It’s fiat, I won’t argue it was ever going to be a good currency with built-in deflation, but that’s what it was originally meant to be. It’s long since become too volatile to be anything but a speculative asset, though. It does seem curious to me what that says about the actual distinction between legitimate currencies, stock options, and pyramid scheme buy-ins.
work January, get paid 1000, pay 600 in bills and lay 400 aside for potential emergencies
work February, medical emergency comes up but medical bills now cost 10000 so you can’t afford them with the 400 you set aside and you also can’t work because of the emergency so you take 20000 debth to repay the medical cost and other bills
work March to repay your debth, but you only get 50 while still having a debth of 20000
What you just said was a thing that you can only do in an idealised world where you never get sick and all your bills are always payed in the month you get them.
Nice of you to completely ignore the rest of the answer that kind of points to why in the real world you have to set aside money and why in the real world a volatile currency is useless
I’m sick all the time, that’s why in my “idealized world”…
I just came from the pharmacy with a bag of meds, paid with… we have these plastic cards stamped with “Social Security” and our ID on them, worked just fine… right after going to get an echocardiogram… where I made the mistake of asking the receptionist where to go, he just told me to scan the barcode at this machine at the entrance, which directed me where to go and spit out a turn slip (turn 1, oh well, they didn’t seem to have many echocardiograms scheduled today)… and then had to take the bus, there is this other plastic ID card I have to touch to the scanner on entry, good thing it’s a city bus so disabled people get to ride for free.
By the way, also got my disability check today, which went straight to bills, and a bit onto a prepaid card in case I must pay something unexpected without having to ask a social worker for help. Setting some aside would be fun, I have some ways to invest it in case some month there’s too much left.
Guess I forgot to mention I live in the 1st world… but honestly, if I lived anywhere else, I’d trust currency even less.
(PS, the metamizole seems to be kicking in, so time to go take out the trash before I’m stuck back in bed)
It’s fiat, I won’t argue it was ever going to be a good currency with built-in deflation, but that’s what it was originally meant to be. It’s long since become too volatile to be anything but a speculative asset, though. It does seem curious to me what that says about the actual distinction between legitimate currencies, stock options, and pyramid scheme buy-ins.
High volatility is not a problem for a currency:
Volatility is irrelevant to a currency, unless you want to treat it as an investment.
Meaning, you treated currency as an investment. What did I just say?
What you just said was a thing that you can only do in an idealised world where you never get sick and all your bills are always payed in the month you get them. Nice of you to completely ignore the rest of the answer that kind of points to why in the real world you have to set aside money and why in the real world a volatile currency is useless
I’m sick all the time, that’s why in my “idealized world”…
I just came from the pharmacy with a bag of meds, paid with… we have these plastic cards stamped with “Social Security” and our ID on them, worked just fine… right after going to get an echocardiogram… where I made the mistake of asking the receptionist where to go, he just told me to scan the barcode at this machine at the entrance, which directed me where to go and spit out a turn slip (turn 1, oh well, they didn’t seem to have many echocardiograms scheduled today)… and then had to take the bus, there is this other plastic ID card I have to touch to the scanner on entry, good thing it’s a city bus so disabled people get to ride for free.
By the way, also got my disability check today, which went straight to bills, and a bit onto a prepaid card in case I must pay something unexpected without having to ask a social worker for help. Setting some aside would be fun, I have some ways to invest it in case some month there’s too much left.
Guess I forgot to mention I live in the 1st world… but honestly, if I lived anywhere else, I’d trust currency even less.
(PS, the metamizole seems to be kicking in, so time to go take out the trash before I’m stuck back in bed)