Masih ingat John Nash, jenius periah nobel yang kisahnya diangkat menjadi film berjudul "beautiful mind"?? baru-baru ini dia menyatakan perlunya emas sebagai standar moneter duniakarena nilainya yang tak lekang oleh inflasi. konsep ini kurang lebih sama digunakan dalam ekonomi syariah yang dipraktikkan di masa nabi Muhammad ratusan tahun lalu: ”Ali bin Abdullah bercerita kepada kami, Sufyan menceritakan kepada kami, Syahib bin Gharqadah menceritakan kepada kami, ia berkata : saya mendengar penduduk bercerita tentang ’Urwah, bahwa Nabi Muhammad memberikan uang satu Dinar kepadanya agar dibelikan seekor kambing untuk beliau; lalu dengan uang tersebut ia membeli dua ekor kambing, kemudian ia jual satu ekor dengan harga satu Dinar. Ia pulang membawa satu Dinar dan satuekor kambing. Nabi mendoakannya dengan keberkatan dalam jual belinya. Seandainya ‘Urwah membeli debupun, ia pasti beruntung”(H.R.Bukhari) dari hadits tersebut bisa dilihat bahwa harga pasaran kambing yang wajar di zaman Rasulullah adalah satu Dinar (sekitar Rp1.250.000) . sekarangpun, dengan ½ sampai 2 Dinar (Rp1,2 juta sampai Rp2,5 juta) kita bisa membeli kambing dimanapun di seluruh nusantara. artinya setelah lebih dari 14 abad, daya beli uang emas (dalam kasus ini, dinar) tak berubah. beda jauh dengan uang kertas. dulu di 1980-an, Rp5.000 bisa buat membeli satu pizza ukuran kecil, sekarang uang yang sama tak cukup untuk membeli pizza ukuran mini. bahkan, pizza palsu dari melamin pun sepertinya tak cukup dibeli dengan Rp5.000. :D Shalom,Tawangalun. A Beautiful Mind Indeed: Nobel Economist Says More Stable Currency Needed John Nash, who won the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics, praised the gold standard in a recent talk at Fordham. Contact: Janet Sassi 212-636-7577 fallersassi@ fordham.edu Nash said that various interest groups that subscribe to Keynesian, or short-term, economic theories have sold the public on the notion that inflation is acceptable or that "bad money is better than good money." Such a notion, he said, led to the dangerous proliferation of bad mortgage loans--loans made on the gamble that house values would continue to rise and eventually turn a profit. "A fixed-rate 30-year mortgage would be reasonable under the gold standard," Nash said. "Now, there are variable rates, and adjustables, and convertibles, and it is very complicated" for homeowners to figure out what they are getting into. In fact, Nash said, nobody really knows the depth of the financial crisis. More than 200 members of the Fordham community converged upon the Flom Auditorium on Oct. 14 to hear John Forbes Nash Jr., Ph.D., winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, talk about solutions to the downturn in the national and global economy. Nash told the audience that such financial crises would be less likely to occur if there was some international monetary standard, such as the gold standard or competition among worldwide currencies, to curb inflation and prevent the rise of mortgage abuses. He expressed some skepticism about a government bailout as a solution. “I get the impression that the government is not ready to do anything that is really beyond a short-term basis,” said Nash, a senior research mathematician at Princeton. “[But] we need a natural stability of value.” Nash said that various interest groups that subscribe to Keynesian, or short-term, economic theories have sold the public on the notion that inflation is acceptable or that “bad money is better than good money.” Such a notion, he said, led to the dangerous proliferation of bad mortgage loans--loans made on the gamble that house values would continue to rise and eventually turn a profit. “A fixed-rate 30-year mortgage would be reasonable under the gold standard,” Nash said. “Now, there are variable rates, and adjustables, and convertibles, and it is very complicated” for homeowners to figure out what they are getting into. In fact, Nash said, nobody really knows the depth of the financial crisis. Having an internationally oriented money standard would promote better quality currencies and less inflation, he added. Nash further said that any such new international monetary system should be democratically determined, and cited the recent vote in Swedennot to abandon the Krona for the Euro. Nash shared the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize with two other economists for research in game theory, a method of predicting behavior in strategic social situations and a tool now widely used by economists and biologists. His academic notoriety was catapulted into celebrity status in 2001 when he and his wife, Alicia, became the subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind." The film was nominated for eight Oscars and won four. The movie, part of which was filmed in the basement of Keating Hall, documents Nash’s seminal contributions to game theory and mathematics and his subsequent 25-year struggle with schizophrenia. The event was also attended by special guest Charles Soludo, Ph.D., governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. Dominick Salvatore, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Economics, introduced Nash and Saludo to the standing-room- only crowd and concurred with the need for a new international regulatory system more in tune with today’s global economy. “The entire financial sector has to be regulated, but those regulations cannot be specific,” Salvatore said. “Money is fungible. You have to be comprehensive, but general.” Reform starts at home, Salvatore argued. “We need less exotic derivatives and much more transparency. And the U.S.has to live within its means. We save practically nothing at the individual level . . . we have a huge trade deficit and we are mortgaging our future.” The event was part of the Distinguished Lecture Series hosted by Fordham’s Center for International Policy Studies. Founded in 1841, Fordham is the Jesuit University of New York, offering exceptional education distinguished by the Jesuit tradition to approximately 14,700 students in its four undergraduate colleges and its six graduate and professional schools. It has residential campuses in the Bronxand Manhattan, a campus in Westchester, and the Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station in Armonk, N.Y.10/08 ,_._,___