At 10:30 PM 3/26/96 -0800, you wrote:

At 04:05 PM 3/26/96 EDT, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote:

...

The Fed has done an actually rather admirable job of standing up to the pressure

Every couple of years the politicians start leaning on Greenspan. Greenspan lets it be known they are leaning on him, the money markets mark the dollar down and the politicians stop leaning on him.

The Greenspan standard is not a good as a gold standard, but its not bad. Only trouble is he is mortal, unlike gold.

Come to think of it, there is actually some crypto relevance here: Internet currencies will be necessarily non physical and it will be difficult to go after the issuer in the event of default, so the best currency will have a value that depends on peoples belief that the issuer will defend the value of the currency.

Strange how religion and monetary markets work. They both demand the suspension of fact and or physical items in favor of some ethereal object or person's view of reality. I'm not saying that the dollar is some object that does not physically exist, I'm just saying that the value inherent is no longer based on a physical item. Question. If e-cash were backed by gold would that make it more reliable than say the dollar? PGP encrypted mail preferred. Scott J. Schryvers <schryver@radiks.net> -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQENAzFX9usAAAEH/2r2eovPAoYZbxzmfJ1DW7yjjdVnckXjUVKU/zZNAUV/IjzF GDEq040wbAG1rFHDYoBOjjJTOGWMFuZ9apqoAvvI7Q4NAmVrNif0Rp8q/j4jib13 dlAA4Q0nvJZ5YNw4sf4r0iug76+9i0WpIZoP60DEB8BTuyCP55+nsbe7Ii3xLRyq ThZ2fhNqK2hD/rFugXK29Ynyzuc6TuFfu78kVOsYUUbQpplXyaLjhGKN94pZ5jox x7/wvqmBoH9E3rnaIPY9vOwy3kvMmCTlkjhlCzMXZHDn0e3UHWAax2mUTMttRzzi +SUv45h6ua+eSwUkA8uojojn/JiPOKIPwPk3hq0ABRG0KFNjb3R0IEouIFNjaHJ5 dmVycyA8c2Nocnl2ZXJAcmFkaWtzLm5ldD4= =58dK -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----