The Rise of the Gold Bugs (1)

The gold bugs are rising. Even US states, nervous about the failing economy and heavily laden with debt, are jumping on the band wagon.

More and more states are looking at the Utah model of allowing citizens to pay their debts and trade using gold as an alternative to fiat money.

When Governor Gary Herbert signed a bill into law in March 2010, Utah became the first state to stick
its neck out and introduce its own alternative currency recognizing gold and silver coins issued by the U.S. Mint as a legal form of payment. Under the law, gold and silver coins, including American Gold and Silver Eagles, are now treated the same was as U.S. dollars for tax purposes, eliminating capital gains taxes.

However, as the face value of some U.S.-minted gold and silver coins is less than the metal value (one
ounce of gold is now worth more than $1,700), the new law allows the coins to be exchanged at their
market value, based on weight and fineness.

13 states lawmakers including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are looking to
follow suit by currently seeking approval from their state governments to issue their own gold based currency.

"In the event of hyperinflation, depression, or other economic calamity related to the breakdown of the Federal Reserve System ... the State's governmental finances and private economy will be thrown into chaos," said North Carolina Republican Representative Glen Bradley in a currency bill he introduced last year.

The US Constitution(憲法) bans the states from printing their own paper money or issuing their own currency, but does allow states to make "gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts."

“To the state legislators who are proposing stateissued currencies, that means gold and silver are fair
game”, said Edwin Vieira, an alternative currency proponent and attorney specializing in Constitutional
law.

http://www.goldstandardinstitute.net/GSI/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/TheGoldStandard14.pdf