2011.8.28　銀行券の歴史

さて、日銀券の話。日銀券は政府の発行する紙幣ではないというのが
味噌ですね。政府から日銀は独立。
デフレだからといって日銀が日銀券を増刷するわけにはいかないもの。
あくまでも日銀が保有する資産の応じて、日銀券を発行。
では国債を日銀が購入して、その国債額に応じた日銀券を発行すれば、
これはインフレです。
その歯止めとして、日銀の引き受ける（購入する）国債の額は、
日銀の発行している日銀券の総額を超えないよう定めているとか。

ちなみに、日本のお金の単位は江戸時代は石、
一石＝1人が1年間に食べる米の量

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote

Money prior to the banknote
Main article: History of money
Money is based on the coming to pre-eminence of some commodity as payment. The oldest monetary basis was for agricultural capital: cattle and grain. In Ancient Mesopotamia, drafts were issued against stored grain as a unit of account. A "drachma" was a weight of grain. Japan's feudal system was based on rice per year ； koku.

At the same time, legal codes enforced the payment for injury in a standardized form, usually in precious metals. The development of money then comes from the role of agricultural capital and precious metals having a privileged place in the economy.

Such drafts were used for giro systems of banking as early as Ptolemaic Egypt in the 1st century BC.

Issue of banknotes
Generally, a central bank or treasury is solely responsible within a state or currency union for the issue of banknotes. However, this is not always the case, and historically the paper currency of countries was often handled entirely by private banks. Thus, many different banks or institutions may have issued banknotes in a given country. In the United States, commercial banks were authorized to issue banknotes from 1863 to 1935. In the last of these series, the issuing bank would stamp its name and promise to pay, along with the signatures of its president and cashier on a preprinted note. By this time, the notes were standardized in appearance and not too different from the Federal Reserve Notes that circulated for most of the 20th century.

In a small number of countries, private banknote issue continues to this day. For example, by virtue of the complex constitutional setup in the United Kingdom, certain commercial banks in two of the union's four constituent countries (Scotland and Northern Ireland) continue to print their own banknotes for domestic circulation, even though they are not fiat money or declared in law as legal tender anywhere. The UK's central bank, the Bank of England, prints notes which are legal tender in England and Wales; these notes are also usable as money (but not legal tender) in the rest of the UK (see Banknotes of the pound sterling).

In Hong Kong, three commercial banks are licenced to issue Hong Kong dollar notes.[10] As well as commercial issuers, other organizations may have note-issuing powers; for example, until 2002 the Singapore dollar was issued by the Board of Commissioners of Currency Singapore, a government agency which was later taken over by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.[10]