h a l f b a k e r yThe embarrassing drunkard uncle of invention.
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It is generally accepted that money, these days, is
nonsense. Most of us have negative money, owed to
banks
who have positive balance sheets made up of negative
money. It is much more painful for a person to be
£100,000 in debt than it is for a country to be
£100,000,000 in debt. Et cetera
et cetera.
Given this state of affairs, further confusion can only
make
things better. Therefore, I propose a currency system
based on rock/paper/scissors. Specifically:
1 dollar = 5 shillings
1 shilling = 8 pounds
1 pound = 5 dollars.
Thus, a dollar is worth 200 dollars, a shilling is worth
200
shillings, and a pound is worth 200 pounds. Change-
making
becomes a win/win process, and almost any financial
transaction
benefits both parties. Even better, rather than 1% of the
population owning 90% of the wealth, everyone can be
richer than
everyone else, allowing 100% of the population each to
own well
over 90% of the wealth. The circulation of money, which
most
economists agree is a good thing, would become so
beneficial that
a huge financial reverse-tornado would arise.
This would lead to some new and interesting economics.
For example, buying a cheap item using the change from
buying an expensive item might make you incredibly
rich,
whereas buying the cheap item first and the expensive
item second would bankrupt you.
As another bonus, the poorest people in society,
dealing only in the smallest of small change, could pay
off
the national debt (much as they do today). In so doing,
they would become incredibly wealthy from the even
smaller change arising from the transaction.
paper_2c_20scissors...20fillet_20steak_2e
[hippo, Aug 26 2014]
[link]
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//Given this state of affairs, further confusion can only make things
better. // |
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If you don't stop this I may just die laughing, asphyxia perhaps. |
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This will only make shiny metals more edible. |
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This would solve all of my problems. |
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Surely the best r/s/p currency would be based on the items mentioned? |
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Scissors are about a quid a go, rocks tend to be cheap, so gravel could act as small change, and paper in the form of banknotes for higher denominations... |
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At a rough go, 1269 bits of gravel make up a scissor, and there's ten scissors to the tenner, so it works out nicely. |
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Also the having to re-jigger all the cashpoint machines and shop tills would provide much needed work for engineering companies. |
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//The circulation of money, which most economists agree is a good thing |
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That only refers to their own money, and when it's circulating into their wallets. |
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Is this not the system that is already in use? Some people call it currency speculation, others call it making a killing on the exchanges. |
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Why 'Rock/paper/scissors'? - surely it should be based on 'Rock/paper/scissors/Fillet steak', or the more complete and playable game (in the sense of not having what [supercat] termed an "edge imbalance") 'Rock/paper/scissors/Fillet steak/Uri Geller'? (see link) |
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//Is this not the system that is already in use?// It
seems a very close description of some aspects of
the Weimar republic where a member of the
peasantry might sell a single potato for many billions
of marks. |
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Ah, but she couldn't then sell one of the marks for a
billion potatoes. |
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Not without some form of time-travel, no - at which
point most currency systems go awry anyway. Only
the most stoic of monetary systems are time-
invariant. |
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I think one problem with this is that disputes may
well arise, and without any form of mediation, are
likely to be resolved to the favour of the party with
the scariest and most furrowed brow. |
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//marks for a billion potatoes |
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Fungibility issues, and very much like Turkish lira in
the 1990`s, couple of million lira for a can of beer.... |
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Not to mention the South Korean Won, I was double-millionaire every month. |
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