What is the true value of a dollar?

[m1469]

Or any single unit of paper money in your Country.

[senanserat]

A human soul, two if it is an orphan's.

[Bob]

Control?  Power?   Persuasion?  Ability?

[thalbergmad]

Not sure, but a good banjo is about 4,000 of them.

Thal

[senanserat]

Not sure, but a good banjo is about 4,000 of them.

Thal

You surely jest?

[thalbergmad]

Unfortunately not. There is a Bacon & Day for sale at an American dealer for $19,000.

Thal

[cabbynum]

I only trade with chickens and other livestock.
I bought my Steinway with 2 half size pigs and a baby lamb.

[m1469]

If a can of beans costs a dollar, how many cans could be purchased with a single dollar?

[Bob]

None.  They won't waste time selling empty cans for only a dollar.  You'll have to buy them in bulk.

[j_menz]

None.  They won't waste time selling empty cans for only a dollar.  You'll have to buy them in bulk.

I'll sell you one. You'll have to pay shipping, handling and insurance though. Your one dollar empty can can be yours for $23.49.

[ahinton]

Or any single unit of paper money in your Country.

As Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty might have said, it's more or less what anyone wants it to be, given that it is subject to a raft of market conditions. As to "single units", if by that you mean 1 of any particular currency, I imagine that not so very many countries' currencies even have paper money - i.e. a banknote - to the value of 1 of a particular denomination; for starters, the British pound is a coin, as is the Euro, so there's 18 countries already removed from the 1-unit paper currency thing - and then there's your own country!...

Best,

Alistair

[m1469]

1-unit paper currency thing

Feel free to extend liberties to include coin. 

[ahinton]

Feel free to extend liberties to include coin.  

OK - in which case the answer (at least for me) is contained in the first sentence of my previous post!

Best,

Alistair

[pianoman53]

I've heard that one dollar should be around the half of two dollars.

[ahinton]

I've heard that one dollar should be around the half of two dollars.

Never believe what you hear just because you've heard it...

Best,

Alistair

[Bob]

Value... I'd say not much.

Probably falling in confidence around the world too.

[ahinton]

Value... I'd say not much.

Probably falling in confidence around the world too.

Less than a Bob, I'd suggest...

Best,

Alistair

[Bob]

What's a Bob?

[ahinton]

What's a Bob?

It would be more correct to ask what was a bob; it was a slang term for the British shilling that was equivalent to £0.05 - 5 pence in other words - until the absurdly complex and unwieldy subdivisions of the British pound - into 240 pence, of all things - gave way in 1971 to the present system in which it's divided into 100.

Best,

Alistair

[kakeithewolf]

Unfortunately not. There is a Bacon & Day for sale at an American dealer for $19,000.

Thal

For that price, I can buy a decent muselaar, clavichord, and theorbenflügel with cash to spare.

And you're saying that is 19,000 dollars for a single BANJO?

[thalbergmad]

And you're saying that is 19,000 dollars for a single BANJO?

I got it wrong. It was 19,500 and the instrument is now sold: https://www.billcampbanjos.com/banjo%20for%20sale%20BD9.htm

Rumour has it, that when Akira Tsumara was spending 6 millions dollars on acquiring a collection of well over a thousand banjos, he paid 150,000 dollars for a particularly rare Gibson.

Thal

[kakeithewolf]

I got it wrong. It was 19,500 and the instrument is now sold: https://www.billcampbanjos.com/banjo%20for%20sale%20BD9.htm

Rumour has it, that when Akira Tsumara was spending 6 millions dollars on acquiring a collection of well over a thousand banjos, he paid 150,000 dollars for a particularly rare Gibson.

Thal

I have no words.

[thalbergmad]

Then perhaps it is good that you do not collect banjos like me, because then you would have no money as well as no words.

Thal

[j_menz]

Then perhaps it is good that you do not collect banjos like me, because then you would have no money as well as no words.

*** wonders if banjos or concerti are the likely major cause of impoverishment.......

[oxy60]

You folks gave some very provocative answers but what was she asking? What type of answer was she expecting?

[Bob]

I was thinking the usual philosophical question.  Except it's dollar.... Australia uses dollars too I think.  Maybe she meant Australian dollars.   

Why not the value of money then?  A dollar is a small amount.  Why bother wondering what the value of a small denomination of money is?  Why not, what's the value of $10?  Or $100? 

[kakeithewolf]

*** wonders if banjos or concerti are the likely major cause of impoverishment.......

Across everything in a concerto, you'd have possibly hundreds of thousands in instruments.

[thalbergmad]

*** wonders if banjos or concerti are the likely major cause of impoverishment.......

My new years resolution not to buy any more concerto scores has failed, but I lasted until 2nd January.

I think that is rather good.

Thal

[ahinton]

My new years resolution not to buy any more concerto scores has failed, but I lasted until 2nd January.

I think that is rather good.

It's arguably both good and bad; the bad part (insofar as it goes) is in your self-confessed lack of will-power in being unable to sustain a resolution for more than 30 hours or so but the vastly more important good part is in breaking a resolution that you ought never to have made in the first place!

Best,

Alistair

[iansinclair]

anybody familiar with the US country song "Silver Threads and Golden Needles"?  There's your answer...

[kakeithewolf]

My new years resolution not to buy any more concerto scores has failed, but I lasted until 2nd January.

I think that is rather good.

Thal

You lasted to January 2nd? Wow, that's a day longer than most.

[oxy60]

I was thinking the usual philosophical question.  Except it's dollar.... Australia uses dollars too I think.  Maybe she meant Australian dollars.   

Why not the value of money then?  A dollar is a small amount.  Why bother wondering what the value of a small denomination of money is?  Why not, what's the value of $10?  Or $100? 

Obviously, the value of any currency is what it will buy at any given moment. It can't be that simple a question. I would like her to step out and tell us what she is talking about.

[m1469]

Obviously, the value of any currency is what it will buy at any given moment. It can't be that simple a question. I would like her to step out and tell us what she is talking about.

1.  I have a name.
2.  I gave a leading question, feel free to find it.
3.  I would like somebody to step out and tell me what I'm talking about.

[Bob]

Yeah, you should just know.

And it has a name!

So anyway...  What were saying again Oxy?

[m1469]

Yeah, you should just know.

And it has a name!

So anyway...  What were saying again Oxy?

Do you think that after this many years here, I am somehow surprised by this kind of response?  I would be far more surprised by something different. 

[Bob]

Yeah, it felt like deja vu. 

*Bob makes half-hearted cat hiss with hand claw gesture and wonders where the accent is in deja.*

[Bob]

Did the original post change?  I didn't notice it.... Haha.  Except that's serious.

The small unit of currency can be used to make change for the larger units.  I suppose it could become the most worthless currency since you'll probably need a lot of the smaller units to add up to the next larger unit.

[oxy60]

Actually I'm not surprised by the response.

Compared to any unit of currency, an original thought is much more valuable.

[j_menz]

Compared to any unit of currency, an original thought is much more valuable.

If I had a dollar for every original thought that wasn't, I'd be rich.

[Bob]

Can't rule out time travel.  Someone from the past travelled forward, stole your idea, and returned to the past.  It keeps happening, doesn't it?  Well, if you found someone who kept generating original ideas, with all the effort involved in time travel, wouldn't you keep going back to that person?  Another check -- Are you a billionaire?  Someone's probably stealing those original ideas that would have made billions of dollars for you.  Those time travelling bastards...

[Bob]

Hmm.   *Bob thinks we scared off the m1469.*