You don't say...

Taken from my current read, The Confusion part 2 of the Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson:

"Roger, what is Mrs. Bligh's bloody book -- by your leave, Mrs. Bligh! -- but squiggles of ink? I have ink, Roger, a firkin of it, and can molest a goose to obtain quills, and make ink-squiggles all night and all day. But they are just forms on a page. What does it say of us that our commerce is built 'pon forms and figments while that of Spain is built 'pon silver?"

"Some would say it speaks to our advancement."

"I am not one of those had cases who believes credit is Satan's work, do not put me in that poke, Roger. I say only that ink, once dried on the page, is a brittle commodity, and an economy made of ink is likewise brittle, and may for all we know be craz'd and in a state to crumble at a touch. Whereas silver and gold are ducile, maleable, capable of fluid movement..."

p. 484