It was the future.
Mankind had finally achieved universal wealth.
The process first began with the transition to paper money, after which the precious materials which supported the currency had become less important. The bills which had once simply been promisary notes for real money were the real money.
But the paper money was difficult to manage. It could be lost, stolen and counterfeited. Its value fluctuated unpredictably, and each country had its own standard of monetary exchange.
Credit cards had first been employeed to represent the cash in one's bank account. Bank cards had followed, at first simply providing access to real cash, but later actually representing cash.
Purchases of goods and services made with bank cards became all the rage. The advantages were many. When a bank card was lost or stolen, it was simply replaced with the old bank account balance. The old card didn't even have to be cancelled - no-one was losing any money if someone else spent the money already on the card. Similarly, counterfeiting was no problem. With paper money, when a business received counterfeit money, it had been seized and the business had lost out. Now, the numbers just kept going, and every business and individual slowly got larger and larger numbers in their bank accounts and on their cards.
Eventually, people figured out how to electronically alter the cards so that they showed higher balances than they actually show have, but again, no-one complained. If there was more money out there, there was more money they could have.
Some government officials worried about inflation, thinking that businesses would begin to raise prices, since there was obviously enough money out there to pay the new prices, but this wasn't a problem. The businesses had so much money in their accounts that they were pretty assured of being able to afford just about anything they wanted ... and if not, they'd add a little more money to their accounts, since it was no longer illegal to do so. Many of the business owners were even able to retire early.
In fact, as time went on, more and more business owners were able to retire early. Everyone was really happy at being able to enjoy life while they were still young, and for once not to worry about money. They sold their houses and businesses by the droves and headed to the vacation paradise where they spent like crazy, when they could.
In fact, so many people were retiring that it was becoming hard to get a seat on a plane to the better parts of the planet, and even more difficult to get housing or even a hotel. This was not helped by the fact that more and more airlines, hotel chains and construction companies were shutting down, having made enough money.
Even outside of retirement land, back in the real world, it was becoming more and more difficult to simply find an open restaurant or grocery store in which to buy some food, or to find a clothing store that had some staff who hadn't quit or gone on vacation. Only people who really loved their jobs still worked at them, and there wasn't enough of these people to keep the economy going. Even more unfortunately, it turned out that a very small portion of those who worked in the management of heat, water, electrical and medical services felt like working for no real reason. And amid the blackouts and lack of heat, food and hospitals, city people began to die. The government tried to organize some sort of relief, but with few employees and no viable medium of exchange, it was powerless.
Farms became the property of the strongest, and guns and food became the two new currencies, used to buy housing, automobiles and livestock. Everyone had to made their own food or give someone something in exchange for food. Some had nothing to give in exchange for food, and were forced to work for the big farmers. And using their control of the food, the big farmers added more and more weaponry to their arsenals.
The more visionary farmers started selling their guns for land, looking towards the long-term, and it soon became a well established fact that good farming land was worth a lot of guns. A large ranch could cost a farmer several hundred wheelbarrows full of guns. When these amounts became too large to be transported, the farmers would simply write another farmer a deed to a certain amount of guns, to be collected at anytime.
It was also realized that a Big Farmer could gain more guns through trade, importing rare weapons and foods from distant locations, and selling them off at a higher price. Those farmers who were the best traders were able to accumulate millions of gun certificates, or gun certs. Some used these to buy more land, while others used them to construct Building Stations, in which the most fancy types of weaponry from around the world could be constructed, and this could then be sold for even more gun certs., or G.C.'s. With this new income, some bought more land or Building Stations, while others invested in information on land, trade and markets for products, thereby saving themselves losses from guesswork. Armed with this new information, the Big Farmers (who no longer actually cared about their farms) could earn many more millions of G.C.'s, or $, as it was sometimes now abbreviated.
- with files from George Orwell.