Talk:Fungibility

message: According to one version of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Fungible : 
1. A commodity that is freely interchangeable with another in satisfying an obligation 
2. Something that is exchangeable or substitutable. 
As such it seems like Fungible can mean Tradable in some situations.
:::No. The two commodities in (1) are fungible in respect only to the particular stated obligation. This is a matter for commercial contract or, if disputed, a court of law to decide.  And it would be decided case by case. Paul Beardsell (talk) 01:13, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Fungibility in common parlance

message: Moved from article:
Could someone elaborate on this? Why are fungible food crops considered bad? Who thinks this way?
Well perhaps some people have good reason for thinking this way.
Removed from article:
With the advent of genetically modified organisms and increasing concerns over pesticides and other contaminants, fungible trade in food crops is now considered by many to be a Bad Thing.
This does not make sense as it is. It need elaboration. We need to know what "fungible trade in food" is. Does it mean "trade in fungible foods"? Whatever it means, someone needs to explain why it is considered a bad thing. mydogategodshat 01:53, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Fungibility and food

message: Does someone more qualified (an economist and/or lawyer) than myself feel that adding a section or comment on the use of the term in legal proceedings would be useful?  Isn't it essentially the same as the first definition listed?
:Done: Added a short section. dr.ef.tymac 23:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fungibility and Law 

message: I have changed the introductory sentence to more correctly say what fungibility is.  But the article still (currently) says this:
:In finance, fungibility refers to the ability of one security to be easily converted into another.   
No!  Not true!  That is the ability of a security to be traded.  Fungibility is different.  A bearer bond is fungible, a bank note or a coin is fungible.  A share certificate is (typically) not fungible (because it has a registered owner), nor are the title deeds to a house (because once again the house has a registered owner and one house is not the same as another).  However, shares (one security) are "easily converted into another" security.  Tradeable, not fungible.  
Bank notes are fungible BECAUSE one five pound note is easily and readily substituted by another.  Paddington Bear was upset when the bank note he withdrew from his bank did not have the same marmalade stain on it as the bank note he deposited but Paddington Bear, like the authors of this article, did not understand fungibility. 
Trade-ability is often improved by and/or fascilitated by fungibility but they are not the same.  By definition fungibility is the ability to substitute one example of a good by another example of the SAME good.  I am puzzled that an entire article can be written both without citation and without reference to a dictionary!
Paul Beardsell 09:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What fungibility is 

message: Several sections and examples in the article are about hypothecation (i.e. the allocation of funds) rather than fungibility.  I dispute, for example, that it is the fungibility of money that causes a problem for a parent trying to control how the child's pocket money is spent.  What the parent is trying to control is the trading of the money, not the substitution by the child of his pocket money for other coinage.
Diamonds are not fungible.  If Richie Rich's father gives RR his pocket money in diamonds then he still does not have control over what RR spends his pocket money on.
We have established that tradeability and fungibility are different concepts.  I'm culling the pocket money example and other hypothecation and trading text in the article.  
Paul Beardsell 20:13, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  fungibility & hypothecation 

message: This section has been removed.  It lacks citation but more importantly it is not about fungibility but about hypothecation.  Here is the removed text:
==Fungibility in financial relations==
Discussion about exchanges between parties is nearly impossible to separate from discussions about the relationships between those parties.  Parents will often limit what their children may spend their allowance on.  Employers will limit what their employees may purchase when traveling.  Fungibility provides one way to discuss such examples.  For example shop keepers are sometimes willing to sell you a gift certificate at a discount because the gift certificate must be used in that particular shop:  The purchase of a gift certificate earmarks the money for one particular use:  The money's fungibility is lost.
Fungibility gives rise to a persistent puzzle of how to retain control after funding an activity.  Consider the example of charitable giving.  Donors would often prefer to earmark their donations for a particular purpose.  That frustrates the recipents who would prefer to retain their freedom of action.  Both sides can find this frustrating.  The donor can be frustrated to discover the money he gave for a particular purpose wasn't spent as he desired, but yet the organization reduced its usual level of funding for that purpose shifting funds to other activities.  This puzzle arises in all funding situations.  For example, international development, venture capital, welfare payments, and children's lunch money. Some institutions have obviated this problem by awarding contingent funding in the form of prizes.

Paul Beardsell 20:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Fungibility in financial relations

message: I have cut this section.  It lacks citation and is more about hypothecation (the use and allocation of funds) rather than fungibility.  
==Fungibility and open/closed systems==
Beyond simple relationships fungibility can give rise to puzzles around groups.  Groups may take the decision to reduce fungibility for planning purposes.  For example: annual budgeting in hierarchical organizations reduces the organization's ability to move funds across the organization.  A group may place tight controls on the fungiblity around their periphery.  For example in a nation that provides numerous benefits for its citizens, currency controls are needed to collect the taxes that support those benefits, particularly at the nation's borders.
Fungibility can make it difficult to get a clear picture of what's really going on.  Consider medical debt where conversion of medical debt into a different kind of debt, such as credit card debt, will mask the real amount of debt's origin from health care costs.  For instance, an individual might pay for his or her emergency-room visit on a credit card, and therefore convert health care-generated debt into credit-card debt.  The fungibility of medical debt is often more insidious, however.  In many cases, individuals are forced to pay steep health plan deductibles as well as out-of-pocket co-payments to receive care.  These high medical costs drive many people to delay paying other bills, like mortgage or utility payments, which cause them to incur debt.
Paul Beardsell 20:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fungibility and open/closed systems 

message: I like the comparision to diamonds in the introduction to make liquidity easy to understand, but is it correct?  Diamonds are generally not considered liquid, in fact thats mentioned in the wiki pages on diamonds and diamond investments.  Its quite hard to sell a used diamond.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.121.14.242 (talk)  
:The market for diamonds is not highly liquid i.e. there are a large amount of buyers and sellers. Gold though is both liquid and fungible. nirvana2013 (talk) 12:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What is a "used" diamond?  I disagree, it is easier to sell a diamond than it is to sell a barrel of crude oil.  I would sell a diamond at the same place you would sell a gold coin.  Paul Beardsell (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liquidity of diamonds problems 

message: This article is too dense. The first sentence is supposed to be an introduction to the details, but it's a mouthful. I'm not saying dumb it down, but please make it more clear to the uninitiated. thanks.
74.192.43.101 21:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. This article seems to attract persistent attempts at turgid/stilted and/or unreadability-indifferent writing and/or verbage. Please give it a rest. dr.ef.tymac 21:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would certainly agree that it is difficult to understand. If I'm getting this straight - fungibility is the ability the exchange one unit of something for another unit of the same something? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 01:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Understandability 

message: The etymology given on this page and the etymology given on wikitionary are different. Which is correct?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.87.250.78 (talk) 01:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: They mean the same thing.  Fungor is the first person indicative of the deponent verb of which the infinitive is fungi.  People studying Latin usually memorize verbs with the fpi first, then the infinitive, then 2 other parts. This was called in my studies "the dictionary form".  People who teach themselves Latin often focus on infinitives "to do something".  Here the problem is that the two etymologies give the same information but in different ways.
Is there a technical term for something that is not fungible? --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 19:14, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: I've removed this section.  It seemed to be nothing but political axe-grinding that added noting to the understanding of the article's topic.  The claims may very well be true but there were no sources and the BLP violation argued for deletion rather than tagging. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 13:30, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the section is salvageable, but belongs in the Heavily indebted poor countries article. —Cupco 16:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIsuse in the HIPC scheme 

message: I'm afraid this article is completely opaque. I surfed in to find out what fungibility is. After reading the first paragraph several times, I still don't know. (One ounce of gold equals one ounce of gold. We needed a WP entry for that?) 
Evidently, "fungibility" is an arcane concept not encountered in normal human interaction. I come to that conclusion given that the entry doesn't simply state: "Fungibility is (four to eight concrete words)." Given that, could someone who knows what fungibility is rewrite the lede from the ground up so that it defines the term in plain, short, concise language? Bear in mind that fine points of distinction can (and should) be introduced in the rest of the article. The lede is for sweeping generalisations; we can dance angels on the pin afterward. Laodah 00:59, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Useless lede

message: Given the recent discussion of Non-Fungible Tokens, I'm wondering if it's reasonable to add a link to that topic here, or more likely the inverse. Iggynelix (talk) 20:33, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Non-Fungible Tokens