The United States Bullion Depository was, according to Wikipedia, an unintended byproduct of a 1933 executive order banning the private ownership of large quantities of gold. Those who didn't move their gold to Switzerland sold it to the Federal Reserve, which found that it didn't really have any place to store it. Hence, Fort Knox.
State Representative Giovanni Capriglione, a Southlake Republican, wants Texas to take a more deliberate approach to its collection of precious metals. He filed a bill on Friday to create the Texas Bullion Depository, which, as the name implies, is where the state will store its vast gold reserves. You know, just so the Texas economy can continue to thrive in case of a "a systemic dislocation in a national and international financial system, including systemic problems in liquidity, credit markets, or currency markets," to quote from the bill.
Of course, Texas' gold reserves aren't very vast at the moment, but they will be if Capriglione has his way. His bill seems essentially to allow for the creation of a shadow currency based on the gold standard, since it would allow state agencies, cities, counties, and other arms of state government to carry out transactions based on holdings in the bullion depository. Again, just in case the global financial system suffers complete and utter collapse.
Capriglione has obviously given the topic a lot of thought. His bill runs to 44 pages and goes into minute detail about how the would-be depository would be run.
It all seems a bit quixotic. One doubts the U.S. government would stand idly by and watch Texas create a shadow currency, though, on second thought, this might only encourage certain persons (we're looking at you, Greg Abbott) always spoiling for a fight with the Feds.
The larger flaw is that, if the world economy collapses to the point that the Texas Bullion Depository becomes useful, we'd have much bigger problems than figuring out if we're going to pay for our car registration with dollar bills or gold coins. Probably better to just stockpile guns.
