07-02-2013, 08:07 PM
Agreed. What's really interesting is his concept of money which I still don't fully understand (definitely a book that ill need to read again). In the story it's divided into slow, medium and fast money. Fast is every day cash, medium is investments in infrastructure and slow is money that can only be transferred once the sender, receiver and a bank have all registered the trade. The point of the latter is that all three will be in three separate systems and because of how long it will take to organise slow money payments will be immune to problems of inflation and financial fraud that cash would be over interstellar distances.