Baseball and Money Are America's Favorite Pastime
The monetary system is wrapped like a baseball
On the outside, a baseball looks simple. On the inside, it’s a complex web of tightly wrapped yarn with a solid layered core in the center.
Our financial system is constructed in a similar manner. It’s like a box of a dozen baseballs with financial rails tightly wrapped around central cores all throughout the system.
For over 100 years, baseballs have existed. Though they’ve been improved upon every few decades. Each time, completely dismantled, redesigned, and rebuilt to better support the needs of the game.
A baseball is simple but at the same time, it’s tough enough for most hits and fragile enough to collapse under intense pressure. Very similar to the makeup and ability of our financial system.
At the core a baseball starts like this…
Then, roughly “121 yards of 4-ply gray wool yarn, 45 yards of 3-ply white wool, 53 yards of 3-ply gray wool and wrapped around all of that, 150 yards of cotton yarn” are tightly wrapped around the core to complete a ball. This is not all that different from how various layers of financial piping are wrapped around central banks to allow assets to be distributed across our financial networks.
At peak, someone or something deconstructs the whole process.
Unwinding the strings and breaking the ball back down to its core. The process and redesign start again based on new thoughts, needs, and technologies of the time. Each time, a ball or financial network is put back together in a way to deliver an optimal experience.
Every few decades, the process repeats. The entire ball is broken down and reconstructed again.
We’re in one of those periods in our financial system.
As the internet has eaten the world it’s caused us to rethink all the ways digital can enhance our lives and the connections we have. Banking, like a baseball, is being unwound and will be rewrapped again with digital layers that deliver money in a better manner. To enhance the experience!
This is what a baseball can teach us about money and the financial system.