On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 15:12, David P James wrote: > Ron Johnson wrote: > > On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 12:18, David P James wrote: > > > >>Travis Crump wrote: > >> > > >>> > >>>People and corporations produce their own money every day as well; have > >>>you ever written a check? Try coming up with a difference between > >>>checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government > >>>produced money that isn't circular, ie "the first set isn't money > >>>because it is not government backed" Have you ever gone to a fair or > >>>arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides? What > >>>are the tokens if they aren't money? > >>> > >>> > >> > >>I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees > >>of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that > >>you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably > >>only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to > >>sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount. > >> > > > > > David, > > > > You're missing the point, which is that "money", when it has no > > intrinsic value (or backed by that which has intrinsic value, for > > example, precious metals), become only, as another on the thread aptly > > put it, "a means of keeping score", and is based on faith. > > Granted that money is a special form of asset because of its other roles > as a unit of account and medium of exchange but in terms of having no > intrinsic value it's not really alone as bonds, stock certificates, > checks or arcade tokens don't have any intrinsic value either, and > aren't generally backed by anything that has intrinsic value (except > maybe the tokens, which are backed by a promise of a real "service"). > The "difference" is that all the above (except the tokens) are backed by > a promise of money, which, as we have determined, has no intrinsic > value, so, in that sense, they're all issued and acquired based on the > same faith of the financial system's stability plus some faith in the > stability of the debtor.
Au contrere (contraire?), bonds are *secured* debt (say, by that factory that was built from the proceeds of the bond sale), and stock cer- tificates confer partial ownership, and, thus, if the corporation were to be liquidated, the holder of the stock certificate(s) would get an appropriate % of the net assets. -- +------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ ron.l.johnson | | | | "For me and windows it became a matter of easy to start | | with, and becoming increasingly difficult to be produc- | | tive as time went on, and if something went wrong very | | difficult to fix, compared to linux's large over head | | setting up and learning the system with ease of use and | | the increase in productivity becoming larger the longer I | | use the system." | | Rohan Nicholls , The Netherlands | +------------------------------------------------------------+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
