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The symbolic value of Fiat Currency.
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It means you can buy little Italian cars with it?
-- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak. 
Money has always been worth whatever people will give you for it. Even the value of gold was illusory and based on peoples' desire for it.
All a precious-metal (or other) standard means is a government promise that they will sell you X amount of (whatever) for Y dollars. And right now I think we all know what government promises are worth. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode. 
Right now, I'm thinking this would make for a good In Nomine plot arc where Nybbas makes a flanking maneuver against Marc...
Am I too much of a gamer geek? -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Man, this is something that's always bugged the shit outta me - the fact that the value of 'money' and rare metals is illusory... or, at best, very much arbitrary.
Personally, I think that a modern bartering system could work. Can you imagine Wall Street becoming an international center of barter? It honestly wouldn't look very different at all, especially considering that they really do that on a certain level (the value of what the world places coffee beans against the value of American Dollars). Although, that would certainly make America that much more socialist - something that's been flying in the face of of those on the Left, and even a few on the Right. Think about it - on a barter system, the US Governent would have to pay all their employees with goods and services instead of money. (Though we in the Military know what that's like.  Contractors would be no different, probably getting paid in whatever food is acquired in trading with other countries and supplementing that with home-grown stuff. Possibly other materials they need as well.The energy industry would have to change as well. Local production would be in vogue as people employ whatever works in their area - solar power in the sunniest areas, wind in the plains, geothermal in the mountains (hey, now there's a way to utilize those burning coal mines in the Apalachans), tidal along the coasts... and the Power Companies there to keep the network up and provide the extra little bit when Mother Nature is not enough. Given that the local populace produces most of the energy, some of it maybe even going into storage, the costs would be fairly small. It could work. It might even fix problems like unemployment and healthcare. But it would be a very different America. Good luck trying to get Corporate America to go along with something like that.
The thing is, the "value" of barter is also arbitrary -- it can vary from exchange to exchange depending on how much the participants each want what the other has. Fiat currency evolved at least in part as a way to make keeping track of relative values easier. Yes, it also evolved out of a way to avoid having to ship large quantities of precious substances long distances when big payments were required -- essentially, checking accounts predated and precipitated paper money -- but my point is that if we were to magically turn into an all-barter economy, sooner or later fiat currency would recreate itself, because it lubricates the whole process.
-- Bob --------- Then the horns kicked in... ...and my shoes began to squeak.
Eh, true. Still, just wish that there was a way for 'value' to not be such a vague thing - something defined like the Metric system. I know, it's impossible, but still...
Value is defined but it is dynamic, and so it's never stable. It is easier to see in large scale markets such as say oil, where there is a lot of people constantly selling and buying and so the price shifts back and forth, so the value is defined at a given point in space-time. Because transport cost and local supply and demand differences.
Fixed prices are an impossibility in a dynamic capitalist economy, no matter what the medium of transfer is (barter, tomatoes, precious metals, fiat currency, bits, solutions to cryptographic puzzels, etc). Everything has value only because you can get something else for it. If you can't it's worthless, ie: value of zero or less. The wonder of the currency systems is that people over a large area agree on the value of something that they measure the value of other things by, including other currency systems. E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?" B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It's a small miracle that it doesn't break down... which it actually does at times. Stupid Recession.
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