Jackson et al. very clearly made some serious mistakes in how they ran (or didn’t run) their business. But compare the history of PayPal with that of E-Gold. Did E-Gold deserve to fall so hard?

Timberlake, the economics professor, is convinced that Jackson’s radical dream, his goal of upsetting the economic status quo and overturning the government’s monopoly on money, is what really got E-Gold targeted.

“No matter how innocent a person is you can always find a law that government agents can use to convict him of something,” Timberlake says, “And this is a perfect example of it. Any time anybody tries to produce money, the federal government is going to be on their tail.”

Threat Level: Bullion and Bandits

Meanwhile: Head of Asheville Liberty Dollar operation arrested.

Wendy McElroy notes “The Dollars do not resemble fed-issued coins except for in being round and flat;moreover the website made it very clear that the Dollars were a means of exchange among like-minded individuals who rejected Federal Reserve Notes as monopoly money” and suggests that the indictment is worded in such a way that the government could conceivably be planning on seizing all Liberty Dollars in circulation: “They seem to be giving themselves the legal muscle to steal caches of precious metal from individuals/businesses.”

See The New Currency War for more background.