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Calling it "fake money" is highly misleading (to me at least). This "fake money" system sounds a lot more similar to food stamps or vouchers.
by whack 10y ago
Calling it "fake money" is highly misleading (to me at least). This "fake money" system sounds a lot more similar to food stamps or vouchers.
- sctb 10y agoWe updated the title to something less click-baity. We can change it again if someone suggests a better one.
- pimlottc 10y ago"Refugees arriving in Italian town given imitation bank notes as local currency" Still misleading; I thought they were being given counterfeit currency. "Local alternative currency" perhaps?
- paavokoya 10y agoYou're correct. Many have a hard time grasping that currency is not always a governmental endorsed bank note.
- tamana 10y agoThis local scrip is a governmentendorsed banknote
- WalterBright 10y agoAll kinds of things are used as currency. Checks, traveller's cheques, green stamps, credit cards, food stamps, IOUs, frequent flyer miles, coupons, etc. They'll often trade at a discount to their "cash value", depending on transaction costs and the risk that it'll be no good.
- SwellJoe 10y agoI still assumed, with the new title, that it was something cruel rather than clever.
- GrumpyYoungMan 10y agoThe technical term is "scrip", I believe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- delbel 10y agoobjectively speaking, all fiat money is fake. the only "real" money would be considered notes backed by hard assets that can be produced on demand, like gold, silver, or other hard assets.
- mark_edward 10y agoWhy is shiny rock more real than pretty paper? It's all a collective hallucination
- jacalata 10y ago"hard assets" means "things that people would want even if the bank that gave them out collapsed". People wanting shiny things is seen as a more reliable collective hallucination than any specific economy.
- paavokoya 10y agoNo, shiny metal has a (mostly guaranteed inflation rate/cannot be printed carelessly) finite supply. Paper (now mostly digital) currency does not.
- kaonashi 10y agoNope, it's all money. The latter has a promise of convertibility by the issuer, but this promise can fail. The only promise that can't fail is the promise to redeem for an alternate form of the same currency (fiat-backed bonds from the issuer, like treasuries e.g.).
- whack 10y agoWe're getting into semantics here, but we need different words to describe fiat money that can practically be used (legally) to obtain real goods, and fiat money that no mainstream merchant is willing to accept. When people say "real money" as opposed to "fake money", they're usually referring to the above distinction.