Amazon is starting to remind me of the Gary Oldham character in The Fifth Element.
After years of being hooked on Amazon, we were ticked off that Bezos, the richest man in the world, jacked up the cost for Prime shipping by 20% this year. So we did not renew our membership.
We have survived for several months and have saved a lot of money, because our penchant for spontaneous shopping is over. Instead of ordering several hundred dollars worth of stuff, we’ve spent $55 in two orders, both a bit over $25 so they qualified for free shipping. We have found we can shop locally and not be deprived. Love it when a plan comes together.
Scrip currency. Used by the US military in countries to prevent the distribution of US currency in the region. Part of it was to reduce the effect on the local currency, making it mandatory to exchange the scrip only at the official rate of change, and part of it was to keep down the black market, in which the locals were not permitted to use the scrip to exchange for local currency, often at very unfavorable rates.
Also used in “company stores”, but useless elsewhere, forcing the persons paid only in scrip to buy only at the company store.
That the scrip is stored electronically makes its use no less pernicious.
Cryptocurrency, blockchain and equivalent technologies will be highly-disruptive, no doubt. But the fundamental driver of currency valuation is being government backed.
Why? It is quite simple. Inevitability. Death and taxes.
Our mere existence requires things which are most conveniently acquired with money. One of the “things” we must have money for is to pay taxes.
Everyone must pay taxes, so this is essentially a lifelong debt we all must pay. If someone does not pay taxes directly, they are still paying them indirectly, or someone else is paying for them.
Cryptocurrencies will only have stabilized valuations when governments accept them as payment for mandatory taxes. That’s the real meaning of currencies being government backed.