The last crime left in America is being an American.
For anyone, especially those who respect gold and silver, please instead consider the entirely legal use of ‘scrip’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
It was used in many places during the Great Depression, and helped local communities stabilize their markets and keep their local government functioning. Scrip is not legal tender, so is entirely voluntary, but has huge advantages over the dollar, which may fluctuate or experience any number of other problems.
Scrip is an entirely controlled currency and market, and it is based on trust. The more businesses and people that use it, the better for all. And it works in *parallel* with the dollar, so it give you a choice of which currency is better for *you*.
In our current economic crisis, the best way to use scrip would be that the States would avoid their constitutional restriction of only issuing currency backed by gold and silver, by setting up a public-private company, that is carefully monitored, directed and audited by the State government, but is not part of the government, or run by it.
This company would both issue scrip and a price list of items available for purchase with scrip. Importantly, the scrip itself could be printed on plain paper, because on its reverse would be an encrypted, public domain, data matrix bar code, that can have up to 1000 characters. Hand scanners for DM bar code are common.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_matrix_%28computer%29
A scrip bill of an *approximate* amount, say a “10 Scrip Note”, would be assigned to you, as a person. When you saw something you wanted to buy with it, a retailer would scan the note, then you would confirm the price, say “8.5 SN”, and enter a PIN to confirm the sale.
8.5 SN would be automatically transferred to the retailer, and your “10 SN” would now only be worth 1.5 SN. You could just note its new value with a pen, right on the scrip.
And, since the scrip is really the bar code, if your scrip was lost, destroyed or stolen, you could just print yourself a new one. Your account with the scrip issuer would be all that mattered.
This means that scrip is pretty useless for the black market.
Other advantages of scrip is that it can be designed to lose 2% of its value each month, to discourage hoarding, sales taxes can be deducted automatically, and it provides a means to buy things when there is a physical currency shortage.
Monetary debasement is deliberate government theft and it is nothing new. The failing Roman empire diluted the amount of gold or silver in their coins until they became base metal.