As you probably already have guessed by reading our article on coin dealers in Montgomery County, I’m a bit of a fan of gold and silver. We’re not trying to get into political debates here on this blog. With that said, we want to discuss meaningful topics with you, our readers. I recently came across a compelling interview with Ken Ivory, a Utah State Legislator, and the main man who brought Utah the Utah Legal Tender Act. This act provides legislation which makes gold and silver coins produced by the U.S. Mint to be legal tender throughout the state of Utah.
Yes, you read that right. In Utah, you can now use gold and silver to buy things like groceries and gas. Using gold and silver as money in Utah will not be subject to capital gains tax or sales tax. At this point, the legislation is so new that a lot of local businesses haven’t started allowing customers to pay in gold and silver. Getting legislation through is step 1, step 2 is to help Utah residents make the paradigm shift of using gold and silver to buy things.
Why Use Gold and Silver to Transact Business?
So, getting back to this interview with Ken Ivory, it was really powerful. It helps people understand why he felt it was so important to pass the Utah Legal Tender Act. Ivory states, “we’re seeing a federal government $14 trillion in debt, overspending by over $1 trillion+ per year, that’s paying for 57% of the government as we go and pushing 43% off to our children and seeing the devaluation of our currency. It’s that same idea that we really need to look at something to preserve the purchasing power for our citizens… like everybody else we saw the things that are going on and we wanted to preserve the purchasing power of the earnings and savings of our people of Utah.”
Representative Ivory gives a very clear example as to why gold and silver should be saved, and spent, as money when he states, “obviously on the why, we explained to them the very simple example, a silver dollar in 1960 would buy approximately five gallons of gas. Well, that dollar today won’t buy you one fourth of a gallon of gas, but the silver will nearly fill your tank.” Basically Rep. Ivory is making the case that in an economic environment like the one we are in now, where Central Banks are printing currency at ever-increasing rates, gold and silver retain their value in what they will purchase while paper currency decreases in value when measured by “how much stuff” it will purchase. Ken Ivory is trying to get this point across to Utah residents so that they can start retaining their purchasing power by converting their paper dollars into gold and silver.
So, with that said…
Should Pennsylvania Make Gold and Silver Money?
Currently 11 other states are looking into whether they should make gold and silver legal tender in their respective states. Again, we do not want to incite some political battle here. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, Republican, Tea Party Member, etc., the preservation of you and your families purchasing power should be something that all people can get behind. We are all experiencing rising prices of goods and services (are the prices rising OR is the value of that paper money in your pocket going down… think about it that way…). That means we have less money to buy other things. If, like Representative Ken Ivory says, Gold and Silver can preserve our purchasing power, then I know I’m going to take time to do some more research. Perhaps I should be buying gold and silver right now, instead of the selling that’s going on across the country? Montco Happening is interested in promoting a thriving Montgomery County, PA community. If passing similar legislation to the Utah Legal Tender Act here in Pennsylvania will help our community, then we are all for discussing it.
So, what are your thoughts? Do you think using gold and silver as money has a place here in Montgomery County, PA? Business owners- would you accept gold and silver as payments if there was an easy way to make the exchange (ie. some sort of gold/silver transaction card, which I think is in the works in Utah as well)? Perhaps you think this is all nonsense and soon things here in Pennsylvania and America things will all be better again? Let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment below. We are really curious to see if anyone cares about this issue.
Here’s the full Ken Ivory interview. Read the excerpts here.
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