From: Dan Fabulich (daniel.fabulich@yale.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 11:54:50 MST
> But the cost of using money declines just as fast. Look at the labor
> savings of web transactions vs cash sales, for instance - and this doesn't
> even take e-cash into account.
Actually, it's e-cash that makes the complex barter scenario appear most
likely. A big draw of e-cash is its potential ability to render central
banks irrelevant by allowing individuals to create their own tradeable
currencies and allowing the market to figure out the appropriate money
supply. But when there is no standard currency to appeal to, all money
exchanges of this kind operate on a kind of barter. (Notice that Eliezer
was particularly thinking of futures barter when he made his "calls;"
futures are, IMO, the most likely commodity to be turned entirely into
e-cash first.)
Nonetheless, this is barter in a weak sense. It's a money market with
many currencies, a la the international money market, but nobody calls
that barter.
-Dan
-unless you love someone-
-nothing else makes any sense-
e.e. cummings
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