FIRTH%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA (04/19/84)
Hey, this is a great new topic! here are a few thoughts:
1. There are LOTS of commodities that are cheap now and were expensive a
few years (or centuries) back. For ease of transport, quality, profit,
and untraceability I would choose spices: cloves, pepper, cinnamon, ...
were all at one time worth more than their weight in gold. You could
also try silk, wire, thread, needles, eyeglasses, ...
2. There are several things expensive now that were cheap then, for instance
artworks by unappreciated geniuses (you buy a dozen Impressionist works
for $10 apiece, stuff them away somewhere to age, zap forward and
retrieve them).
3. But for my preference, the ideal cheap commodity in earlier times was
(sorry, folks) - SLAVES. Imagine setting up in Tuscany round about
50 AD, with land, a villa, and enough cheap labour to live very
comfortably. Of course, you come back here to have your teeth fixed
now and then, buy another bag of peppercorns, and quietly dispose of
another gold bar. If we are to judge by Gibbon, you would have a
better life than in +XX New York City (apart from those nasty Time
Patrolmen on their funny bikes)
4. A final thought - why pay taxes? You set up a few dummy people, and
whenever one of them gets audited, just go back and file a return for
him/her! Creating birth certificates and other documents should also
be no great trouble.
Robert Firth
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