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Mr Butterpants
This is an incredibly good post. Oh I don't have to imagine how it is after war and no resources in addition to the fact that the winner made your money defunct. I am a Southerner, my grandmother told me exactly how it was just as her mother told her who lived in it. The US Civil War! Don't want that again. Glad you're doing well here
posted by
Justi
on June 12, 2007 at 7:01 PM
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Re: Fatty, that's pretty interesting.
Destroying old money is an interesting job. Very tempting as well, I would imagine. There have actually been some interesting movies about robberies focused on those old bills. If you can get them, they still spend like the new bills.
If you really want a good laugh, you can probably go on Ebay and buy some old Confederate money from the Civil War. Oh yeah, the South indeed had their own currency. But alas, when the war was over, it's true value was exposed and it became absolutely worthless. Just like I said, money is only as valuable as you think it is.
posted by
FattyMcButterpants
on June 12, 2007 at 5:15 PM
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Butterpants--
I don't have a witty or profound comment, but I wanted to let you know that I found your post very interesting!
posted by
Julia.
on June 12, 2007 at 5:10 PM
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Fatty, that's pretty interesting.
I had an uncle (died at age 95) that worked his whole life, after a stint in the service during WWII, at the Federal Reserve Bank. He was supervisor/manager over the men who worked at destroying old and abused paper money. It was quite a process as every bill had to be documented. For years, they burned the money in furnaces. Later they changed to shredding. They would put shredded money in little plastic bags and pass it out to visitors touring the bank.
posted by
TAPS.
on June 12, 2007 at 4:57 PM
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Re: some very valid commonsense points. At the same time it has me asking who
"Who says diamonds have value?"
Thats actually a pretty easy question to answer. The DeBeers Cartel says so. With creative marketing (A diamond is Forever) convincing every woman in the Western World that diamonds mean committment, they have created the endless demand. Now, a little known fact about diamonds is that they are actually more abundant than a metal like copper. You know copper, we make our pennies from them. So why is a diamond more expensive than a copper penny, well, its because the DeBeers family controls supply. They own a very large portion of the global diamond supply, and they prevent the market from being flooded with diamonds, which would lower the value. There are SOOOO many diamonds in this world, they really shouldn't be worth any more than a handful of pennies. But unless you own a diamond mine, you aren't getting a diamond unless you go through DeBeers. And try convincing your wife that her engagement ring should be made of copper with a quartz stone on top of it.
As for putting diamonds next to food side by side. I suppose it depends on how hungry you are. If food became scarce or hard to find, no doubt, food would have more value. But food, although more important, is easy to come by in our society. Diamonds, because of supply manipulation, are not.
Thats why diamonds are expensive...
posted by
FattyMcButterpants
on June 12, 2007 at 4:44 PM
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some very valid commonsense points. At the same time it has me asking who
said that diamonds have value. I mean its a stone ? yet people kill, steal,risk their lives for a little white stone. If we put food and a diamond side by side,which has more value? Hmmm,your article got me thinking.
posted by
proc
on June 12, 2007 at 4:02 PM
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Re: Mc
Indeed, economics is truly befuddling. But in the case of actual money, it's like psychology is more important than true value. If you "think" it's valuable, it must be. Such is the case with paper money. It's funny though, because normally we value things in society based on need or desire to have it, as well as the supply available to use. We need gas to drive around, so we give it a value based on how much we have. People like the look of diamonds, and the supply is restricted by DeBeers, so diamonds are expensive. Harder to find items are generally more valuable, which is why caviar is more expensive than oranges. But for the most part, these are all things we want or need, and that is where their value comes from.
With money, we dont really need it, we only use it to make trade easier. Money, in reality, only "represents" the goods we originally had. Like an IOU. But for some reason, our psychology and dependency on it's function to purchase goods has tricked us into believing it has value, when it really doesn't. If I had a big pile of gold that I valued at $1 million dollars, and then I created a million one dollar bills to represent its value to the public, would I then have $2 million dollars in cash and gold combined? Of course I wouldn't, but when Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, that's essentially what he said. And then he went further and said I could keep printing money to represent my million dollars worth of gold, until ultimately my gold is irrelavant and only my money matters. But in reality, the only thing I had that anyone actually wanted to begin with was the gold.
What a funny world...
posted by
FattyMcButterpants
on June 12, 2007 at 1:44 PM
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Fatty
Interesting post. I've never understood money and even now with what little understanding I have of it, is all about where'd it go? What'd I spend it on?
posted by
FoliageGold
on June 12, 2007 at 1:25 PM
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Mc
Economics has always boggled my mind. I hold my dollar in my hand and wonder what is it worth and, as you said, where did it come from? Imagine the people in South America (Brazil, I believe it was) who one day had a dollar that bought them a loaf of bread, or a carton of milk and WHAM within 2 or 3 days that dollar was worth 5 cents. Now wassup with that? Great post and extremely well written!
posted by
Troosha
on June 12, 2007 at 12:57 PM
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posted by
riri0322
on June 12, 2007 at 11:48 AM
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Interesting read !
posted by
afzal50
on June 12, 2007 at 11:03 AM
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