Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Licence to print money


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   speedy delete. Article withdrawn by author; no support for keeping DGG (talk) 00:56, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Licence to print money

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I don't believe the definition of the expression "licence to print money" is correct when it states that there is an actual license to print money. I don't think that the institution that prints a country's money has a license to print money any more than the justice department has a license to prosecute criminals or the treasury has a license to collect taxes. It's purely a metaphor. Further, there is no citation to support the "one of the earliest references" claim.

If I'm correct and if we remove the problem parts, this is nothing more than a dictionary definition followed by a couple of random instances of its use. It's been added to Wikitionary and should be removed from here. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

''I just discovered the wi template. I suppose I could have just boldly used that instead of taking up everyone's time, but now that I've launched AFD I suppose I have to let it go through. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)''


 * Delete; Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:33, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Licence to Delete A poorly written article with two sources, one of which quotes a television broadcaster as saying that his broadcasting rights are practically a license to print money, and the other citing a completely different phrase "which means much the same". The lack of information should be a clue that this isn't a very widely used expression.  Besides, printing money is too much work -- I'd rather have a "licence to steal".  Mandsford (talk) 14:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a metaphor. It's a U.S. English metaphor according to several dictionaries.  And you're right that banks aren't, strictly speaking, granted licences to print bank notes.  It is done through charters and statute.  And many of those statutes exist because of prior experience with unregulated over-issue. In the U.K., for example, note-issuing banks were restricted (as a response to the collapse of many note-issuing banks) by the Country Bankers Act of 1826 and further restricted by the Bank Charter Act of 1844, which prohibited (newly founded) banks from issuing bank notes.  The last note-issuing private U.K. bank, Fox Fowler &amp; Co. of Wellington, was taken over in 1921.  (Source: ISBN 9780415185837 page 104) In Italy, for example, note issuing banks flourished in the 19th century, including the Banca di Torino, the Banca Nazionale degli Stati Sardi, and the Banca Nazionale Toscana.  Italy had a lot of problems with over-issue because of lack of regulation.  Italy's first banking act was passed in 1874, codifying the note-issuing situation of the time.  Another banking law restricting note issue was passed in 1893, after the collapse of many banks and a scandal wherein the Banca Romana had fraudulently issued the same banknotes twice, which led to the merger of many of the note-issuing banks, resulting in only three note-issuing banks, the Banca d'Italia and two southern banks. (Source: ISBN 9780198292890 chapter 4). In the U.S., the first note-issuing bank, the Bank of North America, was chartered by the Continental Congress in 1782.  The Bank of the United States was chartered by the United States Congress in 1791. The second note-issuing bank in Sweden was the Riksbank, founded by Act of the Parliament of Sweden in 1668. (Source: ISBN 9780521573610 page 4) In Hong Kong, the note-issuing banks (the Bank of China, Standard Chartered, and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) are currently authorized by the Hong Kong governement, under the terms of article 111 of the Basic Law. (Source: ISBN 9781567204476 page 176) Whilst, as you can probably see, there is a lot to say on the subject of note-issuing banks (especially for Italy!) that we don't have at the moment, this article isn't the right place to put it.  Uncle G (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's some good source material for an article about the authority conferred by a government for the printing of currency. We have an article about one of those printers, the American Bank Note Company, but, surprisingly, nothing about such companies in general.  As Uncle G correctly notes, we don't really need an article about metaphors for money-making opportunities.  Mandsford (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment I like the solution of replacing the page with the wiktionary template. I would say to just close the discussion and keep the page with only the template, and maybe link to this discussion on the talk page.  Cazort (talk) 19:08, 10 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete as originator of this article, I support its deletion; the Wiktionary article is now better (it did have very grave mistakes when I made it, spelling errors surely are not acceptable in a dictionary, and it had no references at all). My references were weak? Sorry but they're in Wiktionary now, and I've had no hand in editing that &mdash; at least I do actually look up and try to find references. Now it's in Wiktionary it should be deleted here. SimonTrew (talk) 00:24, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.