Cattle Herding... (was Re: in praise of gold)

[Karsten M. Self]

on Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 05:21:07PM -0800, georgemw at speakeasy.net
(georgemw at 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.

--
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