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May be this is baked, but I will give it a try anyway.
Sometimes it happens that some countries do not have forigh currency reserves but they do need to purchase things from international market. They can do barter trading in such case. Ex. some years back, a south amercan country bought computers
from Russia using sheeps instead of currency. This saves currency reserves for both countries.
What if Russia did not want sheeps ? In this case it is possible to involve a third country which can take sheep from other country and give Russia what it wanted. So this will be a 3-party barter trade. What if this third country which had need for sheeps but still could not give russia what it wanted ?.. Involve 4th country. ! This can goto <n> countries.
This way a large number of international trades can be achieved without spending a single doller of hard currency.
LETS
http://en.wikipedia...ange_trading_system [normzone, May 17 2013]
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Annotation:
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What an excellent idea. But making sure the trades are equitable to both parties may be tricky; it may be useful to assign some notional, arbitrary value to the items being exchanged. Thus both parties benefit, as they know they are not being cheated. |
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Perhaps these notional values could be given a temporary and non-pejorative "friendly name", such as "Dollar" or "Euro" ? |
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You're going to end up with some very high-mileage sheep. |
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//Mutli party// I've been to one of those. |
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No, [8th], it would be much better to use large stones with
holes in. For one thing, they're harder to cart around in
large quantities, severly hampering black sheep market
activities. |
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it can go on for <n> countries so long as there are at least <n> unique commodities that lead in a string from X to Y. Since the market is not frictionless I imagine that the losses in such a transaction would only appeal to dictators in banana republics with gross surpluses of bananas and in desperate need of sub machine guns. |
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Similar to LETS i think, but LETS is more efficient and there is a world LETS (or was). |
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LETS: Yes. LETS is better, i Think. It can be done for countries too. UN/UNESCO or some similar oranization can play the role of central agency. |
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I think this would be especially great for poor african countries. They may have natural resources such as ores etc. which they can barter. |
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// losses in such a transaction // |
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I suspect that the losses may not be significant. |
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then you don't understand commodities. |
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I wonder if either country still has the sheeps or the computers. |
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Most barter also involves a kicker and some tax, both of which get paid in currency most times. |
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paperbackswap.com is the best barter site I know, but countries would never deal so small and simple. |
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What I find amusing is VJW (who's reasonably erudite) posting in "menospeakadaenglish". |
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[marked-for-deletion] this is what cargo companies do. |
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Did you mean cargo cults? |
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