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Originally posted by Lasheic
For you guys maybe. I learned that the only thing which gives our money value is confidence in it's issuance and worth. That the Treasury will stand behind it. Sure it's just paper... but you know, the funny thing about those scraps of paper and 1's & 0's stored in an account database... I can trade those notes of abstract value for REAL products. Food, clothing, a vehicle, all kinds of real stuff. Conversely, I could carry around a wad of Monopoly Money and have more actual raw materials in game money. But that game money isn't backed by Treasury, isn't legal tender, and thus is worth no more than the paper it's made of. The $20 bill is also a piece of paper, but I can trade it for $20 worth of goods, because it does have those magic words "Legal Tender" - and the Treasury will stand behind it's issuance.
Money is simply a liquid medium by which to more efficiently mediate the trade of goods. On the most basic level, you're still trading your commodities of time and labor for goods and services that you need. Money simply streamlines the process and makes it efficient.
Paper is simply money. Gold is simply an element. Salt is merely a compound of two very deadly elements. Spices were merely dried plant leaves and other materials. Seashells are merely the protective covering of marine mollusks. Fallout 3 depicts post-government post-apocalypse currency as bottle caps. PSO's meseta was so easy to come by, it was worthless for trade. Photon Drops became the defacto currency.
What makes any of that stuff worth anything? All of it's worth as applied resources are highly situational. Salt and Spices had practical use curing and preserving food, as well as maintaining health. Gold, eh... seashells... no. Bottle caps.. wut? It's all just arbitrary objects given an abstract measures of purchasing value. Sure gold is rare and stable as a currency - but that rarity stagnates and prevents the economy from growing furtther unless more can be gathered or raided from neighboring tribes.
Originally posted by lagnar
The only reason money (paper) works, is because the people decided (in radical tradition) to accept iou's in place of gold. Why? Because gold is heavy, AND we wanted to charge more for our "stuff" than we could conceivably carry at any one time. Something had to be done.
Well that's all highly justified and understandable. Who would want to carry around 26,000 dollars (which by the way is about 24 ounces at the moment) for a mid-size car, when they could carry a paper and a pen and issue a conceivably infinite amount of money (i.e. weight gold).
WAIT A MINUTE!!!
24 ounces ain't that much right? Let's me think this through again...
Aaanyway ( lol ), points being:
- All money is simply debt owed to someone, as they're all I.O.U.'s or representations of weighted gold. (Why gold?... ... ...) I don't care if they say they're legal tender or not...if we didn't see the value, we wouldn't accept it.
- We each choose individually to accept those I.O.U.'s as such a representation because we can get stuff for it.
- We value gold.
Why do we value GOLD?!? Simply because it's scarce ('hard to get') and shiny (like all sparkly and stuff)?!?
Just what the hell IS Monetary Value ANYWAY?
I jest...excellent thread and an abundance of excellent notions throughout.
I'm certainly appreciative of the fact that so many of us are able to wake up to this illusion...of our own making. The thought of "what's next" becomes a very entertaining one.
Originally posted by lagnar
Why do we value GOLD?!? Simply because it's scarce ('hard to get') and shiny (like all sparkly and stuff)?!?
The thought of "what's next" becomes a very entertaining one.
Originally posted by EvolvedMinistry
reply to post by nvprose1
Yep, its all fraud from the onset.
Money only equates to what our imaginations allow it to equate to.
This is the very reason why our economy is falling out in the first place.
The global economy no longer recognizes the power of the American dollar.
The only reason why paper means anything is because of our belief that it means something.
Therefore, it really amounts to nothing more than an electrical charge, just like a synapse.
Originally posted by EvolvedMinistry
If people 2000 years ago wouldn't take printed money for an exchange of goods...WHY DO WE???
It's all imaginary people.
Originally posted by daniel_g
Originally posted by EvolvedMinistry
If people 2000 years ago wouldn't take printed money for an exchange of goods...WHY DO WE???
Simple: Modern people don't sell you food for copper debens.
It's all imaginary people.
No it's not. I can walk into any store in the US with a $100 bill and walk out with whatever I want. I can walk into any bank in another country and exchange that $100 bill for local currency, then walk into a store and still walk out with whatever I want.
Hey, whatever gets me goods and services is not imaginary, its very real no matter how worthless it is in another dimension.
Now, I don't know about OP, but if I were smart enough to build a time machine, and smart enough to speak egyptian, then I think I would also be smart enough to exchange all the money I have for gold before traveling back in time. I give the peasant 1 pebble of gold, I get camel, and hey, those 'trillions' of paper money I had helped me get a camel. woot woot!
Originally posted by EvolvedMinistry
Someone created the idea of currency one day, and then everyone collectively decided that it meant something. The car you drive is based off of imagination. The street you drive your car on is based off of someone's imagination (invention). Everything that you do, is based off the imagination of something someone else created.
Originally posted by daniel_g
Originally posted by EvolvedMinistry
Someone created the idea of currency one day, and then everyone collectively decided that it meant something. The car you drive is based off of imagination. The street you drive your car on is based off of someone's imagination (invention). Everything that you do, is based off the imagination of something someone else created.
The fact that something is based off imagination doesn't make that something any less real.
Second line.
[edit on 18-2-2010 by daniel_g]
Originally posted by Anti-Evil
and whats even more ludacris is they expect us the citizens to pay the price for their crimes... that aint gonna happen... if you do business with criminals then dont envolve the population, as we are victims not the beneficaries of said criminal enterprise. and that is what I see happening. they are putting us on the hook for their deeds. and we are allowing them to continue to plunder the treasury if we have one that is...