Did the MBS corner the market on trade?

Bluesqueak wrote:The problem with private currencies is that you can run out of commodities needed to back them - as the English did - and it’s more difficult to increase/decrease the amounts in circulation.

Or the US deciding not to play by the rules after WWI.

The US ended up with a ton of the world's gold reserves after WWI because of all the war material purchased by Britain and France while the US was still neutral. So much in fact that the US should have had massive inflation post-war with too much money chasing too few goods. which would have made imports cheaper, relatively, and thus caused that gold to flow back out of the US as people bought cheaper foreign products instead of domestic ones.

Well the US decided that massive inflation followed by inevitable job losses as purchasing shifted overseas was a bad thing and simply didn't issue notes for (IIRC) about half of its current gold reserves. Thus keeping the money in circulation balanced with the domestic economy. But by avoiding the domestic disruption of having way more of the world's gold than its peacetime economy could justify the US screwed over Britain and France's economies; they were trying to recover from the war without covering to fiat currency; but were hobbled by lack of gold to back their currency because it was sitting in US vaults unused.

tlb wrote:"A Grand Tour" by David Drake in More than Honor:

"Half a Solarian credit to the child who leads Sir Hakon to Merchant Singh's!" Beresford called, holding high a plastic coin with a coppery diffraction grating at its core. "Hop it, now! Sir Hakon's too important a person to wait."

ThinksMarkedly wrote:That story doesn't really count. It's way out there in terms of canonicity. Aside from a few names, it's not related at all to the HV...

I agree, but included it because the mentions of a physical expression of money are so rare in the books. This short story is the origin of David Drake's stories about the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, which I find interesting. One difference is that they assume a much lower level of technology than the Honorverse: an example is that physical money is used much more often in his stories.

There are "free" bank accounts in the US. They all come with requirements but if you meet them you pay no fee (usualy monthly) for maintaining a checking account. That would also be known as a draft or current account but essentialy is something you (used to) write checks against and now you can use your debit card or various forms of electronic bill paying to move money out of it.

Two basic flavors of Free. One is you have a checking and savings and probably an automatic direct deposit (usualy paycheck or social security) and there are no use charges. You pay for physical checks, over drafts and "forign" (anybody else's) ATM fees. The variation on that is you keep $ x dollars -on average - a month in the acount or you keep $Y amount is some sort of savings vehicle. Amounts WILL VARY.

The other kind is also a couplel of flavors. One is a "student" account- usualy a college student- and there is no charge WHILE YOU ARE IN SCHOOL.- like until you graduate or drop out. It's been a while so I don't know if that could run through various graduate schools but it's the same idea.
The second is a US Government mandated minimalist checking account and there are typicaly caps on the numbers of checks (and now ATM transactions) a month. Think VERY BASIC. No frills but esssentilay was designed for people with low incomes and -pick a good government sounding reason- and it would ALSO allow various kinds of assistance to be directly deposited. Amoung other things it avoided theft of checks from the mailbox or robbing people on their way home from cashing the monthly "check"

I will admit not having to deal with the details of a wide range of Demand Deposit Accounts for a few years. (you will see that refered to by banks as DDA vs Savings Accounts (SAV). Demand Deposit is an accurate description of what happens- you write a check or make an electronic transfere and it is a "demand" against cleared (available/ good funds) in your account.
But, yeah, you can get a "free" account for transactions that functions like a traditional checking account.

@tlb,

It appears to be no small feat researching all of the instances of money in the series. Thanks for that.

I wonder how large a denomination of coin there is. Is there a hundred or thousand dollar coin? Paper money is convenient and practical. Even if there is a thousand dollar coin, it can't be folded. When I wear suits, I hate bulging pockets.

The unilink sounds interesting.

[quote="cthia"The unilink sounds interesting.[/quote]

It sounds so sci-fi, but it's reality for us today. I frequently pay with my phone or my watch. I only carry one card with me (filling station pumps card readers don't work with NFC or MST) and the little cash I carry is in the wallet for months.

Paying for things this way is also a lot easier in Europe and in many parts of Latin America, where you haven't been separated from your credit card at the moment of paying for 20 years.

cthia wrote:The unilink sounds interesting.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It sounds so sci-fi, but it's reality for us today. I frequently pay with my phone or my watch. I only carry one card with me (filling station pumps card readers don't work with NFC or MST) and the little cash I carry is in the wallet for months.

Paying for things this way is also a lot easier in Europe and in many parts of Latin America, where you haven't been separated from your credit card at the moment of paying for 20 years.

Apple recently announced a patent to replace all ID's, including the driver's license and passport, with an app on the phone.

tlb wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:It sounds so sci-fi, but it's reality for us today. I frequently pay with my phone or my watch. I only carry one card with me (filling station pumps card readers don't work with NFC or MST) and the little cash I carry is in the wallet for months.

Paying for things this way is also a lot easier in Europe and in many parts of Latin America, where you haven't been separated from your credit card at the moment of paying for 20 years.

Apple recently announced a patent to replace all ID's, including the driver's license and passport, with an app on the phone.

BTW, what I really want that is still sci-fi is wetware implants. I don't want to carry the phone, I want to have the conversation relayed directly to my ear and be able to browse information in my eyes.

Especially if it comes with nanites that can help combat viruses and infections.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:BTW, what I really want that is still sci-fi is wetware implants. I don't want to carry the phone, I want to have the conversation relayed directly to my ear and be able to browse information in my eyes.

Especially if it comes with nanites that can help combat viruses and infections.

Cool, because I want to hack that phone...

tlb wrote:Apple recently announced a patent to replace all ID's, including the driver's license and passport, with an app on the phone.

Hmm, I wouldn't want the drivers license displayed without authentication - but I also wouldn't want to have to unlock the phone before handing the phone to a police officer, security person, or customs agent so they can see my ID...

I don't necessarily even want them to be able to see the other items in my apple wallet. Certainly a totally solvable problem - but Apple will give me that option before I even think about using my ID on the phone.

I'm a bit slow adopting cutting edge tech to do the lion's share of my banking. The more of your life you put out there, the more out there your life becomes. I will never adopt Apple's tech. I don't much like iPhones. I pay bills online, but with a minor account.

Even with the unilink there must be limitations. However, I do see certain advantages of carrying your entire account(s) on your wrist, and not in your pocket.

Traditional watches must be a thing of the past in the HV though, which is sad. Who needs two watches on their wrist? Or one on each wrist.