7th July 2010 Early afternoon

I think that's my first federal offence."

The jewellery merchant and I look at the smouldering remains of the bundle of one hundred dollar notes in my right hand.

"What? How did..? Those were perfectly legitimate notes, honest!"

I don't know what just happened. I finally got round to selling some of my metal for money I could conveniently spend, and as soon as I picked it up, wompf.

"I'm sure they were. Would you please bear with me a moment? I need to have a chat with the ring."

"You go right ahead."

Ring, what the hell just happened?

Ring acted in accordance with the user's contempt.

Contempt?

Avarice is the desire to possess a thing. Contempt represents a desire not to possess a thing. You have contempt for local currency. By regarding it as less than valueless you indicate to this ring that gaining it would diminish your net worth. This is in contradiction to the avaricious principle of the orange light.

This is what I get for studying financial philosophy.

Ring, can I turn this effect off?

Only by learning to value the thing you currently regard as possessing entropic value.

How about a debit card?

Unknown. Result is likely to be the same, but accurate prediction is impossible without further data.

Fiddlesticks.

I know why I have contempt for cash. The recent -in my parallel- financial collapse resulted in me learning a great deal about the way in which money really works. And it's mental. Value based on confidence in future buying power I can sort of accept. Debt based currencies seem like a bad idea, but they do work, until all growth is debt based and suddenly it seems that everyone owes everyone. Including themselves, as the customers of newly nationalised banks were quick to discover. And somehow you end up with the same money being in three different bank accounts and no one really understands who owns anything. Except that whoever they are they have made a loss for tax purposes.

Gold may tend to keep its value relative to other commodities, but even if it doesn't then at the end of the day you have a metal which still has industrial uses. Same with platinum. I had realised the disquiet the whole thing made me feel, I just hadn't realised that it would ever have this sort of practical effect.

I turn back to the jewellery merchant. Her name is Paola, and she had such high hopes for this meeting. Looks like I'll have to disappoint her.

"I'm sorry, but it seems that… for theological reasons… I am unable to accept any payments in fiat currency."

She deflates a little more.

"Would a treasury bond certificate work?"

"Thank you for the thought, but probably not. And I don't think risking it is a good idea. Look, that-"

I indicate the ashes.

"-was about two gold coins' worth, right? Please, keep them. I would hate for you to be out of pocket over this."

We shake hands and I leave the shop. That is going to make life a little difficult. With one thing and another the amount of gold I have on me has noticeably decreased. I'm going to need to go back to the asteroid belt to pick up the rest of my reserves soon, but I don't really want to do that until I know where I'm going to be living in the medium term. Wonder Woman said that she would have an answer for me this evening. If it turns out that she expects me to live in a cave in Themysciran territorial waters…

Huh. I very nearly literally don't have any choice in the matter. Bit liberating, really. Only one thing left on my 'To Do' list and then I need to sort out what I'm cooking the three of us for dinner. Pudding is my signature chocolate cheesecake with orange custard but that's already in the fridge back at Mr Scott's house.

I may not have a lot of skills applicable to my current situation but I'm darn well going to use the ones that I do have.