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Guest Post: Currency Competition
Submitted by John Aziz of Azizonomics,
Monopolies contribute to many problems — the record of evidence illustrates the potential inefficiency, waste and price fixing.
Yet the greatest trouble with monopolies is what they take away — competition. Competition is a beautiful mechanism; in exercising their purchasing power and demand preferences, individuals run the economy — it is their spending that allocates, labour, capital, resources and brainpower. It’s their spending that transmits the information that determines what gets made, what doesn’t, which businesses succeed and which don’t. Individuals exercise a far greater political and economic power in a free economy when they spend, and when they work than when they vote. So without competition, the power of choice suffers, and businesses, markets and societies can become economically stagnant and rampantly corrupt; look at North Korea and the myriad other examples of once-prosperous societies impoverished by a lack of economic competition.
In a free market, monopolies are less problematic because lacking competition a monopolist can become complacent and inefficient, allowing competitors a foothold to grab market share; consider the near-monopoly of Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer in the 1990s, which began to melt away via the rise of Apple, Google, Firefox and the poorly-received Windows Vista in the 2000s.
Monopolies can be much more problematic when a monopoly develops and the holders of that monopoly conscript the power of the state to protect their dominance. Whether their business is food, or clothes, or computers, or money, a state-protected monopoly limits competition and so distorts the allocation of resources, capital and labour.
If we are for competition in goods and services, why should we disclude competition in the money industry? Would competition in the money industry not benefit the consumer in the manner that competition in other industries does? Why should the form and nature of the medium of exchange be monopolised? Shouldn’t the people — as individuals — be able to make up their own mind about the kind of money that they want to use to engage in transactions?
Earlier, this year Ben Bernanke and Ron Paul had an exchange on this subject:
Bernanke contends that it is possible to transact in a competing currency like Yen, or pesos or bitcoin. But, as Ron Paul points out, there are still a number of laws which are still preventing a level playing field:
The first step [to real currency competition] consists of eliminating legal tender laws. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution forbids the States from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender in payment of debts. States are not required to enact legal tender laws, but should they choose to, the only acceptable legal tender is gold and silver, the two precious metals that individuals throughout history and across cultures have used as currency. There is nothing in the Constitution that grants Congress the power to enact legal tender laws. Congress has the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, but not to declare a legal tender. Yet, there is a section of US Code, 31 USC 5103, that purports to establish US coins and currency, including Federal Reserve notes, as legal tender.
The second step to legalizing currency competition is to eliminate laws that prohibit the operation of private mints. One private enterprise which attempted to popularize the use of precious metal coins was Liberty Services, the creators of the Liberty Dollar. The government felt threatened by the Liberty Dollar, as Liberty Services had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service in November of 2007.
The final step to reestablishing competition in currency is to eliminate capital gains and sales taxes on gold and silver coins. Under current federal law, coins are considered collectibles, and are liable for capital gains taxes. Coins held for less than one year are taxed at the short-term capital gains rate, which is the normal income tax rate, while coins held for more than a year are taxed at the collectibles rate of 28 percent.
This is not a radical change. In this age of cashless payment people can simply load their alternative currency onto a debit card and spend it — similar to the gold-denominated debit card currently available to non-Americans from Peter Schiff’s EuroPacific Bank. In this age of Google and ubiquitous computing, exchange rates can be calculated instantaneously.
If people and businesses choose to stick to government-backed fiat money and refuse other currencies, that is their prerogative as individuals. It is possible that other media of exchange would not become popular; but at least there would be a more level playing field. Under the status quo, there is no level playing field.
It is often said in Keynesian circles that Bernanke is too tame a money printer, and that the people need a greater money supply. Well, set the wider society free to determine their own money supply based on the demand for money.
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Not only does the fed have no currency competition, but Jim Willie says The Morgue and the Squid are about to have less banking competition.
Jim Willie: Morgan Stanley Faces IMMINENT FAILURE & RUIN, May See 1st Private Stock Account TheftsWillie states that Morgan Stanley faces IMMINENT FAILURE & RUIN, that The older employees are selling all of their stock, and that Many workers are making contingency plans for their next positions in another firm.
He states that JP Morgan will devour the carcass, and that The Morgue may be preparing to execute the 1st ever private stock account vaporization/ rehypothecation.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-willie-morgan-stanley-faces-imminent-fa...
devour the carcass? They are leveraged into retardation^infinity. JP Morgan would be juicing for just a while off that junky's corpse, until the high of all the methodone and k2 wore off and all that was left was a cracked out jp crash.
there is a cost to running a competition.
reserve currency says costs to running a currency competition outweights the benefits of competition which is increase in quality so unify to undercut overhead.
but now is time to hold banksters responsible by introducing concept taught in Harvard business school in capitalism 101.....competition increases quality.
when bankers are buying their own debt, you know shit has hit the fan.
someone take a large fan and pile of dung and have it blow in the direction of the federal reserve right about the time bernanke steps out.
repeat in front of congress.
Well, there goes my dead, near-worthless IRA (dot-com remnant).
"They be stealin' my handful of CEF shares! Noooooooo!!111111!!!1!"
Oh, wait, my IRA got sold to Merril Lynch, not Morgan Stanley.
Safe for now! LOL
Ayn Rand would be proud sir. Big L-onomics 101 www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBrzEVJwYFg
But you make one mistake sir. Keynesians do not mistake money printing for a solution to the economy, but rather a solution to their lack of supreme control.
No one can be that stupid, as to think keynesian economics actually works. & that's what figuring it all out* is actually all about. Realizing its all just ponzi.
Not only can they believe (call it think if you like), they've got a tried and true rebuttal provided by Keynes himself.
"Government has to cut back during the 'good' years."
Of course, that's wholly unbelievable as well, but then again, this is debate we're discussing, where logic only goes so far.
No one?? how about nobel prize winner paul krugman which just goes to prove those nobel prize's are worthless.
Once you understand the details of modern central banking, you are able to step back and see that it truly is a way for the government to use the printing press to pay its bills
People who actually believe keynesianism works, aren't actually people. they are subhuman retards.
& no one that is human, and proclaims keynesianism works, actually believes it. chances they are just a mouthpiece like krugman, get it?
Why haven't the good folks here at zerohedge put up a piece about bitcoin yet? I have more faith in network protocols than I do fractional reserve banking.
I'd like to see one.
Maybe because the untrustworthy governments will crush bitcoin as a terrorist money-laundering operation.
Hell, I'd go so far as to predict that they'll eventually arrest Peter Schiff. There will be no alternate currency for free people, but only for the criminals, be they real (the Fed), or imagined as in the case of Mr. Schiff (as well as his father).
Governments can't even stop the web or bit torrent, also network protocols. The only way to squash bitcoin, aside from trying to suck up available bitcoins (which I belive is happening to some extent), is to shut down the net.
"Governments can't even stop the web or bit torrent, also network protocols."
No need for government action, as long as Comcast does the dirty torrents filtering job.
And bit torrent is still one of the largest, if not the largest, P2P network on the planet, filtering or not. Bitcoin might be a close second.
LOL, wrong. All it took was a few phone calls to shut down 95% of Egyptian internet connectivity last year. Corporations own the infrastructure - the cables, the satellites, the radio dishes, the telephone poles, the data centers, the backbone lines, the servers, the routers, and everything else - even if you use your own DNS scheme, good luck when the physical connection is simply not available because your ISP got a call and was told to pull the plug. All the protocols and packets in the world are useless if you don't have the physical layer, it is the fulcrum of the internet and it is most securely in the hands of the world's governments.
Oh, and if ISPs somehow failed to disconnect, governments can also shut down the power grid at a moment's notice.
I'm not a gold and silver evangelist, but unlike electronic credit-money, when you can't get online and your grid power is out, your gold and silver are still there.
If bitcoin can't be used because the internet is shutdown, we'll have bigger problems than not being able to move some bitcoins around.
I see bitcoins as another way to diversify, not as a primary investment. Putting a couple of hundred bucks into it strikes me as prudent. I also use them to buy things a few times a week.
Interesting point of fact related to bitcoin. You can buy things anonymously. Sounds great, but there is still the issue of moral hazard. People are not prosecuted for stealing fiat, what makes bitcoin any different?
Sure, your bitcoins are anonymous, but if you ever want to smoke this excellent weed you just bought, I'm going to need your mailing address.
hahahahahahaha!
You sir, are a Sir, sir.
the physical layer, is the fulcrum of the internet and it is most securely in the hands of the world's governments.
when you can't get online and your grid power is out, your gold and silver are still there...
I suggest food and water as well.
Luckily for the government, the CIA is always looking for ways to break shit for power and profit.
As for the unbreakability of the network protocols, I'll note that the core routers are ALL maintained by those operating under political protocols. Sure, there will always be ways to hide payloads inside of innocous looking packets, but that's just another arms race with a constant give and take.
Worse yet, it creates the "mandate for more action" against it.
Between rhetoric criminalizing users (and the drama surrounding the founders) as well as agencies undermining operations, they hardly need to crush it from a technical aspect.
All you've done is to provide defense in the form of a Maginot Line. Meanwhile look at Mr. Dotcom, and his dilemma. He thought he was safe, too.
shortwave radio?
checkout http://weusecoins.com/ and http://localbitcoins.com/ to join the revolution
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb0xHN1Dq7M
Right, we are all tired of being fleeced by these paper FRNs, let's get fleeced by an electronic bitcoin instead. Until the issue of moral hazard has been addressed, some things will never change.
How does one get fleeced by bitcoin? I've only lost money by gambling with it.
but one link of many;
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/bitcoins-worth-228000-stolen-fro...
Oh, so a criminal robbed someone... well, that sure proves BC is flawed.
Lord knows nothing like that could ever happen with fiat, or with gold!
Get a grip.
I welcome you to try and come onto my property and steal my PMs. You are an idiot. Thanks for self-identifying as a troll. FYI, I have used bitcoin.
I welcome you to find my USB drive with 100 bitcoins on it. It's easier to move 100 bitcoins across the network or from hand to hand than it is to move ~30 ounces of silver.
Both have their strong points and their weak points. I'm interested in utilizing any tool available to store and transfer.
People don't give a shit about your computer shit, but always seem to accept gold or silver for goods like food and oil. Good luck kid.
Laws of Physics, I love your comments, but you're mistaken about bitcoin. It currently has so much upswing potential that to stay out is actually a bad bet. In July, 93 Billion has been taken out in Santander's bank run. That's ~1000 all the bitcoin value in the world. One month, one failing bank, one country.
Bitcoin is extremely cheap on a risk-adjusted basis. (And there's always ways to trade them for gold/silver.)
I welcome you to try and come onto my property and steal my PMs.
Hey, that was a great hard-ass non sequitur!
Sure, I'll bring my big ass ass weapons and we can shoot each other, like MEN!
Hoo-ahhh!!!
Someday, just maybe, you will grow up, turn off the X-box and go out into the real world. Whether you survive or not is another issue altogether.
just stay ca'm LoP. Stick to reason. You're pretty good at that.
PFG Best screwed a bunch of customers, MF Global, Bernie Madoff.... And you guys still trade, right? Still love those dollars in your pocket?
Thieves exist in any system, my friend. In yours, bankers, economists and politicians decide how much to give the dollar a good rogering on any given day. In BTC, I'm the master of my own wealth. I'll take self-directed over communal lunacy any day of the week.
Keep holding on to your green toilet paper, please. It will give me a chance to front-run the lot of you before the tide turns.
let's get fleeced by an electronic bitcoin instead.
Do you even understand BC?
Sheesh, talk about going off for the sake of going off...
Yes I do. Bitcoin is backed by... ...trust? ...gold? ...oil? ...CONfidence?
In a world of laws and contracts, bitcoin is a good idea, now about that moral hazard. Fix that first, then let's talk about bitcoin.
Moral hazard is trumped by caveat emptor.
I'm trying to take you seriously, but you insist on putting your foot in your mouth.
Fix "moral hazard"? Please, stop, you're killing me here -- do you honestly think you can remove greed from the human mind? How in earth would your fantasy of zero moral hazard play out? IV Drip bags ala "THX-1138"? Perpetually stoned populace? Please, clue us in to your utopian vision.
Precisely why you need monetary system that has a certain amount of integrity built in. Now you are starting to think. Good for you.
De-Nationalization of currency is a good start. I know you can't wrap your head around why a cryptographic proof of work would have value, but believe me - we'll be better off with something that isn't in the hands of corrupt politicians and bankers.
Feel free to disagree, but you already have orbiting electrons representing your dollars in a bank account, and you accept this virtualization with no hesitation at all.
bitcoin is backed by the laws of mathematics, the scarcity of a commodity, and the laws of supply and demand. Nobody makes any promise to you concerning bitcoin. Rather like physical gold, you are on your own--if you're smart, you're safe from both inflation and from a dishonest banking system.
can I buy a house in Vietnam with it? Hrvatska?
will someone deliver groceries to my door in exchange for it?
I know I know. 'early days', 'fledgling'... looks good on, er, paper. Interesting.
Trade it back into authority-declared money and buy (http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/). Or wait for bitinstant's instant conversion debit card, which (with a little luck) will arrive in a couple months. http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/yr75l/bitcoin_mastercard_everyw...
This is what a strong currency and an honest banking system looks like: http://blockchain.info/
Yes we can.
Here we go with the fuckin bitcon promotion again.
Ummm... this iis a thread on competing currencies. Mentioning a currency that might compete seems sensible to me.
Those dismissive of bitcoin remind me of the people 20 years ago that dismissed the web as a fad.
In 1993, I offered to do a column on the internet for a friend's newspaper. I told him he needed to get out in front of the net and his paper would look good.
His response: "No one cares about computers."
Exactly.
Right, now how many fads haven't survived again? Good luck kids. Many things come and go, Gold has been money for six thousand years.
Wikipedia killed all encyclopedias.
Linux is the world's top OS in smartphones and servers.
The newspapers are (gladly) dying due to the web.
Amazon & others are killing retail.
The internet destroys everything that stands in its way. The time for money has simply arrived.
Hell, BitcoinJ was designed inside GOOGLE for christ's sake!
Smurf gets his sansabelt slacks in a wad every time someone mentions bitcoin. Makes you wonder why, perhaps vested interest in the current system beyond just holding dollars?
fuck federal reserve notes bring back the red seal! Let not JFK's death be in vain!
hey Aziz: just to be clear re: "The government felt threatened by the Liberty Dollar, as Liberty Services had all their precious metal coins seized by the FBI and Secret Service in November of 2007" The reason for this, in part, was due to Liberty Services issuing their very own FIAT in the form of Ron Paul dollars! Can't make this shit up! So not as b&w as your OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTE..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_sSipUrBG0
I'll always wonder if that whole enterprise wasn't a setup from the start. All they had to do was to avoid the label "dollar" and they were fine. But nooooooo. Somebody made the decision to intentionally invoke the attention of the Treasury.
The fact that the raid occurred right after minting the RP coin speaks volumes.
The only other reasonable explanation would be that they were still Kool-Aid drinkers believing in the fallacy of "government of the people."
So, they were either stupid or disingenuous, or perhaps both.
NA: agreed. It's unfortunate that Aziz references this half-baked hair-brained operation as a key point in the above article -- it reminds me of MSM-like tactics of only selling half the facts to make the whole point...kinda like a flawed scientific method a la the Keynesians article from earlier today.....
You wonder wrong.
Bernie did it all for his own reasons. Not everything is a conspiracy.
Umm... you miss where I offered that as an alternative? I said he was either disingenuous (which I even prefaced as "I wonder") or dumbed down from drinking the Kool-Aid (in this case, the failed belief that he could fight within a criminal system to restore sound money).
Not every statement is an assertion. Language is bigger than that.
The gov ended up shooting itself in the foot. At the time that the Treaury department shut down the operation, the company that produced the Liberty Dollar was also the largest supplier of blanks for 1 oz silver rounds to the US Mint.
In other words, it was a win-win for them, thank Dimon.
In the following vid Hayek talks about the monopoly of issuing money and his proposal for competing currencies. Starts around 5:06.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BQ-RN28bkY
And that was before 3"x5"x1/4" monster computers. :)
The first coin produced by the US Mint was produced by Jefferson taking some of his own silver down to the mint, albeit not in its final location of 1793, and getting it turned into half dismes. An asset based currency is not totally immune from problems but it is sure better than the kind that sounds like an Italian carmaker.
True, lets call paper money "wannabes" ... instead of fiat money..
This article perfectly describes "the rub" facing our species...
The "Money Monopolists" (or, the elite, the Oligarchy, TPTB - whatever you want to call them) all BELIEVE (as in: clutch tenaciously via faith) that if capital allocation is left to the natural market forces of aggregate demand, then the human race will destroy itself...
They believe this so fundamentally because they see the things that make people happy, and they equate these things with pollution of the mind (and with pollution of our natural environment)
The idiocy of "the commoners" places the enjoyment of alchohol, fast cars, and load parties above more "noble" pursuits- like bringing contraception and innoculation to "the savages"
Meanwhile, the Savages only really want to be able to afford alcohol, fast cars, and loud parties.
Happiness is the enemy of the elitist mind.
Judging from the recent photos of Prince Harry I'd say the idiocy imputed to the "commoners" has fully infected and is reflected in the younger generation of the elites. The tastes are one in the same.
"If we are for competition in goods and services, why should we disclude competition in the money industry?"
Now, where's competition to be found? Food is largely controlled by Monsanto's poison genes, water polluted by big oil oligopolies. A handful of international banks control the vast majority of the national deposits, cars are made by one of two or three highly similar corporations, which neglect technological advances since decades.
Mobile phones are from the hands of the Cult of the Rotten Apple or from data spying Goggle, computers run mainly on Intel chips. Even big pharma has nicely carved a lucrative corner for each of its oligopoly members, and the powerful lobbies solidify the grip of monopolistic powers over the common citizen.
The only desired competition is found in the labor market, where weak organisation sees wages and living standards eroded further and further, so big money can grow fatter and fatter from the labors of the toiling class.
Monopolies - the only conclusive outcome of crony capitalism, to the detriment of every living creature on the planet.
This would require "Freedom" which does not exist in our current liberal society. Only govt control.
This would require "Freedom" which does not exist in our current liberal society.
Right!
Now, just drop out of that "society" and start doing what you want.
I think you may be confused about your terms. Looking up "liberal" I get the following synonyms:
broad-minded
nonconventional
nonorthodox
nontraditional
open-minded
progressive
radical
unconventional
hmm, sounds like freedom!
1. progressive. 7. broad-minded, unprejudiced. 9. beneficent, charitable, openhanded, munificent, unstinting, lavish. See generous. 10. See ample.
Antonyms 1. reactionary. 8. intolerant. 9, 10. niggardly.
The legal tenders laws INCLUDE FRN's . I do not see any words of exclusion in the statute of any other statute.
Foundation for Monetary Freedom
has good section of links under "Resources"
Hayek was quite clear that the current inevitable slide to facism can be directly linked to State-monopolised monetary issuance ... basically it is the State trying everything in it's coercive powers to cobble together draconian solutions to problems thrown up by its very own gross mis-allocation of monetary resources
From the master Hayek himself in Free Market Money :
I've said it before, and I will say it again -- if a sufficient number of people switched over to bitcoin, it would result in the banks and those who coddle them being POWERLESS.
Yet we sit here (for me on year TWO of watching all this bullshit), reading article after ARTICLE about how it is going to all FALL APART, and we're still clinging to DOLLARS? Why? It boggles my mind!
To rephrase -- if you switch to BTC, we can STARVE THE BANKS AND EVERY SYSTEM THAT DEPENDS ON MILKING THE CURRENT SYSTEM.
This is like someone with a bad case of bedbugs, taking vitamin supplements to produce more blood instead of throwing out his mattress and trying to address the root cause.
Monetary policy and politics caused this. Lets FIX IT.
No thanks on the other idiotic fake money fraud.
Wow, I know dollars are steadily eroding and all, but I didn't expect you to badmouth it boldly.
Bitcoin is great, until the power goes out. Let me know when you can pay your power bill in Bitcoins...
I love the extremist view on why bitcoin is bad because if < insert major system here that would never go tits-up > happens.
Christ, can't you see that your own scenario would entail a lot more damage than just 'stopping' bitcoin? How do those arguments even make sense?
You've got to wonder what is going through the head of someone that requires major tragedy as a 'con'. I'd just say it points to how resilient bitcoin is, to be integrated so tightly that it would take catastrophe to 'hurt' it.
Guess I shouldn't tell you how you can transact offline, right? Haha.
Our power goes out at least 3 times a year. I live in a Major Metropolitan area. When the power goes out I am still able to walk to the store who runs generators and buying stuff with that paper Fiat.
Only a moron would think that modern technology is fullproof and expect everything to go the way they plan it. There's also the simple point that Bitcoins are still a centralized currency. The amount is controlled by a single individual, so you are using faith to trust that he will not cheat any of you. That sound's like s shitty deal any way you cut it.
I already looked into Bitcoin, and I've followed it since it was started.
A "Major Metropolitan area" does NOT equal the whole internet, buddy. Bitcoin will be just fine humming along in another part of the globe until the power comes back on.
No, I do NOT expect technology to be foolproof, that is why, if you really have looked into bitcoin, you would know that it is open source - has been vetted by cryptography experts, and if need be can be upgraded to the next crypto scheme if the current one is found wanting.
(Which would also mean your banks would have to switch, since they use the same thing - something tells me it will take them longer.)
Please, do some reading before you say "Centralized currency" and "controlled by a single individual". Both these statements are patently false and misleading. Seriously, have you read anything about it?
I suggest you improve your current understanding, as it seems to be lacking actual facts.
You are in double error in claiming that "The amount is controlled by a single individual, so you are using faith to trust that he will not cheat any of you."
The amount of bitcoins is determined by an algorithm that is publicly available (see function GetBlockValue in https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp) and that needs to be implemented on all devices processing Bitcoin transactions. The algorithm results in a convergent series. An attempt to present something that does not correspond to this algorithm creates an incompatible block that the computer processing the block ignores. An attempt to create Bitcoins outside of the validity of the protocol would be the equivalent to attempting to persuade someone to accept more letters into the English alphabet.
Your "look into Bitcoin" probably was not very thorough.
is anyone following this pissing match Max Keiser is having with Tom Woods of the Mises Institute. I bring it up here because I saw John Aziz threw in Max's side.
Just curious as to the cliff notes version of what Maxs Beef was. I couldn't wade throught all the rants.
Keiser is a moron. I should not need to go into detail's on this, but in the past he's been caught spreading lies and open deception even after being caught doing so. That whole Keiser coin fiasco that went on for 8 months, and his "Elite Insider" turned traitor having never actually shown up since he was first "revealed". Yet, there are some that still give Keiser money and credit.
He belong's on RT with the rest of the lying Statists.
Not saying that Tom Woods hasn't done things in the past that make me question him though. Tom has actually responded to his critics though. Keiser just call's us troll's and paid disinfo agents and then ignores us.
While you're at it, lets eliminate the monopoly in law .... run by lawyers through the cartel. Frome here on out, anyone with a thirty word latin vocabulary, and a cheap suit can now be a lawyer.
Don't quit your day job. Leave the humor to the experts, okay?
thanks aziz for finally initiating a discussion on this topic...been waiting a good 2 years for this one.
perhaps, a more appropriate term would be complementary currencies vs. competing currencies, if for no other reason then to sidestep the impending battle with the Dead Fed (and the endless red vs. blue vs. hard vs. virtual side skirmishes that we seem to always be groomed into fighting).
one can make the case that there is room for a myriad of different currencies, room for bitcoin, room for gold, room for silver, room for nickels, room for local currencies, room for timebanks, room for even the FRN (within USA Inc. territories like DC, national parks, Puerto Rico, etc.). each will evolve (or devolve) on its own self-organizational merit and serve its own unique purposes, depending on the occasion in time and space and relation.
remember that money has 3 distinct qualities : a medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value (and in the case of the FRN, a means of deferred payment (ad infinitum)). but if you have more than 1 option, 1 option will not need to satisfy all qualities at the same time. as you noted, the blessing of the FRN's (aka petrodollar) monopoly status is, in the long run (as defined in the masthead above), its greatest curse, as no one currency (no matter how 'solid' it is) can not be all things to all people at all times.
of course, this would require that each individual take more responsibility in managing their own monetary affairs, but isn't us collectively abdicating that responsibility to a Central Authority what got us into this pickle in the first place?
decentralization & diversification is again and always the answer imho.
All fine points.
The root of many of the losses of personal freedom can be traced back to the Monopolised, Centralised inferior (and now broken) State money we are now forced to use.
A gold standard will solve only one of these issues (unchecked govt. debt spending) but will indeed create others, it is not the magical panacea so many here seem to clamour for ... what are you afraid of, the free market? A gold standard would indeed still be a Monopolised, Centralised monetary system , albeit of a different flavour ... a golden jail rather than a paper jail if you will.
A free market for all monetary instruments is the only logical and clear choice for ending State control over our money, our individual economic freedoms, our property rights; all causing an unquantifiable myriad of other consequential ills.
I always said, when Wendy's starts taking Bitcoin for burgers, then I'm in... ponytail and all.
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=11785
Dave Harrison
www.tradewithdave.com
"Competition" played itself through on different levels. Those who were the best at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, were able to take over governments and force everyone else to pay for monopolization of the money supplies by the biggest gangsters, the banksters.
Idealized competing currencies notions usually do not account for the basic FACTS:
Money is based on robbery, backed by murder.
Competition between currencies is really competition between different organized crime gangs, and eventually, those who were the best at deceit and destruction prevailed. However, in the longer term, their triumph becomes their worst enemy, since too much "success" at controlling civilization through frauds eventually causes the entire system to collapse into chaos.
THERE IS ALWAYS SOME COMBINED MONEY/MURDER SYSTEM.
"Competition" travels through the infinite tunnels of deceits that ARE that combined system. Thus, we end up with insane runaway monopolies, going mad! At the beginning it looks great, then, at the very end, it looks extremely dismal. ... I believe that we are near the end of the biggest of all boom and bust cycles, where the total human population and economic activity stops growing bigger, and crashes itself, since it was all based on overshooting, due to fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting.
While I agree with the ideal of a greater use of information, made possible by competing currencies, none of that could be realized without some kind of political miracles in the transformation of the basic understanding of human death controls, as the central feature of the real human ecology. That ALREADY exists ... but is the most taboo topic, which is accomplished through the maximum possible deceits, which includes that most people find it practically impossible to even think through.
"Competition" writ large is militarism, which is the self-actualizing supreme ideology.
All of money, medicine, and everything else, operates inside of militarism, which manages to continue to be the best at hiding itself!