Jeffrey: "ought the law does distinguish between paper money and coins, and that's why the coin."
Marv: "Could it be because the Constitution is explicit on the authority of the federal government to mint coins, but is silent on paper, which was left to the Supreme Court to decide?" OK, I decided to do some digging on this seemingly all-important coinage law. The answer is absurd. It was actually made pretty clear in the original Firedoglake blog post that everyone mentions. I guess I should have checked there first. That post is here: http://my.firedoglake.com/beowulf/2011/01/03/coin-seigniorage-and-the-irrelevance-of-the-debt-limit/ No, it's not the Second Liberty Bond Act that has anything to do with the coin vs. paper business. That 1917 law sets debt limits, period. Reactionary, hobbling of democracy, designed to favor the interests of the most parasitic segment of the capitalist class, but straighforward and hardly untypical of laws affecting the issuance of money. The key law is apparently something called ยง 5136. United States Mint Public Enterprise Fund, which was issued in 1996: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/31/usc_sec_31_00005136----000-.html This specifically exempts new US Mint issues from counting toward the debt. Or something. So, it's a loophole. This is pathetic. Maybe those "failed states" ideologues should add a new subcategory, "failed developed bourgeois states." On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Marv Gandall <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 2011-07-30, at 6:26 PM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote: > >> i thought the law does distinguish between paper money and coins, and that's >> why the coin. >> >> On Sat, Jul 30, 2011 at 5:19 PM, socialismorbarbarism >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> Yes, yes, I get all that. What I don't understand is: Why a *coin*? >> Why, in the absence of a law specifically banning the issuance of >> paper, is this necessary? Why not paper? > > Could it be because the Constitution is explicit on the authority of the > federal government to mint coins, but is silent on paper, which was left to > the Supreme Court to decide? In the latter part of the 19th century, the > court first ruled that fiat currency was not legal tender, than reversed > itself, ruling that the authority to issue paper was implicit in the right to > issue coin. > > If I were the administration, I'm not sure I'd want to take my chances with > the Roberts Court, although strict constitutionalists like Robert Bork have > scoffed at the idea that a court of any political stripe would in the 21st > century outlaw the circulation of paper money. > > In any event, it would be totally, wholly, unalterably, immutably out of > character for this administration to mint a trillion dollar coin or even to > use the authority of the 14th amendment to smash the debt ceiling. > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
