Detlef Cordes

Money is a corporate accord - like HTML or XML.
We need a global standard of interchange, of communication.
I communicate with people all over the world because we agreed to communicate in HTML.
I communicate with people all over the world because we communicate in HTML via Twitter, Posterous, Freindfeed, Flickr, YouTube - you name them.
How does "trust" get into the equation? Do I need to trust HTML or XML? Do I need to trust Social Media? I see they do function. My life is not build on HTML.
But I need money to settle by daily needs. I need the Euro I earn via PayPal in India to be of the same  value as the Euro I earn at home in Germany. I trust the value of the Euro to be of the same value everywhere. And I trust that this Euro retains its value - give or take some % for in- or deflation: but basically it retains its value.
So for me with money there is always trust involved. The word "credit" comes from the Latin word for "to believe".
There is no money without trust. But is money just trust? OK: I don't know about that. Money has become a very abstract instrument of human reason.

In the 1920's there was a severe money crisis in Germany: hyper inflation. My grandmother still owned a part of her parent's farm - but her brother chose the time to buy her out. She got a sack full of Billion Deutsche Mark notes. She didn't make it to the store that same day. The next day the money bought her ... a hand towel. A good one. She kept it and showed it to me 40 years later.

Alas: we never visited the farm.

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