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Comment by wcoenen | Hacker News Reader

I don't see how the paragraph you quote is contradicting what I said. It is saying that the US dollar can be used as "legal tender" for certain things, but it doesn't define what it means precisely for something to be "legal tender". And that precise meaning was the point I was arguing.

Reference for the definition of legal tender by the UK royal mint:

https://www.royalmint.com/aboutus/policies-and-guidelines/le...?

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https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/currency/pages...

“This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.”

Note note how the word "legal" comes back again there. It doesn't mean "legal" as opposed to illegal. It means "for the purpose of settling things within the legal system".

Anyway, that treasury.gov link is actually a good reference for the original point I was trying to make about the introduction section of the paper: it explains that companies are not obliged to accept legal tender for normal payments.

Normal payments are not debt. If you want to buy a tv at a store, they can decline cash as a form of payment. You don’t owe them. The tv in your cart at the checkout aisle is still theirs. There is no debt.

But if you bought that same tv on an installment plan, they would have to accept payments in cash.

The first one does not involve debt, the second does. That’s the difference.

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