Talk:History of the United States dollar

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Wasn't there a period of time in the U.S. when banks would issue their own currency?24.6.67.144 18:08, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, they are called bank notes, or broken bank notes. I dont know if those articles have that history in them. They were issued by federally chartered, private banks up till the civil war.

Joe I 03:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I noticed this error:

The article states: "Until 1974 the value of the United States dollar was tied to and backed by silver, gold, or a combination of the two. From 1792 to 1873 the U.S. dollar was freely backed by both gold and silver at a ratio of 15:1 under a system known as bimetallism." However, it later states that "Bimetallism persisted until March 14, 1900, with the passage of the Gold Standard Act."

I presume the first fact is a typographic error and that the value of the dollar was tied to and backed by silver and gold until 1874.

13 March 2006

[edit] "Entirely worthless"

In the article:

Today, like the currency of most nations, the dollar is fiat money without intrinsic value, which means that it has no backing and would be entirely worthless but for the fact that people have been persuaded to use and accept it as if it had worth.

Before I edit the article to correct this, it is going to trigger an edit war? I don't want to edit it if it shall.

The reason people accept the dollar as not worthless is because it is backed.

The backing, according to the Federal Reserve, and almost any economics text one can find, is that a dollar is backed by future claims to wealth of American taxpayers and other income sources of the Treasury. There is no metallic reserve. patsw 03:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

No, probably not. This isn't a highly looked-at/changed article. Also, remember that you can always be bold in your edits. --Kurt 06:04, 23 September 2006 (UTC)