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Need help on a economics question

Ok, good point about the people off 100 years ago not being able to recognise our contemporary currency, but the timeframe doesn't have to be so big.

Go back in your time machine to 1991 with $1,000 in your pocket, put it in the bank at 5%, travel back too 2011, it's worth $2,653. Take your $2,653 back and turn it into $7,039. Do it over and over, and you're a very rich time traveller. Instant compound interest, but without the waiting!

Has the bank reported the $10,000+ cash deposit, as they are required to by law? The IRS would like you to file an 8300, and the DEA would like to know your occupation.
 
Why is everyone talking about money? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to go back in time and get a buttload of gold? Depending, of course, on whether you can take things with you into the future and if there's a weight limit. Gold isn't exactly light.

Barring that, go waaaaay back in time to a place where you know there's a lot of gold, enslave the locals to mine it for you, have them bury it in a remote location, kill them all so there are no witnesses, go back to the future and dig it up--you are instantly one of the richest people in the world. Bam.

I mean, if you're going to go back in time and cock up history, might as well go all the way. :lol:
 
Why is everyone talking about money? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to go back in time and get a buttload of gold? Depending, of course, on whether you can take things with you into the future and if there's a weight limit. Gold isn't exactly light.

Barring that, go waaaaay back in time to a place where you know there's a lot of gold, enslave the locals to mine it for you, have them bury it in a remote location, kill them all so there are no witnesses, go back to the future and dig it up--you are instantly one of the richest people in the world. Bam.

I mean, if you're going to go back in time and cock up history, might as well go all the way. :lol:
Indeed. The only good reason to go back in time is to use advanced technology to kill everybody that opposes you and make yourself a god.
 
Go back and buy a perfect June 1938 issue of action comics number one (first superman) and a 1939 copy of detective comics (first batman) bring them both back with you.

Wouldn't need no stinking compound interst then, just a motovated buyer.

:)
 
That's actually a pretty good idea. Market on those type of things tends to be small, but I'm pretty sure you could parlay an Action #1 into at least several hundred thousand dollars readily.

On the other hand, something so close to brand new would probably merit an investigation, and I'm not sure if it would pass or not. They might be tricked into believing it was a very good forgery...
 
Why is everyone talking about money? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to go back in time and get a buttload of gold? Depending, of course, on whether you can take things with you into the future and if there's a weight limit. Gold isn't exactly light....

I mean, if you're going to go back in time and cock up history, might as well go all the way. :lol:

I like the way you think. But I'm tempted to think that you can't take stuff forwards with you when you time travel, sort of like the Terminator films but only when going forwards. You'd be able to take stuff back I think. I'd even extend it to the point of not being able to bring back to the future anything you metabolise in the past (air, food, etc) too, so you'd need some kind of life support system with future sources of sustenance if you planned on returning to your own time without injury. Don't know why this seems intuitively correct to me. Perhaps I read it in a story somewhere, liked the conceit and it's stuck in my subconscious.
 
I like the way you think. But I'm tempted to think that you can't take stuff forwards with you when you time travel, sort of like the Terminator films but only when going forwards. You'd be able to take stuff back I think. I'd even extend it to the point of not being able to bring back to the future anything you metabolise in the past (air, food, etc)

Your logic yields an interesting way to cure people affected by argyria. :bolian:
 
Why is everyone talking about money? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to go back in time and get a buttload of gold? Depending, of course, on whether you can take things with you into the future and if there's a weight limit. Gold isn't exactly light....

I mean, if you're going to go back in time and cock up history, might as well go all the way. :lol:

I like the way you think. But I'm tempted to think that you can't take stuff forwards with you when you time travel, sort of like the Terminator films but only when going forwards. You'd be able to take stuff back I think. I'd even extend it to the point of not being able to bring back to the future anything you metabolise in the past (air, food, etc) too, so you'd need some kind of life support system with future sources of sustenance if you planned on returning to your own time without injury. Don't know why this seems intuitively correct to me. Perhaps I read it in a story somewhere, liked the conceit and it's stuck in my subconscious.
Why?:confused:

If you couldn't bring back past-matter, I hope you don't stay in the past very long, since any longer than maybe a week and you'd die from organ failure as soon as you return.

And in any event, matter goes from the past to the future all the time. If there's an intuitive violation of conservation, it's packing the same atoms into the same segment of time.
 
Why is everyone talking about money? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to go back in time and get a buttload of gold? Depending, of course, on whether you can take things with you into the future and if there's a weight limit. Gold isn't exactly light....

I mean, if you're going to go back in time and cock up history, might as well go all the way. :lol:

I like the way you think. But I'm tempted to think that you can't take stuff forwards with you when you time travel, sort of like the Terminator films but only when going forwards. You'd be able to take stuff back I think. I'd even extend it to the point of not being able to bring back to the future anything you metabolise in the past (air, food, etc) too, so you'd need some kind of life support system with future sources of sustenance if you planned on returning to your own time without injury. Don't know why this seems intuitively correct to me. Perhaps I read it in a story somewhere, liked the conceit and it's stuck in my subconscious.

This is why I would recommend just burying your loot or otherwise hiding it somewhere safe. It will have to be stuff that's durable and won't degrade over the centuries, and will hopefully not have a city built over it later. :p
 
If you couldn't bring back past-matter, I hope you don't stay in the past very long, since any longer than maybe a week and you'd die from organ failure as soon as you return.

Holdfast's belief doesn't seem intuitive at all to me. Quite the opposite in fact. I don't see why a time machine would quibble over where atoms have come from.

If your atoms existed in quantum superposition for the duration of your journey, there would be something to think about there. But if you intend to interact with the past, you'd collapse the wave function, and your atoms would lose all that is/was special about them.
 
If you couldn't bring back past-matter, I hope you don't stay in the past very long, since any longer than maybe a week and you'd die from organ failure as soon as you return.

Holdfast's belief doesn't seem intuitive at all to me. Quite the opposite in fact. I don't see why a time machine would quibble over where atoms have come from.

If your atoms existed in quantum superposition with for the duration of your journey, there would be something to think about there. But if you intend to interact with the past, you'd collapse the wave function, and your atoms would lose all that is/was special about them.

Yeah, having different rules for humans vs. inanimate objects is just so much anthropocentrism. :) Matter being "alive" or "dead" is a distinction only living things would bother with, a machine has no technical reason to care. Rather, it would probably be more difficult to send a life form through time, depending on what sort of quantum nonsense must be done to the body during the trip. Imagine if it could easily send back your physical body, but not safely deliver the electrical impulses coursing through your brain and nerves? You could arrive braindead, comatose, or just amnesiac.
 
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