Why do individuals accept and use USA monetary tokens as money in their everyday lives? Why isn’t gold or another real substance used? Does the USA actually prohibit the exchange of labor and other goods for gold and silver, and if not, why don’t we see such exchanges occurring?
Thanks.
Egon
Egon,
Gold was banned for use as a medium of exchange by the Franklin Roosevelt administration. By the time ownership and use of gold was legalized there had already been forty or so years of use of fiat currency. For the most part, this currency was stable, or at least stable enough as to not provide incentive for the use of another medium of exchange. Given the boom of the 90s, and then the short recession followed by a new boom, up until 2007, I don’t see any incentive for people to have used gold instead of the dollar.
The change from dollar to gold, or dollar to whatever form of money or money substitute might be used after the dollar, will not happen overnight. Businesses will have to be able to distinguish the value of gold in terms of pricing, and people will have to own enough gold to use it as a medium of exchange. Currently, there is a demand for dollars because people generally do not foresee high inflation or hyperinflation, and so they are trading in gold for dollars given that the exchange is currently so high.
In short, I don’t think the U.S. prohibits the use of the dollar as a medium of exchange. The fact of the matter is that there is no reason to use gold as a medium of exchange, yet.
I’m too lazy to search for it, but I believe that Peter Schiff on one of his radio shows mentioned that legal tender laws currently prevent private citizens from creating contracts that specify remuneration in the form of gold. Since the dollar’s legal tender status applies to “all debts, public and PRIVATE” US citizens must accept dollars as settlements of those debts.
I heard that if you pay in gold both sides have to pay tax [over and above any taxes there would be if you used paper money].
Also heard that contracts stipulating payment in gold would be unenforceable in court.
Dollar and dollar denominated assets are money. There is not much more to it.
Its legal tender status isn’t the problem today. The problem is the capital gains tax on gold and other commodities. Essentially, Federal Reserve Notes and accounts denominated in terms of such notes are the only duty-free asset one can hold. Any other asset must be valuated at market price (as denominated in FRNs) and taxed upon sale. This tax advantage makes FRNs insuperable by any other would-be currency, regardless of its other desirable attributes.
Clayton -
Why do individuals accept and use USA monetary tokens as money in their everyday lives?
do you consider usa monetary tokens something other than dollars??? if you consider them the same why not just say dollars.
This question has already been answered.
Does it really matter?
Hi Egon.
Check out Mises’ regression theorem. Here’s an article by Dr. Bob Murphy related to the subject: http://mises.org/daily/1333
Alright, that was a good round of responses. I’ll try to summarize the points which currently make partial sense to me:
-USA Legal tender policies prohibit contracts which require either of the parties to surrender gold
-USA monetary tokens have an officially enshrined “legal tender status,” which apparently means that all individuals must accept the tokens in exchange for any other goods rendered (thank you, Snowflake, for the wikipedia link)
-The USA imposes tax disincentives on the exchange of gold, including “capital gains” taxes which affect gold
-Contracts requiring the exchange of gold are not enforceble in USA federal, or state courts
This is a great start, yet perplexing questions remain. First, however, a response to cret’s inquiry, which I regard to be vital to the present discussion:
Do I consider USA monetary tokens to be something other than dollars? The answer is yes. A USA monetary token (or a Union monetary token or federal monetary token, whichever you prefer) is any physical object which legally represents the imaginary substance which the USA declares into existence as money. USA monetary tokens include pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, John Fitzgerald Kennedy 50 cent pieces, and green pieces of paper with various numbers printed on them; however, these tokens are not actually, as far as I can ascertain, the substance which is theoretically exchanged in modern commercial transactions. A “dollar” is not a piece of paper or a substance or medium of itself per se; it is a measurement of mass or weight similar to a “gram” or “ounce.” The Confederation of Columbia (that is, the federation of states under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, 1781-1788, also ambiguously referred to as “the USA”), originally defined 371.25 grains of fine silver as a “dollar” of silver. In other words, back then the word “dollar” was merely a substitute for “371.25 grains,” a measurement of mass or weight (I’m not sure which one right now). Documents (pieces of paper) printed up by states and private corporations represented their holders’ entitlements to specific quantities of gold or silver. In other words, if I, say deposited 500 grains of fine silver into my neighbor’s vault for safekeeping, s/he would manufacture a slip of paper or receipt enshrining my entitlement to withdraw the substance upon demand (I realize that this explanation may be painfully long and obvious for some, but I’m just making sure that we’re on the same page here). In this circumstance, the piece of paper, or “token,” is not the good itself but rather represents my claim to a particular substance completely separate from the token. Similarly, in today’s market, the pieces of paper which we call “dollars” are not the actual “dollars.” These pieces of paper only represent specific quantities of a hitherto unnamed and imaginary substance which I have denominated “Usonian Farcia” (my introduction of a new term is a result of there being no other term previously advanced for the imaginary substance represented by the tokens which most people term “money”). Thus, a green piece of paper with a picture of George Washington and the number “1” on it represents one dollar of Usonian Farcia. I hope I’ve made it clear by this point that such paper is not the substance being exchanged. (If this is confusing to anyone, or if someone thinks I’m outright incorrect, I would be happy to clarify any points of confusion or contention.)
Okay. Now for some of my questions regarding your answers.
Mises Pieces suggested that the USA actually “prevent[s] private citizens from creating contracts that specify remuneration in the form of gold.” Does the term “private citizens” mean only USA citizens, or does it also include USA “residents,” or does the prohibition apply to all exchanges made on USA territory, regardless of the citizenship or residency of the participants? Also, does the prohibition extend to all real substances, such as silver, aluminum, salt, etc. or just to gold?
Smiling Dave said, “if you pay in gold both sides have to pay tax .” I need to clarify the meaning of this statement before I can say that I understand it. What kind of “tax” has to be paid? Is there a special federal tax on the exchange of gold for other commodities, or is Dave just referring to state sales tax? Does Dave’s statement mean that if I, a USA citizen, walk into the restaurant of Matthew, another USA citizen, located in Seattle, and exchange five grams of my gold for one of his sandwhiches, then I must surrender a part of my gold to the Union, and that Matthew must also surrender a part of his sandwhich (or some other commodity including USA tokens)? Also, does this “reflexive” tax apply to exchanges involving substances other than gold (say, iron for bread)? Sorry if I seem naive or nitpicking in this post, but I’m really just trying to understand this, and the truth is, I don’t.
scineram stated, “Dollar and dollar denominated assets are money. There is not much more to it.” The statement leaves me perplexed and there is not much I can do to clarify my misunderstanding. Moving on.
Clayton B mentioned “capital gains tax on gold and other commodities.” What does this mean? How is such a tax levied and in what circumstances? Clayton B seems to be alluding to the existence of a federal sales tax when s/he states, “notes are the only duty-free asset one can hold. Any other asset must be valuated at market price (as denominated in FRNs) and taxed upon sale.” Am I misreading Clayton B’s post?
And Giant Joe, thanks for the link to the article. I’ll check it out, and if I have questions, I will be sure to post them.
Folks, this discussion is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope to alleviate my confusion on a wide range of questions all relating to political finance, and I appreciate the participation of all involved.
Sincerely,
Egon
The guy who gets the gold has to pay sales tax, because the govt sees it as him buying gold. The guy who gets the sandwhich has to pay sales tax, because he bought a sandwhich.
If the guy who sold the gold oringinally bought it at $900 an ounce, then the price of gold went up, and he buys a $1,000 sandwhich with the ounce, he also has to pay capital gains tax.
I do believe it all applies to exchanging iron for bread as well, yes.
As I wrote in the earlier post, it’s what I heard, and I wasn’t paying close attention to the details. Hopefully the more knowledgable can supplement this answer.
This is not the case. The gold clause prohibition was ended circa 1976. If you want to denominate a contract in gold nowadays, you can. As always, check with a lawyer before you engage in any business which can get you sued by your competitors or their cronies in gov’t.
Yes, but legal tender is not very important nowadays because Federal Reserve Notes (FRNs) already have a complete currency monopoly. Where legal tender status matters is where you have multiple currencies of varying quality co-circulating. The legal tender status has a price-fixing effect, “one copper-diluted coin minted by the king is exactly equal in value to a standard pure gold coin at par.” Usually, the king will exercise self-restraint and dilute the coins just slightly enough to prevent outright rebellion but still pocket a handsome premium from the debasement.
Gold is not singled out for special treatment by capital gains tax laws but it suffers with every other commodity.
This is simply false, as far as I understand the law since 1976.
Good luck with all that. [;)]
Mises Pieces is mistaken, as far as I can tell. Otherwise, the commodities exchange and futures markets and gold ETFs simply could not exist.
Sure there is. The Austrian definition of money is: That good which acts as a medium of indirect exchange. If you want clarification, I recommend this article for a brief, accessible introduction to the Austrian conception of money.
So, the current tax law on barter is that any goods exchanged in barter must be valuated at their “fair market value” and the recipient of each good must report this FMV as income on his income tax. For example, let’s say you exchange a TV for my sound system. The TV has a FMV of $500 and the sound system has a FMV of $350. You must, under current tax law, add $350 to your income tax in the “Other Sources” field and I must add $500 to my income tax under the “Other Sources” field. However, if I simply purchased the TV from you for $500 in FRNs, only you would need to add the $500 to your income and the exchange would have no tax consequences for me.
To see why this is a problem for gold, imagine that you have a car you want to sell for $5000. I can pay you with 5 gold coins or with $5000 in FRNs. If I pay you in gold coins, then it is a barter transaction, not only must you report the $5000 in gold coins as income at their FMV but I must report the FMV of the car as well, which is $5000. If we had used FRNs, the transaction would have no tax consequences for me, as I would merely be buying, instead of bartering. So, the tax consequences have doubled by using gold coins instead of FRNs, right off the top. In addition to this, let’s say you hold onto the gold coins for 1 year. In the course of a year, the Federal Reserve increases the money supply and the dollar-value of the gold goes up by 5%. When you exchange them for something else, their FMV will now be $5250. You will have to pay capital gains tax on the $250 “profit”, which is no profit at all as long as it is due to expansion of the money supply.
Clayton -
Thanks. Your answer was a good answer and you clarified it well.
Good enough.
A few questions arise upon perusal of this passage, but I’ll stick to the most relevant one. What do you mean by the statement that FRN’s have a “currency monopoly”? I guess I just don’t know what this term means, and a simple definition may suffice.
Quickly, what are the commodities exchange, futures markets, and gold ETF’s?
Point taken. I do recognize that Federal Reserve tokens are money. The initial question was why they were used as money, which we are in the process of answering.
This is something which I have definitely never heard of before, and is an excellent start to a rudimentary understanding of barter/capital gains taxation in the USA. Up until this point I had no knowledge of capital gains tax. Further reading of actual statutes passed would be instructive. This piece of the puzzle will serve me well in coming to grips with the meaning of the present monetary situation, and I believe that this question, as well as this thread, to be for all intents and purposes complete.
Thanks again, all. There will be other posts.
Egon
Except the question that you just begged, why are they money?
Because money Spanish colonies used was popular in he English colonies too, and there it was called dollar.
One thing I don’t understand is why people who object to the Federal Reserve don’t trade in precious metal coins more often.
I understand that the IRS considers a person paid in gold to be ‘buying’ gold an thus subject to the sales tax. At the same time, if you fill out the 1040 form, it asks how many ‘dollars’ you earned in income. A person who accepted only payment in gold made zero dollars, by any sane use of the English language. The “fair market value” concept is contemtible bullshit. If my friend gives me a backrub, in exchange for giving them a backrub, should we both record that on our taxes as “income,” using the local market rates charged by professional massage parlors? If not, then why would any other barter transactions be taxable?
If you go to court and argue that you filled out your taxes as you understood the questions, I don’t see how the government could establish intent to violate any law, which would mean the most they could get is the money they think they’re owed. Additionally, if there are no paper records kept, how would anything be proven? If the government’s position is that it’s a citizen’s obligation to understand the tax code, one can only laugh. Let’s hear them explain the tax code to a jury then. Let’s start with the definition of “income;” doesn’t it mean “profits” in law dictionaries? Isn’t “profits” different from “revenue?” If corporations are people, then isn’t the statement true that “people can determine individually whether the money they made was revenue or income?” No one understands the tax code.
Again, I’m less concerned with what the IRS might do than what a jury might do; juries are the real law.
I do prefer a fiat currency to gold or fractionally reserved gold backed currency. The problem I have with Federal Reserve Notes is that the profits for creating the people’s collectively owned currency accrues to private banks, when it should accrue collectively.
When was your last serious contribution to this forum?