Perhaps you think of the dollar as “money” or “currency,” and you are very confused by all this. “Money” and “currency” are nice words, but they have no precise accounting definition. They just refer to a good or security commonly held for the purpose of savings and/or exchange. Historically, we can identify four classes of currency:
(1) Direct goods, such as coins of a standardized weight of precious metal.
(2) Titles or warehouse receipts to (1).
(3) Obligations to pay (1) or (2), or redeemable currency.
(4) Mere equity, or fiat currency.
These are (excluding the common 4-to-1 transition) in order of historical evolution. Explaining the evolution is not of direct assistance in analyzing the dollar, but it helps us get our bearings — and it defines terms which will be useful later on.
Class 1 currency (standardized metal) evolves into class 2 currency (titles) because titles are more portable, secure and convenient. Digital gold is a modern class 2 currency.
Class 2 currency (titles) evolves into class 3 currency (redeemable notes), because the change is generally profitable for the currency issuer, and the marks are too dumb to know the difference. A title or warehouse receipt is a title because the issuer holds goods that match it; otherwise, he is a thief. A redeemable note is a mere debt, and does not default until redemption fails. And even then, the issuer is only bankrupt, not in jail.
Suppose I have 100 ounces of gold, and issue 100 titles against it, each title stating that the bearer owns one ounce of gold. This makes me a respectable issuer of class 2 currency.
Suppose I have 100 ounces of gold, and issue 200 redeemable notes against it, each note stating that I will issue the bearer one ounce of gold on demand. This makes me a scoundrel.
However, it also makes me wealthier than I was before, at least until more than 100 bearers show up to claim their gold at the same time. Will my notes trade at par? Ie: will people accept them as equivalent to the class 2 titles? Well, every time someone starts to get suspicious and tries to redeem one, it works. So I don’t see why they shouldn’t. We have just reinvented the wildcat bank — a staple of early American finance.
There is a cure for wildcat banking: those who accept class 3 notes should ensure that the issuer is solvent. A financial institution is solvent if and only if the sum of all the payments it is obligated to make equals or exceeds the total price of all the assets it holds. So our Scoundrel Bank above is not solvent, because it is obligated to pay 200 ounces and it only has 100 ounces.
One way to see a redeemable note is to see it as a very short-term loan from the noteholder to the bank, which is automatically renewed or “rolled over” when the noteholder does not redeem. If the term of the loan is an hour, a minute or even a second, the effect is redeemability. And note that when making a loan, what you want to know is whether the loan will be paid back. And collectively, what all loanholders want to know is that they all can be paid back. First come, first served, is not solvency.
Scoundrel Bank can redeem for some of its noteholders. But not all of them. Therefore, all unfortunate holders of its notes can agree on a fair — or “equitable” — bankruptcy restructuring: every holder of a Scoundrel ounce note should receive half an ounce of gold. As for the scoundrel himself, trees abound, and perhaps the noteholders can pitch in for a rope.
But there is a tricky intermediate case — call it Questionable Bank — between Respectable Warehouse and Scoundrel Bank. Respectable Warehouse issued 100 one-ounce titles. It has 100 ounces. Verifying the quality of the titles is as easy as verifying these facts. Scoundrel Bank issued 200 one-ounce notes. It does not have 200 ounces. Verifying its insolvency is just as easy.
Questionable Bank also issued 200 ounce notes. It also has only 100 ounces. But it also has 100 old pianos. Each piano, it asserts, is worth an ounce of gold. “Easily. Easily. No sweat, man. These are fine pianos. Here, play this one. Hear that sound? That’s a sweet tone. Check out the action on the keys. Totally smooth. You could move this piano for an ounce fifty, no problem.”)
Suddenly our noteholder, or at least the accountant he hires, is required to be a piano appraiser. Should you trade a Respectable title to one ounce, for a Questionable note paying one ounce? It depends on the quality of the pianos. Obviously, every piano is different. You can’t just play the one up front in Questionable’s office. You need to go into the back room and tinkle away.
Moreover, even if each piano could be sold on the piano market for an ounce or more, it is hard to know that all the pianos could be sold at once. Since price is set by supply and demand, the appearance of a large splodge of pianos, even fine pianos, on the market all at once, is liable to depress the piano price. And “at once,” let’s not forget, is the term of the Questionable notes.
In real life, of course, the good in question is typically not pianos but loans. Usually long-term loans. Pricing a piano is difficult, but it is nothing on pricing a loan. And the result of dropping a glut of loans on the market all at once is even more astonishing and disastrous.
