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From: gam@proper.UUCP (Gordon Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: Paid in Dollars?
Message-ID: <1058@proper.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Mar-84 22:13:08 EST
Article-I.D.: proper.1058
Posted: Tue Mar  6 22:13:08 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Mar-84 01:12:01 EST
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Organization: Proper UNIX, San Leandro, CA
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> From: shad@teldata.UUCP (Warren N. Shadwick)

> It has been truly stated that if we do not learn from history we
> are destined to re-live it.  The German Mark at the close of WWI
> is another example of an unbacked money system failing.  Reports
> contend that it took a wheelbarrow full of Marks to buy a loaf of
> bread.  And it was cheaper to wall paper rooms with the
> "renewable" currency than to buy wall paper with it.

Oh, if you think PAPER money is bad, guess what you're REALLY
getting paid in?  Itty-bitty electrical charges on computer disks
of financial institutions!  What a dreadfully transient thing for
an economy to be based on!

Indeed, if you understood why the old German Mark failed, you
would understand that it is not paper money that is the
danger, but foolish management of a country's currency
(in addition to the historical perspective of Germany being
forced to pay more in reparations that realistically could've).

Obviously paper money works, our whole economy is based
on just that.  Does that mean that someday our paper dollars
will be worthless?  Probably.  Nothing lasts forever.

So by all means I encourage you to learn from history.
Learning a bit about economics wouldn't hurt either.

> "Ignorance is Bliss" -- George Orwell, "1984".

(And learn more about literature, too.)