Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/
BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070...
Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community
Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints
Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/north_carolina_town_pri...
But most people do not do the research. Most people assume that only the government can "make money" and most people fall for the idea that putting the word "dollar" on something somehow makes it counterfeit. It is this ignorance that lets them get away with such crimes.
I'm not trying to call you ignorant (as a pejorative). I'm just trying to say that I read the relevant laws, including the ones cited in the case against NotHaus et. al. and they do not prohibit what the Liberty Dollar was actually doing. Not at all.
In fact, the only thing illegal would be to make exact copies of US currency and pass them off as real. That is counterfeiting.
I can make a currency out of coffee beans or silver and try to get people to trade in it... and there's nothing illegal about it.
It is also known as barter.
If you were to take some time to study the laws--or high school economics--or the cardholder agreement you sign when you apply for a Visa card--you'd know this is incorrect.
I bet you have "research" that tells you that credit cards are currency or something, contrary to very basic legal and economic interpretations of the word. One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses.
Visa is an abstraction of my money. A better example would be american express gift cards. I can buy american express gift cards, and I can trade these gift cards or goods or services. The gift cards have a non-static real-value that is tied to the United States dollar (it's value in GBP, for instance, will fluctuate based on currency values).
I can take $100 USD, give it to a third party to hold, then slowly spend it as I see fit (effectively).
How is doing this with gold something that they should have covered in "high school economics class"? (No high school I've ever seen or heard of teaches an economics course, by the way)
I take $100, and give it to somebody who gives me an abstraction of that $100, gold.
To me, this sounds like literally the exact same thing as a gift card, just shinier.
The Liberty Dollar guy was found guilty of imitating U.S. currency. The OP believes the application of the law is unjust because, mentally, he's equivocated currency with other numismatic instruments. But this is wrong.
The high school economics jab is to call attention to the OP's lack of knowledge in something he thinks he knows a lot about. My high school did teach economics.
1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money. 2.general acceptance; prevalence; vogue. 3. a time or period during which something is widely accepted and circulated. 4. the fact or quality of being widely accepted and circulated from person to person. 5. circulation, as of coin.
Currrency can refer to physical money. But it also refers to gift cards, visa cards, and any thing else that is, quoting the first definition, a "medium of exchange". Since you called a gift card a "medium of exchange" while saying it wasn't "currency" the dictionary proves you wrong.
Your understanding of my mental state and argument is also wrong, and I think you're projecting.
Since you apparently aren't familiar with the dictionary definition, I trust you will apologize for your assertions about my lack of knowledge.
I can't imagine them being easily mistaken for real money, but I honestly can't see the Liberty Dollar as being mistaken either.
They aren't issued for general currency like coins are, they are used to redeem a specific service provided by the people issuing the tokens.
In that way, their redeemable value never changes. A parking token means that you will be able to park in a space for a certain amount of time, no matter how much they are work in terms of actual currency.
In the context of economics and law, currency is physical money.
I think you are more interested in winning the argument than being correct.
edit: looks like he edited his comment while I was replying; his comment originally ended with, "I hoped your ilk would never find currency on this site, but I guess the day was going to come.", and was that way for at least 30 minutes before I replied.
In economics, currency refers to physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange.
I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge on the argument at hand, so I won't speak to that, but it appears that the assertions you're arguing as fact are incorrect.
This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and casino chips.
I personally equate the Liberty Dollars to comic books or baseball cards, in that they're collectible items. Being silver, they should appreciate over time, but I would not confuse them with currency myself. I can see how others might make that mistake, but I don't see it as a fault of the company any more than I would accuse the folks who Chuck-E-Cheese of counterfeiting by creating 'game tokens'.
I agree. Competition usually hurts the market. . .
There are several examples of competing currencies being used to revitalize economies. One example is the "Miracle at Wörgl." While this system implemented by Silvio Gesell had many problems that I will not address. It did bring the communities who adopted the scrip as currency out of depression.
Money is an object or record that serves as a medium of exchange.
You then list all the ways in which other forms of currency aren't currency, which is the point I disagree with. While I agree that a credit card isn't necessarily mapped to a tangible dollar figure, and that yes, it does refer to a line of credit, I disagree that it isn't considered currency on those grounds. Does a debit card more appropriately fit your definition, or is it disqualified because the actual dollars are elsewhere?
Regardless, I think all the relevant points have been made, and further quibbling on the point isn't likely to benefit anybody in particular, so I'll bow out.
It's perfectly legal to map USD > token and exhange that token. It's legal to create a token that you will map back to cash. It's not ok to accept other peoples tokens that does not represent actual money that exists.
Travelers checks are an example of the first kind of token. Poker chips are an example of the second kind of token.
You can accept a Travelers check from someone else. But you can't operate a business that accepts Poker chip's from someone else.
I don't think I'm entitled to my own facts. But I have read the laws here, and I find your response to be devoid of any actual argument or citation of facts and full of smear and insinuation.
Or, to requote the parents, "One of the signs you're dealing with a nut is that the knowledge he thinks he has allows him to accept or reject facts as he so chooses."
There are too many trolls on HN. This is why the site sucks.
It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).
They did not, and further, they were careful to put disclaimers on their warehouse receipts, and various features on the physical pieces to make it clear that this was not being represented as government money. For instance, ever piece contained a copyright statement on it, something the government would not do.
For further details (since the judge ordered the liberty dollar website taken down): http://www.chambersburglibertydollar.com/disclaimer.htm
They were minting physical coins. They called them dollars. Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage or currency doesn't change the fact that, that's very obviously the intent.
Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge.
No, they were not: "a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as mony"
"They called them dollars." So does disney: http://www.disneydollars.net/
"Just because they decided they didn't think they were legally coinage"
This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
"very obviously the intent." You believe this because you want to believe it. However, the decade of actions that the organization took, between 1998 and 2008, involved monthly newsletters, and repeated production of brochures, the website, and other writing all of which made it clear that people who had liberty dollars were not to put them forth as if they were us government money. They spent the majority of their educational effort in conflict with what you claim is their "obvious" intent.
"Their whole disclaimer is delivered with a wink and nudge."
I understand that you feel you can just tell lies about people and somehow you feel justified in doing so. But in honorable society, doing so reflects very poorly on your own integrity. I have to wonder, what motivates you, who have clearly no knowledge of this organization or its actions, to attack them with these dishonest smears?
Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
It is no wonder things are moving the way they are in the USA if your views, as I suspect, are widely echoed.
The fact that § 486 exists suggests that, under the law, it doesn't have to be a government minting something for it to be a coin. Otherwise nobody could ever violate that law, right? Courts consider the intent of a law when interpreting it, and it's fairly clear what is meant here; only the government is _allowed_ to mint coins, but you can theoretically mint coins if you're not the government (it's just illegal then).
> This is a dishonest characterization. They had opinions from independant council, the secret service, members of federal reserve branches, etc, all saying that the product was legal.
None of these people's opinions have any legal weight. Only a judge can actually provide a binding opinion stating that what you're doing is legal. Additionally, as cited from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Dollar#Legal_issues , there have been opinions in the opposite direction from secret service agents and the US Mint; if you're going to try to argue from authority (which is a bad idea anyway), you can't ignore contrary opinions at the same time.
Indeed, the Liberty Dollar project seems to have sued to get a binding opinion stating whether they were legal, and were raided shortly thereafter. This seems to indicate that, since the Liberty Dollar project forced the Justice department to take a side on whether they were legal or not, the Justice department prosecutors may have been forced to, well, prosecute.
> Unfortunately, many americans think like you do. The FBI calls them terrorists, railroads them and people think the justice system works.
Did the FBI really call them terrorist? I'd like to see a citation for that. In any case, this is hardly railroading. It happened four years ago, and with a jury trial. Two years passed from the start of the investigation to the indictment and arrest. The trial itself took another two years. You may disagree with the laws themselves, but I find it hard to see how the laws were misapplied here. § 485 and § 486 are really quite clear if you read them.
These were not coins. They were not issued under government authority, nor were they represented as such.
That they were not passed as government money is an affirmative defense.
That you idiots keep chiming in making personal attacks and espousing your ignorant perspective as if it was relevant is what makes this site pointless.
I'm not even involved with the Liberty Dollar. Why am I wasting time defending them against people with no integrity like you?
As it is, come on. Their budget is finite.
For those not familiar with them, a Casino Chip has a current denomination ($1, $5, $25, etc) and the name of the Casino on it. For a long time Casinos, as service to their customers, didn't care if you played with another Casino's chips so you could just carry them around from place to place and play them. At the end of the day the Casinos would settle accounts and exchange chips and cash to make it all come out even. It was a great convenience and while occasionally people would try to counterfeit chips, at that time if you were caught doing that you literally disappeared. Of course businesses near the Casinos, 7-11, restaurants, etc, started accepting chips in lieu of cash since they could just walk next door and exchange them for cash. It was a kind of fun and "just one of those things."
And then the secret service came and said "Under the constitution only the US Government can make a currency, stop accepting chips or go to jail." And they did a few stings and there were some high profile wrist slaps (I don't think anyone actually went to jail) and the whole thing stopped.
Had the Liberty Dollar folks read that bit of history they would have seen where their enterprise was headed.
Relinquishing the right to create a currency was one of the pre-requisites to ratifying the Constitution [1] which took that power for the Federal government and removed it from the states and the citizenry.
You're misunderstanding the constitution and what the "right to create currency" means. There are many currencies in circulation, and there have been many state and even private currencies over the years. Even today there are localities that make their own currencies- such as the Ithica Hour http://www.ithacahours.com/
What the constitution reserves to the federal government is merely the power to determine how many grains of silver are contained in a given dollar.
Thus, actually, the current paper US dollar, which is not denominated in silver, is illegal, it is counterfeit!
Thus it is clear that tradition has long ago seperated from the law. But this is relatively recent. In 1930s it was that the government made ownership of gold illegal and switched from silver certificates to unbacked dollars, but even then the dollar was backed internationally with gold, until Nixon closed the Gold window in the 1970s and defaulted the US government.
An excellent book on the history of Money in the USA, is "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
You may be correct, I have noticed a strong correlation however between how the government behaves with respect to alternative currencies and my understanding of the legalities of same. And while I also recognize that correlation is not causation, I find this sort of correlation useful in predicting whether or not my future actions would be viewed as "sanctioned" or "not sanctioned" by law enforcement authorities.
It's certainly true that behaving as the government wants you to results in less hassle, but we should be clear that "not sanctioned by law enforcement authorities" is absolutely not the same as "illegal" in the U.S.
As a side point paper money is obviously extremely vulnerable if abused (see Zimbabwe) however the idea that your money supply should be dictated by mining is beyond primitive. Periods of rapid economic expansion will lead to deflation unless the state controls mining and has sufficient mineral reserves which then becomes the same thing as printing money.
Any modern currency reform should instead concentrate on public banking with a Fiat currency. This combination allows for controlled market expansion, with the everyday banking profits being distributed across the commonwealth. It should be noted that this would have no affect on the profits of investment banking, and would not require any substantial change to our current US Dollar economy.
To me what is shocking is that most people thing the Federal Reserve (which is probably the most powerful institution in the country) is part of the government and not privately owned.
I work for a very large bank and most employees here think you're crazy if you tell them the Fed is a private bank.
This is similar to the way Pachinko parlors work in Japan and Taiwan - you collect a ball from the machine when you win, and with a certain amount of balls you can receive various token prizes. This prize can then be redeemed around the corner at a different location for cash. Cash was exchanged - there were just middlemen involved - but it still comes down to gambling.
If you are intending to replace currency with something else not produced by the government, then you are not bartering, you are introducing private currency and that is illegal.
Disney Dollars: http://www.disneydollars.net/ BerkShares: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jul2007/sb20070.... Buy Local—With Town Currency Dollar alternatives, such as BerkShares in Massachusetts, are shoring up local economies by keeping money in the community Microsoft Points: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Live/MicrosoftPoints Pittsboro Plenty: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/9/north_carolina_town_pri....
But on the note of the parent:
> Where does one draw the line between bartering with chips and paying with chips?
It's not bartering when you are trying to get around things intentionally.
Don't bother, I don't care. I'm just amazed at the BS this topic has elicited from people, and I am done defending these guys.
All the BS is just proof of why the country is going to hell- why the FBI was able to steal $7M in gold, silver and platinum and get away with it.
It is because you, and the rest of the ignorant government "educated" americans can't be bothered to think critically.
According to the documents posted, the poker sites in question are attempting to get around the legalities of U.S. citizens placing monetary wagers or bets on international gambling sites. This would be an intentional circumvention of the law.
The example I posted in regards to Pachinko parlors circumventing their local laws by allowing people to trade in fake token prizes for cash is an example of people circumventing their local law.
There is nothing wrong with bartering or the barter system - and it is perfectly legal in it's intended use, but it can be used to circumvent other laws and would be illegal based on the legal definition of intent. As for the government stealing assets illegally - yeah that's wrong. Confiscation of these .com's bothers me a great deal - but that wasn't the topic I was replying to.
I am not an "ignorant government "educated" american" - and while my self education in legal matters may very well be off at times, I am able to think critically and be reasonable in what I do and don't know.
The problem is, that you are unable to have a conversation with someone that may be right or wrong on a topic - and it might not always be right that you can convince someone of the true nature of matters even if you are right. That doesn't mean you can act like an asshole - which you are. You don't know me, and because of one statement you are more than willing to blame everything you conceive as wrong on someone like "me". Get off your pedestal and learn to have a civil conversation - it's an awesome trait to have.
According to recent California law, "a gift certificate with a cash value of less than ten dollars ($10) is redeemable in cash (not a new certificate or merchandise) for its cash value."
Disney dollars are generally available only in denominations of $10 or less, so they may actually be an incredibly-inconvenient cash equivalent in California.
"Disney Dollars DO NOT expire. The oldest bill from 1987 can still be used today. As they are worth real money. They also may be exchanged back for the U.S. Dollars or purchased using the same.
They may used to pay for anything that can be normally paid for with cash including the following locations: (only Disney locations)"
They are exactly like casino chips, which is to say that within the Disney properties they can be used equivalently to cash, and even converted back into cash.
Given the Las Vegas experience however, I suspect that people in and around Orlando or other Disney locations, who aren't associated with Disney, should not accept them in lieu of cash.
One of the parallels to remember, the Secret Service wasn't going after the casinos for their chips, they were going after people who accepted them as cash even though they had no business relationship with the casino.
[1] http://disneydollars.net/where_can_disney_dollars_be_used.ht...
As it turned out the Digi-cash folks had all the patents and were being real dicks about licensing so we never got to test the question.
I can absolutely predict that if you can buy several hundred thousand dollars worth of bitcoins from person X, and then go to persons P, Q, R, ... Z and redeeem them back for cash, that the authorities will shut down that sort of thing quite quickly.
It's already been done:
That's 400k BTC (about $400k) being sent to a number of different accounts.
edit: Ah, I see your point. You said "redeem back to cash". Yes, that probably wouldn't work in an economy only worth a few million :)
So trading a Malibu Barbie for a Space Barbie, or perhaps a Barbie Dream Home would not be a 'currency' transaction, giving someone a Malibu Barbie to pay for a lunch that was nominally $25 and having the person who got that Barbie then take it and buy $25 worth of groceries, and having the grocer be able to deposit it in their bank account and get credited with $25. That would be treating it like a currency.
There is a wonderful discussion on currency and what it is in the course Economics [1] offered by "The Great Courses". There is a wonderful story about an island which trades ownership interest in large rocks on another island as their currency. If you commute to work I highly recommend these courses as a way to pass the time and learn something (or at least get something to think about) while doing it. Don't be afraid of the price they regularly put things on sale for lots off. And if you have a library nearby you can sometimes check them out.
[1] http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...
update: I remember that one of the key things about the test of whether something was a currency or not, is if it could be exchanged back into another currency. Its one of the things various "points", "miles", and other systems avoid is an explicit path to turn them back into cash. Sure you can buy a $50 VISA gift card and sell it to someone for $50 but its not like you can go to the bank and turn it back into $50.
Segment: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131934618/the-isla...
Entire podcast (also discusses the currency test, IIRC): http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/02/15/131963928/the-frid...
Very interesting.
The test you propose about conversion is at least logically consistent, but it's not what I see applied. For example, Berkshares (local currency in the Berkshires) can be traded for USD but they don't run afowl of currency laws.
The principle here is that you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end of the day it's pretty clear that there's a difference between Liberty Dollars and a cashier's check denoted in US dollars.