chk999 (99.98)

Gold Standard? That's For Wusses. Real Men Use Plutonium

April 01, 2009 – Comments (4)

Given the currrent shenanigans going on with our currency, a return to a metallic standard has been mentioned by many commentators. Gold is the obvious choice, but it is relatively rare and there just isn't enough of it in the world to form a usable currency. Likewise gold and silver have been proposed, but bi-metallic standards always sink of the reef of arbitrage. It just can't be made to work.

So I propose the macho metallic standard. Plutonium.

We could use coinage with a milligram of Pu 239 as the dollar equivalent. The ten dollar coin would have 10 milligrams and the hundred dollar coin 100 milligrams. Pu 239 is an alpha emitter, so think of how macho it would be to have a handful of those coins in your front pocket, right next to the umm, equipment. Toting around a kilogram of Pu would not only be dangerous, but you'd be lugging around a cool million dollars!

One of the nice things about the Pu standard is that it can be made to order in a breeder reactor, so we can make electric power and money at the same time. And we can do it out of U 238, which isn't very valuable anyways. This is a win/win/win situation!

Banking would suddenly be up there in the dangerous job sweepstakes like lumberjacking or crab fishing. Have a big influx of coinage? We think the vault is sub-critical, but is it really? How many ingots can we pile up on a pallet before stuff starts to happen?

Being rich would also be much more macho. Those home safes would have to be radiation hardened as well hardened against thieves. You can have all the cash you want, just don't put it all in the same place.

So who's joining me in the new macho metallic standard, the Plutonium standard!