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On Finance: Building an Economy Chapter 3
So our little village has been humming right along on the new “dollar” currency. Everyone is finding it easy to keep track of everything. If they have a dollar they can get an hours worth of work done and if they work an hour they get a dollar.
Mary, however, is in a bit of an different situation. She spent years and a lot of work building the communications network for TV, internet, phone and all the wonderful things people wanted. No one paid her while she was building the network and she lived a fairly simple life. Now people pay her for using the network. While she needs to fix things here and there, installs a new line in barn now and then, she doesn’t really spend much time working on the network. Before they paid in hours of work, today they pay her in these new “dollars”.
Having had a simple life while she built the network, Mary came to like it that way. Her life and living conditions are nice, but not particularly upscale or expensive. Under the new system, however, it is becoming apparent that she isn’t using all the dollars she is paid. Her little pile of dollars is slowly getting larger. After six months it is now around $3,400. What she charges haven’t really changed, but the dollars seem to be providing a more accurate accounting.
Another interesting problems starts to develop. Before people always just kept track of hours that are owed. If Mary didn’t need any work from John, but he wanted internet access, she just remembers it for when she needed something in the future. Now with the dollars, people are noticing more how much the amount ebbs and flows. Mary’s pile is a little bigger. John’s pile is pretty small because he recently had James build him a new workshop. James' pile is a bit bigger as a result of John’s payment.
Patricia, meanwhile, is very, very careful to maintain her pile at $2,500. In fact the others are getting worried about her as she seems to worry it all the time. Once she even asked Mary to disconnect her internet for a few weeks so she could pay James to build and install a new door. While she had the dollars to give him for the work she didn’t want the pile to get too small.
The dollars have made thing easier, but some rather odd things are coming to light. These things were always there but now that people could easily count the dollars they are noticing them for the first time.
All in all, though, the village people are happy with the new system. It certain is fun to watch the money move around between the four of them.
Posted by Paul Gernhardt on Thursday, October 30, 2008