You know how different countries periodically print new dollar/euro bills, supposedly to stop counterfeiting? Well what if it's really to make it harder for time travelers? You might say, "well then the TT can just carry gold", but gold is worth less cash in the past because of inflation. This could be a simple way to try to keep time travelers from altering the past.
New currencies to thwart time travelers?
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Darby
Epochal Historian
Maybe, maybe not. Your gold idea could work like this (ignoring taxes and brokers fees for the gold and stocks):
The gold price in 1986 was about $333.00/oz. Microsoft was trading at about $1.00/share. You want to buy 1000 shares so you need 3 oz of gold. But you buy it today at $1,500 oz. Your investment is $4,500.
You go back and sell your 3 oz. of gold in 1986 and buy 1,000 shares of MSFT at $1.00/share and let it ride until today. Today's price for MSFT is about $30.00/share. However, between 1986 and 2012 MSFT has had 7 2:1 splits and 2 3:2 splits. You would now have 288,000 shares at $30/share ---> $8,640,000. And this does not include the average of approx. $0.15 per share quarterly dividend MSFT has paid out 30 times since 2003 (which coincides with the last stock split so the divident applies to your entire 288,000 shares). That's an additional $43,200 per dividend ---> $1,296,000. Total before taxes and fees ---> $9,936,000.
I think that you've beaten inflation even if you have to pay out 50% in taxes and fees.
In the real world (and we assume the "real world" includes this sort of time travel) it won't happen. In such a world where not just one but an indeterminate number of TT's could do this from any time in the future, and even loop back with today's yield made from an earlier time trip in order to "double down" on a sure bet, the market collapses. It's all buyers and no sellers in 1986 if an indeterminate (and large) number of buyers already know what the future holds for MSFT and every other stock, bond, precious metal, farm futures, etc. Markets are driven by uncertainty.
One could argue, "Well, I just won't tell anyone what I'm doing so it will just be me. The market is safe." Forever is a very long time and in a time travelling universe that's precisely how long people have to make the investment in 1986 - forever. Secrets last for months (the Manhattan Project for example), maybe decades (the Russian's WWII holocaust for example) but they eventually leak out. And the idea of using time travel as a means to get rich on a sure thing is certainly not a secret.
Darby
Epochal Historian
Darby, that could very well work, but it seems it would always lead to a stock market crash when the time traveler cashes out. I guess that wouldn't be a big concern for a TT, would it?
Sure it would be a concern. If the idea is to get-rich-quick and the market crashes along with the the currency, which would also crash, what's the point? The TT would be an egalitarian peer - equally miserable.
The real problem is this. If the event occurs in the affective past WRT the potential time traveler who will cause the event to occur, the effect of the causal event will be evident to the TT before s/he even travels to the past. It's already happened because it is something the occured in the past.
But now we have an irreconcilable paradox. If the market crashed in the early 1980's and MSFT was a bust because time travelers manipulated the market causing the collapse, there's no reason for potential time travelers to go back and invest in MSFT. They should have no memory of a 25 year bull market for MSFT because it never happened. Yet, from our God's view of reality we see that the time trips were the cause of the crash. We end up with an effect with no apparent cause because the time travelers decide not to make the trip.
That could work in favor of the time traveler, as it would dictate exactly when they should sell the stocks.
Darby
Epochal Historian
How can a time traveler know exactly when to sell the stocks in a world where a theoretical infinite number of other time travelers, travelling from any time in the future, can also become involved in the buy-sell process? In that case there is no way to know when to buy or sell because that date and time is subject to change every time yet another time traveler becomes involved.
Time travel means no market - none whatsoever - because there's no way to judge the future value of a stock, bond or commodity if someone can go back and at will change the market factors on a whim. It's the same problem with "Go back and kill Hitler". One TT goes back and kills him on X date, another goes back a few hours earlier and spirits him away, another goes back to intercept the spiriter, another goes back and blocks the previous TT...and on and on ad infinitum. And while all of this is going on history is constantly changed (from our God's POV at least). The TT's from the future should have no memory of what "actually" occured from 1932 to 1945 or even be concerned about it because from their perspective history is something that can always be changed at will, which brings us back to why concern oneself with history if it isn't a constant? (Scare quotes on actually because of the obvious paradox.)
Time travel is not of much practical use.
Darby
Epochal Historian
Here's what I'd like for you to do. Think it through and tell us what memory of the past equates to in a world where the past is subject to infinite change on a whim.
Einstein
Dimensional Traveler
I think I've thought of a way to get past collapsing the economy and getting rich too. Suppose I take $10,000 back in time in my time machine, stopping off every so often to trade in for older bills. Eventually I will get back to a time when gold was $35.00 an ounce. I'll just buy $10,000 worth of gold. Which is 285.7 ounces of gold. Almost 18 pounds. Smaller than a gold brick which is around 30 pounds. Easily carried in a backpack. $285.7oz x $1623.79/oz = $463,916.80. That is quite a hefty return on my investment. The $1623.79 value is the current price of gold per ounce. Of course I believe it was up to $1800.00 an ounce there for a while. So I could cash in at that particular time. But how would I word it on my tax return?
Darby
Epochal Historian
Sounds great. But if you can time travel to the time between 1933 and 1968 when gold in the US was fixed at $32.00/oz so can an infinite number of other time travelers. The $32.00 /oz fix was arbitrary and had nothing to do with demand or suppy. It was socialism at its worst. If a plethora of time travelers who think they know what the future holds all show up to buy gold at $32.00/oz the world of real gold markets outside the US collapses. Though in the US gold is fixed at $32.00/oz the value of the dollar collapses because it is a part of the world currency market. Having 285 oz. of gold would be like having Y1,000,000 Japanses in 1945. You'd need a wheel barrel to carry enough cash to buy a loaf of bread.
Markets would discount time travelers even if they didn't know that time travelers were the "sure bang" buyers. TIme travel of the sort that is discussed here means that there are absolutely no secrets. None. Secrets can't be kept forever but time travel means (again, in the sense discussed here) that time travelers actually do have forever to discover everything that anyone tries to keep secret.
The real question is whether you've ever used a wheel barrow full of bread to buy a loaf of cash. 
You're assuming that time travel, if discovered, will be become as commonplace as talking on a phone. The nature of time travel allows for the first discoverer to prevent others from learning about it.
You're assuming that time travel, if discovered, will be become as commonplace as talking on a phone. The nature of time travel allows for the first discoverer to prevent others from learning about it.
Darby
Epochal Historian
The real question is whether you've ever used a wheel barrow full of bread to buy a loaf of cash.
You're assuming that time travel, if discovered, will be become as commonplace as talking on a phone. The nature of time travel allows for the first discoverer to prevent others from learning about it.
No, I'm not making any such assumption. What I'm stating as a matter of fact is that in a time travel enabled society, with time travel of a kind suggested here, that even if it is exceedingly rare during any given time frame, time travelers have forever going forward to do the thing. Forever is a long time, and there's nothing that prevents a time traveler from doing "the deed" over and over an infinite number of times.
Einstein
Dimensional Traveler
I have been researching this and found out that I would have to go back to when gold was $21.00 an ounce. Probably around 1930. I think Roosevelt made it illegal to own gold. After all gold was confiscated the price went up to around the $35.00 amount. But at that price, it was illegal to own. It didn't become legal to own again until 1975. Then it went up to $150.00 an ounce. As for time travel being kept a secret? Who would actually believe a story like that? Plenty of info on the Philadelphia experiment and also the Montauk stories. Could you imagine going to the authorities claiming your neighbor has a time machine? So I'm going to have to research a more plausible cover story. Possibly a successful offshore oil investment. Or I could claim I was a government employee and am now living off a very respectable pension. Just like you Darby. Maybe you could give me some tips and pointers.
Darby
Epochal Historian
Now someone will yelp, "That's illegal!" But if we're suggesting that time travelers can go back and get rich by cheating the gold market why not go all the way? Just steal it. A time machine is by definition a spacetime machine so just land your gadget inside the vault and lift all the gold in 1933 when it is confiscated and stored at Ft. Knox and a few other places. It's no more illegal to outright steal it than it is to use a scam inside trader ploy to steal its value, and it will kill the market, currency and economy the same as any other form of scam on that scale.
The problem, however, remains the same. Forever is a long time and no one cares a rat's furry behind whether or not people believe in time travel. You go back and cheat the market or lift the gold from Ft. Knox and another time traveler will go back just a bit farther and beat you to it (only to face reality when realizing that an infinite number of time travelers can do it as well). None of this rests on time travel belief or disbelief.
There's no get-rich-quick scheme allowed by time travel.
Einstein
Dimensional Traveler
I love this kind of thinking. This needs a name! Let's call it Darby's "Time Travel Conjecture Clause."
You've obviously thought this through to a logical and very convincing realization. And I might add, a very convincing cover story too.
Obviously there's not enough pie to go around for everybody. Thanks for pointing that out. But it does appear you're trying to protect the pie. Although it wouldn't be the first time you professed to being a time traveler. But now there appears to be a motive for your behavior. LOL...