Pens...the new gold standard?

I recently noticed what looks to be yet another change in the U.S. monetary policy (and by "yet another", I mean the first one I have ever noticed).

For those of you in the intellectual dark about the U.S. monetary policy (a category into which I fell until just a few minutes ago when I looked it up on one of those "wiki" thingies on the internet), the only thing you need to know for the purposes of reading this post is that our U.S. currency used to correlate to specific amounts of gold and now it correlates to specific amounts of "thin air" (not to be confused with specific amounts of "fat air"...to which, coincidentally, our money also now correlates).  I can't argue with the information from the  "wiki" since, in the internet caste system, a person who writes a "wiki" easily trumps a person who just writes a "blog".

Some of my pocket change

For example, in theory (a very small town near Chicken Lips, Wyoming), at one time you could have exchanged a one dollar bill for an actual piece of gold.  However, now you can only exchange a one dollar bill for another (equally worthless) one dollar bill (or a collection of even more worthless coins amounting to one dollar).  Which reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live "Change Bank" commercial parody (http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/first-citywide-change-bank/229045/)...definitely worth watching or re-watching.  But I digress...

Anyway, according to the "wiki" I was reading, a country's monetary policy is either based on the "gold standard" or "fiat money".  Now, I kid you not, the "wiki" went on to define "fiat money" as "money that is intrinsically useless; is used only as a medium of exchange".  This definition makes it quite obvious that the author of that "wiki" has gone shopping for groceries recently.  There are several more perfectly good jokes you could make about "fiat money" (e.g., relating it somehow to the Fiat car company), but I'll let you intelligent readers think up those yourselves.

A Fiat

For some reason (which I'm too lazy to go research), in 1972 President Richard Milhous Nixon single-handedly (and/or, given his reputation as "tricky Dick", possibly under-handedly) changed the U.S. monetary policy from the "gold standard" to "fiat money".  Apparently the events occurring in the timeframe which immediately followed this decision is called "Nixon Shock".  Once again, there are plenty of good jokes to be harvested out of that and I'll let y'all do the harvesting.

Nixon and Ford contemplating the potential fallout of removing us from the gold standard

So by this point, you are (or should be) asking yourself "what in the world does all this fiscal mumbo-jumbo have to do with the title of today's post?".  Great question (even if I say so myself)!  Here's the connection...I think there is some sort of conspiracy going on in which pens (ballpoint, felt tip, rollerball, fountain, et al) are being gathered in droves for monetary purposes (potentially becoming the basis for a new U.S. monetary policy)!

Think about it!  Haven't you noticed that, wherever you go, pens are either missing, chained down, or heavily festooned with some absurdly large plastic flower (theoretically acting as a deterrent to someone taking it for fear they might be seen with it)?

Pen festooning step 1

Pen festooning step 2

The final product...a properly festooned pen ready for public use

I've even seen some pen theft prevention devices that rival the diabolical Rube Goldberg contraptions commonly attached to gas station restroom keys (e.g., wooden bars, tire irons, vending machines, etc).

Exhibit "A" - a cleverly protected gas station restroom key

Exhibit "B" - a devilishly protected gas station restroom key

Exhibit "C" - a ludicrously protected gas station restroom key

I can't say for certain whether these pens are being procured by some rogue splinter group of a U.S. government agency or are getting pinched by the public in order to try to offset the devaluation (aka the "Nixon Shock") both in their physical money as well as in the little ones and zeroes which make up their digital balances at financial institutions.

Regardless (not to be confused with "irregardless", which isn't even a proper word, but is still widely used by those who also pronounce "vs." as "verse" and/or actually know what a "wiki" is), I am mortgaging our house and buying up every pen I can find (and maybe, just maybe, taking a few that aren't chained down or properly festooned).

Come to think of it, I'd better keep my eye open for gas station restroom keys too (they might just turn out to be the new silver standard).

Flint