Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 15, 2012

Whooops ! We forgot that that Texas would obviously have their own currency.

I still have some of that Dixie money from the last secession.

Let’s see now: Texas’ new monetary aggie check won’t clear a DC bank unless the U.S. recognizes the secession. But Duke can’t / won’t grease (read bribe) the Hill unless the wampum’s good.

On the other hand, the secessionist mucky-muck on the other end of the line can’t close the deal because his office is being attacked by crazed anti-secessionist guitar wielders from Austin City Limits.

Faggiddabbouddit an’ kick Earl’s butt for bringing up such a stupid idea in the first place?

Wait, see what Austin is offering to secede from Texas!

I have an idea: Move the (very few) people in Texas who actually want to secede to a small island in the Pacific.

Then take all the idiots who think everyone in Texas is a yeehaw-yelling, red-necked secession junkie and put them on the same island.

I’ll be glad to be rid of both groups.

<—- Did not and never will vote for Perry or anyone like him

Oh, before the trolls crawl out from under their rocks, I just wanted to say how honored I am to be joining you in the Blithering Idiots Club ( according to our latest voice in the wierderness … oops… wilderness ).Always a joy to read you.

Make that 80,000 Aggies, a few thousand Gig’Ems with some Hullabaloo Caneck Canecks thrown in and you got a ball game at Kyle Field.

For those who don’t dabble much in politix and don’t know who Dick Morris is, here’s a pericope from Wikipedia:

“The president [Bubba “Big Dawg” Clinton] consulted Morris in secret beginning in 1994.8 … Morris went on to become campaign manager of Bill Clinton’s successful 1996 bid for re-election to the office of President. His tenure on that campaign was cut short two months before the election, when it was revealed that he had allowed a prostitute to listen in on conversations with the President. Morris … now … appears regularly on the Fox News for political commentary, frequently appearing on The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity.1011"

“… the real former currency of South Texas was Pesos.”

The Mexicans are objecting big time. Better make that Pecos.

Ps: Not really. I lived in southern Texas (McAllen ‘n’ San ’Tone) for the first eight years of my life and am a savage Texas supporter.

Have a nice day Ted Nugent.

The “Ag” is a 1 ounce Silver (Chemical Symbol “Ag” – just check the Periodic Table) coin. These days it’s running about 34-35 US FRN’s (Federal Reserve Notes) The Fed’s Mint does one called the “Eagle” several other countries offer similar items (China’s “Pandas” are well regarded)

50,000 of ’em is about 1.7 Million Dollars

Not too bad for an opening bid.

GT is showing how to stop foreign aid dollars going to Egypt and Israel — let Texas leave the union provided Texas pays Egypt and Israel in aggies

Too late for lil strummer boy and his alter ego tochus to take the day off.

Actually, the Mexican Peso (or more exactly, Spanish Peso minted in Mexico) was formerly the currency of the United States, and before that, the 13 colonies. We gringos called them “dollars” (a nickname that came ultimately from Germany) or “pieces of eight” as the peso was divisible into 8 “reales.” We called the reales bits instead, as in “2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits, a dollar!” So many of these coins circulated throughout America in the 18th century, that, after we declared independence, our new system of money was defined in term of the standard Mexican Peso, or dollar. We did not have the silver supply in the early 19th century we needed, and so right up to our war with Mexico these coins continued to circulate freely in the U.S. The “dollar” Washington supposed threw across the Rappahannock River was actually a Mexican Peso. The whole US monetary system, perhaps the first decimal system in the world, was originally designed to look like this: 1 eagle = 10 dollars 1 dollar = 10 dimes (br> 1 dime = 10 cents 1 cent = 10 mils thus < 1 eagle = 10,000 mils A half cent, or five mil coin was minted for many years, and though $10 gold pieces were minted, they were never officially called eagles. And by the way, there has never been a coin called a penny in the US system, that is a British denomination, and the US cent has never been of equal value to the British penny. Also, there has never been a US coin called a “nickel.” The five-cent piece, made of a nickel alloy, was introduced to replace silver half dimes in 1866 (I think it was) and got the nickname nickel, and the nickname has stuck. It was the Lincoln administration that gave us the nickel, made Thanksgiving a national holiday, and started putting “In God We Trust” on our coins.

Commodity money (or what really amounts to a barter system) was abandoned by Britain in 1810 or so, and is somewhat of a myth. The value of coins in the modern era always had to be greater than the value of the silver in the coins, or folks would just melt them down when they wanted silver. Foreign silver circulated as bullion but never the coins of your own country. The coins were minted in silver to give them some intrinsic value approaching their real value, but in the end their value as money was not determined by their value as a commodity. And paper money has always been fiat money, as at no time was there a silver coin sitting in a vault somewhere “backing up” each paper dollar. Modern Capitalism has always depended on the existence of a fiat currency and would never have been possible without it. -- Though it is true that money has become more of an abstraction than it once was.

Anybody here think Duke and Earl could enlist Tiger Woods into the cause of Texas secession to persuade his eleven known mistresses (i.e., those who have come forward) to serve as “escorts” in order to assist in the righteous cause of persuading certain persuadable Congressmen to vote for secession?

They are (in alphabetical order by first name): “Cori Rist”, “Holly Sampson”, “Jamie Grubbs”, “Jamie Jungers”, “Joslyn James”, “Julie Postle”, “Kalika Moquin”, “Loredana Jolie”, “Mindy Lawton”, “Rachel Uchitel”, and “Theresa Rogers”.

I mean, can we switch the focus of this thread away from filthy lucre as a means to a “righteous” end (Duke and Earl’s task of persuading Congress to vote for the secession of Texas) and toward something that is, well, shall we say, even older, known as the world’s oldest?

I mean, search for these ladies on Google Images!

I live in Austin, and usually tell people: “You are entering Texas when you are leaving Austin” (unless you are standing on the Capitol steps)

My parents used to go to McAllen,Tx. during the winter. Snowbirds.

Las Vagas will be the Switerland of the new U.S.! All who are interested will be able to open anonymous, numbered bank accounts. You heard it here, first!

Major setback for Duke in the last panel. The $ thing is not going to work out!

“my daughter … graduated with straight A’s but was only number 32 in her class.”

Out of 33?

There is a 4 minute video that answers the question “Can Texas secede.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S92fTz_-kQE

When all the anchor babies are 18, Texas is going to be Blue. Sure would be a waste of time to break away from the USA because it isn’t Red enough and then become bluer than California.

Of course, you could just use the typical Republican tactics when you are in the minority, your ideas are laughable to the average American and you still want to win.

You lie— a lot. And, you do everything you can to keep people from voting. Being a new country, you could make your own rules. Just don’t let anyone who doesn’t have a nonhispanic last name vote.

@Dylan; “Out of 33?”

Tut-tut… that’s so beneath you. You don’t usually go the ‘kick ’em in the crotch’ humor..

Austin can become an official sister (excuse me: gender neutral) city with its political and cultural ally San Francisco.

I can almost guarantee that Texas won’t succeed once they realize that they will no longer be able to compete in NFL and NCAA football because they will be a foreign country. It would b like taking away their national religion.

I’m sure “dollars or no deal” has been Duke’s regular rule. Never accept a currency the payer controls himself!

There is some evidence that long run inflation is lower when a currency is under the gold standard. Economists like to say that, in the long run we’re all dead.There is overwhelming evidence that short term price fluctuations were much worse under the gold standard. The boom-bust cycles of the 19th century created massive suffering for the working class. That’s why Keynes labeled it a, “barbarous relic”.There is also a lot of evidence that using the gold standard restricts economic growth. When the Great Depression hit, the nations that left the gold standard quickest, were the quickest to recover.

BTW, a petition demanding that the Federal Government, “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” is on the White House site & has gained enough signatures to get an official response. Like I’ve said, anyone who takes this secession crap seriously looks silly.https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/secure-resources-and-funding-and-begin-construction-death-star-2016/wlfKzFkN

Several years ago when our daughter was in high school she came up with a solution to deal with Texas and fix the mid-East crisis at the same time by suggesting that we just give Texas to the Israelis.

No Socialist Obama dollars for you, Duke!

Aggie = Texas Agriculture and Mining School (A & M)?

Alanada, the “south of Texas,” oh hell, ALL of Tehas, is Mexico. Read a little history…

Um, as a non-usa’er why is it called an aggie?