AW: fort knox

[cwiljes@bol.de]

Sorry, the lines in my previous posting were too long. Here is 
a version which should look better:

John Jarvin wrote:
> There is nothing backing those greenbacks but 
> our own collective word that we all agree
> they are worth something.

Sometimes a simple fact of live hits you like a ton of bricks.
As did this info with me. 

So we all agree that these small pieces of paper or pieces of metal
are worth something. We think they are worth much more than the 
material value of the paper or metal they are made of. And because all 
of us believe this (or have agreed to think so) it's a self fulfilling 
prophecy.

But how do we agree how much worth it is? How do we measure "worth" 
to begin with? We can't measure worth in monetary value because it 
is the money's value we want to determine. So we determine the money's 
value in goods: This small piece of paper with a "10" printed on it 
is worth

   100    eggs
or   1    visit to the cinema
or   0.01 of "Uncle Scrooge" #1 in fine condition

But how do we determine the goods' value? We cannot use money because 
this would result in a circulary definition.

Even worth: Think about a person (or duck) who considers money as a 
good, so he does not use the money to be goods but wants to have 
the money just because it is money. If all people would think so, 
money would no longer be money but we would need another form of 
"symbolic good".

The same happened to gold: Gold is not a worth in itself. Or why 
should I want to own this stuff? What can I do with a ton of gold? 
Nothing! But it is scarce, so in the beginning of history it was 
ideal to be used as a "symbolic good" - as money. Nowadays we can 
control the scarcity of money by government institutions and 
international conventions. And if any country does not follow 
these its currency will soon get worthless because people lose 
faith in it. Just like people of ancient times would have if 
somebody would have found an indefinite supply of gold: inflation.

There are some goods which I would like to call "semi-currencies": 
Objects which are not as desirably as their monetary value. These 
goods share some traits with money:

- stamps
- stocks
- comic books

To be precise: If someone buys a comic book for an astronomical 
sum this does not automatically make the comic book a "semi currency". 
If he want's to have it for himself (just like Scrooge wants money) 
it's not money! But if he buys it simply because he thinks someone 
else will want to buy it for a higher amount it soon might become 
a semi-currency. So I think there is no sharp contrast between
"money" an "good".

The whole thing gets even more complicated since we started using 
money which has no (controllable) physical representation at all: 
Just little numbers on paper or in a computer. What is their worth? 
It is this: The good name (=reliability) of those who are involved 
in it's transaction. So it's just this: A promise! It's an IOU 
(="I owe you"). You can trade these IOUs to others. But in the 
end it all boils down to trust. But trust in whom? In the seller?
the bank? the government? the future? I am beginning to get lost here. 
Sorry, I got carried away a bit ;-)

Cord