I think it would be useful for voluntary currency to ditch the "dollar" face value for something that doesn't need to move up or down. How about a face value in "vollars"? Or something that sounds less like "dollar". An ounce of minted copper could be one "vollar", and other coins could be valued in multiples of that. Or, if an ounce of silver is used as the vollar, you could have fractional values for smaller coins and copper. Then, somewhere, there could be a published exchange rate between vollars and dollars.
I think that tying face value to something that is doomed, like the dollar, is a bad idea, and dangerous, too, as Bernard von NotHaus discovered. I'm not interested in "dollars", but in money. Value. Hmmm. So, maybe the currency could be called "Valors". (I still like my own "Silver Dubloons".)
Whatever... I even designed a symbol that could be used for a voluntary currency like the "$" is used for dollars:
There is something inherently "missing" about the way we use the word "dollar".
ReplyDeleteHistorically,there are gold dollars, and silver dollars, and of course, multiples thereof. That would seem to imply that "dollar" is a unit of measure.
So what happens if we try to use the word that way?
Q-"How much for the doggy in the window?"
A- "Two dollars of silver."
OK, that works. What if we use a unit of measure in the way that people usually use "Dollar"?
[Customer to butcher] I'd like a pound, please, and slice it thin."
A pound of what? We have a unit of measure, without a substance.
I think this is central to the fraud that is fiat money. We've become accustomed to using the word incorrectly, and because we don't specify a substance, they've stolen the substance, largely unnoticed.
People have strange notions about "money" no matter what it is called. Here is something I wrote on that subject a while back: 'Money' requires no government
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