mmmm, barter

[serene]

My friends who groove on the barter economy -- I'm especially thinking of dryadgrl here -- will love this:

Man turns paper clip into house.

Don't think I'm not trying to decide if I can do this, too. :-)

Comments

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Oh, wonderful! I was following his blog (http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/) for a while until I got distracted by something else back around the time he swapped the panel truck for the recording contract. How cool is it that he managed to to this in exactly one year!

[deyo.livejournal.com]

You might have a tougher time negotiating. You'd be trading one item for another. He traded one item and an appearance on one of the most overrated websites in the world for another item.

But still, cow shit is worth more to a farmer than to a rancher. ;)

[firecat]

It's a ponzi scheme. You could probably do it, though.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Well, but if I trade you something I don't value much for something you don't value much, and we both feel like we did well, is that a scheme?

[firecat]

No...it's just that the way the guy seems to have it set up ("I want to trade this for something bigger and better") it seems like a ponzi scheme.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I might agree except for stuff like this:

MacDonald was thrilled, but concerned for the integrity of the project. Bernsen had no use for a year's free rent in Phoenix, and MacDonald wanted to find something to trade for the part that the actor-director could legitimately use. Seemingly disregarding good economic sense, MacDonald traded his year's free rent for an afternoon with the rock star Alice Cooper. Then, in an act that really confused his blog readers, MacDonald bartered the time with Cooper for a snow globe depicting the band Kiss.

In reality, however, it was a cunning move. Bernsen is a snowglobe nut (well, somebody has to be), and has amassed a collection of 6,500 snow globes. "One off, they look sort of goofy," Bernsen said. "Put them all together and they sort of look like pop art."

[firecat]

Right, and perhaps there are enough such trades that even if millions of people get involved in bartering it would still work that way; I'm not entirely convinced. But I'll stop being a cranky spoilsport in your journal now.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Nonono, I was just having fun picking it apart -- you weren't being a spoilsport -- you were being a word geek.

We likes word geeks, yes we does!

[dawnd.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's really cool!

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

Carl Barks' ducks story "Maharajah Donald" has two episodes involving repeated trading up, starting each time with a pencil stub.

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

yeah, when the paramour told me about this, i immediately started wondering whether this could be done without ponzi-scheming, and how i would go about it...