The Value of Money

This is great - At leat we now have originals.

Thank you for such information regarding this all important topic - Jess.

In such a depressing time of economic slump- at least we can educate ourselves on what we are killing ourselves over.

Great focus for the pod. It's nice to get the perspectives from other everyday people. I felt like I had sat down and talked with them myself.

INTERESTING!

Just voted for this - even - wont share the vote - I have seen many of conspiracy theories about the new world order on money - but I dont this is one of them - I actually like this one.

Money is not important, only calories are what's important.

Think about it.

Money is a proxy for energy, but it's a very horrible proxy. We have to totally change our economic system.

Should start trading in batteries and food. Fuck the paper.

XVX for life, R.A.S.H. 'til death.

If you trace all of the worlds problems to the original source, they will all end up in a financial dispute. Many people are getting killed for things that will be used to kill more people. If that isn't a vicious circle, I don't know what is.

Money is the cheese in front of the hamster wheels of our lives that keeps us running, turning the massive gears of our civilization. What if we didn't need cheese to make us run? What if we didn't need to run at all?

hey, so the above response by me was actually part of a much larger essay-style response that i had originally written out for this thread. i realized that it (the above) pretty much summed up everything i was trying to say in the response much more concisely and cool-sounding-ly than the whole thing so i decided to post it by itself. however i don't want this whole big thing (and all the time that went into writing it) to go to waste so, for all the diehard fans (of my ideas) out there, here goes nothing:

What if you didn't believe in money?

Whenever i think about money existentially like this it's kinda funny and kinda humbling to me that humans, in all their intellectual and societal glory (and pride), are still so simpleminded that we need this imaginary concept called "money" to exist in order for our societies to even work. its like nobody could figure out our purpose in life (on an individual level) so we decided to just invent one for ourselves. Money is the cheese in front of the hamster wheels of our lives that keeps us running, turning the massive gears of our civilization. What if we didn't need cheese to make us run? What if we didn't need to run at all?

It's also pretty funny how, over time, our conceptualization of money has become more and more abstract, making it more and more obvious that its just a figment of our collective imaginations. first came gold. value: its shiny and rare....kind of superficial but ok i can buy that, no pun intended (i feel like such a dipshit using that phrase lol). then came paper money: a substitute for gold that's easier to manufacture and carry around. makes sense. now all of this crazy stuff like credit (cards), stock markets, bonds, banks, interest etc. All of these concepts exist exclusively within the minds of human beings. these are some of (if not THE) most important aspects of our civilization and they all depend completely on the universal belief in this strange, arbitrary concept called "money".

Of course there are other ideas that only exist within our minds that are quite real such as math or emotion, but these only require us to believe in our own existence and that of the world around us in order to exist. not a very far large leap of faith. money on the other hand, is. hopefully, our concept of money will become so abstract and we will become so much smarter as a species that eventually we will realize how arbitrary the thing really is and it will cease to be a necessary commodity. until then all we can do is keep running in this comical rat race trying to get the cheese...and hope.

Money: the only religious belief shared by all of humanity.

well - Let me see - I think the guys who said money is nothing but a piece of paper is absolutely correct - I think though I have to keep chasing money because I need food and that's the only way I can get it. So I dont think thats value, i think it's more of a need - Thats my opinion on this - nice POD - Voted u Up!

BFCOOPER - you wrote a book - but i like it

interesting article. I did some research after viewing this pod.
Google search the history of the federal reserve and then
President Kennedy & Executive Order 11110.

All those guys sort of had the same opinion...and there was really only a culturally diverse opnion, no women or children...but the facts were solid.

We need more like this -

Money has value because you have no choice. Money is "legal tender," which means that if someone has a debt to you and want to pay you with money, you MUST accept or get nothing.

Money is not in itself a valuable thing. Money is the means of a transfer of value. It is merely the quantification of value and the convenient means of defining portions of value. The only reason money was ever created was to improve upon bartering systems. The problem arising in bartering systems was that different items were valued at different levels for different people.

I could be willing to pay you 3 hours of my labor for one meal. Well, if you feel as if a meal costs more than my 3 hours then you'll refuse and if I think the meal isn't worth anything more than 3 hours, I'll have to find work elsewhere to be able to eat. Having to go and find a different person to offer my labor is a cost in itself in lost time and effort - a transaction cost. What money does is monetarize the values we have for our respective goods and services. With money, I could go to you again and offer to work 3 hours and you'll agree to pay me an agreed upon rate. I could go use my salary to buy a meal that was prepared by someone who felt that the cost of its preparation was less the the one you originally thought was too high for me request. Because this other person has smaller costs, the same amount of value, now in a fully transferable form, can buy the precise thing I originally wanted, without having to work for less pay.

Money is no conspiracy or grand scheme. The government doesn't and cannot "create value" with printing money. It merely acts as a unit of value that citizens can use conveniently to trade with each other and accrue value and property. The only reason the government prints money is when the country as whole has an increased demand for demarcations of their newly present value. If everyone's salaries went up at the same time (like during economic growth), if nothing were done to the money supply, the value of the dollar would decrease because the static amount of money would still represent the increasing amount of wealth. Think the Great Depression now - people wanting to liquidate their growing assets so they can spend their money. But if banks aren't provided with more paper money, demand could potentially overtake the supply, or at least the rate of it. Banks and companies wouldn't become liquid anymore and business would seize up.

The reason that whole dystopian possibility is no longer a feasible reality is because the money supply is now changeable. The government gained tools (such as more control on the money supply and a host of other practical financial regulations) after that crisis in order to keep up from such a disaster from ever occurring again. The government doesn't simply always print more money, increasing the money supply without decreasing it. It also sells bonds to bring the money supply down and paper money and liquid assets back into the government (this is done to keep inflation from occurring - that's why it became so necessary during WWII when government spending increasing rapidly). The Fed isn't evil nor is it sinister or paper money for that matter. Fiat money isn't a modern concept in a modern world requiring stability in its economy. The regulation of transfer is something that without it, most of us would live in a much more volatile and unstable world.

InformedTexan,

I agree that paper money is not "sinister" but what are your reasons on the Federal Reserve that make you believe they are in our best interest?

The Federal Reserve is not part of our government. Fed is exactly like your local Wachovia, Bank of America or Chase who instead cater to our government instead of the people. Our government borrows money, printed from the Central Bank, with interest attached. which is why we have a deficit and is why on April 15th we pay taxes to pay off "only" the deficits' interest. You got to love it, our elected officials first increased the FDIC limit from 100k to 250k (which did not help 90% of the pop. Then passed a bill which bailed out the banks.

So follow the ball:
The fed provided the liquidity for the bailout to our government, government turns and gives it to the banks to begin lending to us. I take a loan out from a local bank and I am responsible to settle the debt and whatever interest the bank applied on this loan. We are all responsible to pay back the Central Bank for loan which started the bailout. We taxed twice off the same dollar.

Central bank is a private company with a board and share holders who are there to make money. I wish our government (US treasury) would begin printing its own money again; think Abe Lincoln.

Money = Calcified Energy.

We accumulate it to what end. To stretch need into greed, generating a cycle of want.

Money is increasingly no longer even paper but digital information controlled by organisations of supposedly orwellian intent.

What is your soul worth?

anyways.... back to work!

Money... regardless of it backing is a necessary means of trading of goods and services. I would love to trade my services for everything I need but that is a preposterous notion... there has to be something to represent the stock that was gained by performing said service. I would prefer to use clams and other sea shells... but ultimately I am sure it will be a bunch of one's and zero's implanted into one of my many connected devices... and hopefully not an implant in my noggin.

Necessary yes, but not likely in future ages.

Objective valuation of the qualitative will soon be done for us. Worth could simply be assigned in the same manner as your blood type... Genetically.

Money is a symptom of this age's class based segregation, and oily mess.

Interesting Pod... I dug it.
As far as the value of USD money goes,
we may as well go back to using shells and rocks.
The Greenbacks are only "promises" to pay someone...