[sirlancer]

When does money start to become "real currency"? Numbers on an ATM machine are only representative of the physical currency that I can extract from a bank. A message on an IM window could essentially mean the same thing: "Thanks for helping me move my couch, I'll get that $20 over to you by tomorrow". So at what point does the rubber meet the asphalt and how will Apple enforce this down the road?

[fleitz]

We don't have 'money' anymore, we have currency. USD is not money, it's currency and fiat currency at that. US Dollars are backed by an obligation to give you more US Dollars in the future.

If you had liberty dollars then you'd have money.

To directly answer your question, money becomes currency when you transfer representations of value instead of value. (eg. A piece of paper obliging the barer to receive something of value)

Pennies, especially pre-2000 pennies would be considered money as the store of value is the metal not the face value.

[nhaehnle]

Wikipedia defines money as:

"Money is any object or record, that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context."

This is in line with most actual usage of the word. Bottom line, you're just playing silly semantic games. It is useful to understand the differences between different types of money, but claiming that something is "not really money" based on your own private definition of money does not add to the discussion.

[fleitz]

Actually I juxtaposed the definition of money and currency. The distinction is important. Money is a superset of currency and I got that wrong.

Most people think that playing the lottery is an investment strategy for retirement, I would not trust what most people think when it comes to economics. Little semantic games are hugely important to people. Look how pissed everyone gets when MS describe the MSPL as 'open source'.

Actually, my own private definition does add to the discussion, when enough people connote a word to have a different meaning it changes the definition of a word, all based on their own little private definitions of words.

Your views on semantic contexts are 'fantastic'. I'd suggest you look that one up on the OED if you want to understand the definition I'm using, most people would get it wrong.

[eropple]

Liberty dollars again? Man, if they hadn't gotten raided I'd be suspicious of affiliate link scams.