About money...

I'm really struggling over where to put this.

It's kind of ranty I suppose, but not overly so, and kind of questiony and a bit pondery.

I'm sure this has probably been discussed before, maybe loads of times...maybe not, who knows. I keep hearing and reading about this bitcoin thing which I know little about. I might read into it but it's not important, it made me think of something, something I've thought about before on the odd occasion..

I dunno much about money, really. Was just a thing that was always there, weird though when you think about it. We're all passing these bits of paper and metal/tin/nickel or whatever around, this money stuff gets around more than we do, sees more of the world than us.. I've heard or read that a 'fiat'...is it fiat? Like a fiat punto? That a 'fiat' currency is not backed by anything of actual value...like that gold stuff, can't remember what it's called but it's gold in colour and a metal I think.

Anyways...since the money what we use now isn't really worth anything of value...then why can't people just say..."Eff you, government and banker types, we're gonna make our own fiat currency and trade using that instead!".

Is that even possible? Is that what bitcoin is? Has anyone actually tried and succeeded in this? I just find it interesting...I'd guess the government would probably act on behalf of their banker buddies and probably have some laws in place that makes this a crime? Do you think that it would eventually become corrupt and that the cycle will continue? Some say power always corrupts, and controlling the money is power...and it's one of those sayings that people rarely dispute. But to me that's like having no faith in people, end of story. I don't believe absolutely everyone will be corrupted by power..

I dunno but it's interesting nonetheless. You reckon that'd be possible, would it work? Can they actually force us to trade using a specific currency? If I wanna swap two of my apples for a few bananas why should they be able to stop me? Why should anyone? Probably the reason it wouldn't work is because we depend too much on the stuff they big corps produce...they wouldn't buy into this crap...we're only accepting proper pounds/dollars/euros, etc. And people would be like..."You won't accept these twigs in exchange for an I-phone 12? Oh god! What have we done?!"

I mean, if we're already happy to trade in paper that's actually worthless...why do we need to use their worthless paper? I understand that there'd need to be some control over the flow and distribution of any trading currency....if we were all filthy rich there'd be nobody to buy a cheeseburger from...because, let's face it - you ain't gonna flip burgers for a living when you live on a yacht, are you?

But it's still quite a cool notion, so it'd be nice to get opinions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go out and try to implement my own currency, it'd be a lot of effort and I'd certainly fail, probably get jailed or assassinated or something. But if enough people agreed to trade using something else that's worthless and it caught on, more people might be happy to join in.

Because people are like that...it'd be all trendy and they'd all want to be part of it. Plus, when it really catches on traders will insist..."We don't take your stinking pounds here! And don't come back, unless you have one piece of coal and a small chunk of granite because that's what this costs!".

Maybe people are just too divided and too conquered. Even now with the internet, we can all communicate but still the only thing really happening...or that was seemingly happening at one point was the anonymous thing - I know "they" are still active but it's kinda fizzled out a bit.

Maybe that's what bitcoin is, little electronic bits of coal and granite, I dunno. But in today's world I think something computer based would be do=-able. i mean a totally independent system that's controlled by the people, an organised group of people, I don't know how that would work but I don't see why not. It's pretty much what we've got only preferably the people would own and govern it as we well should. I never asked to be part of any system or chose to be, it was just there. You just sort of have to play the game, it is how it is...you're imprisoned by it by default when you're born...it's pretty weird.

Has this been discussed before? If so please do link in a reply I'd like to learn more, you'd have to cover an awful lot of ground to learn the ins and outs of it all, the laws, all that junk.

That's what's great about ATS, you can compile a load of knowledgeable replies on pretty much any subject quickly just by asking a few little questions, Be nice, as I say this ain't really my thing but I've thought about it from time to time and am curious - people did it in the past, traded in sticks and stuff.

Didn't they?

If you think this would be a good idea what do you think we should trade in? My vote is for mushrooms as they tend to grow in abundance 'round where I live.

Mushrooms also have a limited shelf life. This should not only add value, but the guy with billions of mushrooms would have to spend them all before they turned into useless slime.

a reply to: skunkape23

Damn...my evil scheme to take over the worlds money supply....foiled again!

a reply to: samerulesapply

Whole countries try this, though all the countries that do America always finds out their leaders are using chemical weapons on their own people.

ALWAYS. Luckily America is there to send in peacekeepers to restore democracy.

a reply to: samerulesapply

It's funny, your original post got me thinking about gold reserves in Canada, so I looked it up. If anyone wants to correct me if I am wrong, feel free. CANADA HAS NO GOLD RESERVES APPARENTLY.

It appears that ALL the gold reserves are held by the central banks and since the central banks, like the bank of canada, are private banks controlled by the IMF, as a colony or county it's pooched, no gold. I guess the gold was taken to offset the deficit due to the loans that were given to Canada by the IMF through the BOC to print our own money (in Australia, figure that one out). I expect the same is the case with the FED in the US and/or any other central bank. What a scam!

I think the last country that had gold in the country's reserve was Libya and we all know what the banksters did to Gaddafi when he tried to institute a gold standard in Africa....

BTW, anyone know what happened to Scotia Bank's 5 tonnes of gold that were in the World Trade Center vaults? That would be an interesting thing to track down.

Cheers - Dave

The central banks, world wide, own all of the gold.

Last I heard, the only currency with actual value was made up by a group of 'terrorists' called isis.

The money is made up and your votes don't matter.