Steve, you invented the 'weapons of mass transportation' before the day! Old Europe wishes you a nice 2004, ;-)) Wouter. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Gray" <stevebg@adelphia.net> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2003 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Negative money
The difference is that the phone company's cards are labeled so the credit you have is specific and traceable. A Reagan dime is unlabeled and represents no obligation from anyone. That's what makes it confusing, at least to me. During the Cold War, I had an idea to destabilize Cuba. Just gather up several million old beat-up cars, ones which barely work, put one or two gallons of fuel in each one, and dump them on their beaches in the middle of the night. (I'm ignoring practicalities.) The cars would seem valuable to individual Cubans but in reality they would be a huge destabilizing force, causing fights, gas shortages, traffic jams, accidents, chaos, etc.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Dave Dyer" <ddyer@real-me.net> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, December 26, 2003 7:00 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Negative money
The "negative" value of the coin is an obligation on the issuer. For example, phone cards are effectively "negative value" issued by the phone company. If you accept them, the phone company owes you money (or equivalent service). The trick is to get someone to accept your "obs" in the first place.
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