Money, Money, Money

Is $1 worth $1 dollar in all situations... is money linear?

I believe that money is highly non-linear and our 1000's of years old concept of money needs an overhaul.

Some questions ....

If I am a millionaire how do I value an incremental dollar offered to me versus a homeless person?

If I am a millionaire and I need to get out of a parking garage and my bill is $10 but I only have $9 in cash, what is $1 worth?

If I want to spend $100 million on televisions will the cost per TV be the same as if I spent $3,000 on TV's?

If I love books and hate music would spending $1000 on books be the same as spending $1000 on CDs to paying a $1000 tax bill?

Is earning $1000 at work equivalent to winning a $1000 lottery?

Are 100,000 loyalty program points which I can buy a $1000 TV with worth $1000 in cash? Are 100,000 loyalty program points which I can buy a $1000 plane ticket with worth a different amount of cash than the 100,000 points I can buy the TV with?

Is a $10 million offer to buy TVs from a $10 billion dollar retailer worth the same as a $10 million offer to buy the same TVs from the $100 million dollar manufacturer of the TVs?

Why do rich celebrities get a $40,000 gift bag at the academy awards for free? Are those gifts actually worth $40,000 to the giver(s) or the receiver?

Why is there an adage which says "It is much hard to make your first million than your second"?

Why is it that the more money you have the more you get for free?

Is paying $100,000 for products/services to a large corporation with cultural beliefs about salary, compensation, worth the same as paying a different consulting firm with different beliefs $100,000 for the same products/services?

The value of money is a function many things... incremental utility of the buyer, incremental utility of the seller, the marketplace, time, the situational utility, quality, belief systems, what the economic value of your currency is plus many other variables...

I don't believe that supply, demand, price or traditional macro/micro economic concepts can accurately account for the situations described above.

Big questions ... how much inefficiency exists in our economic, political and social systems because we have such a simple concept of money? Can we create new value out of this inefficiency that would increase GDP, reduce unemployment etc.? Can we change macroeconomic properties by optimizing the micro-utility of trillions of transactions.

Can we create a new concept of money that allows us to maximize our utility better than we currently do? or can we broaden the definition of a transaction that recognizes more than just our current system of money that will impact our utility and on aggregate will impact macroeconomic properties like GDP.


Yes, Yes, Yes ... we can use information technology and analytics and the willingness to change to do so.

Better use of information can create value out of seemingly nothing. It is there for the taking by any individual, corporation or organization.