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  Currency, Carry and Entropy Things ain’t what they used to be or How currencies are not stores of value   One of the standard attributes that money is claimed to have is that it acts as a store of value. “Store of value” tells you that it is the current holder’s intent to keep the currency for a while before exchanging it and that during that time before the exchange, the currency is expected to hold its purchasing power. Money, however, has a “particular requirement “that is the proverbial fly in the ointment. That characteristic has interesting and not so often mentioned consequences on how to view the “store of value “attribute of money. Gold bugs like to mention how gold has maintained its value over time and how that value has never gone to zero or completely disappeared, like many fiat currencies have done. This may be true, but it is a grossly incomplete statement of affairs. What is always missing in that observation is the storage cost, the negative carry, that c