New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it’s not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender.
They sound like real money and look like real money. But you can’t take them to the bank because they’re not made at a government mint. They’re made at private mints. “I sell three or four every single day and then I get one or two back a week,” said Dave Gillie, owner of Gillies Coney Island Restaurant in Genesee Township.
Gillie also accepts silver, gold, copper and other precious metals to pay for food. He says, if he wanted to, he could accept marbles. “Do people have to accept dollars or money? No, they don’t,” Gillie said. “They can accept anything they want or they can refuse to accept anything.”
He’s absolutely right. The U.S. Treasury Department says the Coinage Act of 1965 says “private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash, unless there is a state law which says otherwise.” That allows gas stations to say they don’t accept 50- or $100 bills after a certain time of day in hopes of not getting robbed.
“This establishment accepts any form of silver, gold, chicken, apple pie, if someone works it out with me,” said Jeff Kotchounian of Deerfield Chiropractic. “I’ve taken many things.”
Well, we have a lot of people in Michigan with goods and services to offer, and most people have little or no Fed Reserve Notes.
Necessity is the mother of invention. From what I’ve seen of Michigan, without barter and local currencies, the local economy would be in even worse shape than it already is.
Besides, when a small number of people have hoarded all of the money and are refusing to even -lend- it out, let alone -hire- people and spread it around that way, what are we supposed to do? Starve? Sit at home and do nothing?
#15 Ralph said, “And the IRS only takes US currency.”
Not true. The IRS will happily seize your assets if you have no money available.
Hey, at least it’s not a bad as N.Korea. Leave them be!
You have to take a closer look at the laws and you’ll find that not paying your income taxes is not illegal. The Constitution only allows for excise taxes which the consumer never really sees except for in the price of the product they buy. So to claim that other forms of currency and bartering is illegal is completely false. The IRS and the Government only criminalize those who choose not to pay as a way to bully others to pay up.
“The Constitution only allows for excise taxes…” (#24, Victoria)
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” – Sixteenth Amendment