>>>>>http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/18/business/fed.php
>>>>>
>>>>>"...a tactic that amounts to creating vast new sums of money out of thin air."
>>>>>
>>>>>how much more money can we print?
>>>>
>>>>Depends on how much would Disney Corp charge for image of Mickey Mouse on the $2384 bill (hey, got to adjust for inflation!).
>>>>
>>>>They're printing funny money ever since they declared that gold base isn't needed anymore. BTW, what happened with the Fort Knox gold - who was the last guy to see it? The crew of Goldfinger?
>>>
>>>Why isn't the U.S. receiving payment for the use of the term 'dollar' to denote the standard currency? We had it first. Seems like a copyright issue to me...hey maybe we can pay off the debt! :o) Oh wait a minute, 'dollar' existed in Scotland and even England before that so perhaps they would end up with the monies....hmmmm, better scratch that idea..... :o)
>>
>>The name dollar is derived from the dutch "Daalder" which was a dutch coin. So I guess the dutch hold the copyright :) You can send the payments for the use of the word dollar to my personal bank account :) ?
>
>During a visit to Innsbruck in Austria some years ago I was told that the word Dollar was derived from the german word Thal which means valley. In the old days people had to pay a tax or a toll to pass the valley in which Innsbruck is. What they had to pay was called a Thal Steuer or something like that. This Thal Steuer was quickly shortened into Thaler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A1chymov

I suspect the dutch coin Daalder derived from this, and the dutch brought it to North america where it become the dollar.
The dutch version of the link above gives more info than the english in this regards.