pancakes from germany, decorated with mango butter from hawaii, and topped off with maple syrup from canada
I'm drinking coffee from Arabica beans from who knows where, ground on a German designed machine that was probably made in China, for all I know, pressed through a French gadget, while wearing a nightgown made in Sri Lanka.
None of which would be possible if you had to purchase these items with either gold or barter.
In a barter system, almost everybody pays in "country money," things which were made locally. The last local example I am aware of is tobacco, and the local grandees, who had a lot of tobacco themselves, declared that tobacco was the alternate medium of exchange to gold, which was very scarce -- talk about fiat money.
The other alternate was trading IOUs, as there simply was no cash money to be had. They were land rich, but cash poor, is the way they described it. And as trading IOUs was a risky business, the lawyers were kept very busy. |
