I really meant it as an order of magnitude rather than a specific value.
Well, groovy. $99 is the same as $11 if we are only going to order of magnitude. I tell you what, you can buy all the grams of gold I've got for $99 each.
I learned this important feature when studying astronomy. To an astronomer, 11=99.
You might be thinking of something like "close order of magnitude" in which case 12 is about 10, sure.
I mean to say that pulling a gram of gold out of your pocket would be somewhat similar to pulling out a 10 dollar bill.
Off by about 20%, though. Even today, two bucks will buy some things.
Now, if you don't mind travel, you can get a note from the Central Bank of Djibouti which is 2000 Djiboutienne francs. That note is officially "pegged" to the US dollar at 180 francs to the dollar, but you have to be another central bank, or a major bank, to get that exchange rate, and then only for large volumes. So, on the street, the effective exchange rate is closer to $11.83 for a 2000 Dj franc note.
Taking a peek over at http://goldmoney.com/en/index.php we see that the gram of gold is about $11.85.
So, pulling a 2000 Dj fr note out of your pocket would be very much like pulling a gram of gold out of your pocket. (Although, actual gram of gold pieces are sold at a tremendous premium.)
I actually had a scenario in mind when I asked this question. I was trying to imagine some small town grocer selling apples, and having to write up a sign that says: one apple - 0.008 GAU, which doesn't seem the easiest way to write up a sign.
Yeah, but who buys just one apple? He can offer them by the pound (avoirdupois) or the peck or the bushel.
And he can price rounded to two or three decimal places of accuracy. He could round up to .01 and make 20% more on each apple.
For centuries, the penny was divided into half pennies
("hayp-knee" to the English) and quarter cents or farthings.
Writing fractions is pretty easy, and if the farthing is
worth something, it is worth doing. English grocers
used to have signs with things like "3s8d" meaning
three shillings and eight pence.Your grocer might put up 8 thousandths, just like you have. Or he could go for 16 Djiboutienne francs. Until the dollar becomes more worthless, that is.
(By the way, this trick with dollars and Dj francs works with some other pegged currencies like the Panama balboa.)
I know that at present, we are all using gold merely on line, but what if some store were to actually use gold for prices on daily items?
That would be fun. For my part, my store would use ounces of gold rather than grams. One could even offer side by side pricing with dollars and gold priced in dollars. Since dollars are becoming worthless, I'd offer a discount to get gold.
You are thinking of signage in a sort of 19th Century mode. Signs don't have to be changed by hand. One can get signs which are programmable today, and simply input an entire database of prices at the back of the store.
That's what I meant by the "removed from everyday life."
Yes, I see the distinction you are making, but I don't agree with it. Computers are a part of everyday life. Welcome to the future.
We all get used to having a car priced in the tens of thousands of some currency unit, but usually not in fractions of 1.
Well, that's the thing Dostoevsky complained about. "Men are such scoundrels. They can get used to anything."
symbol is just a symbol,
A symbol is a symbol, and conveys meaning if it is one that people recognize. People recognize Au for gold.
"He has no blood, he has no brain, he has no anima. He just keeps banging on those meaningless cymbals and going and going." -- "Grosse Pointe Blank"
as the S in the dollar sign is not related to the sound as far as I know.
Nope. The S with a line through it is the symbol for the Spanish dollar because the Spanish dollar has, on the back, two pillars each with a flowing banner wrapped around it. The pillars represent the Pillars of Hercules back in the day when Spain owned both coasts. I think the motto used to be "ne plus ultra" which became "plus ultra." (No more beyond the pillars was the view before Columbus; more beyond was the view after.)
You can google up a nice image of an old Spanish dollar to confirm this point. The dollar sign is something one sees depicted on the old Spanish dollar. Kinda neat.
Dollar itself comes from "Joachimsthaler" which is a person from the valley in current Czech Republic where the Hanseatic League got its silver money originally.
I was thinking of a symbol that storekeepers could use to put on price signs for apples or chicken or whatever, once the day comes when gold is used as a universal currency...
It is nice of you to be thoughtful this way. I think price signs are pretty easy to generate, by hand or by computer. People are adaptable. They got used to fascism under Franklin Roosevelt pretty quick.
Regards,
Jim http://www.ezez.com/free/freejim.html
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