Re: Big purple digit

In article 
<cd11a45a-dd82-4da1-b053-ad139fdccf8b@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, 
jpolowin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Joel Polowin) wrote:

> I was told recently by a friend that when she went out to dinner with
> a group during a Canadian con, an American in the group was boggled
> when she tried to pay with U.S. currency and was told that the
> restaurant wouldn't accept it.  It had never occurred to her that she
> might need to use Canadian currency; after all, they're *worth* about
> the same right now. 

An interesting reverse: work had some Americans coming over a few years 
ago, visiting several countries, who were boggled when they were told 
they didn't need to get francs, marks and lira separately. 

"Nope, the Euro replaced them all two years ago. The old currencies are 
now purely of historical interest; you won't get able to get them, and 
if you could, you couldn't spend them."

The idea that these currencies - most of which hadn't actually been 
around for awfully long in their current form - could all just go away, 
without all that much fuss, was amazing to them. 

Hum ... that gives me an interesting idea. There's a common mistake in 
political economy, especially as practised by politicians. They know 
intellectually that money isn't a real substance, but they act as if it 
was. The US dollar is quite a long-lived currency and the UK pound is 
probably one of the oldest in continuous existence. 

I wonder if that contributes towards the "money is real" delusion? 
Certainly, the people who object most strongly to the idea of the UK 
joining the Euro act as if they're terrified that changing their money 
for a different currency will destroy its value, or worse, risks other 
people getting their hands on money. 

-- 
John Dallman, jgd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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