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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.bizarre
Subject: New monitary system
Message-ID: <205@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 04:17:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.205
Posted: Fri Aug  2 04:17:46 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 20:37:41 EDT
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 36

A political proposition: Whenever one goes to make a purchase using several
coins or bills, the value of the accumulation is taken to be the sum of the
values of the bills.  This seems rather arbitrary: why not take the *product*
of those values.  For instance, two $5 bills is worth $25, but ten $1 bills is
only worth a dollar.  This would have a number of very attractive advantages:

  1. It would get rid of all those stupid pennies: A penny is hardly worth
     anything at all, but three of them would be worth $.000001.  You'd be
     better off throwing two of them away; then you'd have $.01 and our great
     nation would contain two fewer pennies.  Pretty soon, most of the pennies
     in the country would be thrown away.

  2. It would promote charity: If I have a $5 bill and a quarter, I have $1.25.
     But if I give my quarter to someone who has nothing so he can buy a cup of
     coffee, he goes away with $.25 and I now have $5, so we both win!

  3. New profit opportunities: Let's say I have a clucker car worth $1000, and
     a stereo system worth, say, $300.  Well, under the new system I can sell
     both of them and then buy a $300,000 house.

  4. It would help reduce long-term unemployment by encouraging people to
     change jobs frequently.  For example: If I work 80 hours for company A at
     $10/hour, I get $800.  But if I work for 40 hours for company A, quit, and
     work 40 hours for company B, I come out with $160,000 after collecting my
     checks from both companies.  (Even if I can't find a new job after
     quitting at A, if I get $200 in unemployment insurance, I still come out
     with $80,000, provided, of course, that A isn't the government.)  This
     would keep anyone from staying out of a job long.

Clearly, there are a lot of advantages to this system over the current one, and
the choice is arbitrary.  Write your congresscreature today!

-- 
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A balanced diet is important: one must | Tom Bennet @ U of MD Comp Sci Dept
occasionally change pizza places.      | ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet