Comments by "EebstertheGreat" (@EebstertheGreat) on "Что придаёт ценность долларовой банкноте? — Дуг Левинсон" video.

  1. Right, so it's not that money has no value, or that the value is illusory (i.e. I'm not trying to reverse my position), it's just that its (very real) value is the result of agreement among powerful people. That's also true of contracts, for instance. There is no inherent value of the ink and paper of a contract, but rather the value comes from agreement between the signatories (and civil laws of the state enforcing the agreement). Similarly, currency is simply abstract numbers, or at best a piece of cotton paper or precious metal alloy. While coins have some (small) intrinsic value, the intrinsic value of a bill is virtually nothing, and the intrinsic value of your bank account (only a small fraction of which is held in physical currency in vaults) is even less. So they have real value, and that real value is not likely to evaporate anytime soon, but if for instance the United States failed spectacularly, it could. This was demonstrated in dramatic fashion in Zimbabwe from the late 1990s to the late 2000s.
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  2. David Vice What exactly is your proposed alternative to money?
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  3. Shwam Atkinson It does, but oil is not the only commodity traded in USD. Consider the NYSE for instance. In fact, the US is by far the most financially powerful country. The diversity and volume of investments in American companies give our currency its value.
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  4. DucksDeLucks Businesses are not required to accept cash, but they are required to accept payments denominated in dollars. If you want to accept tobacco leaves in payment, you cannot run a public business in the U.S. (at least not one with significant interstate business). Most states have more specific restrictions.
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  5. Marc Abelha Iran already quotes prices in euros. There is nothing really stopping OPEC from trading in euros, it's just better business to trade in USD.
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  6. DucksDeLucks "Those who own goods are under no obligation to exchange them for your dollars." Yes they are. That's the point. All goods and services sold in the U.S. must have prices denominated in U.S. dollars. They don't need to accept any specific form of payment (e.g. you can only accept cash, or you can only accept check and money order, or you can specifically reject $100 bills), but you do need to accept some payment in US currency if you are to be paid at all.
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  7. DucksDeLucks I don't know the details tbh. Like, there's nothing illegal about negotiating a trade of silver for some other good. But I think you run into problems when you try to open to the public. (I mean, it would be dumb not to accept USD anyway for practical reasons, but I believe it is also illegal.)
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  8. dilbertgeg Businesses in the U.S. are not required to accept any particular form of payment. For instance, they can refuse $100 bills, or all cash entirely, or everything except cash. Some places only accept payment by check and money order, including even some local governments (e.g. Cleveland municipal court). So if I want to pay a traffic ticket, I can't get out of my debt by complaining that they won't accept cash. The only requirement is that they accept U.S. dollars. So there must be some reasonable available form of payment in USD, as opposed to for instance in CAD, stocks, or gold. It is also not true that debts are voided by refusal to accept payment (even for instance if I try to pay $10 toward a $1000 bill and they refuse to accept it, that doesn't void the whole 1000 bill and probably doesn't even void $10 of it).
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  9. +DucksDeLucks Not only the federal government, but all creditors in the U.S., public and private, are obligated to accept all forms of legal tender. So unlike Bitcoin, which everyone could pretty much just choose to stop trading, US dollars have legally-enforced value. Of course, how much people charge is up to them, but since there is a finite (albeit increasing) amount of money, it has a finite (albeit decreasing) value.
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  10. DucksDeLucks It's a pretty safe bet. As long as the U.S. government continues operating and utilizing the dollar, it will continue to have value. It won't always have the same value, of course, but it will be worth something. And the changes in its value are mostly predictable in the long term (though they do involve national politics, which isn't really predictable).
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  11. Shwam Atkinson That makes no sense, particularly now that the U.S. is a net oil exporter.
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  12. DucksDeLucks Hasn't been an issue for me, but it does seem shitty. What's worse, I once worked security for an apartment building that instructed me to clamp the wheel of any cars parked there that weren't in the tenant or visitor list and not remove then until they procured a $50 money order. One person showed up in the middle of the night who lived across the city. Where was she supposed to get a money order at 3 am? Completely legal though.
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  13. DucksDeLucks Right, but the government consists of people too, so ultimately the value still comes down to arbitrary agreement rather than intrinsic value. Even with no government, food would have value.
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  14. DucksDeLucks wat
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