Fiat Money
The alternative to a commodity money system is fiat money which is defined by a central bank and government law, or "fiat", which defines legal tender. Typically fiat money is paper currency or base metal coinage, but can also be simply data such as bank balances and records of credit or debit card purchases.
Read more about this topic: Monetary System
Famous quotes containing the words fiat and/or money:
“Then for the Style; Majestick and Divine,
It speaks no less than God in every Line:
Commanding words; whose Force is still the same
As the first Fiat that produc’d our Frame.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)