From: The Deviant <deviant@pooh-corner.com>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 04:17:15 -0800 (PST)
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Not. [Was Re: Federal Reserve Bank is ILLEGAL?]
In-Reply-To: <199611130658.WAA07455@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.94.961113121435.596A-100000@random.sp.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Tue, 12 Nov 1996, jim bell wrote:

> At 02:11 AM 11/13/96 +0000, The Deviant wrote:
> >On Tue, 12 Nov 1996, jim bell wrote:
> >
> >> At 11:57 PM 11/11/96 -0500, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
> >>  Indeed, if Congress chose to license
> >> >private mints, that would, IMHO be legal.  The point here is that the
> >> >states don't have the power to coin money.
> >> 
> >> But, apparently, during the 1800's states (?) and individual banks did 
> >> indeed print their own currency.
> >> 
> >> The way I see it, a positive statement in the Constitution that the Feds 
> >> have the power to coin money does not necessarily exclude other 
> >> people/banks/states/foreign countries from doing likewise.
> >> 
> >
> >Hrmm.. One might point out that the only thing required for someone to
> >"mint" (and I use this term loosely) money is for popular belief that the
> >money is worth something.  What do you think a cashier's check is?  Other
> >notable versions are (and I'm sure somebody is going to say "but its
> >represintative of the US Dollar", even though its all dealing with money
> >that really isn't there) is AmEx, MasterCard, Visa, etc.
> 
> This is yet another reason the Federal government is going to find it so 
> difficult to ban or regulate digital cash.  With the collective precedents 
> of paper money, then checks, then credit cards, then traveler's checks,  
> then debit cards, and so forth, the addition of yet another medium of 
> exchange doesn't appear to be a really new concept.  
> 
> Also, as far as I understand it, there is nothing illegal about spending (or 
> accepting) foreign money inside the US, and in many if not most countries it 
> is, likewise, not illegal to spend foreign money there as well.    
> Obviously, the precedents allowing digital cash far outweigh those which 
> could be marshalled to prohibit it.\
> 

Yes, the precedents for allowing digital cash do outweigh the ones against
it.  To the letter of the law, digital cash is perfectly legal.  Of
course, so is the Federal Reserve Bank, but... ;)

> 
> Jim Bell
> jimbell@pacifier.com
> 

 --Deviant
Let the machine do the dirty work.
		-- "Elements of Programming Style", Kernighan and Ritchie