Rand Paul: What If Companies Could Create Their Own Currencies? | Hacker News Reader

Rand Paul: What If Companies Could Create Their Own Currencies?

finance.yahoo.com

9 pointsprostoalex15 comments

Does he mean like old mining or lumber towns where the companies would pay in scrip and extract even more from the employees with the high markup at the company store?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip

They can only extract "even more" if employees don't look at how big the markup is before signing up for the job. You can't get ripped off unless at the point of the gun, or lazy.

Or have no other way to feed yourself?

Then that isn't the problem of 1 employer but a systemic problem.

> "Because I’m sort of a believer in currency having value," Paul said in a separate interview, "if you’re going to create a currency, have it backed up by—you know, Hayek used to talk about a basket of commodities? You could have a basket of stocks, and have some exchangeability, because it’s hard for people like me who are a bit tangible. But you could have an average of stocks. I’m wondering if that’s the next permutation."

What? "Aw shucks, silly ol' me, you know, fiat currencies just seem like voodoo to my good ol' down-home values. You know, just, uh, what's it worth, ya know? I'm just sayin' I don't understand all this gobbeldy-gook these economists are throwing around, but I know I don't trust it."

> What if Bitcoin or Wal-Coin was exchangeable for Wal-Mart stock?

Does he understand how stock or bitcoin function? I would really hope somebody at the forefront of the fight against the Fed and the dollar would understand these things more than your average biologist.

This doesn't strike me as the best of ideas, but I do love the thought of a future wherein the news reports that everyone's savings accounts devalued a certain amount against the dollar because Walmart didn't meet their quarterly earnings or whatever.

That all said, I suppose this could exist today, if there was a payment processor who could transact vanguard shares.

There is, but it costs something like $40 to transfer your shares, and so only companies do it when they want to buy other companies, or do big deals.

All my respect for Ron Paul, but with this interview, Rand leaves me the impression he has no clue about currencies or economy. And that "I have a biology degree" remark only makes it worse. It's like "Vote me, I know a lot about cells and organisms".

He was saying that he isn't very educated on the topic. It was a humbling qualifier, not a brag or appeal to his expertise.

It just strikes me as a little funny that Rand Paul might be supporting cryptocurrencies on their face, considering he (like his father) prefers to have currencies backed by something.

I guess that's why he is so intrigued by the corporate stock idea.

His father expressed skepticism about Bitcoin for the exact reason you have said. But ultimately while he supported the gold standard for the USA's official currency, he also supported "currency competition" where people could issue private currencies so anybody could opt out of the dollar. Whether one thinks the idea is stupid or viable, it was actually at least consistent.

It's not like it hasn't been tried in our history before:

http://i.imgur.com/LTolA7A.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/baNAKIP.jpg

The obvious solvency problems you might expect largely did occur

Wouldn't this just trade effectively more or less at the same price as corporate bonds?

Here is this piece of paper, I promise you it is worth this much at this time.

Isn't this basically what Reddit Notes were going to be?

Then corporations could rob poor people EVEN EASIER!

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