From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Tue, 7 Jan 1997 21:11:05 -0800 (PST)
To: toto@sk.sympatico.ca
Subject: Re: Inflation-index bonds and private e-currency
In-Reply-To: <199701062213.XAA20921@internal-mail.systemics.com>
Message-ID: <32D2F907.2748@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Toto wrote:
> Gary Howland wrote:
> > But digital currencies will never become fiat currencies, let alone legal
> > tender, unless governments say they are.  So why should they worry?  (OK, OK,
> > they will worry about tax evasion etc. etc.) 
> Exactly. How can they claim, on one hand, that something does not
> qualify as currency, or as legal tender, and then turn around and tax
> it? If I have 10 Million UNITS that aren't considered to legally be of
> value, then I'm certainly not going to 'go easy' to tax court.
> Any currency that becomes sufficiently distributed and traded will
> find itself becoming a 'legal entity' in some form or another. Once it
> has been 'entityenized' (don't bother looking for that word in the
> dictionary), it will be a short step for it to achieve a quantifiable
> status among other currencies.  [snip]

One should always look at the Mike Milken example of an alternate
currency.  This has not been reported from this point of view in, say,
the NY Times that I know of, but some "underground" publications have
done so.

The Wall Street Cabal (as they say) was genuinely frightened that since
Milken was so successful with high-yield bonds, they deliberately created
the term Junk Bonds and flooded the markets with appropriate propaganda,
and thereby killed off their competition.  How they turned it into a
criminal offense is truly an art.