1. From my Classical History course this week, I learned that during the First Punic War a certain Roman consul wanted to attack the Carthaginian fleet, but the augurs warned him that it would be a disaster. The sacred chickens weren’t eating, and that was a bad omen. The consul replied, “They won’t eat? Let them drink!” and threw the sacred chickens overboard into the sea.

He lost the battle.

2. I’m not an expert on economics by any stretch, though I think I am developing a ‘taste’ for it. And one of the things I’ve gotten a taste of is that any time someone tries to ascribe major economic processes or events to simple, easy to understand culprits, they’re probably not worth listening to. Like one of the books we’re going to be reading for my government class, which pretty much ascribes everything to inflation and inflation to simply ‘printing money’. One, it’s not that simple and two, the process driving inflation is a lot more complicated than simply ‘printing money’ (granted it’s meant for young readers, and he does mention in an aside that it’s more a matter of the Federal Reserve than the printing press, but it still comes across as way too simplistic for my tastes. And I don’t think convincing kids that economics is ‘simple’ or ‘easy to understand’ is a laudable goal in the first place, because it isn’t).

3. Also, as soon as someone describes fiat dollars as being just a matter of paper money enforced by law – that they don’t entitle you to anything and that the only value they have is that you’ll be legally prosecuted if you don’t accept them (and as if that doesn’t have value in itself) – I lose interest in their economic opinions.

Fiat dollars entitle the bearer to the satisfaction of his tax obligation. Your obligation, set by whatever law-making body represents the sovereign power of the community you inhabit, is X. That same body issues vouchers for the satisfaction of a certain portion of that obligation: say, 0.01X. If you collect 100 vouchers, you’re in the clear for taxes. You collect 200, you’re clear for this year and the next, etc. Therefore, tax vouchers are inherently valuable to the people of a given community.

4. Gold and silver money is essentially the same thing: your tax obligation is for X in silver coin, so whatever else of value you acquire that year, you need to get hold of X silver coins; that’s their chief value (how many people in any given community will actually value silver or gold because they can make things out of it?). And if everyone needs silver coins, then everyone will accept them as currency.

(This, by the way, was one of the main objections to the Stamp Act: not that it imposed a heavy tax burden – it didn’t – but that that burden had to be paid in British coin, which would have made that the legal tender of the Colonies, driving out other forms of currency)

The difference is that gold and silver have other uses besides being currency, which can disrupt the market. So, if you have a number of silver coins, the inherent value of those coins is both that you can pay your taxes with them and that you can make jewelry out of them. If you melt the coins down and make a silver vase with artistic inlays, that vase may well be worth more than the coins that went to make it up. But you can’t pay your taxes in the form of the vase, meaning you now need to get hold of that same number of silver coins again in order to meet your obligation, which reduces the amount of currency in circulation.

That’s why things that have genuine value apart from their use as currency often make for poor currency: because people will just use them for their real value. Water is more precious than gold in the desert, which is precisely why Bedouin traders aren’t going to use water as currency.

Whether fiat dollars or gold/silver-backed currency is the preferable system is another issue, which I don’t really have a firm opinion on (there’s a case to be made either way), but if someone can’t or won’t explain what the fiat system even is, then I’m not interested in his arguments on the question.

5. Though the above reminds me of a funny line from one of the Odd Thomas books:

“I only wanted the idea of a shower. But I paid you in paper money, which is only the idea of money, so it’s all even.”

6. As mentioned in this week’s post, I was sorry to learn that Carl Weathers passed away recently. He was one of those fun, charismatic actors with the makings of a leading man, but who never quite made it that big. Still, he’s got his two big, iconic roles as Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies, the morally-compromised Dillon in Predator, as well as the titular role in Action Jackson, which was hoped to launch him as a headliner, and his frequent TV appearances later in his career (including hilariously lampooning himself in Arrested Development: “You got yourself a stew there!”).

Something that struck me reviewing some of his work is that he was a really good physical performer; one of those guys who catches your attention even in silent clips just for how expressive his movements are, but never over doing it (try pulling up some clips of him in Rocky for instance and watching them with the sound off: you get a lot of information from his gestures alone).

7. I’ve only seen the first Rocky film, by the way. I’m sure I’ll see the others at some point, but honestly the premise of the second one is a stumbling block for me. I just don’t buy Rocky actually beating Creed. The first film was smart enough and realistic enough to know that the semi-pro palooka with a big heart really isn’t going to be much of a match for the reigning champion of the world if said champion actually takes him seriously. They make a point of showing that Creed basically views the whole thing as a publicity stunt rather than a real fight, doesn’t bother to prepare properly, and in the end he still wins, even if it was closer than it should have been from his perspective.

But for the sequel, having Rocky actually win against a Creed who had been training hard with an eye to recovering his lost reputation stretches things too far for me. It feels too much dictated by the script rather than the logic of the characters and setting. It’s pure fantasy. Not that fantasy’s bad, of course, but coming off of the grounded, realistic idealism of the first film I feel like we’re losing something.

Anyway, Rest in Peace, Mr. Weathers.