Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Well this is kind of interesting:

A bill being considered in the Montana Legislature blasts the Federal Reserve’s role in America’s money policy and permits the state to conduct business in gold and silver instead of the Fed’s legal tender notes.

I doubt this will get any traction , these sorts of things rarely do….but its a nice shot at the current situation. While I’d be amused at tossing a couple 1 oz. gold coins onto the counter at the propety tax  desk I can forsee all sortsa problems with this sort of thing. For example, the person that comes to court and wants to pay their fines in 14k gold chains or some such crap. Will every government office have to have an assayer in it? I suppose you could make it so that payment had to be in a form of metal that was at least 90% pure, allowing folks to pay with their old silver dimes and quarters but not with other coins that have only trace amounts of silver/gold in them.

The article is a tiny bit misleading in that US minted gold/silver coins are already legal tender…they’re stamped right on them with their value (”Five Dollars”, “Twenty Dollars”, etc) but their value is dwarfed by the value of the metal the coin is composed of. You could pay your taxes with gold coins perfectly legally you’d be, in effect, spending $1000 to pay with a $20 coin.

Like I said, it’s an interesting idea but really more of just a political statement than anything else. I do like the fact that it’s coming from my home state, though.