So, I found out today that Canada has 2 other currencies (3 if you count their Tire Dollars) floating around other than the Canadian Dollar. They are the Calgary Dollar and the Toronto Dollar. Strangely enough, because they are private currencies, they are on par (i.e. have the same value) with Canadian Dollars. So, that’s rather pointless, no?

That got cfgt and I thinking, what if, Australia would have its own city-based currency? Assuming they’re all legal tender, and government sanctioned, it doesn’t have to be on par with AUD anymore. So, using production output (and general wealth) we would have this value sequence:

Sydney Dollar > Melbourne Dollar > Brisbane Dollar > Adelaide Dollar, Perth Dollar> AUD > Darwin Dollar.¹

The reason why the Australian dollar is amongst the lowest is because, according to logic, the AUD would have to be an aggregate of all the competing city-based dollars. Of course, if you were to compare the cities of Oceania, it stops at Melbourne dollars, since the next largest city (based on GDP) is Auckland, where there is a 100mil dollar difference. This basically renders Brisbane and other cities moot, and whatever private currency they produce is pointless and valueless.

Another interesting exercise to understand this is to compare prices in Coles/Woolies. That cannot really be done now there is this GroceryWatch nonsense. But assuming it doesn’t, a bottle of Coke is dearer in Sydney than in Melbourne (I know this coz I was stranded in Sydney before²). Assume a bottle of Coke costs Syd$1, a bottle of Coke in Melbourne would only cost Mel$0.90, while a bottle of Coke in Brisbane would probably cost Bri$0.70. Okay okay, I know, you PriceWatch people out there, the differences isn’t that obvious, but there will always still be a difference. And yes, economists out there, I know, Coke is a bad choice, because it isn’t regionally produced, but Big Macs cost the same all across Australia, but Coke is the only standard thing I buy that has price variance across states, and sushi isn’t standard³.

That said, I looked through Wikipedia and found something interesting as well… my home country, Malaysia, is supposedly #29 on the list of highest GDPs in the world. By contrast, Singapore is #44⁴. And yet, we know Malaysians cannot be very productive (the largest city, Kuala Lumpur, isn’t listed in the list of cities by GDP article). Also when GDP per capita is taken into consideration (why doesn’t Wikipedia have a list of countries by GDP per worker to show how productive a country is), Malaysia is #56 (Singapore is #5).

EPIC FAIL (for having too many kids and/or for not being productive enough and/or not being high-tech enough).

p/s: I just did really badly about my advanced macroeconomics exam (might even flunk it)… why am I still talking nonsense about GDP and stuff? I want to forget it!

1. Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, and Darwin are nowhere to be found on the List of Cities by GDP, so my list is mostly a guesstimate, based on the city sizes, and general employment rate [↩]
2. but the 600ml bottle of Coke seems to be the same in all food shops across Australia - $3 [↩]
3. also, sushi is a bit wonky. A typical gigantic salmon maki roll (i.e. Australian sized (I’m very critical of the gigantic size of sushi in Australia. I like the petite sizes found in Japan. The typical Australian sushi sold is larger than even futomaki in Japan) costs about $2.20 in Melbourne (around the University of Melbourne) but costs about $3 in Brisbane (University of Queensland and surrounds), where it is supposedly cheaper. [↩]
4. source [↩]

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