Universal Currency

[KarlOmega1]

How many people here wish there was a universal currency?
How many here get sick and tired of knowing some nations' currency is worth more/less than others and that you sometimes have to Convert the money you have with you to the currency of the country you're visiting?

[Zedd]

Hmmm if all were equal..Some people would go broke...

[Supercheese]

I dunno... one universal currency seems too much like One World Government™. The Euro seems to be doing quite well, though, and it's more universal than any other currency I know about.

I am by no means an expert in this field, however. Heck, I won't even take Economics class 'til next semester... I don't know.

[Aridas]

It would make things difficult considering the prices from store to store would have to change depending on what currency was used where and how much the average person made in those places.

[Valynth]

This won't work unless all the governments in the world merge together and form one solid government, now follow my reasoning:

Currency is the basis for any economic system that will work on a massive scale, merge the bases, you merge the whole economy.

Gorvenment is based around the flow of money and/or good/services, AKA the economy.

Therefore, if you merge the currency, you merge the economy and if you merge the economy, you merge the government.

[KarlOmega1]

This won't work unless all the governments in the world merge together and form one solid government, now follow my reasoning:

Currency is the basis for any economic system that will work on a massive scale, merge the bases, you merge the whole economy.

Gorvenment is based around the flow of money and/or good/services, AKA the economy.

Therefore, if you merge the currency, you merge the economy and if you merge the economy, you merge the government.

Ok...one...look at the Euro...did that require the governments to merge into one? I don't think so...

[Valynth]

Look at the U.S., each state has its own gov. yet there is a much larger gov. that manages the inter-state trading.  It works primarily because each state recognises the larger gov. as necessity.

Also, there is a much similar thing beginning to happen with the euro, but the countries don't want to acknowledge the necessity of a government body to enforce the euro.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh. I'm happy earning harder currency than anyone else on the face of the planet.

.. pity about the police state mentality, but you can't have everything. Where would you put it?

[Valynth]

Heh. I'm happy earning harder currency than anyone else on the face of the planet.

.. pity about the police state mentality, but you can't have everything. Where would you put it?

you forget that storage space is also a part of that everything.  And since space is infinite, you can have infinity before you need to worry.

Also, there is no such thing as "hard currency"  what you hold is merely a physical representation of goods and/or services rendered in the barter system.  The only difference with a currency system is convenience.  In the barter system you'd be limited to the goods and services of the person you're dealing with, but under the currency system you are only limited to those who will accept the currency.  So you see, currency is but the logical extension of a barter system and it allows for larger growth pace and capacity than the barter system due to the sheer amount of possibilities.

[Alan Garou]

A universal currency would be very useful, but would be rabidly opposed by some countries. It would bankrupt some, and end China's artificially cheap labor. But I, for one, would love for it to happen.

[ITOS]

I don't know if an Earth wide currency would work. The Euro works because the Eurozone countries have a common economy politic that is controlled by the ECB.

On a larger scale it could be very hard to have the same economic plan since all countries are different and need different things.

[Netami]

My universe has one. I use the same currency everywhere I go in life.

[Valynth]

I don't know if an Earth wide currency would work. The Euro works because the Eurozone countries have a common economy politic that is controlled by the ECB.

On a larger scale it could be very hard to have the same economic plan since all countries are different and need different things.

So do the different states.  The problem is not the variety of needs, but rather the countries and their pride.  The main reason it won't work is because some countries opperate on the notion of "Well, if they want it, I don't!"  Childish yes, but true and effective none the less.  As I pointed out earlier, currency is only as useful as people allow it to be.

[Aisha deCabre]

Indeed.  I don't pretend to know much about economics, but one thing I do know is that there's already a good enough system...true, even though with the value of things in different parts of the world we still have people who are poor and hungry and such...having an equal value for the world would shift that wholly and dramatically.  Either the rich get richer, the poor get poorer (or get children... joke from an old song  )...or the other way around.

Besides, when one starts thinking that we can bring total equality to such a wide scale such as economy, it's a step towards a fictional dystopia turned reality.

So there's no harm in learning what equals what...we have the internet for such resources anyway.   

[Valynth]

whooooaaaaa, who said anything about complete equality?  all this would do is merge all the economies of the world into one, not have everything equal. 

also:

There will always be the rich few and the poor many.  Deny this and that makes EVERYONE penniless.  Without the rich, the poor have nothing to work for.

[Zorro]

You need to take an Economics class.

Money itself is just a MEANS to exchange goods and services.

Money by itself has no value beyond what it is made of be that electronic signals or actual gold of a known weight and purity.

What gives money any value is what you can exchange it for.

In barter you have to trade whole units for what you want.  It works OK for 100pounds of processed flour for a live unprocessed cow for instance.  But barter breaks down when you try to exchange a car you made for lunch.

With monetary systems you just trade units that can be exchanged for actual goods and services.  Those same units get traded between nations also.

What a unit is worth finds its own level based upon how many pounds you pay for a Toyota in Britain that can be exchanged for Yen in Tokyo.

If there is a reason why no one wants Ugandan bank notes the problem lies in Uganda, not Britain or Japan.

[Brunhidden]

even if you didnt replace all currencies with a single omnibuck, couldnt you at least tie your currency to a set comodity?

anyone with a bit of history knowledge can tell you that for several centuries the price of black pepper was fixed at its own weight in gold. on the other hand someone with a bit MORE history knowledge will tell you about the fall of spain- before the brittish empire ruled the world spain was the big guys, untill they set up trade routes with the americas. the spanish conquestadors brought back so much gold from looting that gold essentially became worthless in spain. it took a sack full of dubloons to buy something as common as bread, similar to germany after the first world war when it took 'bricks' of marks to buy anything....people went to the grocery store with a wheelbarrow full of marks and even gave the worthless things to children in stacks to use as blocks.

so, sinse we cant carry all currency in the form of hard items (donald trump would need a motorcade four blocks long to buy clothes) the concept of tying your paper currency or 'legal tender' to an item of set value does have appeal. but tie it to what? we cant do pepper anymore, or wheat or rice or anything like that- crops varry year to year and the value fluxuates wildly. diamonds? no, the price of diamonds is largely artificial, in south africa they move diamonds around in dump trucks while paying miners slave wages so they can rake in the money (sometimes known as 'conflict diamonds', for an example watch the bond movie 'die another day') and two or three companies are now developing cheap methods to produce artificial diamonds which are 'perfect'. so perfect in fact that a man produced a fine cut yellow diamond for about fifteen hundred dollars, showed it to a diamond exchange executive and was told it was worth twenty thousand. to which he replyed "what if i told you i had five more identical to it in my pocket?"

even though it was the death of spain, gold would be the best solution. unlike olden times we are  unlikely to find a new giant deposit of gold ore that would change the value of gold more then a percent or two. there will always be a demand for gold, but there is a finite supply, and unlike most other materials gold never decomposes or lessens in any way. just think of all the people who are burried with a wedding ring or gold necklace, the need for gold is cultural as well as our future need for gold in computer components (its not quite as good a conductor as silver, but it dosent corrode)

anyone here remember the argument back in early america wether the dollar should be backed by gold or silver? the concept went that people in the citties (especially bankers) wanted the dollar to be backed by gold, sinse it was fairly stable and actually went up in price. on the other hand farmers wanted it to be backed by silver, so they would have inflation on thier side. dont understand? well, a farmer would take out a loan from a bank for X ammount of dollars, to be paid back over the next several years so they can buy a new horse or a combine harvester or something, but by the end of those years they still owe X ammount of money, even though the money is worth less and thier crops are worth more. nowadays we have the sophisticated thing called 'math' which allows us to adjust for inflation, so silver is kinda useless other then making sure we keep having to adjust prices.

heres an idea- set the 'world' unit of money as a gram of gold, and each country would set thier own currency relative to the gram. for example an american dollar might be .84 gram, an argentinian dollar might be .76 gram, a japanese yen might be .0003 gram, and the mexican peso is like one tenth of a chicken or something.

The wages of sin arent all that great, but you should see the benifet package

[/glow]

[Valynth]

heres an idea- set the 'world' unit of money as a gram of gold, and each country would set their own currency relative to the gram. for example an American dollar might be .84 gram, an Argentinian dollar might be .76 gram, a Japanese yen might be .0003 gram, and the Mexican peso is like one tenth of a chicken or something.

The wages of sin aren't all that great, but you should see the benefit package

[/glow]

uhhh, don't we already do that now except we just cut out the middle man of gold and use pure math?  Thus the exchange rates are different for different countries.

Besides, connecting the abstract idea of currency to any one physical good or service would severely limit a currency's use and therefore counter act the only reason for having a currency.

[Brunhidden]

heres an idea- set the 'world' unit of money as a gram of gold, and each country would set their own currency relative to the gram. for example an American dollar might be .84 gram, an Argentinian dollar might be .76 gram, a Japanese yen might be .0003 gram, and the Mexican peso is like one tenth of a chicken or something.

The wages of sin aren't all that great, but you should see the benefit package

[/glow]

uhhh, don't we already do that now except we just cut out the middle man of gold and use pure math?  Thus the exchange rates are different for different countries.

no, we dont. if all the currencies were tied to gold then the exchange rates would stay the same- as it stands a nation who has a strong economy would have its currency become more valueable while a country that bombs finds that it will now take twice as much of its currency as before to compare to a stable economy.

Ever sinse i took leadership of my country the economy is doing great! were valued at two ruples to the dollar. wait, make that five...er, twenty...two hundred? excuse me, ive gotta go.

[Valynth]

heres an idea- set the 'world' unit of money as a gram of gold, and each country would set their own currency relative to the gram. for example an American dollar might be .84 gram, an Argentinian dollar might be .76 gram, a Japanese yen might be .0003 gram, and the Mexican peso is like one tenth of a chicken or something.

The wages of sin aren't all that great, but you should see the benefit package

[/glow]

uhhh, don't we already do that now except we just cut out the middle man of gold and use pure math?  Thus the exchange rates are different for different countries.

no, we dont. if all the currencies were tied to gold then the exchange rates would stay the same- as it stands a nation who has a strong economy would have its currency become more valueable while a country that bombs finds that it will now take twice as much of its currency as before to compare to a stable economy.

Ever sinse i took leadership of my country the economy is doing great! were valued at two ruples to the dollar. wait, make that five...er, twenty...two hundred? excuse me, ive gotta go.

here, let me explain it to you:  so long as there is supply and demand there will always be something of a lesser value.  That means that even with your system, the land with the most gold wins(and therefore has the more of a valuable substance which means it will trade this with another country ect. ect., resulting in the same economics patterns as today).  Thats the way it works, because every other way would require an unlimited supply and that simply isn't possible by any stretch of the imagination.

[Brunhidden]

your thinking of gold backed currency, not gold tied currency. many people have the misconception thats why america has for knox gold reserve.

no government anywhere that i know of backs up its legal tender with gold or any metal of any sort. how much gold a country has will make the country rich but its currency is just a piece of paper which only has the value the country says it does.

if you have your currency tied to gold you can go to any country anywhere and it will always be valued as the ammount of gold on it, the price of gold is whats known as a comodity- a comodity is valued buy supply and demand and completely ignores WHO has the supply and WHO demands it. thus as long as gold is equally valueable everywhere all money is equally valueable....even if it takes thirty yen to make a quarter dollar, they just mint 200 yen coins and 10,000 yen notes. although it would always be thirty yen to the quarter dollar, for years to come.

Not all that glitters is gold, but i do say gold has a unique charm all of its own.

[/glow]

[Valynth]

your thinking of gold backed currency, not gold tied currency. many people have the misconception thats why america has for knox gold reserve.

no government anywhere that i know of backs up its legal tender with gold or any metal of any sort. how much gold a country has will make the country rich but its currency is just a piece of paper which only has the value the country says it does.

if you have your currency tied to gold you can go to any country anywhere and it will always be valued as the ammount of gold on it, the price of gold is whats known as a comodity- a comodity is valued buy supply and demand and completely ignores WHO has the supply and WHO demands it. thus as long as gold is equally valueable everywhere all money is equally valueable....even if it takes thirty yen to make a quarter dollar, they just mint 200 yen coins and 10,000 yen notes. although it would always be thirty yen to the quarter dollar, for years to come.

Not all that glitters is gold, but i do say gold has a unique charm all of its own.

[/glow]

The thing is, gold is NOT UNIVERSALLY VALUABLE!  Nothing is, and nothing will be unless it is a purely abstract concept like currency.

Honestly, you arrogant people just think you can decree what is and is not valuable just cause it's shiney or has a certain chemical property.  Value is determined by the person to whom you are hawking the freakin' goods.  Whats a starving man gonna do buying a gold freaking bar?  He's gonna go off and buy what he really needs A.K.A. what he really demands.

GOLD IS A FREAKIN' CURRENCY IN IT'S OWN RIGHT AN NOT EVERYONE RECOGNIZES THAT!

[Gabi]

I don't know. Sure, it would be practical, but who would make it? And what would stop a country from making more of it?

[Cvstos]

your thinking of gold backed currency, not gold tied currency. many people have the misconception thats why america has for knox gold reserve.

no government anywhere that i know of backs up its legal tender with gold or any metal of any sort. how much gold a country has will make the country rich but its currency is just a piece of paper which only has the value the country says it does.

if you have your currency tied to gold you can go to any country anywhere and it will always be valued as the ammount of gold on it, the price of gold is whats known as a comodity- a comodity is valued buy supply and demand and completely ignores WHO has the supply and WHO demands it. thus as long as gold is equally valueable everywhere all money is equally valueable....even if it takes thirty yen to make a quarter dollar, they just mint 200 yen coins and 10,000 yen notes. although it would always be thirty yen to the quarter dollar, for years to come.

Not all that glitters is gold, but i do say gold has a unique charm all of its own.

[/glow]

EDIT:  Nevermind.  Wikipedia is your friend.  No world currency is backed by precious metals.  The USA was the last to leave it in 1971.

[Zorro]

Well Gold does have industrial uses too.  Quite a bit of it is used in electronics and any place where ultimate corrosion resistance and conductivity are required.

[Tiger_T]

The €-countries are required to keep their inflation to under 3% per year to not risk money-fines.





The value of anything material depends on the availability. That's why oil will get more expensive. The time and effort it takes to obtain oil will rise. And so will its price. *sigh*

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

The €-countries are required to keep their inflation to under 3% per year to not risk money-fines.

.. yeah, because that will -so- help the inflation rate stay down... :-)

[Tiger_T]

Hey, I'm no expert so don't ask me how - but up to now it works.

[Alondro]

The most expensive traded metal right now is rhodium, which went from a low of around $300 in 2003, to over $6000 in May, 2006!  If I hadn't had to use all my money paying for our family's bills, I would have invested at that low point and made a fortune.     Think about that, I could have invested $5000 (about 1/4 of what I had to use for the excessive bills) and turned it into $100000 in a mere three years.

I follow metal prices regularly.  Gold has been bobbling between the low to mid $600's.  Silver is up to almost $14 an ounce, more than double its price a couple years ago. 

[Supercheese]

The most expensive traded metal right now is rhodium, which went from a low of around $300 in 2003, to over $6000 in May, 2006!  If I hadn't had to use all my money paying for our family's bills, I would have invested at that low point and made a fortune.     Think about that, I could have invested $5000 (about 1/4 of what I had to use for the excessive bills) and turned it into $100000 in a mere three years.

I follow metal prices regularly.  Gold has been bobbling between the low to mid $600's.  Silver is up to almost $14 an ounce, more than double its price a couple years ago. 

Any advice for prospective investors?