Sand and lawn clippings don't cut it

We don't use sand or lawn clippings as currency.  Why not?  It's because both are way too plentiful for either to have any value.  Currency has value only when it is in limited and controlled supply.  Gold is a good currency - supplies are limited, it's not easy to come by and it has has intrinsic beauty.

Gold is also difficult to divide up and heavy to carry around.  When handling and dealing in real gold became too difficult, the idea of using coins and notes to represent the gold was brought into play.  The notes and coins could be swapped for the equivalent amount of gold.  This was the gold standard.  The USA abandoned the gold standard quite a few years ago.  The US dollar is worth $1 because, and only becasue, the US Federal Treasury says so.  It's not back by gold or by anything else.  The USD is also the benchmark currency for every country on the face of the planet.

Remember this:  currency has value only when it is in limited and controlled supply.  Unlimited and uncontrolled currency rapidly becomes valueless and literally not worth the paper it is printed on.  The US government is currently printing money.  Lots and lots and lots of money.  They are deliberately flooding the market with currency.  What happens when there is an unlimited supply or uncontrolled currency?  The currency loses its value and the stage is set for hyperinflation.  What happens when there is uncontrolled currency coupled with huge defaults on debt repayments, job losses, foreclosures and a loss of consumer confidence all at the same time?  Deflation.

It's only a matter of time boys and girls.  My money is on deflation.  I have plans for a  huge backyard garden, a mushroom farm and interesting things to do with beans, lentils and other pulses.

What are your plans?

I know we are in Australia and tens of thousands of miles from the US, but in the immortal words of John Donne :

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."