on Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 05:21:07PM -0800, georgemw@speakeasy.net (georgemw@speakeasy.net) wrote:
On 23 Nov 2001, at 19:13, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
Pecunia, the latin word for money, comes from the Etruscian pecu, meaning, cow.
Cheers, RAH
And of course the German word for money is Gelt, which means Gold.
Cows might have served well as currency for primitives like the Etruscans, but can you imagine using them today? I took a bus this morning, the fair was 1.10 and I only had paper money so they ripped me off 90 cents. But if I was an Etruscan, they would've taken my whole cow!
No, actually, you probably came out about $1.60 ahead. "Farebox recovery" -- the amount of a transit system's expenses that are covered by direct rider payments -- tends about 30% - 40% of expenses. This varies widely, a sparsely-attended rural service might rate 10% returns, typical suburban service 15-20%, a well-served metro transit system might come as high as 50-55%. You're also neglecting the possibility that the fare might not have been a whole cow, but just cost you an arm and a leg. Peace. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]