Where the money comes from

[petrea_mitchell]

A conservative acquaintance summed up the present conservative unease with the measures being taken to try to keep everyone solvent with, "Where's the money really coming from?"

After some consideration, this is my answer: The money is coming from a future where few enough people have died that the economy is eventually able to swing back into action at full strength. Therefore, it is vital that we all stay distanced for now, lest we restart the chain of transmission and cause a temporal paradox that will rend the economy asunder for the long term.

Comments

[delosharriman]

This question doesn't bother me in the least. I suppose it is because, as a numismatist, I am well aware that — sooner or later — all currencies become devalued & worthless. It's a painful process to be sure, but the point is that the underlying values are generally not affected.

Indeed, that's how Weimar Germany finally made it through the currency crisis : the Rentenmark was used to remind people that, no matter how low the old Mark had sunk on the currency markets, the factories, mines, & fields, & the skilled work-forces behind them, were still worth pretty much what they had been at the old par of exchange. On paper you could have bought all the productive assets of Germany for one dollar, but that was so clearly wrong that people were glad to embrace the new currency, even though it wasn't really sound in the ordinary banking sense.