Dear Jim,
>
> The money changers who sat in the Temple in Jerusalem
> changed Roman coins and other secular coins...
> One of the aspects of the money changers ...
You are really good at taking an item out of context, fleshing it with
interesting tidbits and then adding valuable comments that have little or
nothing to do with the subject matter, aren't you?
No offense, but what has your post to do with the two items I raised and
the third one I implied?
(1)
Why is it that people on the list like to compare apples with pears to
make a point regarding the fact that exchangers should earn most of their
revenues from in-exchanging, because it's always been done like that.
To date only your post gave an example when it had been done like that,
everybody else vaguely quotes that exchangers alwas took a spread. I on
the other hand quoted the fact that Phoenician money changers recorded for
the afterworld that they made quite a killing on the out-exchange of
local coin back into Roman. So we are one all at best.
One should also consider that temple shekel were different from other
shekels, issued by the temple for the exclusive use of purchases and
offerings in the temple. I would now argue that temple shekels were not
comparable to a currency but to Disney dollars. Tokens that can only be
spent and exchanged in a set location. Indeed, it was forbidden to take
temple shekels out of the temple.
So, they were in fact not currency which makes the favorite example of
most exchangers here void. That in turn means that my Carthage money
changer guild is up 1:0.
(2)
The second point I tried to raise was that with short interruptions most
paper
currencies were at least claimed to be based on something tangible - which
then
puts e-gold into the same category and it should have it's own exchange
rate.
>
> In the Tenth Century AD the Chinese empire instituted a
> paper currency based on the Byzantine bezant, a unit
> of gold currency.
>
The reason why the Chinese did this was not because they wanted to replace
gold but because there was not enough gold available. There was no initial
plan to devalue the curreny, disown people, etc. Instead the Chinese
wanted to foster regional trade within the empire, but didn't have enough
gold to do so. The fact that the system was abused much later and that
paper was issued with no backing does not change the circumstance that the
paper was issued out of necessity because after centuries of little
foreign trade there wasn't enough gold for local trade to prosper.
>
> > And when did the paper loose it's implied metal backing?
>
> A large number of paper money issues have lost their
> redeemability.
>
What I actually meant was, when did paper money loose it's implied metal
backing. You know, where the value of the paper in exchange and commercial
transactions is based on the value of the metal that backs it.
>
> > Now we are down to 30 years for an eon.
>
> I think you are mistaken. It is far more than 30 years.
> It is about a thousand years to go back to fiat paper
> supposedly redeemable for gold bezants...
> Various
> forms of clay tablets representing money go back as
> far as Sumerian times, around 4000 years before Christ.
As you say yourself, they 'represented money'. They were not money in
themselves. In the case of clay seals and tablets, those were actually
cheques. They were meant not as a storage of value as such but as an easy
way to transport wealth. A trader in one place would pay the city mint an
amount in gold and get a number seals in return. These seals would then be
taken along by a caravan or courier and exchanged at the destination back
into coin.
> About 40,000 years ago, tally marks on animal bones
> may have represented a claim to a herd of animals,
> and would be one of the earliest forms of money.
See what I mean by very interesting but somewhat unrelated tidbits?
(3)
The third item I tried to raise was the fact that exchangers are stating
their fees in terms of percentages. On the surface this has little to do
with supply and demand. Instead it makes things sound worse than they are.
Quoting e-gold Buy and Sell in $/oz and fatoring in a surcharge (as Omni
does if memory servers me right) would do away with half the stigma of
surcharges and would actually resemble market forces at work were items
are bid and asked...
> I think the notion that the Nazi Reich was laudable
> in any way for redeeming their paper Reichsmarks
> for silver, given their proclivity for stealing the
> silver and gold from their victims, is a bit weird.
I think that my choice of words ('frigging Nazis') makes your assumption
that I would have considered them laudable a bit weird. Also, when they
minted the silver for the new Reichsmarks the wholesale stealing hadn't
taken place yet.
By the same token, just imagine what Bush could do, if he gave America a
stable currency and found some jobs for the people whose jobs his
administration has destroyed. Of course, I shouldn't compare apples and
pears here. After all the Nazis did racial profiling, stole from and
disowned dissidents, invaded other countries and plundered their wealth
while forcing their local populace to adopt German laws and construct an
economy that would benfit Germany...
Ooops. Come to think of it. Arabs. Racial profiling. Harrassing people on
the basis of looks and decent. Freezing assets, invading and occupying two
countries for no legitimate reason (not even their neighbours, at that),
imposing foreign rules, pludering wealth... Maybe apples are pears after
all???
Cheers,
Robert.
PS - see, i can twist things around as well. Can we please get back to the
three points?
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