Free Money
Christopher Beam's piece on libertarianism had some amusing moments:
Say we started from scratch and created a society in which government covered
only the bare essentials of an army, police, and a
courts system. I’m a farmer, and I want to sell my crops. In Libertopia, I can sell them in exchange for money. Where does
the money come from? Easy, a private bank. Who prints the money? Well,for that we’d need a central bank–otherwise you’d have a thousand
banks with a thousand different types of currency.
A monetary system with thousands of banks issuing their own currency! Ho, ho, ho….those wacky libertarians where do they get their crrrrrazy ideas?
Images from Nick Szabo, the Minneapolis Fed, the San Francisco Fed, the Philadelphia Fed and Larry Schutts.
Addendum: Scott Sumner has other bones to pick.