I don’t think that it’s even possible for a single state to go onto the gold standard. IANAL, but I seem to recall that’s what the whole Federal Reserve Bank thing is about: one source of currency for the whole country. What’s worse, though, is that if they tried to go onto the gold standard it would have huge economic effects throughout the state: Can you imagine trying to make a normal mortgage payment in specie?
I wonder just how well-known this guy is in and around Oregon. PNW Dopers, please fill us in.
Precisely. Currently, an ounce of gold goes for just over US$524.01, an ounce of silver is just over US$10.21, and an ounce of platinum is just over US$984.83. (Platinum is never mentioned as specie, but what the hell. ;)) If the government pegs the dollar at more ‘respectable’ values relative to those metals, such that a dollar’s worth of 24 karat gold has a fairly substantial heft, it would cause massive deflation on a scale the US hasn’t seen in decades, if ever. This would have disastrous effects on the economy.
Deflation is when the price of good and services goes down. This is bad because it means that it takes more of your goods and services to pay off any debt you may have at this point. Since the average American carries a fairly substantial debt load, major deflation would ruin us a country: People would no longer be able to pay down their debts, banks would foreclose, family farms (both of them) would have to be sold, and old men in wheelchairs would cackle evilly despite the best efforts of guardian-angels-in-training. Suffice it to say, only loons want to return to the gold standard.
Leitch’s plans are crazy alright. I’m not disputing that. But I do have one question. According to the article linked in the OP, Leitch originally attempted to pay his hundred dollar filing fee with five gold double eagles and was refused. Obviously, this was a foolish plan but why was it not allowed. Aren’t double eagles legal tender and shouldn’t the state of Oregon accept them at face value from anyone dumb enough to use them as such?
This is just a guess, but I suspect the bank refused them, since they couldn’t issue them as currency but selling them for the gold or numismatic value would be a violation of ethics.
Though why that would apply to the silver dollars, too, I have no clue.
As for why the state didn’t take the profit - I suspect that while Lietch may be nuts, he had a plan for that: If they did sell the double eagles as specie, or collector’s items, it would have dovetailed nicely with his view that only gold or silver are real money. And paper is worthless. Which is why he took along the cameras while paying the fees.
Heck, if I’d been a bystander, I’d have volunteered to step in and smooth out the transaction. I’d have been willing to exchange five twenty dollar bills for those five twenty dollar coins. Leitch would have been happy because he paid in gold. The election workers and the bank would have been happy because they got regular bills. And I’d have been happy - very very very happy - with the satisfaction of knowing I’d helped some people out.
A few years back, Louisiana had a third-party gubernatorial candidate who looked and sounded like the grumpiest old grandfather you’d ever seen. In one of his commercials, he promised to “lock up all the druggies and throw away the key.”
In another, he spent his entire thirty seconds rambling about the high cost of pay phones and vowed that, if elected, he would reduce the price of all calls to a dime.
Of course, not only would that be impossible, but he was making these claims at the same time that cell phones were attaining ubiquity, and pay phones were vanishing left and right.
