http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_dollar

http://www.xe.com/

		USD	EUR	GBP	JPY	CAD	AUD	CHF	RUB	CNY	ZAR	MXN
	1 USD =	1.00000	0.64135	0.50688	104.631	0.99944	1.04334	1.03289	23.6682	6.92600	7.69933	10.2963
	Inverse:	1.00000	1.55921	1.97285	0.00956	1.00056	0.95846	0.96816	0.04225	0.14438	0.12988	0.09712

The fact, that 12 step programs are worldwide too, is irrelevant to the question. My answer provided that it is competition & stresses put on regular folks by this cut throat competion nessesitate the existance of 12 step programs. If you never lived outside of US, you may not know how much help a trust network can be. People live in nuclear families over here, result being that traditional support groups such as extended family, freinds for life, etc concepts are radically diferent here than elsewhere. So people compensate through formation of commercial support groups such as 12 step programs. Problem with 12 step type of programs is that they are commercial. A commercial system is designed to propogate themselves. There is a great value in having people around you that dont just see you as an opportunity to make profit. Parents are such people. More numerous are such people around you, less likely you will end up in a 12 step. But americans live in nuclear families. Competion is present in every place too.

ComedyD

Last time I heard they were working on reducing it to 10 steps over in Europe

Since those links do seem to answer the question, I gotta change it. Case of poor formulation.

If it is fiat, where does the dollar gets its value?

-M-[There is a great value in having people around you that dont just see you as an opportunity to make profit.]

Then having a "Tribe" like 1bc around is actually a guard against 12 step programs.  I hadn't thought of that excuse for being here for hours before. 

Inflation is a nessesary evel, because an economy wants to have more transmission fluid than less. Payment systems are the transmission & what keeps it running is money. You want to have enough money to go around so that within a given time period every enterprise, that needs to be undertaken, will be undertaken. So somewhere out there is this magical amount of money that would facilitate maximum output. But nobody knows what that magical amount is, so we are left with approximation guage - inflation. With moderate rates of inflation you can rest assured that enough money is out there. It is out there so much so that a bit is left over even. That left over is the inflation. Secret here is to keep inflation in the low digits. A massive economy such as USA needs only 2-3% inflation. A tiny developing economy such as Ethiopia needs 7-10% inflation. One thing is for sure nobody needs a hyperinflation. Hyperinflation happens when government starts printing without regard for underlying economic principles.

2. What's a dollar, or where does it get its value?

Dollar is a tax obligation. Its value stems largely from US Government's insistance that dollar is the only legal tender for tax debt. Did you ever try to pay your taxes in gold? No you have to exchange that gold into dollars before you can rid yourself of the taxman.

Comedy Dave (6/1/2008)

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Jerm

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But Dave, then he wouldn't be able to boost his post count as easilly

LOL... but Jerm, remember, what count increase his posting giveth, the mods can taketh away...

-M-, just a friendly reminder that posting for the sake of increasing post count is frowned upon...

Could you guys knock me back to like 500 or something. There is an awful lot of ambient guilt I feel when I see that six thousand some odd posts on this silly *** Civ game message board.