Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @pmarca@pmarca I think I've seen it mentioned in multiple robber baron era books. Vanderbilt bio, Lind's land of promise...324
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @pmarca scrip currency (including tobacco receipts) was more prevalent during colonial times23
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca Navigation Acts restricted export of specie to colonies, and forbid colonies from printing own currency (Catch-22)11
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca so colonies had to make due with combination of scrip and foreign coins (often Spanish dollars)11
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca in early 19th Century US banks could issue their own notes so lack of currency was not a significant issue (quite the contrary)12
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca crop receipts served as a kind of parallel currency in the mid-19th century, to cover seasonal tightness due to farming cycle745
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 3, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca in a sense, all money is scrip and all scrip is money, the question being what value it can reliably command.12
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 4, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@vgr @pmarca I dare say even gold is a form of scrip, although this will cause some people to totally flip out.11
Venkatesh Rao@vgrReplying to @prchovanec@prchovanec @pmarca yeah, I don't buy that. Gold is ~ a currency market-maker rather than a scrip. If you can do gold, you can do fiat.12:04 AM · Jul 4, 20151 Like
Patrick Chovanec@prchovanec·Jul 4, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @pmarca if you are valuing gold for what it buys as opposed to its decorative value, you are assigning it a value as scrip.31
Venkatesh Rao@vgr·Jul 4, 2015Replying to @prchovanec@prchovanec @pmarca Gold is "horizontal" in a macro sense. Scrips have more "vertical" liquidity within a sector and adjacent ones.
Jonathan Rabbitt@JonathanRabbitt·Jul 4, 2015Replying to @vgr@vgr @prchovanec @pmarca Gold is a scrip if it has the face of a powerful leader struck on one side of the coin; else it is a commodity.12