10 ms·

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 s

by nika 15y ago

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.

cynicalkane 15y ago
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 15y 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.
  - cynicalkane 15y ago
    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.
    - nika 15y ago
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/currency 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.
      - williamdix 15y 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.
      - bdonlan 15y 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 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/514.html and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html 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.
- nika 15y ago
  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.
  - jbooth 15y ago
    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."
    - nika 15y ago
      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.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
jonknee 15y ago
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).
- nika 15y ago
  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 http://www.chambersburglibertydollar.com/disclaimer.htm
  - samfoo 15y 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.
    - nika 15y ago
      "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/ 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.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
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 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2124065
- nika 15y ago
  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/ 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.
jbooth 15y ago
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 15y 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.
  - jbooth 15y ago
    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.

by nika 15y ago

cynicalkane 15y ago

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 15y 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.
- cynicalkane 15y ago
  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.
  - nika 15y ago
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/currency 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.
    - williamdix 15y 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.
    - bdonlan 15y 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 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/514.html and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html 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.
nika 15y ago
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.
- jbooth 15y ago
  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."
  - nika 15y ago
    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.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]

jonknee 15y ago

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/486.html It seems extraordinarily cut and dry to me, but I'm not a lawyer (and by your post I assume you're not either).

nika 15y ago
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 http://www.chambersburglibertydollar.com/disclaimer.htm
- samfoo 15y 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.
  - nika 15y ago
    "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/ 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.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

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 http://www.jstor.org/pss/2124065

nika 15y ago
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/ 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.

jbooth 15y ago

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 15y 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.
- jbooth 15y ago
  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.