apple orchard down the road that grows apples. In essence, they are increasing supply, thereby decreasing the value of your apples (we’ll temporarily assume apples are nonfungible). Is there anything immoral about that? No. Likewise, under a gold standard, is there anything illegal about mining gold and thereby reducing the value of gold? No.
Likewise, printing money, and thereby increasing the supply of money, is not a crime in itself. The wrongdoing is in the fact that it is forced upon people, but that really isn’t what we’re debating.
Oh c’mon. A Rothbardian saying he doesn’t want to argue semantics is like John McCain running those ads for peace and prosperity. lol
Your argument is that the Federal Reserve and financial industry are in the “business” of stealing wealth via money supply inflation.
The immoral bit is not the act of money supply inflation. It’s the fact that I’m forced to use Federal Reserve Notes as money and alternate monetary systems are taxed/forbidden/regulated.
We agree in principle, but you didn’t state your point clearly. If one of your axioms is “Government has a monopoly of money”, then printing money and giving it to your friends is immoral.
In the context of the current corrupt system, money supply inflation is immoral but not illegal. Seeing this immoral behavior, I want to boycott the Federal Reserve. Government violence prevents me from boycotting the Federal Reserve.
If Federal Reserve Notes weren’t backed by violence, there would be no problem. People would rapidly switch to other forms of money, and Federal Reserve Notes would be worthless.
Historically, whenever there was true free competition between fiat money and real money, real money dominates. The problem occurs when government violence forces people to accept fiat money at parity with real money.
Right - but when you force someone to exchange their services for paper that can be expanded at the discretion of a secretive government body, you are in effect getting something for nothing. It is enslavement. The mere act of printing money is not theft, no. The entire setup though is.
-Jon
Guys, I’ve already stated SEVERAL TIMES that forcing a currency upon people is wrong.
I was disputing the claim that printing money amounts to stealing, which is false, and which fsk seems to have conceded.