Get Government Out of Coin Manufacture

clipped from mises.org Daily Article by George A. Selgin | Posted on 11/4/2008 Coin dealers and collectors are still reeling from the US Mint's announcement that it had run out of American Eagle gold coins. But what ought to surprise every American isn't that a government agency came up short. It's that the US government should be making little metal discs at all. Coin shortages are nothing new. A few months before running out of gold Eagles, the US Mint had to ration silver Eagles. Why are coin shortages so common? Governments typically blame unexpected changes in demand. But suppliers of all sorts of other goods manage to avoid running out Yet governments routinely punish private firms that try to issue their own distinct coins. During the gold rush, for instance, no fewer than 15 private mints went into business, Private coiners played a still bigger role in Great Britain's Industrial Revolution $40 "Great Britain's private coins were more popular than official ones, and for good reason…"