Article: "What if money expired?"

[Arya Quinn]

I'z gonna hoard all the goldz and jewelz and toilet paperz. 

One of the most bizarre consequences of the Covid pandemic.

The toilet paper "shortage" was such a wild thing to me once I learned how it started. People believed there would be a shortage in Australia because they thought a lot of toilet paper came from China, so went mad and panic bought. The rest of the world followed suit.

People panic bought other stupid stuff too. At one stage my local supermarket ran clean out of custard creams.

That was a dark day.

[Gopher Gary]

I've always hoarded toilet paper and it was a running joke among my family members to make fun of me about it. They don't make fun of me anymore.  We were all grateful for my toilet paper hoard when it was needed, but I actually hoard less toilet paper now than I did before the pandemic. During the pandemic, I doubled my food hoard but it was difficult to manage so I've since gone back to my pre-pandemic food hoarding amounts. When I scaled back the food, I also decided to hoard less toilet paper because the shortage proved it didn't make sense to have so much. I still probably have too much and it would long outlast the food, but I can't bring myself to have any less. I don't know why I need so much toilet paper, but I just do. 

[Gopher Gary]

People panic bought other stupid stuff too.

Trying to find pet food was probably the thing that stressed me out the most. I live in a disaster prone area and when there's impending doom, people shop like they're going camping because power outages are likely. People buy up all the gas, ice, beer, lunchmeat and bread. 

[Icequeen]

People panic bought other stupid stuff too.

Trying to find pet food was probably the thing that stressed me out the most. I live in a disaster prone area and when there's impending doom, people shop like they're going camping because power outages are likely. People buy up all the gas, ice, beer, lunchmeat and bread. 

That was a problem here too...for awhile the only place I could get cat food they would eat was online, and that wasn't always a given. I got into the habit of checking every other day and ordering well in advance. Paper products we had bought by the case for the bar, but since that was closed we just divided them up and used them.

[Pyraxis]

I'm kind of used to hoarding groceries because I have to eat gluten free, and the grocery stores are always hit or miss whether they carry or keep in stock any given product. The supply trucks only come monthly instead of weekly and they're always discontinuing things because they didn't sell in whatever brief period the grocery manager is examining. So when I see something I like, I get three or four.

Having the cub made it worse because it became so much harder to get to the store. No more last minute runs when discovering halfway through a recipe I'm missing something, and little kids are too prone to tantrums if you run out of their favourite flavour of the week.

[Pyraxis]

Money is an abstraction to provide a measure of available resources. Obviously, multiple currencies and distinct economies do not help. You need a baseline to match the various economies. It becomes an additional concern - the way money behaves becomes an issue by itself.

Is it obvious? I don't actually understand why there needs to be a baseline currency, unless it's of a useful resource like gold or silicon or something. It seems to be problematic for a specific country's currency to be the baseline because it concentrates too much power in one place. I know China for example really wants something other than the USA dollar to be the standard.

Which is why cryptocurrencies are problematic; they introduce a variable not related to resources - server farms and the like. They are really no better than the fake money you use to "buy" things in any number of online games.

Processing power is a resource. I don't own cryptocurrency but how is it any more virtual than bizarre mortgage derivatives, stock puts and calls, and whatever other layers over layers of financial nonsense that overpaid Wall Street suits come up with?

[Gopher Gary]

I'm kind of used to hoarding groceries because I have to eat gluten free, and the grocery stores are always hit or miss whether they carry or keep in stock any given product. The supply trucks only come monthly instead of weekly and they're always discontinuing things because they didn't sell in whatever brief period the grocery manager is examining. So when I see something I like, I get three or four.

Having the cub made it worse because it became so much harder to get to the store. No more last minute runs when discovering halfway through a recipe I'm missing something, and little kids are too prone to tantrums if you run out of their favourite flavour of the week.

I hoard food because Sugarbutt has special dietary needs too. 

[conlang returns]

Processing power is a resource. I don't own cryptocurrency but how is it any more virtual than bizarre mortgage derivatives, stock puts and calls, and whatever other layers over layers of financial nonsense that overpaid Wall Street suits come up with?

I think it's all just different forms of gambling.  Some of them do have real world effects on the people who don't play, unfortunately.  And it seems exclusively for the worse.  But I think that's mostly a result of our poor implementation of democracy.  Having so much wealth puts people into a position of power without accountability to the people they hold power over.  So it's real easy to "socialize risks while privatising profits" as I've often heard it stated. 

[renaeden]

We were down to two rolls of toilet paper at one stage. I had to buy some below-Kayleigh's-standards (and...mine too) toilet paper from the Salvos. We still have two rolls of it now.

The thing I was surprised about it going out of stock was cordial. I drink cordial at work out of a litre bottle. I have problems with a dry mouth so I really need it. Anyway, during the shortage I had to drink Soda Stream diet cola since that's all I could get hold of. Hopefully I'll never have to drink that again. I don't like water, heh.

[odeon]

Money is an abstraction to provide a measure of available resources. Obviously, multiple currencies and distinct economies do not help. You need a baseline to match the various economies. It becomes an additional concern - the way money behaves becomes an issue by itself.

Is it obvious? I don't actually understand why there needs to be a baseline currency, unless it's of a useful resource like gold or silicon or something. It seems to be problematic for a specific country's currency to be the baseline because it concentrates too much power in one place. I know China for example really wants something other than the USA dollar to be the standard.

A baseline will only work well if the economies are (or can be made) comparable or if there are only a few large economies (that rea reasonably comparable). Any differences have to be handled in some way - tariffs, exchange currencies that differ depending on direction, etc. In a small society, one abstraction will work just fine. Introduce complexity and everything will be more difficult.

So no - baseline is not a given, but it's what they are trying to do.

And multiple currencies are always a concern because they are all abstractions but controlled within separate systems.

Which is why cryptocurrencies are problematic; they introduce a variable not related to resources - server farms and the like. They are really no better than the fake money you use to "buy" things in any number of online games.

Processing power is a resource. I don't own cryptocurrency but how is it any more virtual than bizarre mortgage derivatives, stock puts and calls, and whatever other layers over layers of financial nonsense that overpaid Wall Street suits come up with?

It introduces multiple additional abstractions, including non-market dependencies. All of a sudden, the value of the currency is also tied to specific resources - silicon availability, delivery chains, Nvidia graphics card availability, etc - and yet there are region dependencies as well because things like Nvidia cards have export restrictions. It's a weird situation.

[odeon]

Processing power is a resource. I don't own cryptocurrency but how is it any more virtual than bizarre mortgage derivatives, stock puts and calls, and whatever other layers over layers of financial nonsense that overpaid Wall Street suits come up with?

I think it's all just different forms of gambling.  Some of them do have real world effects on the people who don't play, unfortunately.  And it seems exclusively for the worse.  But I think that's mostly a result of our poor implementation of democracy.  Having so much wealth puts people into a position of power without accountability to the people they hold power over.  So it's real easy to "socialize risks while privatising profits" as I've often heard it stated.

Gambling exists regardless of the monetary abstraction. Cryptocurrency's mechanics simply differ from the conventional flavours.

[Genesis]

Cryptocurrency is also untraceable when processed right as well... from what I heard it's data mining and mathematics that's above my head.

Also heard that it's a hot commodity for the DPRK to steal away from South Korea and other institutions.

[odeon]

They are untraceable now. Probably for some time to come. But forever? I doubt it. There will always be a next level of processing.