Legal Tender Laws

At the very least, we must repeal the legal tender laws that force people to accept the government’s money, and set up a gold coin standard impossible for the politicians and bankers to debase. We should also end the legal monopoly on banking, allow free entry, and make it an open, competitive business like any other.

Legal tender laws tell people what they must accept as payment. If government issues only sound money, such laws are unnecessary. But they become oppressive when government debases the money. When this happens, legal tender laws favor debtors over creditors. But only present debtors are benefitted. Future would-be borrowers are penalized by the scarcity of credit, created by inflation and legal tender laws.

The central bank never set out to protect the integrity of our money. In fact, the Fed set out to destroy it by institutionalizing inflation. The gold coin standard was doomed and today’s inflation made inevitable the day the Federal Reserve was created.

If government is to exercise monetary responsibility, it must be in establishing a 100% gold redeemable currency.

And, notes William Rees-Mogg, “the prize is very great.... Good money (gold) restores reality to the payment for work and to saving. It permits not only the businessman but every citizen to plan his economic life ahead, and fulfill his own plans. It gives a real target not only to great ambitions but also to humble ones. It provides a solid platform for democratic government. It brings inflation to an end. Above all, good money would restore the sanity, the limited and proportionate character, of economic life. It would rid the world not only of inflation, but of the economic hubris which is worse than inflation itself.”