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Re: e$ Signorage
At 9:35 AM 4/4/96, James Gleick (!) wrote:
> Seigniorage is actually the Government's interest income on all the
>currency in circulation. It's not obvious, but it's true, that the Fed
>collects the "float" on dollar bills you carry in your pocket, exactly as
>American Express collects the float on traveler's checks.
Ah. That makes much more sense. I've always wanted to know what to call the
interest an ecash issuer made on the e$ he had out on the net. "None Dare
Call it Seigniorage." Sounds like a 50's movie title...
> And, I don't know, call me crazy, but $20 billion sounds like a lot of
>money to me.
I bet that's a real number. In terms of its scale in the overall Federal
Universe, to paraphrase Dirksen, "a billion here, a billion there..."
Cheers,
Bob Hettinga
-----------------
Robert Hettinga ([email protected])
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell
The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/