FLASH! GOLD IS MONEY AGAIN!
Gold is money again in South Carolina. (You can read about it here.) A while back, Utah decided gold is money again. As many as 12 States now either have passed resolutions declaring gold to be money, or have pending legislation to that effect. Heck, there's apparently even a bill ready to go in the U.S. Congress. (I wouldn't hold my breath on that one...but you never know.)
Gold has not been recognized as money in this country since 1933, when FDR demanded that U.S. citizens turn in their gold coins and certificates exchangeable for gold and take in exchange paper dollars backed by nothing. He did this by the notorious Executive Order 6102, something all U.S. citizens should know about (and few do). Now, at least in certain States, gold is once again recognized as what it has been for thousands of years: money.
Yes, gold will still be made into fancy, sometimes even beautiful, jewelry. It's always been used for that too. But we Americans - at least most of us - are completely unaware of the fact that the other role, arguably the more important role, gold has played in history is that of money. Maybe that's about to change.
The States that have passed or are about to pass legislation recognizing gold as money have also recognized that the U.S. dollar - sadly - has been beaten up by poor Federal fiscal and monetary policy for a long, long time. They're concerned that if they don't recognize something else as money - like gold - that their citizens will be in danger if the U.S. dollar somehow collapses in value.
How could the dollar "collapse" in value? Simply by enough people deciding that the U.S. dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on - or, perhaps the digital entry it's, well, digitalized in. (Is that a word?) That's how paper currencies collapse. People just don't want them anymore. They don't trust them to hold any value, not only long-term, but short-term too - like right away. Long-term, plenty of people know that the dollar has lost value. But there aren't that many who believe it can lose value shorter-term. Short-term means, instead of over many years, it would lose value over months, weeks, days, or even hours.
If people start thinking the dollar will lose its value in shorter time periods, you've got the start of people losing confidence in the dollar. And you could get a collapse of the dollar's value - just like that.
I'm not losing sleep over the dollar collapsing tomorrow. Then again, when you take precautions "just in case" you tend to sleep better than when you don't.
And that's, I suppose, why these States are passing this legislation and recognizing gold as money again. They're taking precautions. They want their citizens to sleep well at night - at least the ones who own some gold. They want them to know that they're looking out for them in case the dollar does, in fact, collapse.
Imagine these politicians actually doing something for their citizens. Sounds amazing, eh?
Well, it certainly sounds a lot better than passing some bill to increase state worker's pensions and health benefits when the state has no money to pay for the increase. Or it sounds better than putting more money into schools that produce students who have no clue how read, write or do arithmetic, or understand their country's (never mind their world's) history, or don't know that gold was ever money.
And, guess what, this legislation doesn't cost anything. The politicians are doing something good and not spending money they don't have.
So congratulations South Carolina and Utah. Maybe more state legislatures will wake up and do something worthwhile that doesn't create future obligations for its citizens that they won't be able to afford. Maybe more state legislatures will - to put it simply - do the right thing.
Make gold money again!
Gold has not been recognized as money in this country since 1933, when FDR demanded that U.S. citizens turn in their gold coins and certificates exchangeable for gold and take in exchange paper dollars backed by nothing. He did this by the notorious Executive Order 6102, something all U.S. citizens should know about (and few do). Now, at least in certain States, gold is once again recognized as what it has been for thousands of years: money.
Yes, gold will still be made into fancy, sometimes even beautiful, jewelry. It's always been used for that too. But we Americans - at least most of us - are completely unaware of the fact that the other role, arguably the more important role, gold has played in history is that of money. Maybe that's about to change.
The States that have passed or are about to pass legislation recognizing gold as money have also recognized that the U.S. dollar - sadly - has been beaten up by poor Federal fiscal and monetary policy for a long, long time. They're concerned that if they don't recognize something else as money - like gold - that their citizens will be in danger if the U.S. dollar somehow collapses in value.
How could the dollar "collapse" in value? Simply by enough people deciding that the U.S. dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on - or, perhaps the digital entry it's, well, digitalized in. (Is that a word?) That's how paper currencies collapse. People just don't want them anymore. They don't trust them to hold any value, not only long-term, but short-term too - like right away. Long-term, plenty of people know that the dollar has lost value. But there aren't that many who believe it can lose value shorter-term. Short-term means, instead of over many years, it would lose value over months, weeks, days, or even hours.
If people start thinking the dollar will lose its value in shorter time periods, you've got the start of people losing confidence in the dollar. And you could get a collapse of the dollar's value - just like that.
I'm not losing sleep over the dollar collapsing tomorrow. Then again, when you take precautions "just in case" you tend to sleep better than when you don't.
And that's, I suppose, why these States are passing this legislation and recognizing gold as money again. They're taking precautions. They want their citizens to sleep well at night - at least the ones who own some gold. They want them to know that they're looking out for them in case the dollar does, in fact, collapse.
Imagine these politicians actually doing something for their citizens. Sounds amazing, eh?
Well, it certainly sounds a lot better than passing some bill to increase state worker's pensions and health benefits when the state has no money to pay for the increase. Or it sounds better than putting more money into schools that produce students who have no clue how read, write or do arithmetic, or understand their country's (never mind their world's) history, or don't know that gold was ever money.
And, guess what, this legislation doesn't cost anything. The politicians are doing something good and not spending money they don't have.
So congratulations South Carolina and Utah. Maybe more state legislatures will wake up and do something worthwhile that doesn't create future obligations for its citizens that they won't be able to afford. Maybe more state legislatures will - to put it simply - do the right thing.
Make gold money again!
Comments