Hi Jay - if you haven't read this month's Wired magazine, the content will be available on-line on 1/15/02. I think you'll like the article on e-gold and Islam. Apparently there is an Islamic sect which is in favor of e-gold, so they started e-dinar, a counterpart to e-gold. The one thing of value I learned is that gold is almost twice as heavy as lead, but I think you'll get more out of it.
wired.com:80/wired/archive/10.01/
One of these days I am going to lecture you on how the gold standard does NOT mean simply using gold as money. It was very manipulated by governments and central banks, especially after 1922, when the world went back on, not the gold standard, but the gold exchange standard. But I won't do it today. Just be aware that money has been politicized for centuries. Maybe there was a golden age under the Lydians, but remember even they made money out of a mixture of gold and silver (electrum).
Reading about foreign exchange in multiple currencies hurts my head. I need to make up cheat sheets.
Which reminds me of a joke one of my history profs told us. He graduated from Columbia, and the head of the department there kept his middle desk drawer locked, and the key in his personal possession at all times, for years. Every day, before he went to teach class, he'd open the drawer, look in it, and lock it back up.
After he died, the first thing everyone wanted to do was take that key off his body and see what was in the drawer.
The drawer was empty, except for a piece of paper taped to the center. It read:
1400s = 15th century
1500s = 16th century
1700s = 18th century
1800s - 19th century
1900s = 20th century |
