Only Criminals Use Honest Money - Christopher P. Casey - Mises Institute

Only Criminals Use Honest Money - Christopher P. Casey - Mises Institute: "Fiat money does not exist in prison. Prisoners do not dye sheets of paper green and attempt to circulate them as money. No inmate would accept this as money, not even if the penal equivalent of a Bretton Woods agreement existed between the toughest gangs.

Why is it that criminals continue to use real money in their transactions? Because they have not been fooled otherwise. In The Case Against the Fed, Murray Rothbard detailed the process by which people have been fooled into thinking those green pieces of paper are a proper store of value (the key purpose of money). Once government changed the law to recognize monetary warehouse receipts (dollar bills) as a debtor relationship instead of that of a bailment (the temporary possession of another's property), fractional-reserve banking was born. Fractional-reserve banking is inherently fraudulent.

In contrast, a penitentiary does not include a warehouse issuing receipts for cigarette packs or cans of mack.If they ever do, we know what will follow: fraud (the warehouse issuing notes in excess of deposits), then government-sanctioned fraud, then government-imposed fraud, and finally — The Big House Reserve (perhaps consisting of notes with the warden's picture and Latin phrases)."