The Future of Money

There was a piece on NPR this morning about the state of world currencies. It seems that the dollar is showing a few stress fractures. Its demise is not imminent, but the person interviewed speculated on a couple of scenarios that could tip things the wrong way for the greenback. I'm not the one to comment on that - but that doesn't mean that I can't make some things up.

If we need people to have more confidence in the dollar, how about a real redesign? Forget the threads and watermarks and the embedded chips. I think we should put pictures of cats and dogs on the bills. Our Lab Leo has a wonderful, noble face.(Go ahead and click on that photo - you won't be sorry) I could see it on the Five - and our frenetic new adoptee Georgia would make a good one dollar bill. I could go for that. We'd even forgo the royalties on the images.
(Ellen said Leo should be on the Hundred - I say no, I wouldn't get to see him often enough.)

While not exactly the same as inspiring confidence, you might also consider selling the rights to the bigger bills to large corporations. Microsoft on the thou'? Merck on the fifty? BP on the hundred. Start a bidding war - I'll be glad to collect royalties on that idea.

Last but not least - maybe personalized bills are a possibility. Let's make money fun again. Pictures of your grandchildren on your pocketful of shopping money? You can already print your own postage, this might be right around the corner. The decline of our empire might be inevitable - why not have a little fun? Just a thought.

Ron Paul? Ron Paul!

I donated money to the Democrats back in '00 and '04. Maybe I'm a person who loves the underdog - maybe that would explain why this guy appeals to me now.

Right now, all the Democratic hopefuls make me want to run away. They are like so many bad over-flavored cups of coffee.

Early in the year Ron Paul made a couple of appearances on TV - I'm not sure where. He seemed to make sense.

I want to feel inspired by someone (don't we all?) who is willing to take their principles to the big show - who is willing to go through all the thrashing and fighting to get to a place where they might be able to work at fixing this thing.

Obviously, there are a handful of people who are willing to go through the thrashing - but are we inspired by them? Or are we embarrassed by them?

This is the only candidate who I feel like sending money to, and the only one whose sign I wouldn't be embarrassed to have in front of my house.

Oh - and he isn't a lawyer.

Along the road.

Sunday, January 21, 2007
Yesterday as I was driving along Route 55 in south Jersey, I heard some numbers mentioned in a radio broadcast.
As I listened, I did some math.
If the 21,500 soldiers that George Bush is planning to send to Iraq were lined up alongside a highway they would make a line 12.21 miles long. At typical highway speed it would take a little over ten minutes to drive past them all. About as much time as it takes to hear Bob Dylan’s “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” or “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” by Traffic, just to give two examples from the Itunes library here on my laptop. Or Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major or the Violin Concerto No. 5, also in A Major.
They’d be there, the soldiers, as you sped by. You might think, "Wow, that's a lot of guys". Even if they weren’t dressed in uniforms you’d have a pretty good clue as to what they were.

If the 3,250 soldiers who have died in that conflict were lined up alongside a highway they’d make a line a little over 4.3 miles long. Some of you might point out an apparent mistake in the math that I’ve done. I’ll explain: I have given the soldiers yet-to-go 3 feet of space to stand in. The soldiers who have been killed are given 7 feet of space. I think we would all agree that the dead soldiers should not be made to stand.

I may not be a reliable narrator. I was able, through incredibly good luck, to avoid serving in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War, the war of my youth. I was in college – an incredibly lucky thing in itself, regardless of the political situation – and I also had a high number in the lottery that was being used as a means of selecting young men to fight the war. Most of the guys I knew back then were worried about being called up. We'd talk about it around the kitchen table at my mother's house. Vietnam didn’t look like a good place to be. I was very lucky. I guess George W. Bush was lucky, too.
At times I feel what I have to guess is survivor’s guilt. I get very emotional when I see the pictures of the young and not-so-young men and women who have been killed in Iraq.
Having not served, I sit here in the comfort of my warm kitchen and type this meditation on what 21,500 and 3,250 mean.
12.21 miles, 4.3 miles. Along the road.