The alternate currency
Ok, today, I figured I’d explain Australia’s primary currency to those who are a little young, or who are international.
Now I’m sure everyone has used Australia’s alternate currency, the humble $, and everyone, no matter what their age is used to exchanging their little plastic notes and metal coins for goods and services.
But really, we all know thats only official.
Now, Australia’s primary currency should be fairly obvious to anyone who knows anything about the Australian culture. Beer.
Now don’t laugh, it is (for outsiders) suprising how often this liquid currency is traded for goods and services these days, and ofcourse, just like the worlds currency, the value of beer changes depending on the global environment.
For example, take a look at the LANs we host. We use a scout hall, in whitch, if we were to pay using “money” would cost $150 + bond.
Now, you see, when that gets paid in Australia’s real currency, the last time it cost S1, or One Slab.
Translate that into real money, and you are looking at $40 for a hall insted of $300.
And just like the world market, the value of beer changes.
Using the Scout Hall as an examle again, in December, just comming into summer, the weather hadn’t heated up yet, so the value of beer was in a little slump, hence the hall was going to cost us one and a half slabs. Move forward to January, the weather has heated up, and the value of beer also rises, so the hall only costs us one slab.
By the time we hit May/June, the hall will most likly cost us S2 or maby S2.5, this is due to the colder weather driving down the value of beer.
We see this use of Australia’s primary currecy everywere. A sixpack for a painted fence. A shouted round for the hard work of a new born baby, a six pack for a new computer.
It is the driving force behind Australia’s economy, and also mostlikly the reason why out $ is not worth much internationly, because other countrys refuse to trade with us in our official currency 