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The World's Strangest Currencies
For centuries, humans from all around the world have tried to use different things as money. Some forms, which most people are familiar with today, have been effective catalysts for trade over thousands of years. Other currencies, from squirrel pelts to parmesan cheese, have had their time or place in human history, but were ultimately unsuccessful or made obsolete.
The path to finding the best money has been long and riddled with trial and error. Here are just some of the world’s strangest currencies that we discovered in our research.
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I don't know, do any of these make any less sense than that cheap slip of paper we use? You know, the one with the creepy all-seeing illuminati eye?
"do any of these make any less sense than that cheap slip of paper we use?"
Well, 8-ton stones would certainly be hard to counterfeit, but the risk of capsizing just to transfer your money from the bank to your home seems a bit extreme.
Good point, but the 1-oz. disks seem to correlate closely with regrettable capsizing incidents, too.
I've suffered numerous capsizing events that involved 1-oz disks.
where is math on that chart (bitcoin)?
Bitcoin is equity money, just like everything else on the chart so, if the author wanted, he could have included it.
Where are the old tally sticks used by the English?
Sadly these days people are too thick to lose confidence in the fiat money system, they all seem to trust the government to do everything for them and to do no wrong :(
Where are the old tally sticks used by the English?
Sadly these days people are too thick to lose confidence in the fiat money system, they all seem to trust the government to do everything for them and to do no wrong :(
The system ran for 900 years with no faults and allowed the agencies of the Isle to reconfigure themselves to a proper balance, well until Henry the 8th and Cromwell, then things shit the bed until today.
BTW BTC is the electronic version of the tally stick, except the BTC tally stick is made by the public trust, as in the public prints the money, and the comparative reference and all transactions are fully transparent for any legal issues in terms of ownership/bill payment/shopping/whatever. With the decimal point that slides to the right, it scales to a world economy, not just medieval Britannia. Plus it's got a crack jack prize inside once the 21 million crypto puzzle pieces are finished being solved using the electronic version of 'tally sticks'. It is the perfect money for a fifth age since no one is interested in working for nothing, nor are they interested in keeping the jew bux central regime because it's built to implode.
The tally stick method of money and combined with Flurzwang community management methods kept the necessary level of complexity to facilitate a proper regulated economy and also kept the jew-bankers out of europe during the 'dark ages'. Given the level of technology available, things actually ran pretty well without much need to get into the business of other people's business. BTW only one group believes it was "dark", those that wanted it all and couldn't.
It's a matter of 'What was old is new again', or maybe it's better to say use what works and don't waste time on broken garbage. Nice thing is don't have to lift a finger on the new Tally Stick system, bankers, trader and governments are doing an amazing job at promoting it by fucking up.
Thus the ZH term,"Boating Accident".
You're missing a critical point. Almost all the items on the list are equity money, meaning someone had to work to create them. They are not promises by anyone, unlike debt money. The difference is critical to the stability of any economy because debt can vanish as quickly as it is created. Equity just sits there until the forces of nature or consumption use it up or destroy it.
So, for pieces of paper, the critical issue is what they represent. Right now, all of them are debt, so they are fundamentally different from the items listed above. But they could just as well be bearer titles to physical assets and therefore equity. For instance, they could be warehouse receipts for blocks of cheese kept in cold storage. Because the warehouse doesn't own the cheese (since the paper is the title), it can't legally print additional titles so the money supply would remain contstrained.
The subject is covered very well in The Creature From Jekyll Island. If you haven't read it, do so now because the bankers of the world are using debt money to own us all and, unless we learn about their trick, they will succeed.
By the way, if Creature is too heavy for you (figuratively and literally, as it is quite a book), then get your hands on Thieves Emporium instead. It's more of a primer and covers a number of subjects besides money, but it's a fun read and well worth the effort.
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/B00E0SER8Y
http://www.amazon.com/Thieves-Emporium-Max-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00CWWWRK0
Quicker explanation is here.
How Money Is Created: For Dummies!
Yes, that is an excellent presentation on how USD FRNs are created at the moment. But it doesn't address the broader issue of debt vs equity money.
As an example, if we allowed the Treasury Department to print money directly, as Ellen Brown advocates, we would still be using debt money as no one ever has to work to create printed money.
Or, to take another example, if we used gold for money but allowed banks to continue to engage in fractional reserve banking, we would be using debt money. In fact, you can see this occuring today in the ETF fund GLD. It has gold on deposit, but only enough to cover 1/240th of the payment promises it has made through the issuance of its fund certificates. If ETF shares were used as money, you could say we were using gold for money, but you would be wrong as we would only be using the IOUs issued by fund, not actual titles to physical metal.
I hate to keep coming back to this same point, but it is important. And not simple enough to cover in a blog post. You MUST read Thieves Emporium or Creature From Jekyll Island to understand it. And, if you don't understand it, the stalking horses of the central bankers, such as Ellen Brown, will convince you that all we have to do to solve our present monetary problem is use another form of debt.
If you want your children to grow up as free as our country was before we had central banks, then, for God sakes, learn the difference and teach it to them.
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/B00E0SER8Y
http://www.amazon.com/Thieves-Emporium-Max-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00CWWWRK0
Oldphart:
+1 for the link. However, "How Currency is Created: For Dummies!" would probably be a better title.
Yes the strangest of them all is the fiat currency we are forced to use and that it is controlled by private interests!
The agenda rolls on unabated......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/as-events-spiral-ou...
Digital bank acounts are the ultimate achievement doing away with even the piddling paper note.
With possession being 9 tenths of the law that means whoever owns the SERVER to me in my opinion only posesses these digital units. I'm talking about your dollar based bank accounts by the way not bitcoin.
I don't know what the implications of this might be but it could be important.
Bitcoin uses digital accounts but, because everyone audits everyone else's accounts, they can't be diddled. Or, to put it another way, everyone who has a copy of the blockchain owns a server.
So as long as we have internet, commercial power and i-shit we will have...money! I'm throwing away my Rai stones and pole immediately!...lmao!
Beaver pelts have definitely withstood the trials of time.
Beaver pelts are a timeless currency traded over beer by rough men with wild imaginations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcsXC2xFis4
Beaver as currency predates human use by several hundred million years and probably will outdate the best alternative (PM) - for sure after self-inflicted extinction of our species.
Now we just use promises for money......
Beaver pelts are offered as promises for money too.
Indeed, I've invested heavily in beaver pelt futures. Margin calls can be a real bitch.
Bever pelts aren't promises, they're things. Someone had to work to create them. Therefore, when you own one, you have equity in something. But a promise to pay is just a promise. Hold it and all you hold is debt.
The difference is critical. Debt can be created in quantity at will by a few, thus giving them tremendous political power. Equity can only be created in quantity by the many, thus distributing political power.
Understanding the difference is critical to our freedom. If you aren't sure what I am trying to say, read Thieves emporium and learn it while your children still have a chance to avoid lifetime serfdom.
http://www.amazon.com/Thieves-Emporium-Max-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00CWWWRK0
Beaver pelts are promises. God did the work. Your job, convince the beaver to let you have the pelt. Young beavers are softer than old beavers, but old beavers offer a more comforting pelt, sometimes. It has to do with the experience of the beaver. Young beavers are easy to trap, but sometimes, it is a trap in reverse. And the trapper finds himself trapped by the beaver. All because of that pelt. Sometimes, if it a really awesome beaver, and that beaver has seen a mirror, or been told by old beavers or sees trappers concentrating....it takes very expensive bait. Sometimes..., the trapper ends up with more that he bargained for. For a little pelt.
More experienced trappers, they find a beaver they are happy with, do away with further hunting, and just go with the pelt they have.
Beaver pelts.
What an allegory
Nothing like a fine Texas pelt with some roast beef hanging out of it!
Gold:
Its shiny therefore women love it
therefore men will kill for it.
Also it conducts electricity real fast.
Gold is not the best conductor. Silver fills that roll. Copper is the next best. Gold is used for press fit contacts because it does not tarnish and lose it conductivity.
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
Beaver pelts may be passe, but beaver itself will always be valuable.
Was going to say.....
What happened to the oldest form of currency? What faggot left pussy off the list?
For an interesting perspective from an unlikely source, check out the South Park episode, Space Cash.
The Constitutional women of the this country will take out the progressive feminist. It will fun to watch
Negativland - Guns | Now
I dont see energy on the list. Just sayin everything else has been done.
ABD (Already Been Done), dawg. Human energy, i.e. labor - the oldest currency there is!
Thought it was pussy.
That is true Buster Cherry but I think that there is more to the story. It was my impression as well as my experience that pussies are only owned by one sex and that it is often used for leverage.
Political leverage, shall we say..alzheimer's cure?
I didn't say political leverage now did I? But yes, in some cases that would be true. Cleopatra? I don't know. No so much with Hillary. In fact not at all and that I DO know. In fact, Hillary is a deficit. So pussies have deflationary tendency the older they get because of the lower rate of return and the increased expenses.
In other words, they are some other young man's problem for the most part.
You have to labor to get it...
in Australia's estliest days Rum was used as currency.
With IMF debacle, perhaps the IMF SDR will get cock blocked.
I can see single rounds of ammo being used as small change after the inevitable event.
Books; especially the ones they like to burn or ban.
Drugs, sex, paper, pens, tobacco, socks.
All been used as currency on the 'inside' longer than the mighty 'greenback' and will surely be around longer.
Also...this is my Christmas list to Santa.
Milton Friedman wrote Money Mischief on this very subject and the Rai Stone was the strangest one. The stones were so large and it was so difficult to move them that they would often stay at the old owner's house - and everyone accepted that it signified the wealth of the new owner. Since the rocks were quarried on another island, they had to be brought across in an outrigger One large one sank and that raised the question of whether it could be considered bona fide wealth, since it was at the bottom of the lagoon. Everyone decided that the owner was indeed as rich as the Rai Stone signified, and everything went on normally. Like Warren Buffett's famous statement about gold, "It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or some place. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."
Take a look at the Quote Investigator for a nice investigation of the precedents to this speech.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/05/25/bury-gold/
Monero (XMR) is the future of money. Private, secure, untraceable. http://getmonero.org
Good luck with that.
EBN - Channel Zero
a .38 snubby with 50 rounds can be traded for most anything
You can use Obama's birth certificate software to scrub the serial number of gun.
It's a good one-way trade enabler too.
Everyone reading this article needs to get a copy of Thieves Emporium. It drills deeply into the issue of what money is and how the debt form of it allows central heirarchies to control us.
Central to any discussion of money is a workable definition. That's an example where Thieves Emporium excells. In the book, a central banker is talking with his son:
*****
"Money is anything used regularly for three-party transactions."
The boy looked back in uncomprehending silence.
"Suppose you give me a sack of wheat. For a week's work. I take it, I eat it. What we did was trade. Just Barter. No money changed hands. None. See that?"
"Yes sir. Wheat isn't money."
"No. Didn't say that. When it's only traded between two people, it isn't money. But suppose, instead of eating it, I give it to my landlord to pay my rent. It's still wheat, right?"
"Yes sir"
"But not a trade. A three-party transaction. My landlord is really getting the wheat from my employer. I'm just the go-between. Passing it along, so to speak. Then wheat is money. See the difference?"
"No sir. Sorry."
"Think about the second example. Doesn't matter what my employer gives me. Only matters that I know how much of it my landlord will take for rent. See that?"
"Yes sir."
"Can be anything. Shells. Pretty stones. Tobacco. Gold. Colored paper. Anything. Doesn't matter. As long as everyone accepts it, it's money. See that?"
"Yes sir. I think so, sir," the boy said with a smile. "So which is it? Gold or dollars?"
"Right now, today, if you try to buy groceries with a lump of gold, will the cashier take it?"
After a thoughtful moment, the young man answered "I don't think so."
"No, he won't. Not officially, anyway. Might pocket your gold and pay for your groceries himself. But the store won't take it. Right?"
"Yes sir."
"Do you see why?"
"No sir."
"They don't keep their accounts in it and can't pay their bills with it. Can't pass it through. No three-party exchange."
The boy just looked back in silence.
"Try a three-party transaction with gold, you get turned down. Right?"
He got a nod in response.
"So, is gold money? I mean right now. Today."
"No sir."
"Right. Because right now, today, it won't be accepted for a three-party transaction. What will be?"
"Dollars?"
"Right.
"So gold's not money?" asked the child.
"Not today, it's not," answered the older man. Then, after a pause to let his son think about the point, he asked "Want a trick question?"
With a smile, the boy nodded. Father always made trick questions easy.
"Will dollars be money tomorrow?"
The smile vanished. Father hadn't come through this time. The young Parker was at a loss for the right answer. There was a pause while he considered trying to guess, but decided against it. With Father, guessing was rarely a good idea.
"I don't know," the boy admitted.
"Good. Right answer. No one can predict tomorrow. When it comes, how will you find the answer?"
"Buy something?"
"Right. And, tomorrow, if you do the same thing, but they won't take dollars, only gold, will dollars still be money?"
Junior took a second to be sure of his answer, then said "No."
"Right. What would be?"
"Gold..?"
"Right. Smart boy. Money is defined by the transaction. It's what the people who buy and sell things say it is. And sometimes, they change their minds. So money is not always the same thing. Today, the answer to your question is dollars. But, tomorrow, it might be gold."
Junior became pensive, trying to digest a difficult concept. He had just been told that a rock of his existence, one of the framing members of his world, was not solid. That was a scary idea for a twelve-year old to accept.
"Father," he finally asked, "That can't really happen, can it? Gold can't really become money someday, can it?"
"Yes, son. Afraid it can. But don't worry. It won't. Not as long as I have anything to do with it, it won't."
*****
If you don't understand what money really is and how it is used to control us, you will never be free. Thieves Emporium explains it in terms that are simple enough for your child to understand.
http://www.amazon.com/Thieves-Emporium-Max-Hernandez-ebook/dp/B00CWWWRK0
Thanks for this book. It is an eye opener.
At least Part 1 and Part 2 can be found here...
http://www.thedailybell.com/editorials/36418/Max-Hernandez-Thieves-Empor...
Water has good currency characteristics, highly liquidity. But it too can be infested by pirates. Hey you think there's an occultic connection? Who really controls the currency in this world.
Let's not even delve into the electrical side of currency, it's all about power there.
Alcohol was a popular modicum of exchange for millenia.
“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is Freedom, in water there is bacteria.” Ben Franklin.Somalia pirates reside on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Wow, a money list with no Tally Sticks mentioned:
http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/money-matter-tally-stic...
The Tally Stick as a form of money lasted from the reign of Henry I to Henry V111 - a period of 768 years. Worth a mention I would have thought.
Another one was Iron Nails used in Scotland which were made in Carron Iron Works in my home town of Falkirk.
Tally sticks were a form of debt money. They representated nothing more than a promise to pay and so both concentrated political power in the hands of the king and made the money supply unstable because they would dissapear if the king paid them off or defaulted on them.
Iron nails, on the other hand, were equity money. They were the concentration of natural resources and labor into a single physical item and weren't a promise by anyone for anything. If the economy turned down and defaults began to occur, they would still exist. And, more important, their creation wouldn't allow power to be concentrated in a few hands as there were many iron foundries all over the world making nails at the time.
The distinction is very important to our freedom. One form of money decentralizes power, the other leads to centralized power and, often, tyranny.
Capt. Bligh had a problem in Tahiti, where a nail from the ship would buy one standard screw with the native women. So many nails were pulled by the sailors that it had to be stopped.
The only thing wrong with Scottland is......that it's full of Scotts!
Upvoted, btw. Braveheart. What a movie.
Obsidian used to be money in the ME. Hmmm...
That explains Mecca.
It's as ridiculous as worshipping the Culinan diamond. Oh, wait...
"Rock show, rock show, rock show!"
-Brian Posehn as Bert
Barter or silver works for me.
Will work for ammo.
Chap I know here in the mountains will trade bud for .22 lr.
The problem of money is that it does too many functions to be a single currency at all. It is a means of exchange, a store of wealth and a unit of measurement.
We need to separate these three functions of money by creating several distinct types of money.
We need a store of wealth money, preferably issued by the government for any ownership of produced items (iron bars to buildings). By basing such a system on energy we also get a measurement by using Joules. Say a house is worth 1TJ.
We need a means of exchange money used for paychecks, purchases, etc. Ideally provided by new entity which purchases futures on each business from hairdressers to finance.
And finaly we need a risk based currency. A bankers currency which can be expanded at any rate banks choose. But if it is a floating currency, any expansion of money would lead to devaluation leading the banking industry towards taking care of their currency stability. The reason for this is that banks are very important part of development in any country because they can generate economy through connecting ideas and money. We just need to keep this connection outside of our pockets when it happens. Instead we are using a model where every loan taken decreases the value of my money regardless of the fact I am in no way involved in the loan.
They left out Tally Sticks!
It was one of the most successful currencies in the world for over 800 years and was not created out of debt.
It's replacement? The British Pound Sterling produced by this new bank at the time...the Bank of England.
Muddy, Bloody, Poopy, Tea.
Mmmm, Mmmm!
All these tricks with money only invites criminality. There's no substitute for gold and silver because they are guaranteed scarce and that prevents counterfeiting.
All contracts assume a constant purchasing power of the money involved throughout the contract, therefore the total money supply must be held reletively constant.
The last time that happened:
From 1875 to 1895 wholesale prices fell by about 45 per cent even as industrial output and real wages continued their upward march. This can be easily explained by the fact that productivity was growing faster than the gold supply.
Back then America focused on productivity and not money tricks to create wealth.
Bitcoin managers promise to hold total production at 21 M. Dollar managers at Bretton Woods in 1944 promised foreign countries they also would not counterfeit the new global reserve dollar that was backed by only 16% at that time in a 40% gold-backing standard. By 1971 gold backing was down to 8%.
This semi-gold backing fraud was still enough to contain the counterfeiting because the dollar lost 90% of it's value after Nixon closed the gold window in 1971 and then the printing presses went into overdrive and it was off to the races as they say leading to today's Cluster F.
Precious metals are only useful as a means of preventing money counterfeiting. However as you outlined gold is not elastic and cannot follow the economy as a currency should. A gold meteor (any previously unknown large quantity of gold) can destroy that system in a second. Now this is rather unlikely, but it proves gold is not ideal money.
The amount of currency needs to be equal to energy use or a similar energy/work/efficiency based definition. If you take a look at energy consumption and world GDP, they are almost the same thing. Debt however and currency have exploded since 1980.