At 9:35 AM 4/4/96, James Gleick (!) wrote:
Seigniorage is actually the Government's interest income on all the currency in circulation. It's not obvious, but it's true, that the Fed collects the "float" on dollar bills you carry in your pocket, exactly as American Express collects the float on traveler's checks.
Ah. That makes much more sense. I've always wanted to know what to call the interest an ecash issuer made on the e$ he had out on the net. "None Dare Call it Seigniorage." Sounds like a 50's movie title...
And, I don't know, call me crazy, but $20 billion sounds like a lot of money to me.
I bet that's a real number. In terms of its scale in the overall Federal Universe, to paraphrase Dirksen, "a billion here, a billion there..." Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/