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Wealth that you can't hold, see or touch is imaginary. Wealth that relies on electricity doesn't really exist in the real world.

The population of Puerto Rico is discovering that only physical cash is usable, because the lack of electricity means that the so-called wealth accessible by plastic card is no more available than the surface of the moon.

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Wealth that you can't use, eat or produce is imaginary. Wealth that relies on paper doesn't really exist in the real world.

The population of the post apocalypse is discovering that only old fashioned trading is usable, because the lack of resources means that the so-called wealth accessible by paper scraps is no more available than the surface of the moon.

Best reply ever.

Wealth doesn't usually rely on paper, paper is just used as a transaction medium. A wealth storage instrument would be a piece of a real estate, land, shares of a publicly traded company. It's usually converted to paper currency for convenience, but it doesn't have to if we had an easy way to transfer assets themselves to one another.

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