With the coins you guys are onto something I've thought about in the past.

How would it work to have coins as a partial store of value in our system. What the government would do is issue coins with a face value of say 20% greater than their melt value with the caveat that it is always OK to melt them for the metal.

That way, if the government inflates you might lose the initial 20% overvalue but once you hit that point you don't lose anymore becuase you can always melt them for scrap.

The 20% overage would cover the government's minting and distribution costs and maybe let them make a little money but, if they got greedy on it and tried to create too many coins they would inflate away the value and people would melt them and thus reduce the number in circulation.

Flap

There is a reason Washington DC is located between Virginia and Maryland. Even though the population centers at the time of the revoutionary war, were Phila, Boston and New York. Those creditor colonies in the South wanted to keep a close eye on the budget.

Too much debt results in a loss of independence. Real assets and power get transferred when debt gets too much to handle. Basically the whole United States was formed by debtors selling assets (florida, louisiana purchase, alaska) and ceding independence.

Karl's analogy to heroin addiction and debt is a really good one. Cold turkey is the only way to go.

Notice the control freak liberals (Krugman et al) all espouse nationalized education and health systems with big deficit spending.

Throxx, I just wanted to write that you are one of my favorite posters on TF. I especially like your interesting pronoun capitalization technique. :)