Define "Dollar"

[The Rabbi]

And they are far more accepted the world over for goods and services than gold.  Go to Paris and try giving the waiter a gold sovereign for your meal.

I've been to France...try paying for your meal with Federal Reserve notes and see what happens....

What will happen is they will send the notes out to an exchange and bring you back Euros.
When I was in Hungary in 1991 we bought tickets to Bratislava, then in Czechoslovakia.  We couldn't pay in forints or in krona.  But we could and did pay in U.S. dollars.  Paying in gold coin was not an option.
Gold today is worthless as a currency.  As a medium of exchange it has as much value as pork bellies or orange juice.

[richyoung]

And they are far more accepted the world over for goods and services than gold.  Go to Paris and try giving the waiter a gold sovereign for your meal.

I've been to France...try paying for your meal with Federal Reserve notes and see what happens....

What will happen is they will send the notes out to an exchange and bring you back Euros.

NO.  What will happen, (or at least, DID happen, when I was there), is you had francs on you, or you didn't BUY.  Period.  They no more took dollars than the local McDonaolds takes Euros.  Some Easter European countries have been so desperate for any hard currency that they provide this service as a courtesy to touristas.  Not France.

[The Rabbi]

You were there a while ago then if they used francs.

In many places, like Israel, they price things both in shekels and dollars and you take your pick.
Fact remains: the dollar is the most widely circulating currency and is far more accepted than gold.

[K Frame]

"NO.  What will happen, (or at least, DID happen, when I was there), is you had francs on you, or you didn't BUY.  Period. "

What?

What the hell twilight zone were you in?

In the summers of 1981 and 1983 I spent a total of about 6 weeks in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

Even in the smallest towns the shop keepers were happy to accept dollars at that day's published exchange rate.

Many of the places even had an exchange rate chalk board on which they would write that day's exchange rate for various currencies.

In Paris just about every store we walked into accepted dollars as a matter of standard practice. The only places that didn't accept dollars were the smallest street vendors/kiosks.

Yes, it was easier to get currency exchanged in a local bank before going shopping (or at the cashier at the hotel, if it had one) because it cut down on the amount of coins and bills that you were carting around from various nations.

[Guest]

I consider it worth the risk to attempt to convince members to question the present fiat dollar system. Any time one challenges peoples' worldviews there is bound to be some pain.

The problem with this approach (of which I am sometimes guilty) is that it is condescending to a group of people that don't appreciate the insult to their intelligence.  You always seem to think that you are the only that has questioned "the system," and that we need you to come along and open our eyes.  The truth, however, is that many members of APS have long ago considered the kinds of things you believe in, but dismissed them.  If your point of view is correct, just explain it and tell us why we should agree with you.  Don't treat us like mindless drones who need rescuing.  Like I said, I've been down that road many times, and it doesn't further useful conversation.

 Touché.

[Guest]

The author of the article is a noted Austrian, hard-money economist and according to him, the US dollar is not able to be defined in strict economic terms.

First off, he isn't Austrian.  He's a Mexicano.
Secondly, he isn't an economist.  He's a businessman.
Third, the fact that his "middle" name (I dont know the correct term for this) is Salinas, which is also the name of a past president, leads me to believe he has some connection to politics and thus some kind of agenda.

So I think we've established he has no more credentials than I do.  We can certainly define the dollar in "strict economic terms" (whatever that means) as:
"The unit of currency in use by the U.S."  We can further define currency as "money" and money as "a store of value for exchange for goods and services."

So you have failed to show that the current system is anything other than what it is.  As for faith evaporating overnight: it hasn't happened yet and there is no reason to think it will in the foreseeable future.  Anything beyond that is idle speculation, like whether Fistful will make an honest woman of Brittany Spears.

 From the first paragraph of the link:

 "HUGO SALINAS PRICE, 75, is a retired businessman who lives in Mexico. He has been a follower of the Austrian School of Economics since his youth."

 Sorry if some misunderstood "Austrian, hard-money economist" (A long-time student of Austrian economics that advocates commodity money).

[The Rabbi]

Maybe more precise and accurate would have been
"Mexican businessman who has studied the Austrian school of economics and is dedicated to hard money."  Wordy, yes.

[K Frame]

"Sorry if some misunderstood "Austrian, hard-money economist" (A long-time student of Austrian economics that advocates commodity money)."


I've been a hard-core fan of the Philadelphia Phillies since my youth.

Maybe that makes me a professional baseball player?

[richyoung]

"NO.  What will happen, (or at least, DID happen, when I was there), is you had francs on you, or you didn't BUY.  Period. "

What?

What the hell twilight zone were you in?

In the summers of 1981 and 1983 I spent a total of about 6 weeks in France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

In 1977 through 1979, I was LIVING in Europe.

Even in the smallest towns the shop keepers were happy to accept dollars at that day's published exchange rate.

They darn sure didn;t when I was there - of course, thanks to Jimmy Carter, it was trading at 1.21 mark to the dollar, so that may have had somehting to do with it...

Many of the places even had an exchange rate chalk board on which they would write that day's exchange rate for various currencies.

The ONLY place I ever went that accepted foreign currency was East Germany/East Berlin, where they would happily accept West German marks for East German marks - at 1 for 1, (they traded at 1 to 8 at the time, so you can see why...) or the Yankee capitalist dollar at... 1 for 1 (traded at 1 to 12).