On Jul 12, 2016, at 7:27 AM, Abu Dhabi <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

How does the Imperial Credit function? AFAIK, it is a paper (well - plastic) currency backed my the Imperial economy. How does this not lead to instant, massive counterfeiting, fraud and hyperinflation? The notes are supposedly proof against forgery, but I struggle to imagine how they could be.

Well, largely the way we’re not faced with instant, massive counterfeiting, fraud and hyperinflation today. The bills are made with anti-counterfeiting measures in place. microscopic encrypted keys readable by a bill checker, akin to modern counterfeit detectors, etc.

I’m sure it occurs, as it does here in the Real World, but it’s not a sufficiently large issue to cause problems. Heck, during WWII the Germans printed, essentially, real 5, 10, 20 and 50  pound notes, and it didn’t work <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bernhard>.

Mechanisms exist today to manage anonymous but verifiable and uncounterfeitable currency: Bitcoin. It has it’s problems (primarily rooted in it’s inherent goldbuggery, but that leads to deflation, not inflation.) but the avenues for anonymous secure, and verifiable electronic transactions are there, and have been for quite some time: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/474/830. http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/money/nsamint/nsamint.htm

We had a long long <strike>flamewar</strike> cordial, but spirited discussion of electronic cash transfers on the list sometime in the last couple of years. 

-- 
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group

Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs