Dear #RonPaul and #Paultard #goldbugs — what is #fiatmoney?

Ron Paul, looking about as clueless as his

self-deluded followers./Photo via Wikipedia.

The answer, the real answer and not your made-up answer, as to what currently constitutes fiat money in the United States, is what I’m going to give you right now as part of calling you out on both your hypocrisy but also your shallow thinking.

In today’s United States, fiat money is not just the Federal Reserve Notes you profess to hate. It’s also bank checks, credit cards and debit cards. And that’s not just because they’re dependent on fiat money or a fractional banking system.

Even if they were based on the gold standard, or gold and silver, because those three — bank checks, credit cards and debit cards — are not immediately payable in specie, they’re also fiat money.

Period. End of story.

Therefore, Rep. Paul and Paultard groupies, you should, if you’re logical not only want to destroy the Federal Reserve System, you should also want to destroy the entire banking system of the United States, the entirety of Internet commerce, and a significant fraction of “meatspace” commerce. I know you don’t, because, Rep. Paul, you’ve gotten online “money bombs” for years.

That said, let’s go to point No. 2, where you’re guilty more of shallow thinking rather than hypocrisy.

And, that is in the issue of non-fiat money.

Gold has very little intrinsic value. It’s only given a largely speculative value on things like commodities exchanges because of human greed. Its fellow precious metal, silver, has much more intrinsic value.

That said, other substances, some of them compounds, some of them elements, have far, far more intrinsic value than gold

So, Rep. Paul and Paultards, if you really want to end fiat money, instead of being goldbugs based on non-rational greed, here’s what you should propose as currency/monetary standards instead:

1. Petroleum. The American economy of the last 120 years would be dead and unrecognizable without it. Beyond the automobile and the airplane, don’t forget plastics, fertilizers and much more. Of course, if you think “fiat money” has wrecked the United States, that would be nothing compared to a monetary system under the control of OPEC.

2. Uranium. Without it, and even more the transmutation of U-238 into Pt-239, we couldn’t have been warmongers par excellence for the last 55-60 years. The US has a fair amount of uranium. Of course, unless you want a radioactive Fort Knox, where do you store it?

3. Lead. See “uranium” and extend further back in time US warmongering and imperialism.

4. Silicon. Without it, there’s no computer revolution, no Internet revolution, etc.

5. Lithium. Without it, we’re not going to have a green revolution in terms of rechargeable batteries, etc.

I could cite several more examples, but, if you want a monetary standard for non-fiat money to be relevant to the economy, these and other substances are far more relevant than gold.

Oh, and try reading some history, too. China was using paper money 1,000 years ago, when Europe was in the Dark Ages.

Or combine history with philosophy. You might, just might, realize that money itself is a “fiat” replacement for barter.