Are "competing currencies" already allowed?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm reminded of SPC and the rest of the braindead Libertarians proposing this, but actually it's already true. If I wanted to open a store that accepted only Monopoly money as payment, I could legally do so. It just wouldn't last long because the idea of "competing currencies" is stupid on its face.

And actually it has been tried recently. Remember this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flooz.com

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I suppose that makes sense. After all, if only privatized currencies existed, stores could refuse to accept certain currencies.

     Of course, probably only now is the concept of competing currencies even remotely viable given that the exchange rates could be tracked by computer. It's still a uselessly complicated waste of time, though.

[Bono]

No, you have to accept dollars because of legal tender laws.

[2952-0-0]

Ironically competing currencies exist largely in communist countries as a way for the government to control activity. In Cuba there is the ordinary Peso which ordinary citizens use to buy daily goods, and there's the convertible Peso which is pegged to the dollar and which can buy foreign goods. It's illegal to convert between the two, but a black market exists anyways.

[© tweed]

No, you have to accept dollars because of legal tender laws.

true, but if BRTD were to start his Monopoly money store, he could set the prices in legal tender astronomically high as to de facto forbid any purchases with actual cash.

[dead0man]

Where do I get my ticket to the braindead Libertarian convention?  I must have been digging my fallout shelter or getting stoned (or both) when that memo arrived and I missed it.

[SPC]

No, you have to accept dollars because of legal tender laws.

Exactly. While one could use competing currencies (Liberty Dollar, for instance, of course the feds busted them for "counterfeiting", even though no Federal Reserve Notes have a denomination with Ron Paul on them), the legal tender laws ensure that if you use the FRNs, you will get service, whereas you have a lower chance of getting service if you use a private currency. Thus, this gives the FRNs an unfair advantage, since Gresham's Laws says that under legal tender laws, one would be more likely to use the less valuable currency than the more valuable currency. If legal tender laws were abolished, and the FBI stopped raiding private mints on bogus counterfeit charges, then we might have competing currencies.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

yes

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No, you have to accept dollars because of legal tender laws.

Not so.  It is true that if you make use of debt you have to accept dollars as a means to settle that debt, but if you don't offer credit, you are under no obligation to accept dollars.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

No, you have to accept dollars because of legal tender laws.

Exactly. While one could use competing currencies (Liberty Dollar, for instance, of course the feds busted them for "counterfeiting", even though no Federal Reserve Notes have a denomination with Ron Paul on them), the legal tender laws ensure that if you use the FRNs, you will get service, whereas you have a lower chance of getting service if you use a private currency. Thus, this gives the FRNs an unfair advantage, since Gresham's Laws says that under legal tender laws, one would be more likely to use the less valuable currency than the more valuable currency. If legal tender laws were abolished, and the FBI stopped raiding private mints on bogus counterfeit charges, then we might have competing currencies.

The primary problem with the "Liberty" Dollar was that it purported to be U.S. dollar that was issued without authorization from the U.S. government by establishing a fixed exchange rate with the U.S dollar.  And lets face it, considering that people have passed fake $200 bills (a denomination that has never been issued), it's not a stretch to believe that a fair number of the people who accepted "Liberty"s did so because they thought they were U.S. dollars.

But worse than that, it was as a scam.  Users were supposed to buy "Liberty"s at a price higher than what gold and silver bullion cost, but lower than the face value put on them so they could pass them off on ignoramuses who thought they had the same value as a U.S. dollar.

[Free Trade is managed by the invisible hand.]

does casino and arcade money count?