(Untitled)

[malathion]

A man stays in a hotel for a night and when the time comes to pay his bill he doesn't have any cash or cards. Instead he writes the hotel manager a check for $100. Said man has beautiful handwriting and the hotel manager can't bring himself to cash the check. He decides to keep it instead. A little time later he goes to buy groceries but realizes

Comments

[absolutcalm]

The first man.

The check itself is legal tender (Gub'ment IOU), spent or unspent, and when and if anyone cashes that check, the first person will still be the one to pay for it. And the overdraft fees, because no one balances their checkbook so well they account for an uncashed 100 bucks for years.

I guess the check itself can only be depositable for a few years so, I suppose, the check becomes more like a tradable good, more like art.

So are you trying to say the check itself is a valuable good because of the investment of artsy handwriting by the original check-writer? Or something?

Come on, I know there's a commie angle here....

[evilegg]

Sort of on topic...
Checks are only good six months from the date they were written IF someone complains. I only mention the if someone complains because it seems like banks don't notice jack-shit other than the amount.

[jordan179]

Everyone who used the check, other than the first man. To find the exact price everyone paid, divide $100 by the number of transactions; each person paid the first man that much per transaction. Which is another way of saying that issuing new money in excess of the rate in which it wears out is a hidden tax.

[jordan179]

So it's really no different than if the guest paid cash. This is just an exercise in proving that value is subjective.

The problem is that, unless the check is redeemed at some point, $100 of fiat money have been inserted into the economy, causing inflation. And note the fiction of assuming that everybody is willing to accept this check as money simply because they think it's pretty.

Paper money issued by a government is backed by bullion and/or reputation. It's not "fiat money" in the same sense.

[malathion]

Can you explain what it means for money to be backed by "reputation"?

[the_werle]

The first man was an alien and never handed anyone a check. It was all mental conditioning and illusions brought about by mind-altering alien germ warfare, spreading from human victim to victim until we've all at one point touched this illusory check. By then it will be too late.