i missed the part about a barter society - did you mention that?
Err...yes! The whole point was to show how you go from pure barter to a central currency. The intermediate step with IOUs as debt money.
no legal tender payable for all debts was created. in a barter society, nobody has to accept anything. "stuff" absolutely is money in one sense of the word, but that is not the typical sense of the word
Its worth pointing out I guess, that legal tender is also not good for all debts. AFAIK, anyone in the USA can demand that they be paid in other ways as well. I can sell a house and demand only gold. Indeed, I don't think I can pay my quarterly taxes in legal tender and thats to the government, or my phone bill, or my credit card bills. They all tell me not to mail in cash! Instead, I'm suppose to use a personal IOU paper (a check, which might not be good!) which will be converted to legal tender by the bank, so there you have the two step process for the great majority of things I pay.
Anyway, as I said before, I'll let this drop. I am happy to entertain alternate means of injecting fiat currency into the system, so thanks for providing me with some insights in that direction. I'm still dubious of interest free money for public causes. This strikes me as begging for trouble. I'm very much in favor of cutting out Gods Special Bankers from the loop. How best to do that, I don't know. |
