Building back better

How to jump-start the economy of the future back onto the rails:

Joe Biden signs an executive order creating a new cryptocurrency called Malarkey. Malarkey doesn’t have a physical form, the Treasury just loads it onto a card. (In 2021, everybody gets a card.) The Treasury disburses at least one load of Malarkey to all the people, for Inclusion.¹ They give multiple loads to some of the people, for Equity. They put a portrait of some eminent journalist on the 100-Malarkey bill, for Diversity.

Malarkey fits easily into the 2021 global economy, because it works just like a lot of other things we’ve become familiar with. Once your card is loaded you can buy and sell Malarkey freely² on a government-secured blockchained crypto-exchange — totally hacker-proof, like they used for the last election. Like whales from the north Atlantic (or shares of selected stocks,³) you can sell Malarkey you don’t have, and then use the proceeds of the sale to buy more Malarkey on margin. You can write puts and calls on Malarkey, structure novel derivatives based entirely on Malarkey, trade those derivatives online – whatever you want! Heck, you can buy a house with nothing but Malarkey!

Traditional currencies privilege literate people who can count, and these people have historically appropriated a disproportionate share of whatever currency has been in circulation. This won’t happen with Malarkey. You have just as much Malarkey as Joe Biden says you do:⁴

If you have two loads of Malarkey, and your friend gives you two more loads of Malarkey, you have

1. Three loads of Malarkey? No…
2. One big load of Malarkey? C’mon, man!
3. Four loads of Malarkey? No! Pony-soldier-hate-talker-boy [indistinct] lady says stop talking [inaudible]
4. Just as much Malarkey as Joe Biden says you have! That’s right!

If you have one dollar, and you owe a lender two dollars, you’re busted. If you have a billion dollars and owe a lender two billion dollars, you’re too big to fail. If you have one load of Malarkey, and you owe a lender two loads of Malarkey, just pay him. Malarkey doesn’t privilege the few; it empowers the many.

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¹Joe Biden’s Malarkey is not for haters.

²All transactions subject to approval.

³GameSpot used to be Babbages. I bought Pool of Radiance at Babbages; they used to have a store in the mall, when the mall was a place we went to buy things (when we used to go places to buy things) like software, when software was sold as if it were a thing. Things were not always thus.

⁴Legally, each monthly statement will be an executive order.