Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Ah.. I see.. So, this differs how from say.. a king ages back declaring, 
> "Use the money stamped with my image, or else."? 

No, that would be fiat money too. Except it was gold, so people would accept 
it even if it didn't have the king's face. The king's face was simply 
certification that the coin was the right weight.

> Still not seeing how 
> you have any kind of trade using money, without it being fiat.

When the value of the currency is not dictated from the top down.

> Someone, 
> someplace, has a press, or a mine, or *something*, which at which they 
> define the currency, 

No. When everyone agrees on the currency without someone using force to make 
it currency, it's not fiat currency. Gold with the roman king's face on it 
wasn't fiat because you could take it to greece and melt it down and turn it 
into greek money.  The value wasn't "a coin with the king's face", but "one 
ounce of gold."

 > and using something else isn't generally considered
> a good idea. Something about it turning worthless, or possibly even 
> getting you killed in some cases, if you cross a border and try to spend 
> the wrong state's, countries, or what ever, coin/paper money, or what ever.

Whether people will kill you over trying to spend gold with the wrong face 
stamped on it hasn't anything to do with whether it's fiat currency.

> Money is money. 

Yep. But some is fiat currency, and some isn't.  Fiat currency is usually 
made fiat currency by having the government saying "you must pay taxes, and 
you must use *this* currency to pay them."  Otherwise, there's no real way 
to force people to try to accumulate the currency that isn't otherwise valuable.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
  "How did he die?"   "He got shot in the hand."
     "That was fatal?"
          "He was holding a live grenade at the time."

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