Most Conservatives seem angry at the Federal Reserve System and, especially, at paper money printed by the Federal Reserve. In fact, everything would be better, they seem to think, if we went back to hard cash — that is, coinage. Actually, I think the situation is worse than that; they would really like us to go back to plain old metal. After all, coinage can have devious mixtures of metals.
The whole idea is ridiculous so far as I can see. Anything that qualifies as “currency” for payment of bills or purchase of commodities qualifies as such because people agree that it is worth something. This can be paper, coinage, or precious metals — or even a person’s word of honor. All the weight of this issue rests on the word ‘agree’ and depends on social relationships and trust. Precious metals are no more trustworthy for these purposes than printed paper. Our basic needs are food, clothing, and shelter (and iPhones) and you can no more make any of those from precious metals than you can from printed paper.
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