My Emotional Response to Money |
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27 November 2020
Living and traveling abroad now for many years you'd think I'd have gotten used to money looking different in different places. Intellectually I have. I understand that these little colored pieces of paper come out of the ATM and I can exchange them for goods or services . . . but I don't feel like they have any value. When I see a US dollar I still feel like it's something valuable. And this feeling is despite my understanding of the fiat money system governments have foisted upon us to extract the time value of money from us slowly through inflation. American money just feels real.
The fact of this is driven home when I see Norwegians reacting to their money. When someone holds a few hundred kroner in their hands and says they feel rich I cannot help but find myself in that uncanny place where their emotional response seems nonsensical. I mean, don't they realize those are just colored pieces of paper in their hands? It might as well be Monopoly money. Of course, no one will accept Monopoly money as payment. And kroner, be they Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, or Icelandic, are just as tied to a fiat monetary policy as American dollars. And yet my emotional response, no doubt developed in childhood, to the American dollar is entirely different. I even keep a few dollars in my wallet so I can feel like there's "real" money in there along with the euros or kroner or zlotys or whatever I'm carrying that week. Admittedly this year it's only been kroner I've physically spent.
The really odd thing to me is that the emotional response to the US dollar is not duplicated with money that has actual value. Holding krugerrands in my hand I know they have value and I know they are an asset, but on an emotional level I'd be more excited by a handful of quarters. And krugerrands are made of solid gold!