Reyes vs. Economics
Tonight, I had a chance to meet the Utah Attorney General candidate Sean Reyes [http://www.seanreyes.com/]. He was kind enough to spend some campaign money giving ice cream to my ladies as well as myself before meeting delegates in Blackfyre games [http://blakfyre.com/] (a place I'm rather fond of).
Most of his talk was run-of-the-mill politician talk. He criticized Shurtleff's handling of various cases, spoke of the prevailing importance of civil liberties and followed the standard Utahn rhetoric of keeping the feds in their box with whatever's left available to us thru' the 10th amendment. Usual stuff.
He also mentioned his involvement with the Utah Legal Tender Act [http://www.coinworld.com/articles/utah-enacts-legal-tender-act-for-federal-gold/] which he seemed quite proud of. It's no secret that I'm an econ-geek and the idea of competing currencies is an idea very dear to my heart. That the state tries to experiment with such ideas is very admirable.
I was dearly hoping Mr. Reyes could inform me of some research data that would indicate that my understanding of Gresham's law [http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/selgin.gresham.law] is either incorrect or not applicable on this particular matter. I wanted to believe that he'd figured out a way for the more valuable currency, which will tend to increase in value, will somehow circulate more than the worthless paper dollars, which, if you hold on to them, you'll only end up looking like a sucker who fell for another one of Bernanke's tricks.
Reyes' answer was direct, which I appreciated, but it was hardly compelling. He simply stated that he did not believe that the observations of economics were relevant. This did little to boost my confidence that the bill was anything other than feel-good legislation or (at the very best) a contingency plan for if/when the state miraculously outlasts a melt-down of the Federal Government.
I don't really expect a candidate for Attorney General to have mastered economic principles and this may not deeply impact my belief in his candidacy for that office. Still, it was a little underwhelming to have somebody announce his involvement with a bill the practical implications of-which he hadn't so thoroughly researched.
C'est la vie. At least I had a chance to buy a 4th Edition L5R rule book while I was there!