[ExI] Money and Human Nature (was Re: Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal)

[Mirco Romanato]

Il 12/11/2011 17:51, Stefano Vaj ha scritto:
> 2011/11/12 spike <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net>>
> 
>     I am trying to imagine doing that with greenbacks, and seeing a pile
>     of hundred dollar bills in the trash.
> 
> 
> Well, what you could sooner or later be seeing is that your bits and
> byte in some account are not accepted any more in exchange for goods and
> services, or even for other similar bits and bytes... :-) 
> 
> BTW, the communist regime in Viet Nam never abolished money, not even
> foreign exchange and it was incredibly naive of them to put all their
> wealth in the currency of the regime about to be defeated...

The main point people appear to miss is that currency and money are not
the same thing. Currency is a receipt for money but it is not money.
Money is a long term store of value. Currency is not.
Money is backed by itself (there is no counter party risk), currency is
backed by money (like the gold standard) or by something else like
government promises and reputation.
Money is an emergent feature of a complex economic system, currency is
an imposition of the government.

As usually happen, the promises and reputation of the governments, in
the long term, have a value of zero. Gold, silver, copper also, stay
gold, silver and copper.

Mirco