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In a past life I was a economist (before that, a Chinchilla in case you were wondering). This is where I write about the magic of markets and the absurdity of the financial world.
I get turned on by charts
You can check out my meta-Tumblr here
I work for Thirdi Software
"One of the little appreciated facts of American history: the Westward expansion was funded mostly by credit money. Banks and companies would set up shop with tiny gold reserves, people would use their money as currency, and the banks would regularly explode, making the issued money worthless paper. Why on earth would anyone back such a hare brained scheme? Simple, really: there was no other form of money available, because the government removed vast amounts of money from circulation in the form of greenbacks (fiat money which funded the Civil War) and silver notes. That, combined with the very real economic expansion brought on by new technologies and exploitation of new resources in the American West required much more money than was available. So, seemingly silly monopoly money was the only game in town. This caused problems to the people who held a lot of cash backed by an exploding bank, but it solved more problems than it caused, as it enabled markets, trade and economic growth at an important time in American history. You think derivatives are complicated? At the outbreak of civil war, there were over 7000 different kinds of Bank issued credit money in circulation in America; and there were no computers to sort this all out."
A peregrination on the nature of money « Locklin on science (via nonolet)
