Has it ever struck you as odd that many companies will offer free samples as you are shopping at the grocery store or the mall but you don’t have banks handing out crisp $100 dollar bills for you to try?
This isn’t quite as odd as you might think in the first couple of seconds. In a truly free market this might actually happen. Banks could issue their own currency and would compete for market share.
Actually, quite a few banks around here have offered cash incentives for opening a new account with them…
That is a little different. They are trying to sell you their services not a piece of paper called “money”.
Giving crisp new dollar bills away is a advertising play that has been used for many years.
Sometimes this is done using a door hanger or direct mail.
Again, the piece of paper with ink marks proclaiming it is a “dollar bill” is not the product as it is in my example. It is an inducement for the real product.
Ugh. Banks actually did this in the 19th century. It was a disaster.
“A” said: “Ugh. Banks actually did this in the 19th century. It was a disaster.”
Was it? Russ Roberts interviewed George Selgin a few years ago
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/11/selgin_on_free.html
who had good things to say about free banking.
Imagine, the people who print currency had to compete and couldn’t get away with the poo-poo the Fed has been doing with their monopoly.