Tag: currency

ideological culture national politics & policies

Grace the Notes

Harriett Tubman was an American hero, the great Underground Railroad liberator of slaves, worthy of many honors.

But should she grace the $20 Federal Reserve Note?

This issue was raised during the Obama administration, when movement was made towards swapping the current Gracer of the Note, President Andrew Jackson, for Tubman. But President Trump stalled the swap.

Now, with Biden in office, it’s back!

How should we “feel” about it?

As I explained in 2016, Tubman is my kind of hero. Jackson, on the other hand, was great with his opposition to the Second National Bank, but his horrific removal of the Cherokee left a great stain on his reputation. Much different for Tubman — a criminal in her day, a secular saint in ours. Jackson owned slaves; Tubman freed slaves.

Yet, take a step back:

Is it an honor to be on a Federal Reserve Note?

The American dollar has been in jeopardy for a very long time — at least since President Richard Milhous Nixon closed the Treasury’s gold window, but probably since the forming of the Federal Reserve … our plutocratic “Third National Bank.”

Why place someone as excellent as Tubman onto a doomed currency?

The argument to keep Andy Jackson there is stronger than putting Ms. Tubman on it: he opposed central banking, and to festoon his likeness on the second most-used note of our central bank’s denominational line-up is a way of dishonoring him.

The reason today’s Democrats want to remove their party’s first president from the Twenty is the very reason to keep him on.

But if they must replace, a better candidate might be … Dick Nixon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags Andrew Jackson, currency, Harriett Tubman, honor

general freedom nannyism national politics & policies Popular privacy too much government

Inconvenient Cash?

currency, money, binary, electronic, cash, illustrattion

Everywhere I turn these days, I am hearing something about the push to get rid of cash.

Yes, cash. Greenbacks. Federal Reserve Notes.

You might think that getting rid of cash is a no-brainer. Cash makes up only 11 percent of the money supply. Most of the money stock is already those 1s and 0s in bank computers, on debit cards, and the like. So why not go all the way?

It is the “logical next step,” after all!

But not every “next step” is advisable. When walking towards a cliff, that next step might be a doozy. And when you are dealing with government and the banks, jumping off a cliff proves an apt metaphor.

Don’t go lemming on me, man.

You can probably guess the usual arguments for getting rid of cash. Convenience, for one. It sure would be convenient for government and central bankers if they could just seize control of money “magically” in the banks’ computers.

Somehow, I am not persuaded. Neither is economist Pierre Lemieux, who provides us with a helpful survey of anti-cash arguments. And when the experts argue that it would be more convenient for consumers, incredulity is the best response. “To argue against the usefulness of cash is to deny the revealed preferences of many individuals,” Lemieux insists. “The fact that cash has not disappeared even in non-criminal hands means that it is convenient for many individuals.”

He expands the thought with an important truth: “Economic efficiency is defined in terms of what individuals want.”

And the purpose of governments is to follow individuals, not corral them, manipulate them … for bureaucratic convenience.

Let’s keep cash.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Originally (cc) photo by FamZoo Staff on Flickr

Tags binary, cash, currency, economics, electronic, money

general freedom ideological culture national politics & policies too much government

The Drinking Gourd

$20, currency, twenty dollar, Jackson, Hamilton, Tubman, illustration

By now, most people are probably OK with Treasury’s plan to oust Andrew Jackson off the face of the $20 Federal Reserve Note and replace him with Harriet Tubman.

I certainly am. Ms. Tubman was a great hero of freedom. President Jackson has a more … mixed legacy.

The original plan to rotate Alexander Hamilton off the ten spot met with pushback as a result of his rising popularity from the Broadway play, Hamilton. Besides, Hamilton deserves blame — er, placement on the nation’s official paper money. Hamilton devised the first national banking system. Andrew Jackson, decades after Hamilton’s death, nixed that insider-mercantile scheme by refusing to re-authorize the central bank of the day, setting up a very different system for the Treasury and America’s banks.

Less than a century later, Hamilton’s idea was revived in the form of the Federal Reserve. Which we benefit/suffer from to this very day.

But in a bizarre twist, Jackson was not simply replaced. He was demoted. Tubman is to be placed on the note’s obverse, and Jackson moved to the back of the bus, er, note. The reverse.

I would have preferred to revive Old Hickory years from now, after the Federal Reserve dissolved, to be featured on a private bank’s note. After all, private banks did that for years between Jackson’s time and the modern period.

Bank notes don’t need the imprimatur of government.

That would allow us to place, on the flip side of the sawbuck, a more suitable image — of the Big Dipper, which served escaped slaves as a direction, to go north: “follow the Drinking Gourd.”

Additionally, the Big Dipper suggests bailouts, doesn’t it?

We’ll have plenty more before the system is changed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags $20, Andrew Jackson, bank note, currency, fiat money, Hamilton, money, treasury, Tubman

free trade & free markets too much government

Ziggy Stardust Bucks

Josiah Warren Time Store note for Three Hours Labor

When times get tough, the tough … switch currencies.

A fascinating report in The Atlantic tells of the upswing in “local currencies.” In the United Kingdom, the Brixton Pound is being floated, engraved on its paper notes the likes of “David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust era.” Pegged to the British pound, it serves mainly as a scheme to promote local business and trade, though maybe it’s a tad more than mere boosterism.

Bavarians are also “enthusiastically using the local currency as a protest” — the local currency being the Chiemgauer. And “similar currencies have popped up around the world,” including in Canada and the United States.

The Atlantic story also mentions the idea of a “time bank,” a one-step-up-from-barter method based on labor hours and (in some cases) accounting for a variety of skill levels. Such “systems are in use all over the world … though the organizers are careful to make sure that the time is never given a specific value in a hard currency, which would open the door to taxation from governments.”

That caveat shows how barter and labor time exchanges might seem the more “revolutionary,” from, say, an establishment point of view. It’s worth noting that the idea’s greatest early proponent was Josiah Warren, America’s genius utopian experimenter and theoretician of “individual sovereignty.”

Less of a radical, Rep. Ron Paul echoes eminent monetary economist and Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek by promoting the “denationalization of money,” arguing that government policy should allow all currencies to float, getting rid of all taxation on trade amongst currencies as well as repealing all legal tender laws.

For my part, I would greatly enjoy spending a Ziggy Stardust banknote.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.