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smallblacksun 5543 days ago

As linked in another reply, the law deals with coins "of gold or silver or other metal".

Visa is a currency. So are travellers checks and regular old checking checks and coupons. All of these are also denominated in dollars. If you were to take some time and study the actual laws, and also check out the legal opinions, from members of boards of federal reserve branches, as well as the secret service and lawyers that were obtained before the Liberty Dollar project was started you'd recognize just how absurd this case is.

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.

I lived in Las Vegas in the 70's when the Secret Service stepped in and shut down the process of people paying for things with Casino Chips.

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.

[1] http://www.jstor.org/pss/2124065

colanderman 5543 days ago

This doesn't make any sense to me... is bartering illegal? Where does one draw the line between bartering with chips and paying with chips?

[1] http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.asp...

No bartering is not illegal. Neither is buying, selling, and trading collectible Barbies. What is considered to be illegal (and I'm not a lawyer so I can't say definitively if it is or isn't) is creating an instrument, which represents a value (possibly fixed), and engaging in commerce using the instruments in lieu of the actual thing.

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.

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.

Splines 5543 days ago

Planet Money had a segment about the rocks-as-currency island:.

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.

colanderman 5543 days ago

The Barbie example doesn't really make much sense. I could just as easily say I'm trading Malibu Barbie which is nominally worth $25 for a Space Barbie which is nominally worth the same, and run afowl of currency laws. Or that I'm trading Space Barbie for lunch with no mention of nominal worth and call it barter.

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.

elliottcarlson 5543 days ago

Depends on the intentions... are you a farmer bartering your crops for another farmers meat; or are you knowingly circumventing laws.

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.

There is no law prohibiting private currency.

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....

Nika, none of the issuers you mention will convert back into dollars. Its a one way street. Presumably they have set up agreements with people who will accept them an they have pre-negotiated a discount rate. Its like chucky cheese tokens, you can't turn them back into quarters so that you can play more video games.

elliottcarlson 5543 days ago

You are right - as long as the nomination is exchangeable for U.S. currency and all transactions are taxed accordingly.

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.

I won't attempt to argue that the Liberty Dollar wasn't a misguided enterprise. Even when the law is on your side, the fact that the government controls the courts assures that you'll never get a fair trial.

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're misunderstanding the constitution and what the 'right to create currency' means."

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.

cookiecaper 5543 days ago

Right, but the point of this discussion is indicating the abuses the government perpetrates on the people, not the practicality of running an alternative enterprise if you don't want your life destroyed. Everyone knows that doing something like Liberty Dollar is greatly frowned upon, and that the feds will dispose of that as quickly as they can. Some people choose to do it anyway for the effect. You can think of it as a protest, I guess.

shpxnvz 5543 days ago

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.

dia80 5543 days ago

I listened to a lecture by the author of "The Creature from Jekyll Island" where he made some outrageous claims about the ownership of the Fed. I was trading US Govt. bond futures at the time and we went to some pains to understand the federal reserve system and to say he erred in fact is being generous. It was full of slavering nonsense, often with anti semetic overtones.

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.

ynniv 5543 days ago

I haven't read "The Creature from Jekyll Island," but I have seen some good citations. It's probably better taken as an exposition of the motives of private central banking than an argument for a gold standard. The complication in US history comes from a private central banking cartel (the Federal Reserve) using the departure from a gold standard to their own profit. Through this (naive) lens, returning to a gold standard would help to keep monetary tricks in check.

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.

nomurrcy 5543 days ago

What kind of outrageous claims? (Just curious)

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.

dpatru 5543 days ago

Can you cite some specific claims where the lecture was wrong?

What the Constitution allows and disallows is a matter of the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution at the time. You have yet to make an argument that the federal government's seizure contradicts the established jurisprudence on this topic.

Visa is a currency. So are travellers checks and regular old checking checks and coupons

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.

blhack 5543 days ago

Could you elaborate on this for me? It sounds like what they're saying makes perfect sense (btw, there is really no need for the --or high school economics-- jab).

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.

Currency refers to physical money. A gift card isn't "money" because it's only a medium of exchange at a few specific places. Credit cards aren't currency because they are simply pointers to a line of credit, which isn't physical money.

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.

bmelton 5543 days ago

I believe it is you who is wrong. Wikipedia's first sentence on 'currency' is this:

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.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, in what courtroom does a 1-sentence wikipedia definition of "currency" followed by some blogger exposition constitute what is and is not creating an alternative currency?

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.

kelnos 5542 days ago

But when you pay with a credit card, you're not exchanging the card itself for goods or services. You're asking a third party to pay (in real US currency) for the goods and services, and promising to the third party that you will reimburse them.

What the heck? That's exactly the same as what I said.

Money is an object or record that serves as a medium of exchange.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/currency

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.

bdonlan 5543 days ago

If you looked at the actual laws the liberty dollar is cited as allegedly violating - http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/514.html and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html - you'll find it's quite specific about what is a problem; the former law makes illegal attempts to fraudulently pass off your currency a official US currency, and the latter makes it illegal to mint _metallic coins_ for use as current money. Gift cards/visa cards etc aren't easily mistaken for official US currency, and they're not metallic coins, nor is the physical object exchanged as money would be. So, they're not related to the liberty dollar case.

Please don't cite dictionary definitions. A dictionary will give you every possible meaning of the word, in any context.

In the context of economics and law, currency is physical money.

I think you are more interested in winning the argument than being correct.

williamdix 5543 days ago

I'm not sure that the dictionary definition of currency really matters here. I assume/hope that there is a legal definition of currency. Also, I think it will be very difficult to discuss this constructively without legal opinions on the definition of currency.

Macro and micro economics are AP tests... thousands of schools across the country teach classes in the topic.

My understanding of economics is sufficient that I understood we'd be having a housing bubble in 2001, and by 2007, I'd profited massively from it and gotten out, well before the crash of 2008. All of that came from my application of economic principles.

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.

Having made money in the past through whatever means doesn't mean you know what you're talking about at all here.

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."

One of the signs you're dealing with a troll is that their ignorance is all the justification they need to make personal attacks, and they stay relentlessly focused on such attacks while failing to provide any substantive argument for their position. Often even failing to actually state their position.

There are too many trolls on HN. This is why the site sucks.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html

jonknee 5543 days ago

It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).

It would be cut and dry if you could show any "utterances" from the Liberty Dollar / NORFED, where they represented their products as US government money.

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

samfoo 5543 days ago

> Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title [1] or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. [Emphasis mine.]

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.

"They were minting physical coins."

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.

bdonlan 5543 days ago

> No, they were not: "a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as mony"

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.

Symmetry 5543 days ago

The law he cites rather explicitly said "in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design" are all covered. Metal coins of original design are still illegal to manufacture (though I'd agree they shouldn't be).

jotr99 5543 days ago

Interesting, as I have a number of Chuck E. Cheese tokens that appear to fit this description. Why don't we ever hear about FBI raids of kids' pizza / video game parlors?

Vivtek 5543 days ago

I suspect that if the use of Chuck E. Cheese tokens as a medium of exchange were to become widespread in a given locale (one with the profile of Las Vegas) the Secret Service would take a similar interest.

As it is, come on. Their budget is finite.

Probably because they are only meant for use inside Chuck E. Cheese stores.

The first definition of coin: "a piece of metal stamped and issued by the authority of a government for use as mony"

These were not coins. They were not issued under government authority, nor were they represented as such.

Your pretend definition of what a "coin" is has no relevance in a court of law. They were printed metal tokens that had passing similarity to US coinage. The fact that they weren't issued by the authority of the government is the problem, not the solution.

wtn 5543 days ago

Shouldn't have printed the words "Dollar" and "USA" on the damn coins.

No, they are not currencies, they are payment methods for dollars. A note that you owe someone some amount of dollars is entirely different from saying, repeatedly, in advertisements, that you're an "alternative currency".

gloob 5543 days ago

Normally I wouldn't be this pedantic, but in a discussion about currency, it's worthwhile specifying whether you mean American dollars, $some_other_country's dollars, or the Platonic form of dollars.

I meant US dollars, but now that I think of it, you can do transactions in any currency using Visa, which is more evidence that they're a payment system rather than a competing currency like "visabucks" or something.

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.