Local Insanity

Dear Apple,

You win, and five minutes with the iPhone was all it took. Please accept the enclosed $600 along with my appreciation for kicking the mobile phone world squarely in the nuts.

Sincerely, Brian Donovan

I’ve started watching some of the YouTube videos featuring Ron Paul, a presidential candidate for the 2008 elections. He is, amazingly, very much in the image of what I’d like for a President - or any politician for that matter - to be: straight-talking, honest, and intelligent. That he and I agree on several issues is a nice bonus.

One thing that he seems to discuss frequently is money, our monetary system, the Federal Reserve, etc. He, like Ayn Rand, claims that “if you study monetary history throughout thousands of years, you will find out that paper money has been tried many, many times and it never succeeds - it always ends badly” (source, 8:50). He advocates a gold-backed monetary system, or what Ayn Rand calls a system based on an “objective value”.

Here’s the part I don’t get: why gold? Gold is not an end in itself any more than paper (or even digital) money is and requires the same faith that there exists a person who will exchange it for the good or service that you wish to obtain. Rand’s description of the ideal currency sheds some light on this. I believe she calls it an objective value because gold has intrinsic usefulness, but still only for one who can use it. Therefore a hunk of gold is useful for a) making various instruments and scientific equipment and b) making jewelry. You cannot eat it, it cannot build you a house, and you cannot sleep on it.

And so I must ask: How is it better than paper (or bits) for the average person? How does it safeguard my wealth in a way that paper money cannot? This brings me to another quality of gold which might play an even larger role than any inherent utility: its scarcity. If we allow gold to become a claim on the product of another man’s effort, it is possible that I could produce more of this claim by mining gold - this is exactly why a seashell currency on the coast doesn’t work: they’re relatively plentiful and require little effort to obtain - but gold is hard to find and hard to obtain once found. I think that what Ron Paul and others are saying is that our paper money system is just like the seashell-based economy, only worse because we actually print the money at will.

Nevertheless, I don’t understand how such an economy can move rapidly. If there is a finite amount of gold, there is a finite amount of wealth, right? Not according to Rand, who was nonetheless in favor of completely abolishing paper currency. How do I reconcile this apparent contradiction? Which premise have I left unchecked?

UPDATE: I’ve been listening to What Has Government Done to Our Money?, and in the first few chapters the major takeaway for me is that money must have been a commodity. This is an interesting assertion and makes sense when one thinks about the development of a society from a barter society to a monetary society, but it begs the question: what commodity backs our money now? It’s not gold, at least not completely. It’s not silver. One suggestion is that it is the ability of the government to tax the population, and that sounds scary.

With only 4 days left until iPhone Day (formerly June 29th), the moment of truth has come. Will I be getting an iPhone, or not? I’ve certainly wanted a new phone for a while. But now that it comes to it, do I really want one?

To be sure, the iPhone looks incredibly sexy. The user interface is, as most things Apple are, superb. But since the announcement of the iPhone I’ve been taking note of how I actually use my phone and I’ve noticed a few things:

• I throw it
• I put it in my pocket along with other things
• I drop it
• I spin it around in my hand

In short, I abuse it. Not quite like my sister, who would do better with a phone encased in titanium and rubber, but enough to wonder whether something easily scratch-able is really a good idea. The next thing to consider is the cost: I am already with AT&T (the new Cingular), but I don’t owe them anything - I can leave whenever I like. The idea of paying $500-$600 for the privilege of being forced to stick with them for another two years is not something I relish.

While I believe that I could adjust my habits to be more careful with my phone (after all, I treat my laptop like a baby), I just don’t know whether I can stomach the extra cost. Fortunately I have several friends who are going to buy one, so I’ll have ample opportunity to decide whether or not to buy one later. As for June 29th - have fun folks, but I’ll be elsewhere.