Linden Game Tokens?

I was checking on the markets when I saw a report on the WSE for Lemur Invest. The CEO, Casper Trebuchet, wrote a blog entry on his perceptions of the SL economy, along with some derisive comments that are not worth addressing. He is pondering over the nature of the Linden dollar, about what it is and what he thinks it should be.

His view and preference is that the Linden dollar should be non-convertable to RL currencies. In what he writes, residents should be able to buy Linden dollars like they are game tokens, which can then be used to "improve" the player's experience. What he apparently believes that the flow of funds should be a one-way street and cites a couple of virtual-world examples.

OK, I have no issue if he wishes to go to these virtual worlds outside of Second Life. However, let's looks at the issues involved:

1. The Linden dollar is not convertable already. This might sound paradoxical, but one does not buy Lindens from Linden Lab. The closest thing to that are stipends and some bonuses for signing up. In general, purchases are made on the LindeX or the like.
2. The economy of Second Life is not primarily with Linden Lab. Most of the "improvements" occur with purchases and sales between two residents. LL is a player only when uploading files or some land auctions.
3. Lindens would most likely be bought and sold for RL currencies anyway. I see auctions on eBay for lots of Linden dollars all the time. Indeed, my understanding is that the LindeX exists to regulate most of the player-to-player exchanges.

I suspect that a majority of Second Life residents are there without intentions of making money, using it for whatever they conceive of, so in that context Lindens are mostly game tokens anyway. It's the few of us that get into the mechanics of the SL economy (business owners, share traders, etc.) that concern ourselves with being able to retrieve value from SL enterprises.

I see Second Life as a little more than a game. To me, it's a economics simulation, which had be rather libertarian in nature but it becoming less so. Some people are rather serious about how the economy works and some are content to treat it as a game. I think that there is room enough in Second Life for both types.