COMMENT: It is apparent that you are advising Argentinian President Javier Milei on economic theories. You said at the WEC that we would eventually see local currencies. If you are not informing him directly, they attended the WEC. He even warned about irresponsible provinces resulting in inflation. That is what you explained.

DA

REPLY: I am not at liberty to say who I have spoken with because we have to sign confidentiality agreements. As for attending the WEC, it is also confidential who attends. We are not like Davos, which shows off the politicians to attract others in hopes of meeting them. Because of the Israeli/Palestinian events, we had a surge in people coming to the site and to the WEC virtually because they wanted answers from our computer, which has a reputation of generally being correct and unbiased. After all, it is not a human opinion. The amount of people coming in was simply overwhelming,

That said, yes, I covered the fact that we would see local currencies emerge as they took place during the Great Depression and other times throughout history. This is a fascinating subject where some people have written and cataloged such forms of currency as in the Depression Script or the private money in Germany during the hyperinflation.

There are catalogs of what is called the Hard Times tokens (private money), especially during the Panic of 1837. I have been trying to assemble all the various times we have witnessed private and local money throughout history.

The first time I could identify private money in a financial crisis dates back to the Panic of 33AD, where there was a shortage of money, and we see an array of private money coined at that period in time to relieve the shortage precisely as we see during the Great Depression. I will publish a book on this aspect, bringing the various incidents together in one reference. As I have often said, history repeats because human nature never changes. People will respond the same way regardless of the century to the same set of circumstances.

During the Roman Empire, the emperor issued gold and silver, and the Senate issued bronze coinage. The provinces were also allowed to issue their own coinage in bronze, but some regions were allowed to strike in silver under the Greek monetary standard of drachms rather than a Roman denarius.

For example, Egypt struck its own coinage based on the Greek standard yet placed the image of the Roman emperor on the coin like that illustrated here with Nero (54-68AD). So, there is a historical precedent for both local and emergency currencies throughout the centuries.

The American colonies issued their own coin as well as paper money. The US Constitution strips them of the right to issue their own currency. When the US dollar was created, this was the exchange rate, and you can see that there was a significant disparity in the value of the various currencies of the colonies.

However, the Constitution did NOT outlaw private money. Therefore, during the Panic of 1837, we see a flood of private tokens appearing, which were, ironically, trusted more by the people than the paper money issued by the banks thanks to Andrew Jackson shutting down the central bank, which opened the door to every bank in the country issuing their own money, which became known as shinplasters.