Once upon a time, America’s money was based on real value that could be held in one’s hand. A dollar is still defined in the Constitution as a silver coin containing 371.25 grains of pure silver. Gold and silver coins or currency backed by gold and silver were the only legal tender.
Fiat money notes were forbidden. When our country was founded, a solitary cent (commonly called a ‘penny’ today) was a substantial slab of solid copper. (Today a cent is zinc disc with a thin layer of copper on the outside.) A nickel, also known as a ‘half dime’ in the 1800s always had some copper in it. During WWII there was a nickel shortage and so the nickels were actually 35 percent silver and the rest copper. Continue reading
Economic sanctions serve as a powerful foreign policy tool for the US government. But could this ultimately backfire on the US?
In the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA), savings are established as the difference between disposable money income and monetary outlays. Disposable income is defined as the summation of all personal money income less tax payments to the government. Personal income includes wages and salaries, transfer payments, income from interest and dividends, and rental income. 
In 1690, Massachusetts Bay Colony embarked upon a short-lived experiment in unbacked paper money. It did not go well.
“We’re in a situation now where, uh, um, you know, you should have peace of mind.”
One of the more famous ethologists in recent decades was John B. Calhoun, best known for his mouse experiments in the 1960s. To what extent do the mouse utopia lessons apply to humans?
Modern currencies such as Bitcoin expect to find success in a more technological world, but a new currency known as Goldbacks might corner the post-apocalyptic currency market.
