Smarter Money is a simple way to make an entire society ever so slightly smarter.
It's a simple idea, and all that is required for it to be adopted is for the currency denominations to switch over to that of Fibonacci's series.
In the case of the Euro for example, which has the world's most poorly designed bank notes to begin with, the new notes would consist of: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, and 987
The smarter bit comes as a consequence of each note not being a basic double of the one previous, thus requiring slightly more complex arithmetic to be carried out in most currency calculations.-- xenzag, Jul 23 2012 companion piece Cash-o-pedia [FlyingToaster, Jul 23 2012] Nice Money http://www.woodland...stions/moneyold.htm [xenzag, Jul 23 2012] Benjamin says no http://www.youtube....watch?v=ooAH0qqwB6U [theircompetitor, May 18 2013] haw [+]-- FlyingToaster, Jul 23 2012 A tiny bit smarter still - start with the pennies.
And there should be two different sorts of pennies in circulation.-- Loris, Jul 23 2012 Dumbing down in the UK started with decimalisation. Pior to that our money was delightful, and no one has yet been able to explain to me why it was changed. We used to have lovely money, consisting of halfpennies, pennies, three penny bits, tanners, shillings, half crowns, ten-bob notes etc. There were 240 pennies in a pound. Seems like a lifetime ago.
At least I can refuse to accept anything to do with the metric system of measuring, and I do.-- xenzag, Jul 23 2012 //start with the pennies// of which there should be 72 per one euro, just to show some sense.-- FlyingToaster, Jul 23 2012 // The smarter bit comes as a consequence of each note not being a basic double of the one previous //
Obviously the US$ is much smarter than that silly Monopoly-money you use over there, if denomination by base multiplication is to be considered 'stupid'.-- Alterother, Jul 23 2012 //no one has yet been able to explain to me why it was changed//
That is easy - stealth inflation. When most items were less than £1 to buy, it is really good to keep the pound the same but revalue the penny. So in the old system, 240 pennies to one pound, but in the new system, 100 pennies to the pound.
Especially when you think of £1 being a gold sovereign, worth perhaps £200 nowadays (and check measuringworth.com for actual value comparisons to see this is not too far off). So an old £1 is about a new £200. An old shilling is about £10 An old penny is a bit under £1. an old farthing is about just over 20p. Not much you can buy now for less than 20p!
See the stretching of the system, the smallest coin (farthing) has inflated 20 times, but the largest coin (£1) has inflated 200 fold - 10 times as much.
Edit to add - it was not "decimalisation", it was "centimalisation". 100 pennies to a pound. If it was decimalisation it would have become 10 pennies to a shilling and 10 shillings to a pound.-- pocmloc, Jul 23 2012 Some of the early "civilisations" on your planet displayed a fondness for Base 60, in that it has a large number of factors.-- 8th of 7, Jul 23 2012 Instead of the Fibonacci series, an alternative "Smart" currency might use notes with only Prime denominations, and thereby becoming the Prime Currency on the planet.-- jurist, Jul 24 2012 Comes complete with Sieve of Eratosthenes wallet …-- 8th of 7, Jul 24 2012 I thought this was going to be really smart money.
As my hand reaches towards the supermarket shelf a small voice comes from my wallet "You're buying that today? Don't you read the specials? You can get 2 for 1 on a Friday. What a putz!"...-- not_morrison_rm, Jul 24 2012 //Some of the early "civilisations" on your planet displayed a fondness for Base 60, in that it has a large number of factors.//
I never really understood the advantage of that. I mean - sure, it has more factors, but thats mainly because it's a much bigger number. Presumably in learning to count in base 60, one has to learn six times more glyphs than we use for the same purpose. We can teach children 10 digits and both cases of our alphabet in approximately the same amount of time as they needed for numbers alone. Why not go further and use base 60060?-- Loris, Jul 24 2012 2 dollar bills are not popular. 13 21 34 ?-- popbottle, May 18 2013 I started reading this, thought it was quite a good idea, then realised it was one of mine. Now I like it even more. Ha!-- xenzag, May 18 2013 I was looking for something that refuses to be spent. See link (created by yours truly)-- theircompetitor, May 18 2013 random, halfbakery