Word: paper
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Smart, digital cash may also address some of the other problems of paper money. If you lose your digital cash, for example, you will be able to replace it instantly by asking your computer to invalidate the disappeared digits and replace them with a fresh set. And unlike paper money--which stops earning interest as it shoots out of the ATM slot--smart money can keep earning interest until the moment you spend...
...fact, in the eyes of some digital-cash Pollyannas, one of the great things about traceable, bit-based cash is that it will do away with whole categories of cash-based crime. "Paper money is, I hate to say it, the root of all evil," says DigiCash founder Chaum, who argues that the traceability of electronic cash will mean the end of some types of crime. "What kidnapper would take a ransom payment by check? Once you build the infrastructure for electronic cash, the incremental cost of replacing paper money is small. And the social benefits could be amazing...
...school of theorists, led by Chaum, argues that electronic cash needs to be "one-way anonymous" so that people transferring money can always see where it goes, while people receiving money won't know where it comes from. This one-way-mirror transfer solves some of the problems of paper money, since it makes it easier to keep track of where money is spent and why. But who really wants to leave "money tracks" wherever he goes...
...regulate this broad frontier with old-style rules. The burden, he says, has to rest with private industry: Regulate yourselves. "To continue to be effective, government's regulatory role must increasingly assure that effective risk-management systems are in place in the private sector," he observed in a 1996 paper. "As financial systems become more complex, detailed rules and standards have become both burdensome and ineffective." In fact, many governments are competing with one another to see who can offer the fewest regulations. And the money is following right along. Economist Skoorka calls this regulatory arbitrage--the flight of money...
Indeed, while Hamer has maintained a professional distance from his studies, it is impossible to believe he is not also driven by a desire for self-discovery. Soon, in fact, his lab will publish a paper about a gene that makes it harder or easier for people to stop smoking. Judging by the pack of cigarettes poking out of his shirt pocket, Hamer would seem to have drawn the wrong end of that genetic stick. He has tried to stop smoking and failed, he confesses, dozens of times. "If I quit," he says, "it will be an exercise of character...