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Top 10 Inventions in Money Technology During the 1900's
scuggums writes "The DaVinci Institute has put together an interesting historic piece to help put the world of money technology into perspective. While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list, I had no idea it was invented back in 1939. Other items on the list are barcodes, spreadsheets, and RSA encryption. This looks to be one of the research pieces the Institute's doing for their upcoming Future of Money Summit in October."
"While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list"
wow and automatic teller machine machine, is that used to make ATM's ?
They mentioned VisiCalc, but not Apple, the only widely available platform it ran on?
The first international banking system was establish ed by the Knights Templar during the crusades. It used something like a check, so that pilgrims didn't have to carry physical wealth with them along the way. The involvement of the templar in money handling is part of what made them so wealthy, which was part of what made them so feared, which was King Philip eventually rounded up and arrested the leaders of the order. I just think it's kind of interesting that banking has its roots in a militant order...
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Crudely Drawn Games
what exactly does a "smart card" have to do with money technology?
Most of the ones I've seen used are as digital tokens to access computers, enter security doors... Apart from the "credit cards" you can charge up at Kinkos (and I would consider those credit cards, not "smart cards") I've never seen one used that had a big impact on money technology.
Anyone?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Dear Leonardo Da Vinci,
... at's because i haven't WASHed in threeeee days, son." ... you want a drink?"
This is a fantastic article. I just have a few suggestions on how to clean it up.
First off is the introduction. It's too wordy. You dance around your thesis like a barefoot child on a griddle. Try being more direct, more concise. Get right to your point, then move on.
Now I'm not terribly familiar with the scientific method, but I think your experiment isn't described fully enough for the audience to gain any insight from it. First of all, you haven't given us much of a hypothesis to go on. What is it you really hope to gain from your testing? We have a vague ideal of the goal, but it's hard to see the true motivation that's pushing you towards such a goal.
Your depiction of the experiment itself is more than adequate. I don't really have any complaints here. It actually reminds me of an experiment I devised in my youth. Heh, that was a real mess. I remember it like it was yesterday.
It was the summer of 1873. The country was industrializing and the West was still being settled. For a young lad in rural Kansas, such as myself, life was a little more interesting with the railways making far-off cities more accessible to the common folk. My parents had been planning a trip to Knoxville for some time now, to visit relatives. My father sold a few of his cattle and scraped together enough money for us to make the journey. Mom, pop, my two brothers Anthony and Skeet, and my sister Juliana, all got on the Southern Express, headed east for St. Louis and on to Knoxville.
It had never occurred to me just how boring a train ride could be. My brothers ignored me, as usual, and my sister was fawned over by my mother constantly. With my dad sleeping most of the time, I was left to entertain myself.
The train was very crowded. I'd never seen so many people crammed into one place outside of church. Some of them weren't farm-folk, neither. There were a couple men and ladies in fine dress clothes, probably city dwellers. A few man were even worse dressed than us, probably miners or something. One of them had been staring at me for almost half an hour. I went over and talked to him.
"Hey mister. This your first time on train? It is for me!"
"Nooo, I ride trainss hic all the time."
"You okay mister? You smell funny."
"Heh heh
"My mom says to take a bath every day or the devil will eat my soul!"
"Well, now, ain't that precious
"Okay!"
That man introduced me to alcohol, my future, and my undoing. That man's moonshine set me on a long road to endless sorrow and pain. My drinking problem escalated rapidly. Upon arriving in Knoxville, I had already completed five twelve-step programs. None of them worked.
Fast foward to 2173. Shortly after my 900th birthday, I will go out for a binge with my friends Jesus Christ and Karl Marx. The three of us have been buddies for longer than I can remember. We will often get together to swap stories, talk about girlfriends, that sort of thing. We will drink, of course -- always heavily and always grain alcohol. Jesus never has any problem with the stuff, of course, but Karl and I can only down so much before we go blind and vomit our intestines out on the bar. Jesus can really work miracles, though. That guy will always have us patched up by morning.
Anyways, Jesus and Karl will be having a heated discussion about the relative merits of kittens and puppies.
"Kittens are fuzzy, and God is fuzzy, therefore kittens are better," Jesus will argue.
"Yes, but puppies grow into dogs, and dogs work in packs for greater effeciency, and to the benefit of dogs everywhere," will be Marx's counter.
"Kittens are really soft, and God is soft, therefore kittens are better," Jesus will reply.
"Dogunism has no place for your purring and your pawing and your meowing! The barking class will not stand for the placidity of the feline
From the article: Other technologies developed in the 1990s didn't make the list because most have not reached the level of impact that the following items have.
So they ignore all the cool 1990's technology that has already had widespread influence and put the Smart Card on the list, which has never amounted to anything...
The unofficial
to test all new new inventions coming out of the mint. I can handle large test batches too.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
How thought up making different currencies have different appearances? It's because of them that sending $599 in monopoly money to SCO can be done safely, without fear of said money going toward their legal fund.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Just Imagine all the new possibilities for new cominations you can arrange if you combine the latest in technology with the old paper bill.
I'm really looking forward to the bill that makes its possible to track where the bill was, who used it and what was bought. For example, retailers could produce special targeted advertising for peole that came with money they had won in a lottery. If the retailer knows where the customer has grabbed the money its much easier to sell thing based on customer history and public profiles.
A on the security side the government can destroy money that belongs to suspected criminals and therby prevent crime before it takes place. If you don't have cash its difficault to opperate for example a drug ring.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
"While I'm glad to see the ATM machine made the list"
And what does the M in ATM stand for again?
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
One of the top 10 'innovations' would have to be the removal of gold backing the Dollar, allowing for huge national deficits. A nice timeline is here.
Frankly, smart cards shouldn't be on that list, as the intended use(storing money on the card) has not been perfected against people hacking the card for more money. Smart cards trust the "client", and as any MMORPG developer can tell you, that's a bad thing. Paper money and credit cards at least have some protection, smart cards on the other hand are a relitively easy fraud source for anyone with a card writer, and the resources to use it; unlike any other method, you end up with a perfect "digital copy" of the money.
Knew someone had to make the comment - but I didn't think it'd make it FP.
But I definitely think it's cool that so many inventions can be traced back that far (yes, I'm in my mid-twenties, and an Australian, so I'm an ignornat un-cultured love-child of the New Millenium).
...and what does it all lead to? Inventive new ways to pay for porn sites....
5.) The Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) - 1939
I think this is an invention that is both terrific and dangerous. I personally have decided to not get an ATM card, reasoning that if my money is harder to get to, it's harder to spend.
The coolest voice ever.
Another one worth mentioning, Plastic money as used in several countries now, starting as a collaboration between a couple of countries using technology developed in Australia. It's a late 80s thing and only fairly recent, but something upwards of 30 nations use last I looked.
From the article:
"American Express and MasterCard became huge successes overnight, and by the mid-'70s, Congress had to begin regulation of the credit card industry by banning such practices as the mass mailing of active cards to those who had not requested them."
"Top 10 Inventions in Money Technology During the 1900's"
The countefiter's printing press.
There have also been significant leaps in the technology that is plain old paper currency. e.g. watermarking, plastic bank notes (Australia), holograms, etc.
Would have been nice if they had explored this aspect also. Give me good old-fashioned currency any day.
yes, I'm a small-c communist.
and you sure are a big-M Moron. How can anybody in 2003 want to abolish money?
Money isn't evil, it's just a portable simulation of real trade, just like you send files over the internet instead of having to go see the other guy and give him a diskette. The fact that certain goods or services can be overrated or underrated doesn't change the fact that money was one of the single greatest invention of the human race.
You go trade sacks of grains in the sovkhoz with your fellow idealist friends, while everybody else will takes care of advancing civilization thank you very much.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
donesn't it strike you as odd that they put together a paper on historic money technology to bring to a conference about the future of money?
... creative accounting on the list. Of course I imagine that predates the 1900s.
Look elsewhere.
Smart cards have been used to pay for stuff like gas in europe since at least 1997. I can't give you a precise date because all i know is i saw them in use when i went to France in '97. No they were not credit or debit cards.
Try Corewar @ www.koth.org - rec.games.corewar
It's like I always tell the kids. A quitter never wins and don't trust whitey.
Thank goodness nobody mentioned that most modern ATMs (no "machine" !!!) have a HDD drive inside and an LCD display ...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
communism isn't about bartering. It's about having a gift economy, where people of the world don't need to put their faith in bits of paper with numbers printed on them, or bits on a disk/card, they put their faith in other humans.
Idealistic? Yes.
Impossible? No.
Seek Enlightenment.
seek help.
...and not from me, find some other gift bearing human.
Idealistic? Yes.
Impossible? No.
Considering that the soviet union was a total disaster maybe you should change that lastone to a yes. You might want to get paid in wirehangers but the rest of the world does not.
Considering that the soviet union was a total disaster maybe you should change that lastone to a yes. You might want to get paid in wirehangers but the rest of the world does not.
of course, all commies will tell you that the Soviet Union wasn't a "true" communist system (perhaps it wasnt, to the letter).
Then you ask them to name any sucessful communist nations where all the goals and advantages are met, and you get no answer.
Some guy would pretend to be a newly-arrived African immigrant, asking his victim how to "get money from a wall." At that point, his accomplice would show up, pretending to be a stranger, also asking the student to help the poor guy out. The student, taking pity, would go to the ATM, enter their PIN, withdraw X dollars to show them how it's done.
Then, supposedly, the guy 'shows' the student how to keep his wallet safe from thieves, by hiding it in a white bag in his pants, and demonstrates with the students wallet. At which point he gives the student the white bag back, and leaves. Moments later, when the student realizes the white bag he was given doesn't have his wallet, the two guys are nowhere to be found. And usually there was a very recent subsequent cash withdrawl with the student's ATM card.
It was printed in my school paper that about half a dozen people got scammed this way. It was ridiculous, and even more so when I saw the movie "The Sting", where this scam was used exactly.
This brings up some common sense. Firstly and most importantly, does anybody enter their PIN clearly and slowly on the keypad? Especially if there are strangers present? I always block the keypad, and use all 3 fingers to do it so it's entered quickly and discretely. I also can't believe the students gave their wallets to the guy to hold for only a few seconds, and didn't check when he 'gave' it back.
But anyway, it all goes back to your Sumerian "Magic Wall". The phrasing that the thief used to imply his technological innocence and lack of understanding with modern Western society, hence creating a sense of pity in the victim.
make world, not war
No anti-counterfeiting technology? (Security strips in money, inks that change color when you change the angle, microprinting)
Surely there has been SOMETHING of interest to come from the financial/tech world to be invented in the last 20 years.
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
but its not the first post...?
The social impact of the credit card cannot be under-estimated.
That means it's really small! I think they mean it can't be oversetimated.
The first international banking system was establish ed by the Knights Templar during the crusades. ... I just think it's kind of interesting that banking has its roots in a militant order.
International banking goes back to Ancient Greece. The various city-states amounted, in their day, to the equivalent of today's nation-states. They carried on bank-supported trade with each other, and with more distant states such as Egypt.
Your point about banking having its roots in a militant order is well made. Indeed, governments have always reserved for themselves two things: armies and currency.
-kgj
communism isn't about bartering. It's about having a gift economy
Gift economy that works both ways (you give me something, I give you something back) is called "trade", is not new, and is a great slowdown to human commerce because (1) there is never a fixed value of something (it always has to be evaluated against the perceived value of something else), so it's hard to count how "much" you give or get, (2) you can't divide the value of an object (I can't give you half a vase for this chicken) and (3) you trade physical objects that the giver and the taker may not want to trade.
That's what all pre-modern humans did before somebody invented a way to represent the value of something with a collection of other, smaller object, that are a conceptualisation of the value of the real object. In our modern times, the concept has even evolved from physical representations (coins, bills) to logical (binary data), but it's still the same idea.
where people of the world don't need to put their faith in bits of paper with numbers printed on them, or bits on a disk/card, they put their faith in other humans
But that's what you don't understand : without knowing it, people who put their faith in bits of paper essentially put their faith in creation, services, goods that human society monies represent. If I want very much to acquire a work of art you created, what's the difference between working hard at my field to pony up the 10 sacks of grain you want for it, and working hard at my field to sell my grain and used some of the cash to pay you ? the biggest difference is that, if I'm a ironmonger, I'll be able to buy your work of art with money, while I couldn't if you demanded sacks of grains for it, and I would have to trade my metal to someone with grain who wants metal, in order to acquire your object. Admit it's really more painful.
"Before we know where are going in the future, we have to know where we've come from."
I used to hate history, until I found myself continually repeating myself.
Oh, did I tell you? I used to hate history..
The title says it all. The EURO too while were at it. IMHO, government has no business being in the money business other than punishing people who act fradulently, and holding dishonest people accountable. I'm not saying we should have a gold standard, but something whose value can't be manipulated by government policy. (Yeah, I know the FED technically isn't part of the US govt - but give me a break)
Huh. They completely ignored the giant stone coinage of the Yap Islanders. What could be more innovative? The money is too large and heavy to move, so instead of carrying it around and exchanging it, the people of Yap simply point to their money when they want to purchase something, saying "That one's mine. Now it's yours." No inflation, ever, 'cause the total supply of money is completely static. No loose change lost in the sofa. No underworld money laundering. No expensive infrastructure to maintain. One drawback, of course: the first Yap to figure out how to purchase a bulldozer from the mainland using giant stone coins will end up lord and master of the whole society.
Then you ask them to name any sucessful communist nations where all the goals and advantages are met, and you get no answer.
Exactly. communism can't be implemented by governments, that is just co-ersion. It has to be freely implemented by people in a grassroots fashion, outside of the state (and corporate bosses).
It starts in your heart.
It wasn't until 1927 when the first armored car robbery occurred. The Flatheads Gang was responsible for this robbery near Pittsburgh, PA. It was reported that $104,250 was taken in the heist.
Gangs had such cooler names back on those days.
nt
ATM machine?
What's next:
PIN number?
Contains Windows NT technology?
Just say no to redundancy!
IN the little bit of afterword, they mentioned pre-paid creidt cards. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that basically a debit card (pulling from checking or savins or whatever), or just like a normal gift card.
Marx's communism requires the Government to enforce Communism at first. This is always where things go awry. The people in power abuse their power and the government starts going away from their goal of implementing communism.
The number one reason I dont want Communism is that I am expected to happily submit to giving all my money to everyone else, even though other people may not have the same level of education or work as hard as I do.
It's NOT about trade. It's about doint what you feel you should do, and taking what you need. Yes, it works both ways, but you are not measuring what you give against what you take.
Yes, far fetched. But it would represent a high evolution of humanity.
YOU REDUNDANT ASS!
yes, that is Marx's communism, not all communism. Go read up on anarcho-communism. Quite a different story.
5. The Dollar that the politicians crave
4. The Dollar that the politicians get
3. The Dollar that the politicians tax
2. The Dollar that the politicians spend
1. The Susan B Anthony Dollar coin
tell them, robbIE!
Feel free to tell me of a thriving (I'm not asking for perfection in all intended goals, but we have to be reasonable here) communist (of any variety) nation.
An interesting list..
But why is there only US inventions in the list?
Is it that the research only included US companys, or just another "USA is the only country in the world that can accomplish anything" list?
It would be interesting to see a list of the inventions that did not make it in on the list.
About smartcards, they are widley used in Sweden, and with digital ID they are going to be even more used so that belongs to the list.
I thought public key encryption was invented at GCHQ in Britain.
Auroville (a bioregion in India) is having a good stab at it (a non-marxist, spiritual bent), although they still use money, it is their goal to become a commune.
Also Spain in 1936 had some instances of anarcho-communism.
Exactly! I can't wait until the government tracks our every move and makes the information available to corporations! That should sure totally eliminate all violent crime, and with no side effects, either! Maybe they'll allow us to all have cameras in our home, next!
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
Consider "ATM machine" as opposed to "ATM data link" as opposed to "at the moment" abbreviated as opposed to "Adobe Type Manager" as opposed to everything else you find on. The pedantically redundant phrase "ATM machine" adds clarity.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I recently had an experience where I caused a real phsyical object to be
transferred from a virtual location to a real location, using just my
computer and the Internet.
Every time I buy something with a credit card, I accumulate "points"
which can be redeemed for various "things". These points seem to appear
out of thin air. I don't pay for the credit card and I don't carry a
balance, so they cost me nothing. However, unlike real cash, they
evaporate after a year.
My daughter (who lives 400 miles away) mentioned the need for a griddle. I
clicked on an image of 11"x18" non-stick griddle ( which cost me 12900
points), entered her home as the Ship To address and voila! Two days
later it magically appeared in her kitchen...
A little slow, but it works. Is there an RFC for this protocol?
He said "ATM Machine". Why? Why do people insist on doing that?
Argh.
In Hong Kong we use a smart card (stored value card) called the Octopus. I wear a waterproof Octopus watch, which contains the smart chip.
With the watch/card I can:
--take a bus or minibus from home to the subway station
--get coffee and sandwich at starbucks near the subway station
--ride the subway to the ferry terminal
--stop at 7-11 and buy a magazine
--pay for the ferry to one of many smaller islands
--get a coke from the vending machine at the ferry terminal
--go to the beach at a smaller island, don't worry about my "money" getting wet -- but no, the seafood restaurants and island bars won't take the card...
The card is totally anonymous (or so they tell us). Downsides: it has an upper limit of HK$1000, good for cheap stuff but nothing big, has to be refilled in person for cash, and isn't accepted at many places other than the ones just mentioned. The local McDonald's stopped taking them about a year ago. The Octopus was originally developed by the HK subway system (govt owned, now partially privatized) "from Australian technology" and was then extended to some retailers "near" subway facilities. I have a feeling the banks and bank regulators wouldn't let them go any further -- way too threatening.
The upshot is that, except for the fact that you are required by law to carry your ID, you can basically spend a whole day outside without having to carry a wallet. Now, try to do the same thing in most other countries. Why hasn't anyone rolled this out in the US?
[By the way, the HK govt is now phasing in smart card ID cards -- haven't heard what they plan to do with the info. Big bro has a new toy!]
...
Good evening and welcome to the Money Programme. Tonight, on the Money Programme, we're going to look at money. Lots of it. One film and in the studio.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Remember Sammy Jankis?
Will I retire or break 10K?
This is just a test
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
From Nabisco Co.? The National Biscuit Company Company.
The Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) - 1939
The Credit Card - 1950
11 years of "so...what the hell we going to put in it?"
SCO: "Okay, so what am I doing now?"
(Spies IBM)
SCO: "Ohh right, I am suing this guy!....Oh No! He's suing me!!!!!"
My Int'l Econ prof talked about this in class. The gold-standard emerged (more or less) out of WWII and was pushed by the US. This is because the US had most of the gold. During the stagflation of the 70's, the value of the dollar dropped, and most of the gold left the US. We were down to like 40% of the WWII era. (Actually, technically, it never moved more than a few dozen feet. More or less every nation in the world except France keeps their gold at Fort Knox, and International trades are done by carting gold from one room to another inside the base)
Anyway, the gold standard fell apart because it "fixes" the relationship of one current with respect to another, and the gold acts as a kind of balast to compensate for changes in the relationship. But as you can imagine, this is pretty unstable. Floating currencies, which is what 95% of most currencies are today, automatically compensate by changing exchange rates. Geographic discrepencies are arbitraged away. The system works.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
They don't seemed to have considered things like government bonds (this underlies the whole system of currency!), and more importantly in the last 100 years, financial futures (futures contracts on bonds and the like) which to quote the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT); "In 1975, the CBOT expanded its offering to include financial contracts, initially, the U.S. Treasury Bond futures contract which is now one of the world's most actively traded."
... as once upon a time money was all gold and silver coin, the note being a promissary document to pay equivalent amount in bullion ... and some banknotes still say things like 'the bank of x promises to pay the bearer the sum of ... '.
These are integral parts of the whole system in regulating and pricing the money supply! The article only seemed to have considered things that affect "money" as people would normally handle in the day to day running of our financial affairs; but still they chose to include inter-bank transfers, the armoured car, and the like.
Pre-1900 there is the invention of paper money itself
-A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed-
More info? Read The Creature and you will understand.
The U.S debt will be the death of the nation.
harmonious design
Yeah, have you tried to rip Thai money? A friend of mine handed me a bill and said he'd bet me two of em if I could tear it in half. Being a manly man, I agreed and proceeded to spend quite some energy on doing nothing. It's also nice to be able to have it come out of the laundry just fine...
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
No inflation, ever, 'cause the total supply of money is completely static.
That isn't actually true - there's a smaller island near Yap where the special coins were periodically quarried and rafted back to Yap.
Incidentally, Milton Friedman tells the story of how when Yap was part of the German possessions in the Pacific, the German colonial government once tried to force the Yap Islanders to assist in building infrastructure improvements on their island. The islanders weren't really terribly interested.
So the colonial government drove around the island, and painted black crosses on many of the largest stones, signifying that the government had assessed them as a fine. Since these stones were now "off-limits" and removed from the money supply, the Yap economy suffered sudden, massive deflation. The panicked islanders, faced with a collapse of their economy, hurriedly agreed to help construct the required roads. Whereupon the Germans drove around and erased the crosses, enriching the islanders once more.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Like it or not, that's what many, many people call it. If enough people say it, it becomes right, even if it's wrong. I kinda think it sounds silly. Oh well.
It is slashdot being lame as usual, and trying to make a point (and failing miserably - as usual)
There are certificates for both (or were, that is). The gold one I saw was orange. A good book is Money by James Ewart, lots of fun photos of old US money.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
...that an organization named after a famous European inventor would choose to focus solely on American accomplishments. Also ironic is that the sole non-American achievement on the list--the Smartcard, with two token paragraphs devoid of much detail--is also the least important concerning money in America. Of course, the thing with any Greatest-Of lists is that you can define the criteria and historic cut-off points to your own choosing.
The glorious achievements on this list can nevertheless not negate the fact that banking in the US sucks more than in most of the industrialized world. In what other country do financial transactions rely on glorified IOU's--hand-signed checks--to the extent that they do in this country? What other country is so far behind in the acceptance of electronic transactions, such as direct deposit and debit, inter-bank transfers, etc? I guess when things suck so bad, it's always soothing to look back in history.
The fact that this guy is modded "redundant" for pointing out a redundancy
"The gold standard "fixes" nothing in any real sense. Gold is a commodity like any other. Its value changes over time depending on the degree to which people want it. The quantity also changes. People still dig the stuff out of the ground. This changes the supply and hence the value according to neoclassical economic theory."
Gold however does have a very important, and useful property (several actually). It is universally accepted, both in a present sense, and historically. Countries (and their fiat monies) come and go, but gold is still there, and accepted. It's permanence (durability, most paper money will not last a 1,000 years). It also makes it much more difficult for governments to play monetary games. (the one's that end up hurting us all, usually). The quantity thing is actually good, because it reduces the effects of hoarding (like say in Fort Knox, or it's equivalent).
June 27, 1967...Barclay's Bank installs the first "Barclaycash" in England. It could only handle withdrawls, and was intended for use in emergencies when the bank was closed. An American (BJ Meredith) saw it, and was amazed at why it wasn't already in the States. He and his younger brother (Don Meredith, Dallas Cowboys quarterback) put some money together, and founded Docutel, Inc. In November 1971, they installed the world's first fully automated teller machine; a Docutel Total Teller (TT) 300, in the lobby of Atlanta's Citizens & Southern National Bank. Unfortunately customers didn't know what they were, or how to use them. Finally, First National Bank of Atlanta installed one, painted it red, and called it Tillie the All-Time Teller, and spent over half a million dollars advertising it. It made headlines all over the country. By 1977, Docutel was a $31 million company. Unfortunately, competition grew, and Docutel rushed a new model (the TT2000), in September of 1977. The buttons stuck, the machine ate cards like they were candy, and the computer overloaded after several hours of use. Plus it was larger than the previous model, so banks had to knock bigger holes in the walls to replace older models. Docutel's market share plummeted from 80% to 27%. In 1982, they merged with a company named Olivetti, but even that didn't help. In 1986, they threw in the towel. They changed the banking world forever, but never survived long enough to cash in on the world they had created.
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Also as I mentioned in another post. It makes governmental financial games more difficult. I'm certain we all are familiar with "living beyound one's means" (hence the deficit we all currently enjoy). Well with present fiat money, if one runs up a debt, and has trouble paying it? A government can always print more fiat money to pay those debts (within limits e.g. Inflation). With the gold standard, while one can have a bit of give either way from one's base. One can't go too far (gotta pay those debts someway). So instead of a ballooning debt in the trillions, it's more like billions, or millions. Fiscal responsability starts with restraint.
The "second," "third," and "fourth" markets of the Stock Exachage came about in the 1900s. These revolutionized the speed at which transactions took place and took the Stock exchanges to a new level of internationality. Without these their would not be trillions of dollars in the stock markets today in America alone...
sounds familiar to a scam my brother tried a few times. Can't remember where he heard about it, but he would dress like a security guard, and sit outside a bank, late at night, put an "OUT OF ORDER" sign on the atm, and when people came up, he stated that if they wanted to make a deposit. If they said yes, he said that they were to put it into the large metal box he had brought with him. He could typically make about $1000+ in no time ;)
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
Perhaps this is a uniquely Canadian perspective, seeing as we have adopted the Debit card more pervasively than anybody else, but our major contribution to money is quite simple: we use less of it than anybody else on the planet.
There isn't a store around anymore that does not take a debit card. You have to SEARCH WITH DETERMINATION for a store that does not take a debit card in Canada.
Deboit Card: your ATM bank card and same pin number swi[ed at the check out - you tap in PIN at a hand held terminal - you leave.
.Robert
"As for lasting 1000 years, well, I suppose it does. But that isn't terribly relevant here. After all, how many people or governments for that matter, last anywhere near that long or plan even 50 years ahead?"
:)
Actually that's very relevent. For example, I can say accumilate a quantity of gold, and upon my death, pass it to my descendents. And so forth and so on(1). Irrespective of any government, past or present, or future (hence one of the reasons governments don't like it). What Linux brings to the individual, gold also brings to the individual. Freedom from the overwrought control that others exert on us. Be they corporations, or governments (2).
"The monetary games you speak of are not necessarily bad. Monetary and fiscal policy are as old as government and can be applied wisely or foolishly. Applied well they can be the salvation of a national economy. A reflexive and religious belief that the government can do no right and will almost certainly screw up is not supported by history any more than tha belief that The Market will make the "right" decision."
Well I could do a little word substitution, and say that the opposite is just as true. The only constant is that there's a middle ground in there somewere.
"Gold's chief value is talismanic. It has a magical hold over peoples' imaginations. That superstition, in the most nice and accurate sense of the word, give gold a certain value. But I question how important it is."
I wouldn't brush that off quite so readily, if I were you. That's one of the things that helps ensure longjevity, and desirability. Belief is never a force to be ignored.
(1) Arrr! Were's me' buried treasure of gold?
(2) Maybe when we get that "Star Trek" economy. Then the individual will both have that much freedom, and no longer need gold. But then again, societies fall.
I should also add that gold fits better in a barter system, which if you remember predates the present system, and all societies that degenerate back revert to barter. A nice constant.
American Express and MasterCard became huge successes overnight, and by the mid-'70s, Congress had to begin regulation of the credit card industry by banning such practices as the mass mailing of active cards to those who had not requested them.
Somehow I vaguely remember Mastercard was called MasterCharge when I was a wee tyke. Can anyone confirm?
Stock markets are important but not directly to money itself. What is more important is the establishment of the international money markets. This could only happen with the existance of one other piece of technology, the telephone.
See my journal, I write things there
To everyone spouting nonsense like "smart cards are insecure - I used to hack my phone card", "why we should jump at -every- new technology", "smart cards never amounted to everything" etc, etc. Read the documents at EMVCo website and see for yourself which technology is used in such cards. Also, the point of EMV smart cards is not storing some amount of digital cash on it. The main point is avoiding fraudulent transaction repudiation (as each transaction carries digital signature called transaction certificate you can't claim that you didn't make a transaction when in fact you did) and the ability to make transactions offline (using offline PIN code). So at least in Europe both VISA and Mastercard are phasing out the magnetic stripe cards.
How come technology changes in money printing like watermarks don't count??
Which country?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Someone else pointed that out (but you were a tactful about it, which makes all the difference) I don't know whether or not it's changed since 9/11 though.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Which in turn is as simple as breaking RSA. Because that is what's encrypting the communication between the ATM and the smart card.
I have to say I find it odd that every single one of these inventions was made in the U.S.A.
Many other countries have significant financial institutions that are equally, or arguably more, sophisticated.
I don't have the timem or for that matter the inclination to research this myself, but I'd have thought that at least one out of any top ten money technology inventions would have had a non-U.S. origin.
If these things faded from existence they probably were not that big in the first place. I wish they had provided some examples they would be as interesting as the successes
Despite what the article says, an RSA patent was applied for in the UK, but failed because of prior use at GCHQ (the British equivalent of the American NSA). For some reason, GCHQ had forgotten to broadcast it's discovery. There's more details at:o /code s/cc8.htm (I'm not connected with that site).
http://www.churchill91.freeserve.co.uk/crypt
I can remember going to the department store with my mother back in that era. The department store used special models of cash registers that were huge and had many more buttons than a normal cash register. They also had a pneumatic tube system to send paperwork from one department to another.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Man, my eyes are going. I could have sworn I read that as "Monkey" instead of "Money". I thought it was about an infinite number of them, all posting /. articles.
Clearly, you have never had to deal with collection agencies! :-)
English -- gotta love it! / The engineers refuse to refuse the rocket until the refuse is removed from the launch pad.
cyphering how many babies it costs for a barroll of crudeness, we've just cut back, a lot.
as for linus, the whoreabull Godless thieving/murdering georgewellian fuddites may have met their match there. you know what happens to the good guys, right?
we've saved 1000's, if not 10's of 1000's of $, buy not buying into the payper liesense hostage ransom stock markup execrable such as is distributed buy the felonious kingdumb & IT's naykid furor et AL.
no matter. the #1 task is planet/population rescue. the lights are coming up. we're in crisis mode. you can help.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you.
pay no heed to the greed/fear based walking dead.
each harmed innocent carries with it a bad toll. it will be repaid by you/us. the Godless felons will not be available to make reparations.
pay attention. that's definitely affordable, plus you might develop skills which could prevent you from being misled any further by phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated misinformation.
good work so far. there's still much to be done. see you there.
Star Trek TNG, the replicator mostly eliminates the scarce resources of the scarce resources/infinite wants connundrum. Couple with an efficent automated service industry, where no one needs to work, and you get people working just for the fun of it (Siskos dad, Picards family).
Of course there are problems, there is always only x hectares of sea front land, and its arguable that TNG is a soviet-style commumism combined with a left wing politically correct "idealism". Theres arguments either way.
On the micro scale, most families and small communities on Earth have a commumistic view, with no internal trade, and communal ownership. It's interesting too see the economies that sprung up in POW camps though, where cigarettes were used as money.
A commumist economy could work with mind control too, be it subtle (subliminal advertising), or obvious (marxism + slavery)
Nah, he can seek help from me, I only charge $50 an hour to sad deluded slashdot leftwingers.
From the Constitution of the United States:
Section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
There was, in fact, great debate in the constitutional convention about allowing even the federal government the right to mint fiat money.
From Madison's notes from the constitutional convention:
MR. GORHAM [Mass.] had doubts on the subject. Congress, he thought, would not have the power unless it was expressed. Though he had a mortal hatred to paper money, yet, as he could not foresee all emergencies, he was unwilling to tie the hands of the legislature. He observed the late war could not have been carried on had such a prohibition existed. (1)
The general consensus was that while it was distasteful, paper money might prove necessary in the event of another war (as it had in the war for independence). However, the founders wanted to stop individual states from printing money not backed in specie to stop what had happened during the war with hugely different values of state currencies.
(1) From Edward Flaherty's paper "Debunking the Federal Reserve Conspiracy Theories (and other financial myths)"
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
I read somewhere that the Spanish discovery and exploitation of the New World resulted in massive inflation in the Spanish economy.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Why hasn't anyone rolled this out in the US?
Our money system is controlled by a bunch of religious freaks who believe they are God's Chosen People and the rest of us are scum to be enslaved. Every money transaction in the country includes a fee that goes to said oppressors. Such a system as you propose would be the beginning of the end for these people.
We are speaking of Jews.
Today, only East Asia represents a serious threat to International Jewry. The entire Western World is within their vicegrip. I only hope that further inventions in money systems come from China and Japan, as eventually the Jews will not be able to fight the demand.
Who else get's annoyed when someone says "Automatic Teller Machine" Machine?
Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
As far as "Electronic money" being invented in 1918, I would think wire transfers with Western Union would beat this date by decades.
My first experience with credit cards was on a family vacation in the early 60's when my father used his Gulf Oil card at Holiday Inns on a summer vacation.
10. Tote boards
...
9. Tollbooths
8. Pay toilets
7. Collect calls
6. 900 numbers
5. Ponzi
4. Disney dollars
3. The mill
2. Raleigh coupons
And, the greatest monetary technology of the
20th century
1. The 7-cent nickel (Groucho Marx)
good thing this is reality instead of star trek.
The Fed has the legal right to create money out of thin air. This is the magical force behind your stock market bubbles, precious metals market movements, and debt of all kinds.
Because Hong Kong is a city and the US a a large nation. If you look at individual US cities, you'll find numerous similar systems (though most are mag-stripe).
I suspect it may also be because in the US there is already a large installed base of mag-stripe reader based systems. Inertia is hard to overcome.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
furthermore, if you say it as a word it's an acronym, if you say the letters it's just an abbreviation
indeed, however trek (specifically replicators, space travel and holodecks) is the only semi-realistic way commumism would work on a large scale, by eliminating limited resources.
The only other way is eliminating infinite wants - which involves some form of mind control and restrictions on freedom, basically marxism.
I'd add
(11) The electronic computer and internet. These are general and rapidly evolving inventions that continually change he way money is processed.
(12) Electronic trading. New money is created as the value of stocks and bonds increase. Electronic trading has made it nearly as possible for the individual to trade as fast as the big institution.
(13) Micro payments. Though this hasn't caught on yet, sub-cent payments will smooth internet trasactions of the future. Everything now on the net is expensive (a dollar or more) or free (portals, music, email). Either the vendor or ucstomer gets screwed in one of these cases. Micro-payments, e.g one-cent news stories, one-cent email, etc. are a solutions. As computers nad networks grow ever cheaper, so does the overhead of a sub-cent transaction.
(14) Computer auctions. A profitable sale creates money. Companies like EBay create both huge and tiny markets by connecting large pools of buyers and sellers. Auctioning tends to result in higher prices paid.
The U.S. fabric-based bills are more biodegradable - that's why you don't see much money lying around in the streets. I bet in Australia, after a while there'll just be indestructible plastic money lying all over the place, the kangaroos won't be able to graze any more, and it'll be a mess!
Smart cards have no software. They have firmware, but there is no operating system that needs "rebooting" as someone noted earlier.
Also, the reason smart card adoption is higher in Europe is that landline telecommunication is far more expensive than in the US. With smart cards, merchants have a cheaper way of accepting credit card payments. Typically, the smart card will authenticate the token (card) itself, then payments will be submitted in automated fashion in batch form at days end or over any period.
It seems that people like to use real nouns, using the acronym as a kind of modifier or qualifier of the noun. It's been suggested that this happens more in English, where common nouns don't frequently appear at the beginning of a sentence. Note that even someone with RAS Syndrome wouldn't normally use a sentence like "HTTP protocol is slow", whereas they might say "HTTP is slow". But if the acronym is moved further along in the sentence, it's more likely to be used with a redundant noun: "The HTTP protocol is slow".
Any grammarians who can explain this better, please step in.
...and the other is warfare.
Er, because it predates the last 100 years, I would guess.
The piece may be about 'historic' developments in money technology, but the piece itself could only rightly be called 'historical.'
Enron was a great invention...
for the people running the scam.
The article states that the social impact of the credit card "cannot be under-estimated." That means that however little importance one attributes to it, one will not have erred in assigning too little. The more usual phrase, more likely reflective of the author's intent, is "cannot be overstated." Perhaps he had in mind "should not be underestimated."
For your sake I hope you're trolling.
Impossible? No.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with human nature. "Pay it forward" doesn't work outside the movie. People are greedy. People are motivated by the possibility of enhancing their own enjoyment in life. In general, people aren't motivated by kindness. Anything else is a pipe dream. And I mean that in the "whatcha smokin'" sense.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
This makes me wonder about their judgement in general. I personally would have included Mutual Funds, a concept that got a LOT more people involved in the Stock Market.
I am not impressed by their article.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I just googled and found it at www.digitalmoneyforum.com
I'm not sure if it is a Canadianism or more local than that, but myself and people I know here in Vancouver just call them "Bank Machines." Literature from the bank might refer to them as ATMs or as Automatic Tellers. "ATM Machine" isn't something I hear very much here.
Without the notion of investor capital and publicly traded ownership of corporations, our lives would be radically different.
This is my sig.
Cool, which cities? What can you do with it?
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