Keynes was a Conservative

[moda0306]

If I have the option of holding some Podunk private currency that will, at best, maintain real value, vs hold my accumulated dollars in risk free assets that maybe lose 1-3% of their value every year (though for decades had positive real return) I will just use the US dollar and hold some physical gold.

I have absolutely no will to use a different currency.  There's almost no plausible gain to be had in it.  If I am afraid of inflation, I can accumulate wealth in gold and/or foreign currencies/bonds and keep my monetary contracts short-term in nature, and liabilities long-term in nature.  It's not rocket science.  No need to collect some obscure currency.


Tortoise,

I agree we would likely end up with some oligopoly of currencies, which is even worse than either a mish-mash of zillions of private currencies and/or a gold-based public monopoly.  What you'd have now is a case where if any one private currencies fail, the economy would be decimated.  I think managing currency is up there with military, courts, and freeways in the spectrum of things govt should vs shouldn't do.

The constitution explicitly gives the federal government the power to coin currency.  I don't think it's some obscure statist-driven role of government. 

[l82start]

why would the government currency have to cease to exist if competitive currency's began to emerge? as far as i can see creating dollars would still be a constitutional power, in fact the congress could possibly even participate in the competition and have a second American currency to compete with the fiat federal reserve dollars we have now,  i am not sure how the ins and outs of taxation would work or what all the benefits and down sides would be, but it seems like competition might help keep money honest and promote transparency on all of the various monetary choices..
 

[MachineGhost]

The constitution explicitly gives the federal government the power to coin currency.  I don't think it's some obscure statist-driven role of government.

No, the Constitution gave Congress the power to coin money.  Despite relentless non-engagement by the judicial branch to uphold that limitation, coins still aren't debt even today.  Are we supposed to excuse the unconstitutionality of FRN's just because it is what Communists Progressive Liberals wanted?

There may be bigger fish to fry at present, but this latent unconstitutionality is going to come home to roost eventually.  Mark my words.

[moda0306]

Unconstitutional according to you, MG.... Except the Supreme Court, not you or I, gets to interpret the constitution.  Whose interpretation of it are we supposed to use? 

Even on the issue of money alone, the power to "coin money" sure seems like the power to issue currency to me.  There seems to be very, very little detail there as to what they meant.  Seems quite broad to me.  On an issue as important as money, don't you think a little specificity would have been in order?

[MachineGhost]

So are you implying the Founding Fathers royally screwed up by not explicitly stating that original intent was how the Constitution was supposed to be interpreted?  I would be sympathetic to that argument considering how things have evolved over the last 200 years as it's been shredded to pieces.  It was a grave mistake to expect that voters, the fourth estate, the judicial and the executive branches were going to keep the legislative branch in check.

We only have the Constitutional debates and Federalist papers to inform us that to coin money was merely to regulate and provide a medium of exchange, not issue currency.  Back then, fiat or debt was not used as money and the power to emit bills of credit was struck from the states and there was opposition to Congress having that power, but the banking interests won out in the end.  Does that make it moral, just or right?  I'm not sure convenience is an excuse for perpetuating coercion.