Re: shuttle disaster

[Geordie Birch <geordie@tao.ca>]

said David P James (on 2003-02-08),

> Travis Crump wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, 2003-02-07 at 20:57, Gary Turner wrote:
> >>
> >> Maybe I'm missing something, but what are you talking about.  People
> >> and corporations produce their own goods and services every day.
> >
> > People and corporations produce their own money every day as well;  have
> > you ever written a check?  Try coming up with a difference between
> > checks, iou's, deeds, stock certificates, bonds, etc. and government
> > produced money that isn't circular, ie "the first set isn't money
> > because it is not government backed"  Have you ever gone to a fair or
> > arcade where you have to buy 'tokens' to pay for the games/rides?  What
> > are the tokens if they aren't money?
> >
> I'll give you a difference: liquidity. There are also differing degrees
> of transferability and risk associated with all the forms of assets that
> you've listed. I can't just use the tokens anywhere; they are probably
> only redeemable at that particular arcade, though I might be able to
> sell them to another arcade-goer at par or at a discount.

And I can spend my Canadian dollars in Canada, but good luck trying to get
rid of them in a town like Arcata California, or Berkeley even.  US
dollars on the other hand can be used with no problems in many small
retail outlets in Canada.  Big liquidity difference between the two.

An aside: I recently exchanged some $US for $CDN at a bank in Vancouver
and received a small amount of US currency back in exhange for itself.
Only in Canada.

Geordie.