We all live in Ron Paul’s America now:

The Utah House of Representatives has approved a bill that allowing gold and silver coins to be used as currency, though unlike similar bills in other states, it doesn’t force anyone to accept gold or silver as legal tender.
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The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Galvez explained: “This is a step in preparedness, a step in security that allows us to be able to help hold up our economy as the dollar continues to shrink.”

TPM says that at least ten states have introduced gold currency bills in the last two years.

36 replies on “Is Utah Going Back to the Gold Standard?”

  2. Is it a felony crime to pass fools gold as real gold? Cause its probably 10x easier to forge fake gold than it is to print fake 20$ bills.

  4. Talk about empty posturing. What are the practical effects of this kind of legislation other than trying to undermine the legitimacy of the federal government? I wish the Republitards would have hated the federal government as much when George the Second was in power.

  5. I didn’t know it was currently illegal anywhere to use gold and silver coins as currency. If the coin that says “1 oz. fine silver” really is 1 oz. of silver, why shouldn’t one party be able to use it if the other is willing to accept it?

  6. There are the people who live in and are comfortable with the modern age, and those who are scared of it, even if it is their native age.

  7. With gold constantly changing value, it’ll be hard to have a standardized gold coin, unless, like Rillion@5 suggests, it’s all based on weight. But then 1oz Fine Silver might buy you a nice cow today, it might not buy you a nice bicycle tomorrow.

    Plus, making change for that shit is a bitch.

  9. This wouldn’t have anything to do with Glenn Beck and his gold speculator friends, would it? There’s no way some of those gold hustlers have been going around to easily bribed state legislators and passing vanity laws that have no impact other than to feed the hype that fuels gold prices. Couldn’t happen. That kind of thing never happens.

  10. @2: Pyrite isn’t malleable. You could try carving it, but it’s also pretty hard, so you’re probably going to need at least tungsten to cut it with.

  13. Conservatives think our best days are behind us, and push hard to take us into the past.

    Liberals think our best days are ahead of us, and push hard to take us into the future.

    It’s a good thing that the actual flow of time is on the side of the liberals.

  14. Mormons are obsessed with the impending collapse of civilization. They also have this bizarre mythology that someone finding a magnificent cache of gold in the Dream Mine will bring on the End Times. That Utah is the first state to pass this law should surprise no one.

  15. @10 fools gold is pretty obviously not gold to anybody who’s seen real gold. However it would be easy to mix up something that was only somewhat gold. Maybe pass off 10 Carat gold as 24 Carat gold.

    Is this really a problem though? Do they really think that the reason people aren’t using gold as currency is because there wasn’t a law making it legal? Do they think there are people out there who will now say “Oh! great! Last week I wouldn’t take that gold coin to pay for your groceries but now that the legislature says it’s ok I will.”

  16. @10 “Pyrite”

    And theres tons of it in Wenatchee and aparently Utah has no shortage of fools. Not that it would work out great, but for people who counterfit paper money, its going to be a field day.

  19. Don’t bash the Gold currency as being a conservative backward looking idea. I’m a liberal first and foremost and what one must recognize is that the Federal Reserve System is antithetical to the principals of our ideology. It perpetuates boom and bust cycles, destroys the value of our savings through perpetual inflation (which bars poorer people from saving up enough to make it to the middle-class) and worst of all gives Congress a never ending supply of money that they can blow on any immoral thing they want: A.K.A. the War In Iraq and insane levels of ‘Defense’ (Imperialism) spending. Without the Fed around to print all the money and then make us pay it back to them PLUS Interest (the National Debt) the Republicans would have to raise taxes to fund their oil conquests. Lets see how long public support for the Iraq War lasts when Republicans are told they have to pay taxes on it. This is one of the few issues that both parties can agree on, and surprisingly its one of the most important issues there is. Death to the Fed and death slavery, God Bless America, lets have sound money once again.

  21. And they forgot what a fucking mess it was when every state had their own coins and the massive amount of fraud and swindling that went on.

    Some areas took all coinage, others distrust ones printed outside the state, coin shaving was common, weights were rigged, people plated silver coins with a thin veneer of gold to pass off as more valuable coins, etc. etc.

    Also: Isn’t this illegal? I was certain due to that mess they made that only the Federal Government can mint coins.

  23. Furthermore, what Utah is doing is not that radical in that they are not getting rid of the Fiat currency but simply giving citizens the option to choose between fiat money and real money. In time if this idea spreads to other states you will quickly recognize the superiority of Gold and Silver. The Fed can’t simply print more Gold and devalue the Gold you have and the government can’t hyperinflate gold to make their liabilities to bond holders become worthless if they feel like it. The only disadvantages of Gold and Silver currency to paper currency today is simply that our economic infrastructure has gotten used to and been deliberately tied to phony monopoly money (Federal Reserve notes) by the few elite who benefit from its use over real money. People aren’t used to Gold in the modern age, but that is its only disadvantage and that is a small one compared to the knowledge that if you have a gold coin in your hand today it will ALWAYS be worth something no matter what shenanigans our elected officials and monetary ‘experts’ might get up to. Give people the chance to choose between Federal Reserve debt money (that’s where your Income Tax goes, not to roads or schools) and Gold and inevitably they will turn to specie. It will only take an adjustment period for people to get reacquainted with precious metal. That is a small price to pay for secure money, especially if fiat money is still used too for those who for whatever reason prefer fiat debt money. Give people the choice between the two and they will all eventually gravitate to gold. It is simply a system of checks and balances. If the Fed wants to compete with gold and keep their banking system viable they will be forced to be more responsible with managing the currency instead of being allowed to inflate it til it is worth next to nothing as they have done since 1913. Where do you think all that bailout money came from? Do you think there was some bank with 700 Billion dollars sitting in an account to give to the insolvent banks? No. The Fed, the system that props up all the banking industry simply magicked that money into existence by printing it and selling in it exchange for interest bearing securities (bonds) that we the people must pay back to them, with interest no less. “It is well that the American people do not understand their banking system for if they did I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” -Henry Ford

  24. 20 & 24 – Maybe I was right after all. “The world is complicated, scary and out to get you. Get safe – Get GOLD!”*

    * often spelled “Gould” for added effect.

  27. “If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, having behind us the producing masses of the nation and the world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.”

    http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/

  29. He also said: “We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin money and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation.”-which is the opposite of our current system.

  32. You should see the other asinine things this legislature has passed in the past few days. But it goes from batshit crazy in Utah to fucking nuts in Arizona, so everything (and in Utah’s case, everyone) is relative.

  33. Why do these traitors hate our Constitution?

    The Congress shall have power . . . To coin Money [and] regulate the Value thereof . . . .

    Article I, Section 8.

    No State shall . . . coin Money . . . .

    Article I, Section 9.

  34. @24: Yes, I am very interested in tying our monetary policy to the productivity of Russian and South African gold mines. They should control whether our economy contracts or expands.

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