Were US silver dollars used in commerce?

[GoldFinger1969]

"See that's my point....the practices weren't 'high-risk' in the 2000's,..."I think you got it backwards. The practices were much higher risk than in earlier periods when there was tighter regulation that specifically limited high-risk behavior. Excessive leverage of RE was a major problem, but the underpinning was pervasive fraud by mortgage lenders in lying about credit worthiness of borrowers and the value of properties. The two major government underwriters were required to accept the originator's paperwork -- that was what Congress demanded.

Right, that's a government mandate by Congress to tell the GSE's to buy crappy mortgages. It started in 1999 under Andrew Cuomo @ HUD.

 

There's ALWAYS been lying about credit. The difference was in the past you needed 20% down -- you needed SKIN IN THE GAME.

 

Guess what ? Downpayments were considered 'discriminatory' by certain political groups and instead of 20% down, you only needed 5%....or 3%...or no-money down.

 

BSing around it does not change the facts: merchant banks, mortgage originators and financial speculators (hedge and related) were to blame and have yet to pay for their malfeasance.

Show me how they 'caused' the problem and how they haven't 'paid.'

 

The fraudulent companies went out of business -- Impac, Novastar, Washington Mutual, GoldenWest -- and the survivors didn't have much to do with mortgage lending per se.

 

You hear this all the time from so-called geniuses on TV and on the web: people who are no more qualified to comment on brain surgery or modern angioplasty techniques yet they are CERTAIN that "Wall Street was reckless"....blah blah blah blah blah.

 

My friend has a standing offer of $1,000 to anybody who can show a single bank that was done in by repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act. Another friend has a similar offer to anybody who can show that hedge funds caused the crisis.

 

But that's what the uninformed mainstream -- but not FINANCIAL media -- wants you to believe.

 

The public credit and 1930s New Deal banking reforms was used to protect the general public and prevent a financial collapse.

Do you want to go back to the gold standard ?

 

Do you want to bring back Regulation Q ?

 

Do you want to make sure that nobody who doesn't have a FICO score of 700 and puts 20% down can get a mortgage ?

 

Do you want employment, capital, and financial power going to European, Japanese, and Chinese banks while America is a nation of Bailey Savings & Loans ?

 

We don't need a 2,000 page Dodd-Frank, Roger.....all we need is 2 to 20 pages of reform. Simple is best. But simple is not accomodative to all the special interests out there.

[Conder101]

But then thought, $1 was worth a whole lot more 100 years ago. So it's not like everyone would be walking around with a couple hundred dollars in their pocket.

True, but even if you had just a couple dollars, why carry heavy dollar coins when you could use lightweight fully convertible paper.

 

Now back when the seated dollars were being made it might have been a different matter. Before 1862 the paper money in circulation was shall we say, questionable. If you had the choice of a heavy full value coin or a dollar note that might be worth a dollar, or maybe 80 cents, or maybe even worthless altogether, which would you want? To throw a further complication into the mix, after 1853 the silver dollars contained from $1.04 to $1.08 worth of silver in them. Every time you spent one you were losing on average a nickel in value at a time when a nickel was a significant amount of money. You wouldn't mind getting one, but you wouldn't want to use them.