MONEY MADNESS

If the idea of world socialism could be summed up in one phrase it would probably be "a world without money". So the following news item seems particularly crazy. "An anonymous buyer has paid more than $30 million for a collection of rare U.S. prototype coins, some from the 1700s, that never went into circulation, according to the dealer that brokered the deal. The collection consists of about 1,000 coins that collectors refer to as pattern coins — trial designs that never went into production because the U.S. Mint chose other designs. "This collection is an incredible collection. ... These were some of the first coins ever, ever struck by the United States government," said Laura Sperber, a partner in Legend Numismatics of Lincroft, N.J., which brokered the deal. ... "Both the buyer and the seller are very competitive people. And they're very successful in their careers, and they both love the romance and collectability of coins," Sperber said." (Yahoo News, 17 November)
What Laura is really saying is that two members of the capitalist class are so rich they don't know what do with their money except collect useless things. RD