G20 Summit Scoop - Dollar to be replaced by Whuffie

The G20 circus has come to London town, along with the surrounding panjandrum of Press, PR, Pro Gals and of course the traditional Rent-a-Riot crowd (see picture above).

One benefit of it being in London is that the the Tin-cans and Strings of the Broadstuff Briefing System have being humming! We are picking up some very interesting rumours about an impending major change to the world financial system as big as Bretton Woods or the move off the gold standard. In short, it seems that Capitalism is History, and they are going to move from the Dollar standard to Social Capital.

Yes, they're going to change from Wonga to Whuffie.

(Whuffie, for the uninitiated, is digitally allocated social capital - see Wikipedia for an explanation)

Our sources are still feeding us confused snippets, and there are gaps and some contradictions, but it seems to be the following reasoning that is driving this change:

(i) The World Bank and IMF have calculated that the banks have actually counterfeited, gambled and lost more money than exists on the planet.

(ii) In other words, there is simply not enough money around to completely bail them out

(iii) Unfortunately, it has been calculated that even if all the post-crunch bankers bonuses were spent on PR, it is not possible to persuade all the population of the G20 to opt for voluntary peasantry

(iv)Sadly, most G20 countries are (demi-)democratic and will thus eventually throw out any regime that imposes free-to-serf policies, even if it came with a free HDTV set.

(v) Not only that, some analysts are calculating that the people, although revolting, may actually become bolshie and throw out the ruling class in a resurrection of (shudder) Socialism 2.0

Being thrown out is a scary prospect, as then the ruling classes wouldn't rule anymore, and as they know, come the revolution they would be shot against the wall.

In other words, something must be done to divert this wisdom of the crowds.... a bit of extraordinary delusion is required to take their attention off their plummeting pensions

Thus, goes the reasoning, the best idea is to abandon the dollar altogether and replace it with something less tangible and more shiny - something impossible to count and that can be manufactured for free.

Bank of England official Mylo Shylock has been working on the conversion, which is due to take place as soon as the summit ends:

"Basically, we will switch from dollars to whuffie at a 1:1,000 conversion rate, and other currencies at the rate of exchange at the time. When you wake up on Friday, the pound in your pocket will be gone, and will be replaced by the thousands of Whuffie points. "Nearly everyone will be a millionaire", he adds, and that moving to basing a currency on the gold-in-your-heart will bring in a new era of stability.

"The Swiss are a bit upset", he points out, as it will ruin their traditional industry of storing the fortunes of despots, crooks, drug lords and bankers "but they are coming round to the idea as their climate is ideal for the huge datacentres we will need"

Exactly how it impacts the global accounting systems are still being worked through, but apparently the help of the Zimbabwe ministry of finance has been invaluable. This is because one of the main benefits of the system is that governments no longer have to control the Whuffie supply. With people able to give it to each other will-he nill-he, they expect rampant inflation to be the norm in months. Given this, they believe, people will be spending again like there is no tomorrow. "

"If you are short of funds, just pimp your Facebook friends to vote you some more whuffie, and off you go again" says Shylock "it's just Awesome". Not only that, he points out, but if everything is constantly inflating then there is no incentive to save at all, and we will continue to spend our way to global growth.

Others see another benefit of this is that the Chinese and Arab sovereign trusts, who now hold all the dollars, will find that making them worthless and moving to a new currency with no visible means of support will reduce their influence.

But, the Chinese and Arab leaders, as well as OECD leaders, have endorsed the plan as they also understand that Whuffie is a virtual good that obeys Power Laws. In fact, it works better than anything they have so far achieved in wealth redistribution - its taken 40 years to get back to 1% of the population owning c 50% of the global financial wealth, but all the calculations show that the top 1% can get 80% of the virtual capital owing to the virtuous cycle that the digital rich get richer, faster - because most of the people online will drive themselves into long tailed serfdom by voluntarily handing over all their whuffie to those that already have, like they slavishly follow the slebs on Twitter.

As George Rosencrantz, undersecretary at the Treasury notes:

"Why bother with the hard slog of creating a two tier society in 40 years, when we can have user generated Digital Feudalism via virtual anilingus in 40 months?"

Another official, Bill Guildenstern, pointed out that benefit of a digital feudal society was that the long tail would no longer be able to wag the top dogs, and that the introduction of whuffienomics and its value accretion to the top of the curve would allow a return to traditional values, where most of the people lived their life under the boot of the lord of the demesne. "The Age of Reason was an aberration in history", he noted, and that that humanity is going back to traditional values of illiterate mysticism and needs a new structure to match "the rise of new age religion, creationism, fantasy literature and the worship of vapid celebrity is all a sign that people are yearning for the good old days of ignorance and subservience to their social betters" he points out.

But getting this transition wrong, suggest Rosenstern and Guildencrantz, may well lead to serious unrest and consequences, possibly even deaths.

But, points out Neo-Marxist philosopher Otis Driftwood (we caught up with him enjoying a night at the opera in London), is that people will believe they are more equal by being feudal. "Its extraordinary, but people believe that digital social networks systems create equality even as they hand more and more power and influence up to the top". We feel better, he explains, if 99% of people have as little as ourselves and we ignore the 1% that have it all. Driftwood is, we must point out, a bit eccentric as he won't join any social network that accepts him as a member, but his point remains.

The bankers are delighted - Morgan Stanley, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, points out that if everyone has trillions of whuffiemarks, they won't notice that the bankers' bonuses have several noughts more. "It won't even cross their minds" she notes.

Not everyone is delighted though - a curious alliance of Greens and Freeconomists believe this is a bad move overall. The Greens argue that an economy based on digital feudalism is unsustainable and are calling for a return to a more rustic, traditional form feudalism. "We believe one pig in every pokey back yard is the new yardstick for global sustainability" says green activist Jonathan Porridge, and notes that "while a move to Whuffie and mass ignorance is to be welcomed as it reduces paper consumption" digital social networks as a means of wealth distribution rely too much on the massive emissions of datacentres. They are calling for the abolition of computers, cars, plastics and phones. "If we live for another millenium with the about same levels of energy consumption as our mediaeval forbears, then we have a small chance of reducing global warming" he notes. Of course religion will remain a key tenet of Green Manorialism, its just that we will have to watch TV by candlelight in future.

Freeconomists have a different objection, in that the mere existence of Whuffie threatens the concept that all shall be free in this free-est of societies. "Doc" Pangloss explains:

"The problem with Whuffie is that it raises an expectation among the Digital Sharecroppers that they actually get some real reward and benefit for their efforts - the whole Open Soyurce/User Generated Content system was built on working for nothing, and Whuffie was what you got to make you feel good. By basing an actual economy on Whuffie it means it now is transferable as a unit of wealth, and will bring the Freeconomy back into line with the real economy - which reduces the ability of honest, hard partying entrepreneurs to cash out on other people's work"

We await other developments today with eager anticipation.

Update - the picture I put in of the protest says it all - lone protester breaks window in RBS, a near-nationalised bank that we already own, with hordes of press, twitterers and bloggers getting off in ecstacy. This is not the way to scare a plutocrat into honesty, nor to get anything done to change The System.