In the Beginning was the Command Line

[Marcus Brubaker]

On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 18:05, Taavi Burns wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 05:03:25PM -0500, Marcus Brubaker wrote:
> > in order to encourage internal industries.  The key is that money is a
> > commodity and its value is dictated by supply and demand just like
> > everything else.  The benefit of using a currency over hard goods is
> > precisely that it can be borrowed without it actually existing.  You
> > can't borrow a loaf of bread that doesn't exist, but you can borrow
> > money which doesn't really exist.  This allows investment and economic
> > growth that wouldn't otherwise be possible.
> 
> Ah, but money doesn't really exist either.  It only has value because
> everyone agrees that it has value, usually as a direct result of a government
> backing it with actual resources, or a reputable promise of having
> resources.

Absolutely...which is why lending works, as I was saying above.  Of
course, most every government in the world has long since stopped
backing their currency with any resource in particular.  I think the US
went off the gold standard in the late 1800s, early 1900s, although I
could be wrong on that.

Interesting side note:  I once heard it said that the author of the
Wizard of Oz was strongly in favor of having a resource backed
currency.  So much so, in fact, that he wrote it into the story, "Follow
the yellow brick road..."  Of course, that could be completely false...

-- 
Marcus Brubaker <marcus.brubaker-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>

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