[OT] why was private gold ownership made illegal in the US? (Re: "to outlaw general purpose computers")

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 7:31 PM -0500 on 7/2/02, Harmon Seaver wrote:


>    Wasn't the dollar backed by silver for quite awhile? There were definitely
> real silver dollars coined for quite awhile, and the dollar said
>something on it
> about silver certificate. Likewise many smaller coins had a high silver
>content
> -- this ended sometime during Vietnam, not sure the year. I've still got
>a bag
> of silver coins laying around somewhere.

There were silver certificates, yes, and silver coins, until the market
value of the silver exceeded the value stated on the coin. Pennies have a
lot of zinc in them now, for the same reason.

I'm not sure when the silver certificate notes stopped being issued, though
it seems to me that FDR had something to do with that. I'm pretty sure they
were being honored at least into the 1970's, and it seems to me that they'd
just give you $20 worth of silver at market prices if you gave them a
silver certificate, which wasn't much help unless you thought either the
future price of silver was going up, or the dollar going down against
silver sometime later one.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
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"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
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