Anonymous
7/22/2025, 3:03:16 PM
No.8912652
>>8911605
>why the fuck are credit cards companies even private? The minting of dollars has always been a governmental thing because no one else can be trusted to control the creation and distribution of money
Well that's not strictly true. Currency has taken many forms throughout history. For example, a number of tribes used shells as currency (the money cowrie is the most famous). Private banks issued money notes during the medieval period in places like the Italian merchant republics. And more recently you have things like Disney Dollars and V-Bucks. You've probably heard of company scrip, and did you know private banks frequently issued their own paper money from the 1830s to 1860s in the US after the Jackson administration ended the Second National Bank out of suspicion for centralized power? You might even argue this has similarities to the decentralized banking movement of cryptocurrency. With ALL currencies, the thing that matters is whether or not people trust the currency. Did you know that when the US was first founded, people had no faith in the US dollar and preferred to use state dollars instead? Why would you be willing to be paid in US dollars when everyone in the state demands to be paid in Virginia dollars? Also, during a period of instability of currency in Venezuela, people became full time gold farmers because Runescape gold was more valuable as a currency than the peso.
That being said, credit card companies aren't issuing currency. They are issuing short term debt. They are basically facilitating faster trade by telling the payment recipient (like Steam or Patreon), "I'll pay you INSTANTLY so we don't need to worry about a bank transfer that might take days." Then you pay off your debt at the end of the month, the sum of all of your expenses, to one processor (the cc company) instead of every individual merchant.
>why the fuck are credit cards companies even private? The minting of dollars has always been a governmental thing because no one else can be trusted to control the creation and distribution of money
Well that's not strictly true. Currency has taken many forms throughout history. For example, a number of tribes used shells as currency (the money cowrie is the most famous). Private banks issued money notes during the medieval period in places like the Italian merchant republics. And more recently you have things like Disney Dollars and V-Bucks. You've probably heard of company scrip, and did you know private banks frequently issued their own paper money from the 1830s to 1860s in the US after the Jackson administration ended the Second National Bank out of suspicion for centralized power? You might even argue this has similarities to the decentralized banking movement of cryptocurrency. With ALL currencies, the thing that matters is whether or not people trust the currency. Did you know that when the US was first founded, people had no faith in the US dollar and preferred to use state dollars instead? Why would you be willing to be paid in US dollars when everyone in the state demands to be paid in Virginia dollars? Also, during a period of instability of currency in Venezuela, people became full time gold farmers because Runescape gold was more valuable as a currency than the peso.
That being said, credit card companies aren't issuing currency. They are issuing short term debt. They are basically facilitating faster trade by telling the payment recipient (like Steam or Patreon), "I'll pay you INSTANTLY so we don't need to worry about a bank transfer that might take days." Then you pay off your debt at the end of the month, the sum of all of your expenses, to one processor (the cc company) instead of every individual merchant.