Anyone here have experience in convincing local businesses to accept gold and silver? I would like to go around my community talking to businesses but would first like a handout or a place to refer them for more information. I know this will inevitably happen but if we get the ball rolling we can pull the rug out from under the central bankers.
Getting local businesses to accept silver and gold
- Thread starter isrow
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Good idea. Keep it up.
More and more States and business are starting to do this kind of thing or at least look into it.
IPSecure
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I love how the State of Texas is in there lol- so awesome.
I have 2 pharmacies in AL AsifShiraz
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Why don't you guys get together to formally develop a proper payment system? The barter trading tax implication will be outdone by the gold price appreication making it a viable business opportunity.
Pennsylvania
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Have you had any luck? I'm thinking about starting to talk to local businesses too
Icymudpuppy
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Jordan
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A proper payment system that reflects the current spot price for metals could be incredibly profitable in areas where gold and silver are desired currencies.
The payment solution could weigh and measure the value of the metal, calculate the amount of FRNs needed for change, then fire off an API to a forex/spot metals platform to initiate an inverse trade to hedge the current spot price of metals to cover any change in price from when the metal is accepted to when it is redeemed.
Sounds great until you realize that only a very small percentage of the consumer class wants to use metals as a currency.
Custom silver rounds can be designed and ordered. Looking around the net it seems you must pay $400 or more for the plates to be made and order a 100 ounce minimum from most mints. A small business could go this route to produce their own custom silver rounds that would serve as advertising, gift certificate, and sound money all at once. They could price goods and services in their own silver barter currency as well as fed notes.
Imagine producing coins with a town logo on one side and your business name on the other. Then imagine other businesses copying the idea so that it spreads.
Fractional ounce rounds would be better for offering them as change for small purchases but cost more per ounce to buy which might make them a harder sell.
Imagine producing coins with a town logo on one side and your business name on the other. Then imagine other businesses copying the idea so that it spreads.
Fractional ounce rounds would be better for offering them as change for small purchases but cost more per ounce to buy which might make them a harder sell.
Products can be priced in silver and the spot price can be ignored until taken care of by repricing in silver just as prices are changed in FRNs to reflect the rising and falling value of FRNs.
to really make this work as an alternative currency there really needs to be a well defined "circuit" of exchange so that the silver can keep traveling around and not all end up being siphoned off.
I was thinking about this for a small rural community where there really needed to be more defined sources of goods and services for the alternative currency to stay moving....if a person was only a consumer they would have to "buy" more silver to spend it again....
a defined "baker"..."butcher"...egg seller, firewood vendor, etc. and etc. I think it would be pretty cool if it was more readily possible to leave the gov. system and work with the alternative currency (even as the GOV may be pushing a "cashless" system for the future).
I was thinking about this for a small rural community where there really needed to be more defined sources of goods and services for the alternative currency to stay moving....if a person was only a consumer they would have to "buy" more silver to spend it again....
a defined "baker"..."butcher"...egg seller, firewood vendor, etc. and etc. I think it would be pretty cool if it was more readily possible to leave the gov. system and work with the alternative currency (even as the GOV may be pushing a "cashless" system for the future).
Jordan
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Compare the changes in price of silver to the changes in price for the businesses expenses. Silver is far more volatile.
Labor prices are stagnant, maybe change once per year. Rent is the same month after month in terms of dollars. Credit card processing is a fixed percentage. Advertising costs stay relatively fixed. I don't know too many distributors and wholesale companies that change their prices by as much as 3-4% every day, either.
AsifShiraz
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My view is that economic realities are a bigger force then ideology. Convincing local businesses to accept gold and silver is the hard "ideological" route, with very slim chances of success. Few businesses will agree to accept, few buyers will adopt, and metal will usually hit a dead stop and go out of circulation.
Making acceptance of gold and silver an economically preferred alternative is the best course of action. Activists need to get their act together, and form a proper, government registered payment system (Money Services Business) offering the same convenience, and ease of access as traditional payment systems. Such a system will face resistance, but there is where the political clout of libertarians can come in.
I know I'm missing the big picture of organized resistance in government against initaitves such as e-gold and liberty dollar, but I also do believe that there is merit in the actual action taken against them. e-gold, was, as a matter of fact, a conduit for money laundering, and liberty dollar actually does appear, to simple minded folks, as an "alternative" to government dollar. If a gold backed payment system is established by cloosing all the potential loop holes, I see no reason why it will not succeed. Even if rest of majority americans are not liberatarians, this country is still the best place to launch a business that can operate in compliance with the letter and spirit of all laws and regulations. I am really surprised why its not being done.
Even indonesian have taken the lead from americans here. They have a 30% non-profit mint which is dishing out gold dinars the weight of 1/10 troy ounce, at a remarkably low premium of 7% !! Compare that to 1/10 troy ounce maples and eagles.
A public enterprise featuring its own minting and payment system offering modern facilities of electronic exchange, and taking tax handling burden off of the end user (small businesses) is the only serious way in which I see any meaningful progress being made here. Private, local evangelism of the concept to small businesses without any infrastructure backing, is far too limited in its ability to make a difference.
Making acceptance of gold and silver an economically preferred alternative is the best course of action. Activists need to get their act together, and form a proper, government registered payment system (Money Services Business) offering the same convenience, and ease of access as traditional payment systems. Such a system will face resistance, but there is where the political clout of libertarians can come in.
I know I'm missing the big picture of organized resistance in government against initaitves such as e-gold and liberty dollar, but I also do believe that there is merit in the actual action taken against them. e-gold, was, as a matter of fact, a conduit for money laundering, and liberty dollar actually does appear, to simple minded folks, as an "alternative" to government dollar. If a gold backed payment system is established by cloosing all the potential loop holes, I see no reason why it will not succeed. Even if rest of majority americans are not liberatarians, this country is still the best place to launch a business that can operate in compliance with the letter and spirit of all laws and regulations. I am really surprised why its not being done.
Even indonesian have taken the lead from americans here. They have a 30% non-profit mint which is dishing out gold dinars the weight of 1/10 troy ounce, at a remarkably low premium of 7% !! Compare that to 1/10 troy ounce maples and eagles.
A public enterprise featuring its own minting and payment system offering modern facilities of electronic exchange, and taking tax handling burden off of the end user (small businesses) is the only serious way in which I see any meaningful progress being made here. Private, local evangelism of the concept to small businesses without any infrastructure backing, is far too limited in its ability to make a difference.
But the value of a federal reserve note also fluctuates every day compared to other currencies, compared to silver, gold and copper, and compared to the general level of prices commonly called inflation. Remember that the measurements of increasing and decreasing price levels commonly called the inflation rate is pretty much guesswork manipulated by the government and no two people buy the same amounts of the same products every day.
Is there any objectively measureable way to say that silver fluctuates in value more than the FED note? FED note fluctuations mean your rent and other costs actually are fluctuating, the fluctuations are just ignored until your rent is raised or lowered.
Zippyjuan
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But the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services in the country tend to change very little. Things like rent may be fluctuating when compared to Euros but they are not fluctuating much in terms of say automobiles or other goods. SInce you are not using Euros or another currency that variance does not matter much.
That means that businesses don't have to change their prices very often (though they could choose to do so- such as the weekly sales specials at a store- it is at their option). If you tried to price things in terms of silver or gold you would have to change prices almost daily. That adds work and costs to a business. Rapidly changing prices also confused the buyers and they don't know if it is a good time to buy something so they may put off purchases- reducing business activities. But these people would probably prefer to refrain from the hastle of buying with silver and gold and stick to what they know- paper and electronic money.
But the federal reserve note has lost 95% of its value in the last hundred years compared to a real silver dollar. That means prices in silver have been much more stable than federal reserve notes, or am I missing something?
Euros aren't money any more than a FED note is. The value of silver and gold has been much more stable than that of the FED note over the long term. Businesses raise prices when they feel they need to. Prices marked in silver do not have to be changed every day for silver fluctuations any more than FED note prices have to be changed every day depending on the price of the oil that is the backing for the paper. Businesses know that stable prices benefit them and they naturally resist raising prices. The price of groceries went up after oil skyrocketed because it eventually had to, but supermarkets don't change their prices every day based on the price of oil.
The only reason silver seems to be fluctuating more than fed notes is that there are more fed notes circulating than silver. When that changes it will be the fed note that is obviously more unstable, or printing will stop to make it more stable.
Jordan
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Let's break it down for you.
The business has to pay for:
Rent
Inventory
Labor
Advertising
With the exception of inventory, and occasionally labor (raises), all of those costs are fixed to a certain dollar figure each and every month.
A drop in the value of the dollar does not create huge price changes (internally) for any of those costs.
Here is a silver chart:
If a business were to accept silver, and then pay its suppliers and laborers in dollars, it would've required constant adjustments in the price of its goods. Silver lost 50% of its value in just one year, only to gain it all back a year later. Prices would have to be changed constantly to reflect that massive change in price because its suppliers are not pricing their goods in ounces of silver. They're pricing them in dollars.
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Zippyjuan
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Then you have the cost of having to convert the silver to dollars to pay your suppliers and employees with (again adding to costs).. The tax man won't let you pay in silver and the bank probably won't let you deposit silver (execpt maybe in a safe deposit or other storage unit) so you have storage costs if you don't resell it. A company would be adding complexity and costs to accept silver and/or gold so they would have to be making more profit on silver/ gold transasctions to cover those costs. Would you as a consumer be willing to pay a higher price for things for the right to pay in silver or gold?
A business cares basically about one thing- their bottom line. How are you going to improve their bottom line? Can they improve their profits by using gold/ silver for transactions? You will have to be able to demonstrate this to get companies to go along with the idea.
On the consumer side, it is far easier to carry paper or a plactic card for purchases. Why has the effort to make a metal dollar failed- despite repeated attempts over decades? Because people don't want to use them- it is preferable to carry a smaller, easy to fold paper one. Where are the consumers going to get their silver to go spend in the stores? That will have a cost for them as well. Buy money to go spend it at a store? Why go through the extra step? It is not necessary. Some 90% of all transactions now are electronic anyways. Going to coins would be seen as a step back to most people.
A business cares basically about one thing- their bottom line. How are you going to improve their bottom line? Can they improve their profits by using gold/ silver for transactions? You will have to be able to demonstrate this to get companies to go along with the idea.
On the consumer side, it is far easier to carry paper or a plactic card for purchases. Why has the effort to make a metal dollar failed- despite repeated attempts over decades? Because people don't want to use them- it is preferable to carry a smaller, easy to fold paper one. Where are the consumers going to get their silver to go spend in the stores? That will have a cost for them as well. Buy money to go spend it at a store? Why go through the extra step? It is not necessary. Some 90% of all transactions now are electronic anyways. Going to coins would be seen as a step back to most people.
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