Quote:
Originally Posted by Still Growing  I've spoke about this subject until I'm blue in the face and nobody shares in my outrage. |
I do. I don't fully understand the economic system but it definitely appears crooked enough for me to outraged. (Though even if it didn't appear corrupt, the fact that the system works so poorly would be reason enough by itself for me to be outraged).
One of the things that most bothers me about this whole system is the government-enforced monopoly on the creation of currency, since if the people had viable alternative currencies they could easily adopt instead, the deflation of the dollar would be of no consequence.
I agree with Ron Paul that we'd be better off with
free competition in currency.
I don't yet know much about the exact laws that forbid competition in currency and enforce a government monopoly, but, I've been wondering for a while now how it is that
Second Life (an online multiplayer 3D virtual world game) can carry on having a virtual currency which can be sold for real money for some small, reasonable fees.
It makes me wonder if there's a legal loophole of some kind for virtual currencies, because otherwise, wouldn't Second Life's virtual currency have been shut down by now?
Maybe virtual currencies could be used somehow to avoid the disaster of inflation (or hyperinflation). The reason Second Life's currency couldn't be used for this purpose right now is because it seems to be consistently remaining at approximately the same exchange rate with U.S. dollars ($1 USD can buy L$264 Linden dollars). But there's no reason a virtual currency would have to remain in lockstep with the U. S. dollar, falling in value at the same rate as the U.S. dollar.
Any good web developer could probably come up with a virtual currency and currency exchange marketplace website similar to Second Life's (and a nice extra would be to also provide a place on the website for people to advertise products and services they're offering in exchange for virtual currency).
The main problems I can think of are: A) Security issues - having to guard against hacking, etc. B) Cultivating the trust of the public so that people will actually even use the virtual currency.
Probably a company like Google would be in a great position to start their own virtual currency, both because they would have the technical ability to implement it with proper security, a nice user interface, etc., and because they already have the trust of the public.
Google also has enough clout that the government probably wouldn't just come in and raid Google's offices and physically seize their assets, as the government apparently did to the
Liberty Dollar private mint.
Besides, Google could give their virtual currency a cute name, like Google Moolah.
Creating a virtual currency and using that as a way to avoid inflation is a pretty far out, practically unheard of idea, but the fact that Second Life's virtual currency works so well and is so useful (even despite staying at the same value as the U.S. dollar) has convinced me that virtual currencies really can work. I think it's a possible solution worth experimenting with, at least.
Best wishes,
Apollia