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Message:: [QUOTE="kaparthy, post: 3899775, member: 57463"]Sorry for the misidentification there. It is "The Future of Money" from September 17,  found here:  <a href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-future-of-money.347031/" class="internalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-future-of-money.347031/">https://www.cointalk.com/threads/the-future-of-money.347031/</a> Overall, thanks for the discussion. Ludwig von Mises said that advocates for socialism and capitalism usually agree on the facts. What they disagree on is what the facts mean. Economics classes in college cite three attributes of money: medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. I point out that today those are decoupled. As you noted clearly, the dollar is the unit of account in which gold, etc., etc., is priced. Gold is still a better store of value than the dollar. I have to insist that it is significant that the US Treasury sells gold and silver coins. When the Fine Arts Commission gold coins were created, Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal was against the program. He did not want to endorse gold over dollars. (See Wikipedia here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Arts_Commemorative_Series_medallions" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Arts_Commemorative_Series_medallions" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Arts_Commemorative_Series_medallions</a> It is a good point and is worth examining. The US also knew both shortages and over-abundances of small change in the 1800s. Silver inflation forced retailers to sell small change at a discount to wholesalers because banks stopped the free exchange of silver for gold. In both cases, the cause was in the faulty ecoomic theory of the issuer of coinage. In the first case, it was the erroneous idea of bimetalism. In the second, it was the fiat inflation of the Federal budget. That alone was not enough. The run-up caused by the Hunt Brothers was a panic. As such, it was a social event. We can contrast it with many other (failed) mass marketing ideas such as the Million Man March. They come and go and we all know the Tulip Craze from Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (1841). I cited Neil Carothers' work, Fractional Currency. I agree that as long as the media are exchangeable, it is not necessary that they be made of precious metals. The problem of wear was not a problem for 2000 years. Then it was. That is two different points, there. I agree 100% that all money is a matter of some faith. Even Ayn Rand said that. "When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money." (Francisco's Money Speech from Atlas Shrugged) On barter, however, allow me to point to Debt: the First 5000 Years by David Graeber. As an anthropologist, Graeber asserts that no society ever went from barter to money. Barter is what people do when money fails. Graeber finds the origins of money, not in trade for economic gain, but in mutual gift exchange. Gift giving led to trade and economic calculation. Even today in a free market transaction, both the "buyer" and "seller" say "Thank you." Otherwise, both parties would chortle, "You idiot!" [/QUOTE]

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