system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Economics] Using time as currency?

Disclaimer: I realize in hindsight that this might sound a lot like the movie "In Time", but I actually did not get the idea of using time as currency from there.

I would like to know what would happen in a world where the price of products is determined by the time it takes to produce them. For the sake of simplicity, let us imagine that the traders cannot change the price of items, they are really only worth the amount of time it took to make them. To clarify, "time" is not actually traded, but the currency would allow people to buy and sell things worth a certain amount of time. Thus, the currency would be valued by time, like a bill of 5 hours, or coins of 10 minutes.

The idea that struck me was that I thought this might be a good representation of their worth. Also, I'd imagine that (although I'm not sure how) people wouldn't gain or loose a lot of money, it would balance out, as their daily earnings would cancel with their cost of living. Then I thought about if there would be profit, or if there even could be.

If someone could enlighten me on this subject, I'd be really thankful. I have next to no understanding of economics, so please correct me where needed. Also, please add in anything that is relevant that I might not have considered yet. Below are some questions that I have.

* What are the major strengths/weaknesses of such a system?
* Would this work? Why/why not?
* Would profit exist?

I'm sure that more questions will come up when some answers start to roll in.
Thanks in advance!
gpt
It ignores all inputs other than time... So, if you have to pay labor it doesn't differentiate between skilled and unskilled. If some inputs are rare and expensive but easily assembled it ignores that cost.