Amazon.com Review
For most of us, the term virtual money means financial transactions into the Internet. But virtual money has been around for decades, since the first electronic-funds transfer. Even the mundane automatic teller machine runs on virtual money. Yet, as Solomon points out, until virtual money hit the Internet, most of us considered the topic deathly dull. Now that it's grabbed the headlines, she takes the opportunity to show us how it's been truly fascinating all along.
The book begins with a brief but firm grounding in how money developed, from the days of barter, through gold and currency, to plastic and electrons. She goes on to paint today's monetary world as a system both intricate in its complexity and Zen-like in its sensitivity, where corrections must be made with a light touch and where attempts to control it result in loss of control. She also looks at the intriguing cases that crop up as each new innovation gives the unscrupulous new ways to cheat the system and she examines how clever safeguards are eventually put into place.
Then, Solomon goes on to explore the still-developing future of virtual money. Here, we see not only the conveniences and benefits that will result but also the mechanics behind them, as intricate and mesmerizing as watchworks. Yet Solomon never overloads us with so much detail that tedium sets in. Instead, she shows us the pieces coming together like some organic, self-organizing puzzle and lets us both enjoy and anticipate its emerging form.
From Library Journal
With a background that includes service as a financial economist with the Federal Reserve Board and senior economist at the Department of Justice, Solomon has the credentials to provide an informed look at the pitfalls associated with virtual money. She uses this term to include technological innovations such as smart cards, electronic benefits transfers, E-cash, and other alternatives to cash made possible by electronic money transfers. After noting the ubiquitous presence of credit and debit cards, she describes more exotic forms of cybermoney and details the potential abuse that is introduced as electronic commerce embraces these forms of money transfer. Even though Solomon does a fine job of explaining an abstract concept not well covered in the journal literature, this is not for the casual reader.?Joseph Barth, U.S. Military Acad. Lib., West Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
