The Purpose of Change Machines
"I think you're talking about two types of machines, at least in the United States. The term change  machine usually refers to a machine that accepts large denominations of currency and returns an equal amount of currency in smaller bills or coins. Typically these machines are used to provide coins in exchange for paper currency, in which case they are also often known as bill changers. Exactly what bills or coins these machines return depends on the machine. Read the instructions on the machine to get the details (they're usually right on the machine). For example my apartment building has a machine that converts small bills like ones and fives to quarters, since the laundry machines only took quarters. The other type of machine are coin-cashing machines, like the Coinstar machines you might see at a grocery store. Many banks used to have these machines as well although in my area they're few and far between now. These machines perform the opposite function of the traditional change machine and convert smaller denominations (mostly coins) into bill form. For example if you dump all your accumulated pennies into the machine, it will probably give you bills and larger coins like quarters, dimes, nickels in exchange, after subtracting a small fee. I've heard that now, some of these machines may give you a gift card of some kind instead of bills, although they'll still subtract a fee from your original amount, usually. Once again just read the instructions and they should tell you. When my bank had one of these machines, they didn't charge a fee as long as you were a customer at the bank. I'm sure that varies from place to place and bank to bank though. Wikipedia's article has this to say (see the article for references): In some sections of the U.S., regional banks have begun offering free coin-counting services in the amount of a gift card. Refunds are often given in cash rather than in the form of a gift card. In some cases, it is not even necessary for the customer to have an account at the bank; the free service is offered as a way to attract new business from individuals who are not current account holders. TD Bank's ""Penny Arcade"" coin counters were free and available to both customers and non-customers in many branches, but as of November 2010, the bank charges a 6% fee for non-customers to use the machine."
TD Bank (Northeast US) has free change counting machines at its branches.  You don't have to have an account to use them. "In finance, form is function, and while a reason for a trade could be anything, but since the result of a trade is a change in value, it could be presumed that one seeks to receive a change in value. Stock company There may have been more esoteric examples, but currently, possession of a company (total ownership of its' assets actually) is delineated by percentage or a glorified ""banknote"" frequently called a ""share"".  Percentage companies are usually sole proprietorship and partnerships, but partnerships can now trade in ""units"".  Share companies are usually corporations. With shares, a company can be divided into almost totally indistinguishable units.  This allows for more flexible ownership, so individuals can trade them without having to change the company contract. Considering the ease of trade, it could be assumed that common stock contract provisions were formulated to provide for such an ease. Motivation to trade This could be anything, but it seems those with the largest ownership of common stock have lots of wealth, so it could be assumed that people at least want to own stocks to own wealth. Shorting might be a little harder to reason, but I personally assume that the motivation to trade is still to increase wealth. Social benefit of the stock market Assuming that ownership in a company is socially valuable and that the total value of ownership is proportional to the social value provided, the social benefit of a stock market is that it provided the means to scale ownership through convenience, speed, and reliability." "the economy is, therefore, a gigantic broken window fallacy if you want to go down that path.   if you had technology that made food procurement, shelter, healthcare, and transportation obsolete, everyone in the world could do another productive activity.   the parable discusses the negation of the ""benefit"" that the calamity causes to economic actors (i.e. saying a broken window creates a job for the glass dude ignores the fact that the shop owner is now out one window) by a loss of use of that same capital for the shop owner - risk of loss associated with vehicle usage isn't analagous. It would be more in line with the shop owner consuming a resource which has a replacement cost." "If you read the first sentence of the article, you'll notice that the orders were placed, then canceled.  The only reason this is done is to front run real incoming orders and get in.    ""Translation: the ultimate goal of many of these programs is to gum up the system so it slows down the quote feed to others and allows the computer traders (with their co-located servers at the exchanges) to gain a money-making arbitrage opportunity.""  If you are an investor without access to floor space within 3 meters of the exchange computer to place a computer of your own, you are being  defrauded of the true market price by this machine." Because the people who own the machines aren't going to just give their product away for free to the now unemployed. Similarly for those creating food, water, etc. Yes, in the long term all will be at equilibrium as prices come down so that supply can meet demand, but in the short term, there will be a hell of a lot of unemployed unable to afford to live.  Why do people always assume technology or some change in the underpinnings of society will make unemployment a non-issue? "Major societal changes generally emerge out of a lot of riots and protests. Social Security literally came out of the great depression where you had Hoovervilles popping up everywhere. All this turmoil lead to an existential crises where issues actually needed to be addressed. The point I was trying to make is that I doubt a basic income will come about naturally. Corporations and those with a lot of money are going to try and push it off for as long as possible. However, if something accelerates automation you would have more people on the streets. Some say a $15 minimum wage would accelerate it, some say it wouldn't. On the one hand you would have people getting paid a living wage presumably. On the other hand you would have more automation which would mean a quicker transition to the next economic system instead of a long drawn out transition. Ideally we can shorten the length of time people are living on scraps. The idea being, one short surge of social unrest is better than many years of frustration, which would culminate in the same surge of unrest at the end.   Plus the whole point of a basic income isn't to ""eliminate inequality."" It is an effort to ""reduce inequality."" Most people in the basic income community are against extreme inequality. They do not say that inequality should be inherently avoided. They say that there is such a thing as ""TOO MUCH"" inequality which can cause various problems, and that we have come to that point on Earth." Here is a list of threads in other subreddits about the same content:   * [Why Dockless Bikes May Spell the End of Public Bike-Share](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/789r5u/why_dockless_bikes_may_spell_the_end_of_public/) on /r/Economics with 7 karma (created at 2017-10-24 02:28:09 by /u/rwescott)  * [Why Dockless Bikes May Spell the End of the Old Bike-Share Model](https://www.reddit.com/r/EcoInternet/comments/779kkg/why_dockless_bikes_may_spell_the_end_of_the_old/) on /r/EcoInternet with 1 karma (created at 2017-10-19 04:51:07 by /u/EcoInternetNewsfeed)  ----   ^^I ^^am ^^a ^^bot  ^^[FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/wiki/index)-[Code](https://github.com/PokestarFan/DuplicateBot)-[Bugs](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/comments/6ypgmx/bugs_and_problems/)-[Suggestions](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/comments/6ypg85/suggestion_for_duplicatesbot/)-[Block](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/wiki/index#wiki_block_bot_from_tagging_on_your_posts)  ^^Now ^^you ^^can ^^remove ^^the ^^comment ^^by ^^replying ^^delete! What benefit vs. what cost? Benefit - none that I can think of. Cost - massive. Every system that handles money would need to re-value overnight, every store would need to re-price. In many ways it would be simpler and maybe even cheaper to introduce a new currency. This is an interesting discussion. I've never been a part of a large corporation, but aren't these functions good for morale. If they gripe about saving money, and then cut all the employees functions becoming the most uncaring and dispassionate company in all of companydom, wouldn't that also kill productivity? I admit, in the long term there are a good number of kinks to work out, but in the end I want to see some system where people in general can seize the means to their own well being without stepping on one another.  The management corruptions you talked about is another reason why I prefer Worker-Co-ops to be the optimum form of issuing business, because its not just a few people in charge, it's a whole social group acting in unison.    When you discuss the mom-and-pop store having no suppliers, it would be good to promote some way of each money supply to have a share of each industry within it.  There are always some people in every trade looking for their next job.  They just have to find a supply where there trade is in demand.  The process is self feeding.  Next off, or course the mechanism of the system would work in a way that firm's can't just pay themselves with their own debt, they have to issue it to their creditors first, and even then it's practically impossible to accept your own debt as payment.  You would have to take some from a competitor at best.    What I've been trying to do is find some system where no one institution or no one alliance holds the keys to the definition of value.  If you have five to eight dictators fighting at once as opposed to one financial dictator who can oversee all, like the fed scenario you just described, It's more possible for people who are freer relatively to survive freely between the borders of these spheres of influence, as they can play each dictator off the other.  at least from your dialogue I can see you're one of those who gets what I'm trying to aim for.    Here's another idea I've explored with it, that's similar but may make the environment slightly different, so let me know what you think  what I call the Revolving Tax Window, where the government accepts different bondnotes, both in quantity and specific assortments of notes, in intervals of every business quarter, so that the demand for specific notes changes four times a year.  From January until the end of March they could accept Taxes in notes from Firms A,F,H, and T, and for April into June it could be just B and S, and so on.  The options for note issuing could be set on a list of firms registered with the SEC or whoever.   The combination for the quarter could be picked at random by a randomizing algorithm, so no firm could make a plan to be a market dictator, and a sense of dynamism is maintained in the economy.    Obviously, the more firms are properly registered on this list, the more combinations of monetary combinations you have, and the more power is distributed from too much control by anybody.    What you can do is choose whether or not you want there to be less or more notes in the next quarter, because just like fiscal policy and conventional monetary policy, the extremes have trade offs, but different ones; to few currencies, the economy may be stimulated, but you get market dictators via monetary oligopoly, even if temporary.  Too many, you avoid market dictators who will be more focused on getting a real return by investing in competing ventures based on what will actually return investment, but the economy may not be as stimulated.  What do you think of this structural alternative?  (One of the focal sources I've been building my economic policy on has been *Debt: The First 5,000 Years* by David Graeber, if anyone's familiar.) While this is true, it depends on the lens with which you view technology. There are plenty of examples:      1. The transition from horse to car   2. The transition from whale oil for lighting to the incandescent light bulb.   3. The transition from paper and pen to computer 4. The transition from manual telephone connections to the automatic switch box.    Time and time again, automation has resulted in a higher quality of life for the world.   Here are some examples of how a robot would be beneficial to the consumer:    1. More accurate orders   2. Faster service   3. More consistent service   4. More sanitary   5. Cheaper "Sorry, i always use my phone when using reddit and i'm also not a native speaker. Basically what i tried to say is;  The reason the whole world using this economic system is because when people divide their work force and everyone specializes on one thing they are much better at it, gain more experience, become more efficient and basically it is just more productive.   Thats why everyone has a job.  But jobs has few downsides, most prominent one being making all these repetitive tasks, one can lose their purpose. This is the situation for the poor community. People who do not earn a lot of money and doesn't have a good statue can be depressed by going to same place everyday, doing the same thing for 40-50 years,  for....???The reason is, everyone is doing repetitive tasks, even if it is something you love (personally i would hate my hobbies if i had to do them everyday not for enjoyment but for money) but some are being rewarded much more.   My goal of telling all these is, this is not a perfect economic system but it is the most efficient one today. People need motivation if they are going to do the same thing all the time. The motivation could be different than money and statue but it is much easier to convince the masses these are important so the machine could work.  Only a fool with no regard to history would tell this is the best economic system and it will never change since world is always changing, 5 years ago top10 companies were banks and investment companies now they are tech/internet. My belief is that for now the system is structured and will stay the same until; •War ,which changes the economy. War economy needs other stuff compared to what we are producing normally. Motivation also changes in these times, it's not money anymore but for ""your countries sake"" and ""pride"". •Different political system which is unusual to most since it is the economic change in classes which makes the political system to change." Nothing really tangible is lost when bits of paper or shiny rocks disappear.  Economies are built on raw materials, equipment, production facilities, and people doing work.  Compared to that, any medium of exchange can easily be replaced. Simply, most of the above given 'answers' are mere 'justifications' for a practice that has become anachronistic. It did make sense once in the past, but not any more. Computers and networks can run non-stop 24/7; even though the same human beings cannot be expected to work 24/7, we have invented the beautiful concept of multiple shifts; banks may be closed during nights and weekends, but banking is never closed in the internet era; ...The answer must lie in the vested interests of a few stakeholder groups - or - it could just be our difficult to change habits. I will be general. It's more fun.  If everyone in auto manufacturing labor was replaced by a cheap robot tomorrow, then cars would be cheaper. Those of us who buy cars at 50% less could spend that on video games and facelifts. All the auto laborers could make more money doing less labor in the video game and plastic surgery business, robot manufacturing, and robot programming. Others could tailor the robots for other industries, making money there.  If there is less menial labor to be done, then more meaningful and productive work can be done in its place.  In other words, when the cheap, undesirable jobs are made more productive, the product price goes down and that money is spent somewhere else.  On the other hand, if we want to go with much lower productivity, we could all spend an average of 12 hours a day 7 days a week (or the equivalent) obtaining food and shelter. After all, with less productivity, everything takes more labor and more time, and we would have to do without many of the luxuries we take for granted. But everybody could be working really hard.