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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Paid in Dollars?
Message-ID: <1049@proper.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Mar-84 00:42:17 EST
Article-I.D.: proper.1049
Posted: Tue Mar  6 00:42:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Mar-84 10:05:49 EST
References: <243@teldata.UUCP>
Organization: Proper UNIX, San Leandro, CA
Lines: 27

> From: shad@teldata.UUCP  (Warren N. Shadwick)

> But since Article I Section 10 of the United States Constitution pro-
> hibits States from making "any Thing but gold and silver coin a tender
> in payment of debts", only the gold and silver coin is the true money
> of account of the U.S.  Look closely, it does not say gold or silver
> coin nor does it say gold and/or silver coin, it says gold AND silver
> coin.  The wording, as it should be in law, is exact and binding.

Look more closely.  It refers to the limitations on STATES, not the
federal government.  Furthermore, in Article I Section 8 we find:
"The Congress shall have power ... to coin money [and] regulate
the value theirof...", which theirby usurps the States power to coin
money.

> this would lead through the above equations to be:

>	1 FRN = $0.0516

Your Federal Reserve Notes have value not because they can be exchanged
for some amount of gold or silver (which are after all just other
commodities one can buy with FRN's), but because all of us have
collectively agreed to say "$1 buys a dozen eggs" or "$8000 buys a
new car" -- money has worth because we believe it has worth,
and because we are willing to exchange it for goods and services.

Money is worth what it buys, nothing more.