Oscar Mayer pushes the bacon-backed dollar

Oscar Mayer is launching a novel new experiment in the use of bacon as a viable currency.

While the Republican Party’s 2012 platform has put pegging the dollar to a precious metal back on the discussion table, the Oscar Mayer division of Kraft Foods is conducting its own unique monetary experiment in the use of pork as a form of commodity money – the Great American Bacon Barter.

Actor and comedian Josh Sankey is embarking on a road trip across the entire breadth of the continental United States equipped with neither a cent of legal tender nor a note of government-endorsed fiat money.

Instead, he has a trailer stacked with 3000 pounds (1.5 tonnes) of Butcher Thick Cut bacon with which to pay or trade for food,shelter and fuel.

While the official purpose of Sankey’s pork-financed odyssey across America is to publicize Oscar Mayer’s new Butcher Thick Cut bacon, the promotional stunt will also serve as a novel and fascinating experiment in bartering and commodities trading, with many no doubt eager to see how far Sankey can get with only his trading chops and a cache of pig meat.

For advertising director Tom Bick, the man responsible for Oscar Mayer’s brazen new publicity campaign, the inspiration behind the use of pork as an ad hoc money was the gold-backed currency that Ron Paul and other enthusiasts of the Austrian school of economics currently seek to restore.

According to Bick Oscar Mayer’s Butcher Thick Cut bacon is “the new gold standard in bacon,” and the company “thinks it’s worth its weight in gold.”

Visit the Great American Bacon Barter website>>

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