I spend Virtual Cash all of the time at stores. It’s called the Debit card. Basically the only place I acutally use paper or coin money anymore is for the vending machine at work.

There’s always Liberty Dollars too.

I have to agree with “ehrichweiss”, even though he quotes from Anton LaVay – go “Wiki” it if you want to know why that’s alarming, I’ll wait…- but such disruptions will be more regional, and less disruptive than those of the 1929 crash, and, as in most fights in a personal relationship, less baised on the “currency collapse” than on pre-standing, unresolved conflicts and inequalities.

Ok, now, as to economic currency collapse…money, be it U.S. Dollars, Euros, Yen, what have you, is a fiction, agreed upon by all. The only thing of real value are tangible items, like food, clothing, cars, etc. We assign a value in “money” to represent the difficulty in “creating” such a tangible item, based on many factors, including difficulty of creation(a glass of water is less expensive than a computer system), availability (a glass of water is more expensive than a computer system in the desert, given that there is no electricty), quality (a glass of distilled water is more expensive than a glass of muddy water) and other factors, not the least of which is what the other person is willing to pay (people in Hell will give their fortunes for a glass of water…but a man drowning in a lake wouldn’t give you a plug nickel.)

In an economic collapse of such magnitude that a currency was devalued so much as to be worthless (and realize that for this to occur, then ALL currency would have to go – otherwise you just get a local occurence), disruptions will only last until the currency in decline – say U.S. Dollars, in this case – is replaced in trade with the currency in acendance – say the Chinese Yuan. All you need to know about what would happen to the U.S. economy in such a curcumstance is look to those countries that currently have 1,000% or better inflation. What do they do? For all important transactions, they use a foreign currency – the U.S. Dollar, the Euro, the Yen, the Yuan, the Peso, etc.- and they recover, if they have something of actual value to trade with other economic groups (countries, large business, etc.). If not, then the imbalance only continues if the government in question tries to stop its citizens from adopting an outside currency.

One of the major reasons why the 1929 stock market crash was so devastating, currency-wise, was that the U.S. Dollar was the backbone of the world economy at the time, the “lingua franca”, if you will, of the world. Most other currencies were either still recovering from WW I or were baised themselves on the U.S. Dollar. Take that foundation out from under the economic “house” and it collapses.

But in the current economic structure, many strong currencies exist – some currently stonger than the U.S. Dollar, some weaker. This may, or may not change in the future, but that is not forcast anytime soon. Basically, whenever a fundamental system is controlled in part by one or two similar “concepts”, then the system is vulnerable to disruption if that concept is disrupted, whether the U.S. Dollar,in the case of Black Tuesday, or in a conceptual disaster of, oh say, someone discovering a critical, unfixable vulnerability in the heart of Windows, perhaps? Not such a disaster now, what with Unix, Linux, Mac OS, and all the server languages used by the really big computers; but imagine a world where 90% of ALL computers ran on Windows… yikes!

So, no, I wouldn’t trust an economic adviser that told me to put all my money into “canned goods and shotguns”, (even if he did sound like Tony Randall (g)), but I wouldn’t trust one who didn’t tell me I should have some of either on hand for emergencies. A better way to prepare for economic disaster is to figure out what physical things would be most valuable in your immediate area (desert:water, city:food, country:commuincation, ect.), and get a supply of that item. The only other thing you need is a way to defend that “item” (shotgun? group of neighbors who share in your idea, if they defend what you have? secrecy?)and you’re set. Remember what group got the richest in the California gold rush: the grocers that sold the 49’ers the supplies and food they needed… and then figure out a way to be that group in the next disater that comes to your area. And I don’t mean at 200% markup, either, just as a person trying to provide a service… don’t be a yutz!

The only other alternative is to always be prepared to flee your current area for a safe zone, though this is not always possible or advisible. But on the other hand, just look at what happened during Hurricane Katerina –

[off topic]
Why hasn’t anyone written a manual on what to REALLY do in the event of a disaster baised on what happened in New Orleans? Or for that matter, what can be done to prevent such massive failures of government aid in the future… suggestion: divide FEMA into regional divisions, each division prepared to deal primarily with “first response” to the type of disaster most common in their own area (central states:tornado – costal states: hurricane – earthquake prone:earthquake disater relief, etc.) and secondarily to aid in the longer term the other divisions in the event of a disater, i.e. in the event of massive tornado activity in central states: FEMA central sends critical care (the disaster versions of EMT’s) in first, with, say, NorthEast, NorthWest, and SouthEast FEMA sending in longer term personnel (think Emergency Room Doctors) and supplies (portable hospitals, medical supplies, etc.), with SouthWest waiting in backup for the most devistated (think long-term care doctors)? Just sayin’…

… and yes, the underlying structure of my idea is the U.S. hospital system; which, while it is an economic disaster, functions pretty darn well, in spite of that…
[BACK TO TOPIC]

if you could have fled, wouldn’t you have? And why didn’t FEMA have a fleet of transports to take people to shelters in areas not devistated by the hurricane? If you ever needed an example of what’s wrong with the priorites of government in this country, there you go… especially after the government basically said, in the future, you’ll just have to fend for yourselves during disasters?!? Well, then, if we can’t count on government during disasters, then WHAT THE HELL are we paying for? Sorry, but this REALLY ticks me off…

Anyway, in conclusion , (allright, stop clapping, you lot!)economic disasters such as the 1929 stock exchange, and resulting “Great Depression”, while still within the realm of possiblity, are much less likely simply because the world has fewer “eggs” all in one basket; and while there may be localized disruptions (think the collapse of the Russian Economy during the “Fall of Communism” in the 1990’s), the whole will totter along nicely, thank you. Any disaster big enough to disrupt the juggernaught of global trade will give you too much to worry about other than a fictional currency in a fictional game.

Hope that helps…

Bubba_7

P.S. A though in passing: if the reason why the Monopoly people needed to print “money” was that there wasn’t enough physical money to go around, then how would a non-physical currency be of any practial value? Hmm…