What is in your Wallet?

That is the current marketing slogan of a credit card issuer operating in the US, UK and Canada. Credit cards come in standard sizes and allow us to make purchases from merchants with money we borrow from a credit card issuer. As the card holder, we are responsible for paying the money back.

Money is certainly a useful thing to have. It provides a medium for exchange, so we don't have to barter. It gives us a means to compare the value of different items, and it can be saved to store value. Credit cards make the use of money easier. We act in partnership with the credit card issuer. They are in the business of generating profit from our interest bearing use of the money we borrow when we use the card.

This note is interesting because it actually depicts the history of money

There are many that suggest that the worldwide financial crisis we have been living through is a result of the unbridled boom in consumer borrowing and credit growth (primarily in the US, but leveraged worldwide). When things are looking up and confidence is high, people spend money and banks are happy to lend it. When they don't spend money, especially money they don't have, it makes it more difficult for the financial institutions that lend money to generate profits. Not to mention what happens when borrowers don't pay back the credits they have taken.

With the rash of worldwide bank losses (related to all those credits not paid back), bank assets are being written down. This has been a factor is driving the US Dollar to its historic lows relative to many other currencies. That is actually a good thing if the objective is to attract new capital and help increase the trade balance in the US (where the trouble started). The next step is to recapitalize the banks and then get the yield curve back to where it needs to be so banks go out and start lending money/providing credit again.

But, wait! The question is, what *will be* in your wallet when things start getting back to normal? Will we fail to the point of needing to carry shells that are broken up to make small disc beads (shown on the note above)?! Or, will we spring ahead to a new form of currency and credit? OK, maybe not new currencies, but maybe a new sort of credit built into the mobile device itself, you know, just like iTunes on the iPhone. Of course, this opportunity would be validated and managed by a new kind of service provider: banking-like services packaged with bandwidth and net access. That new money-bandwidth-storage 'lender' could come from anywhere, and why not the Solomon Islands? The weather is good.

The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!

R&B