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Money is a contract with the state. It expires with the state. Physical paper bills also do wear out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/

Money is a contract with the state. It expires with the state. Physical paper bills also do wear out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/old-dollar-bills-cash-federal-reserve/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/old...

mikewarot 3y ago
Soft money is a contract with the state, hard money doesn't expire. A $1 silver dollar coin from 1901 is worth a heck of a lot more than a $1 bill from the same time.
- jonnycomputer 3y ago
  The value of that $1 silver coin is either the market value of the silver, or the sentimental value to collectors. It not functionally money anymore. The notion of "hard money" is a joke.
  - latency-guy2 3y ago
    > The notion of "hard money" is a joke. Why? I don't even think modern Keynesians would argue against commodities this confidently, maybe MMT's would?
    - taliesinb 3y ago
      I guess we should distinguish money from commodities, though? For money to mean something different to commodities, it must enjoy a privileged legal and social role, by virtue of its ability to satisfy tax obligations to the state and debt obligations to other private citizens. I guess the "joke" is that we used to think the value of money derived primarily from its commodity backing. Which was maybe true in some particular historical periods but not true whenever state power was durable, as it is today.
- anonporridge 3y ago
  Hard money can expire, sort of. Hard money is a contract with generalized civilization that only has value so long as civilization continues to organize and complexify our resources. A $1 silver dollar coin still has a lot of objective value because civilization still provides lots of good and useful stuff for us to consume.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    If we get to the point where a silver dollar has no value, we're either in a Star Trek where you can make as many as you want, at no cost... or we're past Nate Hagen's "Great Simplification", and worse off than the dark ages... Younger Dryas catastrophe level stuff
    - verall 3y ago
      Or a huge cache of cheaply minable silver is found, or some fancy technology to extremely cheaply extract silver from the tailings of another resource, or a government decides to dump silver reserves onto the market to destabilize some economy somewhere. I fully agree that the value of silver is very unlikely to crater but it's not exactly Star Trek unlikely.

mikewarot 3y ago

Soft money is a contract with the state, hard money doesn't expire. A $1 silver dollar coin from 1901 is worth a heck of a lot more than a $1 bill from the same time.

jonnycomputer 3y ago
The value of that $1 silver coin is either the market value of the silver, or the sentimental value to collectors. It not functionally money anymore. The notion of "hard money" is a joke.
- latency-guy2 3y ago
  > The notion of "hard money" is a joke. Why? I don't even think modern Keynesians would argue against commodities this confidently, maybe MMT's would?
  - taliesinb 3y ago
    I guess we should distinguish money from commodities, though? For money to mean something different to commodities, it must enjoy a privileged legal and social role, by virtue of its ability to satisfy tax obligations to the state and debt obligations to other private citizens. I guess the "joke" is that we used to think the value of money derived primarily from its commodity backing. Which was maybe true in some particular historical periods but not true whenever state power was durable, as it is today.
anonporridge 3y ago
Hard money can expire, sort of. Hard money is a contract with generalized civilization that only has value so long as civilization continues to organize and complexify our resources. A $1 silver dollar coin still has a lot of objective value because civilization still provides lots of good and useful stuff for us to consume.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  If we get to the point where a silver dollar has no value, we're either in a Star Trek where you can make as many as you want, at no cost... or we're past Nate Hagen's "Great Simplification", and worse off than the dark ages... Younger Dryas catastrophe level stuff
  - verall 3y ago
    Or a huge cache of cheaply minable silver is found, or some fancy technology to extremely cheaply extract silver from the tailings of another resource, or a government decides to dump silver reserves onto the market to destabilize some economy somewhere. I fully agree that the value of silver is very unlikely to crater but it's not exactly Star Trek unlikely.