That's what "fiat currency" means. The green piece of paper is useless in a vacuum (maybe unless you're a fan of tiny origami or in search of kindling), but because everyone just agrees (and the US government enforces) that a particular kind of green paper with a "$5" printed on it has a certain value, then it can be used as a medium of exchange.

It doesn't scale, is the thing. You can't walk into a macdonalds and walk out with a billion burgers just because you're a billionaire. What seems to make sense on a micro level is completely nonsensical on a macro level. Money is mostly tied up in property, stock, loans and financial derivatives anyway. It's largely a ficticious element, which is printed by the billions every day.

Of course it scales. Sure, he'd probably need to call ahead (like, way ahead), but if a billionaire wanted to buy a billion burgers, it's not like that's an impossibility.

Are you sure? At that scale there are so many second order and third order effects that scaling production is likely very nontrivial

> It doesn't scale, is the thing. You can't walk into a macdonalds and walk out with a billion burgers just because you're a billionaire.

That's only because the super rich are dictating what's in demand. If you take all the money being spent on luxury watches and start spending it on dental care for children, the market should reduce the supply of watch makers and increase the supply of dentists in order to meet the demand for each.

Most money is invested in assets designed to retain wealth or increase profits, directly or indirectly. Their wealth and power is contingent upon that very scheme.

I’m sure Mac Donald’s would happily make a few billion burgers for the right price

I first read your example as a snarky one, but on reading it again its implications are rather profound.

I wonder how much of our problems arise because our intuitions and assumptions on the small scale simply fail on the macro scale

The burger did not come into existence because of the existence of the 5 dollar bill. If it were, you could print out burgers for cheap!

That's firm empirical grounding right there. A steel bridge joining illusion with materiality