Either in anticipation of QE2 which will cut the value of the dollar by another 50% once another $2 trillion in toxic crap becomes the "assets" backing the viability of the dollar, or just because they are sick of Fed policies, mid-Michigan has taken monetary matters into their own hands, and in one simple act, completely bypassed the destabilizing influence of the domestic currency printers. As ConnectMidMichigan reports, "New types of money are popping up across Mid-Michigan and supporters say, it's not counterfeit, but rather a competing currency. Right now, you can buy a meal or visit a chiropractor without using actual U.S. legal tender." The plan is so simple, it just may work - after all if one can't get away from the Fed's probing and pickpocketing long fingers, all one has to do is learn to live without its parasitic pieces of paper. And not just paper: "I sell three or four every single day and then I get one or two back a week," said Dave Gillie, owner of Gillies Coney Island Restaurant in Genesee Township. Gillie also accepts silver, gold, copper and other precious metals to pay for food." So yes, you can eat gold.... and load up your gas tank with it.

More from CMM:

"Do people have to accept dollars or money? No, they don't," Gillie said. "They can accept anything they want or they can refuse to accept anything."



He's absolutely right.



The U.S. Treasury Department says the Coinage Act of 1965 says "private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash, unless there is a state law which says otherwise."



That allows gas stations to say they don't accept 50- or $100 bills after a certain time of day in hopes of not getting robbed.



A chiropractic office in Lapeer County's Deerfield Township allows creativity when it comes to payment.



"This establishment accepts any form of silver, gold, chicken, apple pie, if someone works it out with me," said Jeff Kotchounian of Deerfield Chiropractic. "I've taken many things."



Jeff Kotchounian says he's used this Ron Paul half troy ounce of silver to get $25 worth of gas from a local station.



While the government and banks don't accept them, many others do.



So why is there interest in these competing currencies?



Is it just novelty or is there something deeper?

If the ruling kleptocrats, pardon, the Fed, demand on being such an intimate part of everyday life, and procuring all of the population's real wealth and cash producing assets in the process, said population has a choice of either going with this sheepish approach, and meekly allowing the loaded gun to be parked at its temple, or do what Michigan, with its 99.9% real unemployment, has decided to do.

h/t John