B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for July 18, 2021

Sure sounds like what I have in my wallet.

If you really think your cash is worthless, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands!

Now some pedant will point out they didn’t have cryptocurrency in those days.

Backed by nothing, backed by rich people’s integrity – same thing.

I thought clams was the only currency in B.C.

Well, that message seems pretty plain. It is not cryptic at all.

Reminds me of how Bottle caps where the currency in the 1st and 3rd and 4th Fallout games. In Fallout 2 and New Vegas they had a government set up that actually used a form of cash not based on an old DuckTales cartoons.

Currency is backed up by the government issuing it while cryptocurrency is backed up by the laws of supply and demand. There’s an argument to be made about the solvency of the GOVERNMENTS issuing currency, but I’ll take Fort Knox over the capriciousness of speculative markets.

Jackson Palmer, the cocreator of dogecoin, had a pretty interesting Twitter thread on this the other day. I may not have expressed it the way he did, but I don’t think he was wrong.

Physical cash is at least tangible. And if the servers crash or are hacked, you still have cash.

The “value based on faith but backed by nothing” that I have always questioned, is how they get those stone tablets to float, much less sail in such a predictable manner! ;>)

I have Bitcoin before. They’re not very tasty and they’re very hard.

AKA the Stock Market.

If I could quantify two human emotions: fear and greed, I’d own Wall Street.

The tears to come in the collapse of this new ephemera would fill Great Salt Lake to ancient levels. It would then float that 1% who have already stocked their life boats. T’is ever thus.

Just techno babble to me……

$10,000,000 in gold, under your bed will never be worth the value of 1 sandwich when things get tough!

The problem with money is that it standardizes value. It gives us a way to “keep score” when we do transactions.

This locks us into a “zero sum game” mentality where, in order for there to be a winner, there must be a loser.

If one team wins a game by a score of 7-5 the other team loses it by a score of 5-7.

If Al, Barbara and Charlie all start a poker game with $50 each or a total of $150 at the end of the evening the total is still $150 although it might be distributed differently: the sum of the winnings is equal to the sum of the losings so wins – losses = zero. Hence the term, zero sum game.

So in order for someone else to win something (like a civil right), I must lose something.

If, instead, we think in terms of values instead of money, then we are open to a “positive sum game” which means wins – losses > 0. For example I raise grain, you raise mules. I borrow some of your mules to plow my field (big gain for me small loss for you). Then I give you some of my grain to feed your mules (small loss for me, big gain for you).

Such a system is called bartering. It’s what people did prior to money. It makes positive sum games (AKA win-win solutions) possible.

There is also the concept of negative sum games where wins – losses < 0. War is the best example of this. Nobody wins a war, one side merely manages to lose it to a lesser extent.

The current political situation in the country is a negative sum game. Both sides are willing to inflict damage upon themselves if it means they can inflict more damage on the other side.

Stop thinking about “keeping score” and start thinking about values.

Money is a tool.

“Faith” is believing what you know ain’t so. – Sam Clemens, “Following The Equator”, c. 1897

Putting faith in cryptocurrency is as mad as thinking a mortgage is a good thing. We stash dead people in crypts and mort is French for dead.

Huh. I call that a credit card.

Unfortunately true.

Especially the stuff we use. Losing more of it’s value daily.

Some people fall for anything. The whole cryptocurrency thing is a ponzi scam.

They have computers in B.C.?

I’m not saying I’m going to get into Cryptocurrency, but I do like the idea that it’s “outside” the established financial structure, which is as corrupt as everything else that’s “established”…

Value itself is backed only by agreement.

That’s what I was thinking. I bet there isn’t even any gold in Fort Knox. It holds useless boxed records from decades ago…

Wait til Biden’s done. It’ll be cheaper than toilet paper.

But…what IS it…?

Another name for that is “religion”

cash is tradeable debt

As good as anything it can be exchanged for. Currency in hand is much better. Anything digital or similar can be more easily swiped or disappeared. No matter who or what the organization, a thief is a thief.

Those who put their faith in fiat currency never drove a Fiat.

Wasn’t cryptocurrency what the Phahros put in the tombs when they were buried?

It’s based on the creation of wealth through productive labor. If you print a bunch of money and give it to people in lieu of them actually working, you decrease the value of the money you are giving away and end up with inflation.