
Ask HN: Should nations have two kinds of currency? - jelliclesfarm
One is for essentials and social services(schools, health, infrastructure etc)..the money for the ‘commons’, as it were..<p>And the other is ‘spending money’ currency for conspicuous consumption. Anything other than essential needs.<p>I feel like money should be the next disruption. I don’t see any other way to crack poverty.
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dredmorbius
In historical practice many did, though these were usually set to fixed
exchange rates with one another.

The "retail" currency was typically copper, though other base metals (iron, in
China) were also used.

The "wholesale" currency, silver.

In England there was also the gold Guinea, which might be considered a finance
/ government coin, though I'm not specifically aware that it was seen as such.

I'm largely familiar with the coinage as discussed (at considerable length) in
Smith's _Wealth of Nations_. He doesn't draw the distinction I do here, though
it seems a fairly natural one.

Note that in pre-decimal English currency, the smallest coinage was the
farthing ("four-thing", 1/4 of a pence), and there were 240 pence to the pound
(12 pence (d) per shilling (p), 20 shillings per pound (£). If you consider a
farthing as the smallest practical unit of currency, roughly a present-day
dollar, a pound would be $960.

[http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/economic/currency.htm](http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/economic/currency.htm)

A labourer's wages were about £2/yr, or 5 farthings/day.

[http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html](http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/120D/Money.html)

For modern variants, the notion of a non-accumulating "daily-spend" currency,
and various durable currencies but utlisable only in specific transactions,
might make certain amounts of sense. I've toyed with this notion off and on
for a few years.

