5 ms·

I'm bored too. Why not have an expiry date on money? All of it: fiat and crypto. Good for 10 years from the date its minted/created, virtual or not. No more sle

by 8jef 5y ago

I'm bored too. Why not have an expiry date on money? All of it: fiat and crypto. Good for 10 years from the date its minted/created, virtual or not. No more sleeping fortune being stashed. Why not do the same with corporations? Laws? States? Like a 50 years limit with forced liquidation at the end. Like for any life form: you born, you live, you die. Just imagine. What a dream. And because I'm that bored, another one: sandboxeing corporations. Do whatever you want within your shop, but only within your shop. People show for work, they can be treated as slaves if they want to. People get outside the sandbox no strings attached, the corporation has zero influence outside its own domain, and whatever happen outside the sandbox is public or owned by individuals only. That would be great for the environment. Boredom is a blessing.

gary_0 5y ago
> Why not have an expiry date on money? Because then it's not fungible, which means by some definitions it's not money. An "old" dollar whose time is running out would have less value than a "new" dollar, making transactions suddenly very complicated.
- fleddr 5y ago
  The idea is not as crazy as it sounds. Some argue that as soon as central banks launch a digital dollar, said dollar becomes programmable. One major change is that effectively the central bank becomes the main bank for everybody, fully centralized. As such, they would have far more insight. And they can push money to you directly, like a stimulus, when needed. Yet also allow this money to have an expiry date, so you have to spend it before a certain date.
  - 8note 5y ago
    This expiry date is tied to it being in my account? Or just on the dollar? Why would anyone want to accept it, when it will be worthless next week?
    - fleddr 5y ago
      Tied to your account, obviously. Stimulus money that has to be used this month, or it will expire. For the receiving party of that money, it is "normal" money, that doesn't expire. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but programmable money would make it possible.
alex_young 5y ago
Somewhat like the miracle of Wörgl https://thetchblog.com/2020/06/15/silvio-gesell-and-the-worgl-experiment/ https://thetchblog.com/2020/06/15/silvio-gesell-and-the-worg...
jobigoud 5y ago
Some type of money has an expiry date. Not sure how it works in other countries but here (France) we have "restaurant coupons". You get these issued from your employer. You pay half their value and then you can use them to pay for food, at the grocery store, restaurant, fast food, etc. They are physical coupons so even though there is your name on it you can treat them as parallel money: you can trade them, give them away, etc. They have an expiration date, they only last until the beginning of the following year. So usually if you have many of them left and the expiration is near (you can only use two at a time and they are less than 10€ each) there is a lot of trading or donations between family members to make sure they don't go to waste.
CRConrad 5y ago
> Why not have an expiry date on money? All of it: fiat and crypto. I came up with that idea in my teens (so looong before "crypto"), thinking about replacing taxes with it: Deprecate your currency by the same percentage the state needs to run, have your central bank print the same amount of new currency for next year, and voila: Nobody pays taxes, the state gets its cut anyway, and the money supply remains constant because the X billion the public held at the start of last year are only 0.7 X billion at the end of it / start of the next and the other 0.3 X billion are freshly minted by the central bank for the government. This was before I learned that "the money supply" doesn't consist only (or even mainly) of cash, and that most "money" isn't actually created by state central banks but by the commercial banking system... But what can I say, it was in my teens. > Good for 10 years from the date its minted/created, virtual or not. Too discrete-step-ish. Deprecate at lest yearly, or if possible somehow smoothly over the year. Your second paragraph: Full (well, almost full) agreement.
- jtsiskin 5y ago
  If would also mean you can never hold cash or you’re losing money.
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Yeah, so it would also have the advantage of discouraging money turning from a useful active medium of exchange to a passive "resource" to be hoarded and have rent extracted from -- yet another point in its favour, as I saw it. My initially unquestioned assumption was that since the money in your bank account is denominated in the same currency as cash, it would automatically lose value at the same rate as cash. Can't recall exactly when I realised that the presence of money in bank accounts might influence the value of cash in stead; still in my teens, I think. As I recall, I started speculating about whether my system would have to even things out between cash and bank accounts by obliging the banks to continuously adjust your balance down, or something. (Can't recall if transferring the reduction to the state as tax, or just msking it go "POOF!" and disappear.) Next thing, I probably realised there are yet other types of holdings than cash and savings accounts, and lots of other complications, so abandoned the idea. And then I guess I grew out of my teens.

by 8jef 5y ago

gary_0 5y ago

> Why not have an expiry date on money? Because then it's not fungible, which means by some definitions it's not money. An "old" dollar whose time is running out would have less value than a "new" dollar, making transactions suddenly very complicated.

fleddr 5y ago
The idea is not as crazy as it sounds. Some argue that as soon as central banks launch a digital dollar, said dollar becomes programmable. One major change is that effectively the central bank becomes the main bank for everybody, fully centralized. As such, they would have far more insight. And they can push money to you directly, like a stimulus, when needed. Yet also allow this money to have an expiry date, so you have to spend it before a certain date.
- 8note 5y ago
  This expiry date is tied to it being in my account? Or just on the dollar? Why would anyone want to accept it, when it will be worthless next week?
  - fleddr 5y ago
    Tied to your account, obviously. Stimulus money that has to be used this month, or it will expire. For the receiving party of that money, it is "normal" money, that doesn't expire. I'm not saying it's a good idea, but programmable money would make it possible.

alex_young 5y ago

Somewhat like the miracle of Wörgl https://thetchblog.com/2020/06/15/silvio-gesell-and-the-worgl-experiment/ https://thetchblog.com/2020/06/15/silvio-gesell-and-the-worg...

jobigoud 5y ago

Some type of money has an expiry date. Not sure how it works in other countries but here (France) we have "restaurant coupons". You get these issued from your employer. You pay half their value and then you can use them to pay for food, at the grocery store, restaurant, fast food, etc. They are physical coupons so even though there is your name on it you can treat them as parallel money: you can trade them, give them away, etc. They have an expiration date, they only last until the beginning of the following year. So usually if you have many of them left and the expiration is near (you can only use two at a time and they are less than 10€ each) there is a lot of trading or donations between family members to make sure they don't go to waste.

CRConrad 5y ago

> Why not have an expiry date on money? All of it: fiat and crypto. I came up with that idea in my teens (so looong before "crypto"), thinking about replacing taxes with it: Deprecate your currency by the same percentage the state needs to run, have your central bank print the same amount of new currency for next year, and voila: Nobody pays taxes, the state gets its cut anyway, and the money supply remains constant because the X billion the public held at the start of last year are only 0.7 X billion at the end of it / start of the next and the other 0.3 X billion are freshly minted by the central bank for the government. This was before I learned that "the money supply" doesn't consist only (or even mainly) of cash, and that most "money" isn't actually created by state central banks but by the commercial banking system... But what can I say, it was in my teens. > Good for 10 years from the date its minted/created, virtual or not. Too discrete-step-ish. Deprecate at lest yearly, or if possible somehow smoothly over the year. Your second paragraph: Full (well, almost full) agreement.

jtsiskin 5y ago
If would also mean you can never hold cash or you’re losing money.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Yeah, so it would also have the advantage of discouraging money turning from a useful active medium of exchange to a passive "resource" to be hoarded and have rent extracted from -- yet another point in its favour, as I saw it. My initially unquestioned assumption was that since the money in your bank account is denominated in the same currency as cash, it would automatically lose value at the same rate as cash. Can't recall exactly when I realised that the presence of money in bank accounts might influence the value of cash in stead; still in my teens, I think. As I recall, I started speculating about whether my system would have to even things out between cash and bank accounts by obliging the banks to continuously adjust your balance down, or something. (Can't recall if transferring the reduction to the state as tax, or just msking it go "POOF!" and disappear.) Next thing, I probably realised there are yet other types of holdings than cash and savings accounts, and lots of other complications, so abandoned the idea. And then I guess I grew out of my teens.