Thread: Paypal. Electronic One World Currency

Paypal isn't a global bank; they're a middleman who moves money from one person to another.

We already have a global currency, it's called gold. Use that if you must. Our current world does not allow a massive united currency.

I have an economics professor who believes that our current complete economic reconstruction to digital currency will eventually lead to global economic catastrophe. He's obviously a pessimist but he does have some intelligent points/arguments. Personally, as an economic optimist, I think that a responsible shift of our economy to a complete, possibly singular currency will lead to an increase of exchange of currency but not a complete economic disaster.

However, I don't believe that we will ever head to a complete singular digital currency. Currencies can become more integrated and/or easier to trade but I have no assumption that currency in the near or distant future will change to a singular digital one. The reason for this is because unless we have a complete global government, we will always have independent entities and nations who will disagree with ideologies, culture, and especially currency integration. Its only by miracle and economic trade goals that the Euro was ever created. Even if everyone begins to trade with paypal it's hard to imagine that investors would ever give up gold or commodity investments.

Again, I don't see the possibility of a singular currency even in the distant future. However, with exponential differences in technology in the extremely distant future, perhaps a "machine" world government could be established; one based completely off democratic ideology, with no emotion and the avant-garde ideology of positive human progress. Just perhaps at that moment in time it would be possible to establish a singular currency.

Paypal has enough problems as it is, especially with how it treats its userbase. If Paypal was the new face of currency, I would seriously just sit in a corner and rock back and forth...traumatized in horror.

But as it is, I am really skeptical of a standard electronic currency. Would it be easier to regulate or would it be more susceptible to problems? Currency, regulation and global economics is very tricky and delicate as it is...at least to me x_x

Originally Posted by Supernova

Paypal isn't a global bank; they're a middleman who moves money from one person to another.

Yeah, Paypal is not a bank. In any case one single currency is bad for the global economy. A world currency would be a pain in the ass to try and control. It would be a fiscal nightmare beyond belief to balance the "value" of it for it would be in flux all of the time depending on where you were at and when you made a transaction. It might be worth 5.00 in Russia but in the Sudan it could be worth only .05 cents... Since economies are always changing in countries that are unstable it would be very hard to keep up with valuation of a world currency BUT it could be done with great trepidation and heartache.

Increasingly networked commerce is generating more currencies if anything. While physical artifacts of those currencies may diminish (linky) and exchange will likely continue to get easier, the currencies themselves aren't going anywhere for a while.

Originally Posted by Quantiq

The reason for this is because unless we have a complete global government, we will always have independent entities and nations who will disagree with ideologies, culture, and especially currency integration.

If America has its way, we will have what is fundamentally a world government. They already act like they are, but they are slowly putting people in power that they want in power, and who will
do what they want them to do.

Originally Posted by ThePieMan

Yeah, Paypal is not a bank. In any case one single currency is bad for the global economy. A world currency would be a pain in the ass to try and control. It would be a fiscal nightmare beyond belief to balance the "value" of it for it would be in flux all of the time depending on where you were at and when you made a transaction. It might be worth 5.00 in Russia but in the Sudan it could be worth only .05 cents... Since economies are always changing in countries that are unstable it would be very hard to keep up with valuation of a world currency BUT it could be done with great trepidation and heartache.

I don't think you thought this through at all. This is what currently happens.
If it was one currency everywhere, the price of something may be less or more compared to your home country, but you would know exactly how much you were paying.

Wait I thought we already had that... Marvo mentioned it.

Competing currencies are very good things; it means that we don't all suffer because one geopolitical region is failing economically. Look at Europe under the Euro... Greece fucks up, everyone in the Eurozone suffers because of it.

Plus, the founder of PayPal is a libertarian who supports competing currencies... so I doubt he'd allow this to happen.

Globalization doesn't work so well when humans are willing to go to war over silly little things. What would make us agree on a single currency so easily?

One thing I could see happening is fully electronic money, where instead of any currency, you just have numbers. You could just pay for things by plugging in a usb-type device to the store's cash register equivalent machine. Wherever you work would have a similar thing that deposits more numbers in to your device after you sign off for the day.

I suppose we'd have to wait for the poorer regions to catch up, or keep exchanging our numbers for physical money at the airports etc. until they catch up.

I think this is a logical progression rather than saying "Let's make a new currency for the whole world, or adopt one countries currency".

But numbers have no value between cultures. There'd have to be a "gold standard" in which we could redeem our numbers for gold or silver whenever we wish; but then we'd need a central authority to regulate it.

The problem with "numbers" would be exactly the same as having a global paper currency: it has no value other than the paper and ink that make it exist. Digital currency has even LESS value, because it is entirely intangible.

Gold's value is only based on the value we place on it too.
I guess I didn't think my idea through completely, we'd need some physical thing to put limits on the money that can be created etc. Or we could say there's like an extra million dollars (or whatever number) available for each person born.

I didn't think this through a lot because I'm really just hoping we won't need money in the near future. Resource based economy is the way to go.

Yes, gold's value is based on the value that we place on it. HOWEVER; that value is much higher than paper, because you cannot change the amount of gold in existence. It's also a functional commodity; it doesn't deteriorate, it has many practical uses, and it's a steady and constant supply (much like silver.

Digital money and paper money, however, can be created out of thin air (and is all the time.) That's why it doesn't work over long periods of time.

Update: I found this article while checking up on my news sites. Sweden moving towards cashless economy - CBS News

Pretty interesting; think about how little privacy there will be when all purchases are traceable! Just lovely.

That sucks with the transactions thing. If they can't pass it to the consumer the banks should be forced to charge what it actually costs, and not make any profit from transactions.
So it would cost more like .001 cents.

Why do human beings not think out big things before they do them? /HumanityProblems

Coz we're simple monkeys. Can't expect a whole lot from us.

One world cashless currency isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Transferring our bad monetary polices to to a global scale however would be extremely dangerous however. I would like to see countries handle their money in a mature fashion before allowing any global currency. I mean if they can't keep a stable currency on the small scale, why would we do it on the large scale?