Cities "abandoning" US dollar?

General Questions
#1

One of the crackpot-right sites I occasionally stumble upon claims that “36 cities in 20 states have taken aggressive measures to abandon the US dollar”. The article claims that these cities are seeking payment of utility bills and other debts owed the city in something other than dollars.

:confused:

Now this is one of those online-infomercial-disguised-as-news sites, presumably selling some ripoff divestment scheme to the paranoid. But usually they’re based on some innocuous kernel of news that they blatantly misrepresent. What exactly has been distorted into “cities abandoning the US dollar”? I tried searching online but could only find echoes of the same “news” article:

#2

Fox Un-news has descended from rabid partisanship to outright lying in recent months. However, this is absolutely true. Those cities will want from now on to be paid in chocolate chip cookies.

#3

Maybe conflating “cash” with “Dollars?”
I can see cities trying to get people to pay their bills online or with credit cards, and not in person, with dollars.

#4

This I can see.
The added security of not accepting and having to process cash payments is probably what they meant.

However, when this is read by the people with a CT mindset, it becomes “Cities no longer accepting the US dollar.”

#5

I don’t know about their dollars, but on mine, it says “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.”

#6

It’s more bitcoin nonsense.

http://rt.com/usa/vicco-kentucky-bitcoin-salary-725/

#7

The public library in Ithaca New York accepts Ithaca Hours, a local currency established in 1991, whose use has declined recently. To say that Ithaca has, “Abandoned the US dollar”, would be a risible exaggeration.

Heh. Wikipedia list of community currencies in the US. It’s a long list. I suspect that local currencies play a trivial role in the economic life in all those communities. If this is what they were alluding to and in light of this exaggeration and mischaracterization, ISTM that the media commentators in the OP are catering to the gullible.

Article about municipalities accepting bitcoin: http://bitcoinreport.com/local-governments-to-accept-bitcoin/
No word about any of them abandoning the US dollar.

#8

But don’t you see? By not accepting Dollarz, they are rejecting the Illuminati control program (represented by brainwashing marks on all US “currency”) and will thus destabilize the Left’s New World Order.

Damn! Who would have thought our cities so clever!

#9

That doesn’t mean they’re required to accept cash:

#10

Hmm? Debt isn’t the same as “goods or services.” Or am I missing something?

#11

In the context of the article, it goes on to specify that merchants aren’t required to accept currency if they don’t want to. And previous to that quote it mentions other things like taxes, public charges, etc.

#12

Interestingly, local currencies began as a far leftie idea. But none of these alleged granola-types ever hinted at “Abandoning US currency”. The idea was to create a living wage yada yada keep money in the local community blah blah blah. Somewhat dubious at best, but neither wholly unhinged from reality nor an opening salvo for a financial scam.

#13

Yeah, it’s bitcoin.

Funny, the article doesn’t* exactly *say 36 cities are accepting bitcoin.

#14

Moderator Note

Desert Dumpster, political jabs are not permitted in General Questions. We also expect the first responses to a question to present factual information. No warning issued, but in the future wait until a question has been answered before jumping in with non-factual responses.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

#15

Yes, and those are two different things. When you go to the grocery store and take your cart to the register, you don’t have a debt. If you don’t have a way to pay for your groceries, or the store doesn’t like the way you do have, they can put the groceries back on the shelf and send you out empty-handed. On the other hand, when the electric company sends you the bill for the lights and air conditioning in your house, the power’s already used and they can’t take it back: You therefore have a debt, and you are therefore guaranteed to be able to pay it using US currency. The grocery store can say no to, say, hundred-dollar bills, because there’s no debt, but the electric company can’t, because there is a debt. In either case, the business can choose to accept some other form of payment, and the law says nothing against that.

#16

The article specifically says that US currency has to be accepted for debts. The example they give is a car loan.

#17

That seems pretty nonsensical since the only reason the city takes money in is to spend it back out again (in payroll, contracts, paying down bond debt or whatever). So the city demands gold doubloons or bushels of wheat or bitcoins for payment but everyone they owe money to or want to buy from is still expecting US dollars.

Even with bitcoins, this site also mentions the “36 municipalities accept bitcoins” statistic but, next to the column, is a graph showing that bitcoins dropped in value 18% in the last seven days. So does Happytown Water & Electric immediately re-sell/convert your bitcoin payment into US dollars or do they just soak an 18% loss on the water bill I paid last week?

#18

Accepting a non-dollar currency in addition to the dollar <> “abandoning” the dollar.

If McDonald’s wants to take pesos, as long as they still take dollars I don’t see why it would be a problem.

No city has the authority to not accept legal tender US money for debts owed to it (such as taxes).

#19

Right, all that’s required of method of up-front exchange of values is that it be acceptable to both parties, and preferrably be convertible to something that will in turn be acceptable when party B tries to carry out some other transaction. So if an entity can turn around and use bitcoin or pesos or bullion or giant stone disks to carry out some other transaction and/or can convert these to dollars before going on with the next order of business, as long as they can make a proper accounting for the next audit there should be no objection to accepting them in exchange for goods and services. The government does define a Legal Tender for payment of debts to protect individuals (natural and corporate) so creditors cannot hold you hostage to coming up with actual gold or giant stone disks.

#20

You know what? If you read that story closely, it doesn’t say that any municipalities actually accept bitcoin, only that they can.

As a matter of fact, if you go all the way back to the original announcement, the company (E-Gov Link) ALSO doesn’t actually claim that any municipalities accept bitcoin, but only that their software allows them to accept bitcoin, should the community choose.

Now, it so happens that E-Gov Link has 36 local government clients in 20 states, but E-Gov Link isn’t claiming that they do financial software for all 36, only that they provide them with some sort of online application.