Money -and the art of money

One of my sons wants to be an artist. This is troubling to me because I know quite a few talented artist but none of them are financially successful. Money helps assign value, creates comparative value and like in one of the songs from the musical Cabaret -"a mark, a yen, a buck or a pound; money makes the world go around".

My advice to my son -that is if he does't want to live in the basement of his childhood home, is to take a few business classes. Then own an art gallery and do art as a second career. Not really inspiring advice but parents always worry about their children being able to support themselves.

One of my friends -who would qualify as a right wing nut job, was screaming at me "all of your money is fake". He wants America to go back to the Gold Standard. Fat chance of that. Really what is gold? It's a soft shinny metal with a few limited industrial uses. It's good as a currency because you can't print gold, either you have it or you don't. My friend believes that when the economy collapses gold will return. Of course if things really collapse then only items of value might be food, water and a loaded shotgun -and gold might be worthless. Money, in whatever form it is, is the blood of civilization keeping value in circulation. As an economy becomes more sophisticated and complex -money becomes more abstract and fluid. 

Above is a $!00,000 bill. The highest denominational note printed in United States. The note itself was only for use for transactions between banks, so it was technically illegal for a private citizen to have one of these in his wallet. Banks used these notes because they didn't always trust each other checks.

These days no denomination over the $100 bill is printed. It makes it difficult for criminals to move large sums of cash.

This gets around to J.S.G. Boggs. He's an artist that helps turn the idea of money on it's head. His hand drawn notes are both graphic art and part performance art. With many restaurants and small merchants, Mr Boggs presents them with a choice, they can accept his art at "face value" or he'll pay them in cash. The hand crafted currency is almost always accepted, partly because it's nice to look at and partly because it as a much higher value on the art market where each example can sell for hundreds of dollars each. Over the years the government had tried to charge Mr Boggs with counterfeiting. Sadly Mr Boggs has had other legal problems and that might account for why most people have never heard of him.

Other artists like, Stephen Barnwell, have made their own money art; creating imaginative banknotes though I don't think anyone else tried to spend their art as if was money.  

So how knows what the future of money will be? Like my son, all kinds of unforeseen things can happen. Will the electronic wallet, where money will be represented zeroes and ones in cyber-space, be treated with the same kind of skepticism that paper money first faced? Will people miss the touch of something physical and sometimes pleasant to look at? Or maybe we'll keep money around for those purchases where the anonymity of cash is just what we want.