By Brian Domitrovic – In the 19th century, individuals could actually create valid US money. If you went to the treasury with a hunk of gold (and at times silver) which you had dug up somewhere, for a nominal fee the feds would give you $20 an ounce for it. And that $20 was not from an existing pile but was created on account of the new precious metal offered in exchange.
Hard to believe, isn’t it? The money stock was at the whim of…the public. Things changed in 1913 when the Fed came into existence and then in 1933 when the private ownership of gold was outlawed. Now the amount of money – in particular new money – in the economy was strictly a governmental prerogative. But how much to create? And who would make that decision? And why? more> http://tinyurl.com/6edqt7t
