Folksinger, songwriter and ever-sharp wit Oscar Brand got a nice laugh out of me when he recalled that his father once worked in western Canada as an interpreter between the local Indians and the Hudson Bay Company. He said his father could not speak the Indians’ language, but the only way the Indians could convey that to the Hudson Bay Company was through his father!

I’ve long held the silent feeling that somebody in government is deliberately failing to convey certain vital facts of monetary life to the American people. My silence owed to my ignorance of advanced economics and my sappy assumption that somebody in Washington was an expert. I now conclude there are no experts, only varying degrees of ignorance; so suddenly I value my own opinion enough to express it.

The old dollar bills used to say something like, “This note is redeemable for one dollar in silver.” And there was one in every crowd, somebody who actually went to the Treasury Department in Washington and tried to get his “money” back in return for the government’s one-dollar note. And you know what? They were handed a tiny cloth bag containing some black powder – silver or silver ore or silver something. Today our currency says, “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” Full Piece