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Because it is not realistic. In every nation that has ever existed, the supplier of money has always been a monopolist. And this is precisely because the suppli

Because it is not realistic. In every nation that has ever existed, the supplier of money has always been a monopolist. And this is precisely because the supplier has requested taxes to be paid in that currency that they supply. If you have multiple suppliers of money, then you literally destroy the entire basis of the state. The whole thing comes crashing down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartalism

WalterBright 4y ago
> In every nation that has ever existed, the supplier of money has always been a monopolist. In the era of free banking in the US, banks issued their own currency.
- SSJPython 4y ago
  What do you mean by their own currency? They still issued USD, which was the only legal currency.
  - logicchains 4y ago
    No, they literally created their own currencies and issued them.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > What do you mean by their own currency? I mean exactly that. They issued banknotes (that's why paper money is sometimes called banknotes). The banknotes were denoted in dollars, like bank checks today. Here's an article with some pictures: https://thismatter.com/money/banking/history/free-banking-national-banking-system.htm https://thismatter.com/money/banking/history/free-banking-na...
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > They still issued USD, which was the only legal currency. As I recall, they issued the paper version of stablecoins: they were denominated in units of US dollars, but they weren’t government money, and they traded at floating values, typically (aside from many other factors influencing value) declining in value with distance from the issuing bank.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      The discount on the notes was inevitably related to the probability that the issuing bank would honor the notes and redeem them with gold. When the Fed lost all credibility with exchanging their banknotes for gold, we had the Great Depression. FDR then defaulted on the gold bonds, basically stealing from the good citizens who had trusted the government.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > When the Fed lost all credibility with exchanging their banknotes for gold, we had the Great Depression This was not a cause of the Great Depression. (You are correct on the default, however.)
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > era of free banking in the US, banks issued their own currency The free banking era illustrates the problem. Rates are endogenous to the money supply. That circularity promotes a hyper-volatile credit cycle. There is no natural counter-balance we’ve discovered to that tendency. (Apart from ruinous boom-and-bust cycles.)

WalterBright 4y ago

> In every nation that has ever existed, the supplier of money has always been a monopolist. In the era of free banking in the US, banks issued their own currency.

SSJPython 4y ago
What do you mean by their own currency? They still issued USD, which was the only legal currency.
- logicchains 4y ago
  No, they literally created their own currencies and issued them.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > What do you mean by their own currency? I mean exactly that. They issued banknotes (that's why paper money is sometimes called banknotes). The banknotes were denoted in dollars, like bank checks today. Here's an article with some pictures: https://thismatter.com/money/banking/history/free-banking-national-banking-system.htm https://thismatter.com/money/banking/history/free-banking-na...
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > They still issued USD, which was the only legal currency. As I recall, they issued the paper version of stablecoins: they were denominated in units of US dollars, but they weren’t government money, and they traded at floating values, typically (aside from many other factors influencing value) declining in value with distance from the issuing bank.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    The discount on the notes was inevitably related to the probability that the issuing bank would honor the notes and redeem them with gold. When the Fed lost all credibility with exchanging their banknotes for gold, we had the Great Depression. FDR then defaulted on the gold bonds, basically stealing from the good citizens who had trusted the government.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > When the Fed lost all credibility with exchanging their banknotes for gold, we had the Great Depression This was not a cause of the Great Depression. (You are correct on the default, however.)
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> era of free banking in the US, banks issued their own currency The free banking era illustrates the problem. Rates are endogenous to the money supply. That circularity promotes a hyper-volatile credit cycle. There is no natural counter-balance we’ve discovered to that tendency. (Apart from ruinous boom-and-bust cycles.)