Its the money stupid

[WatertheTree]

Fiat currency explained in 3.5 minutes.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx16a72j__8&feature=player_embedded]Fiat Money - YouTube[/ame]

Abolish the Federal Reserve!!

 

[countitjoy5]

If you want to abolish the FED I hope you're ready to die because the banksters will use their power to silence and murder anyone who challenges their corrupt system.

 

[Sallow]

What an amazingly naive video.

 

[editec]

I suspect what most of you continue to fail to realize is tht ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH.

All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

What is money?

It is the respresentation of human work that has already been done.

Human labor is the source of all human wealth.

Money is merely a contrivance that we use to make transferring that wealth convenient.

Money is a tool, not real wealth.

The money I have in the bank is merely a representation of work that was done in the past.

It is not wealth but the PROMISE of wealth that I can purchase in the future.

It is the promise of exchange that gives money any value.

doubt me?

Take all the humans out of the equasion (but one) and what is money or gold, or even natural resources?

They are nothing.

They have no value if no human is there to GIVE THEM VALUE.

 

[expat_panama]

...ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH. All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

People on these threads have such a hard time understanding this, and it amazes me too.

All money is "fiat money".

 

[editec]

...ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH. All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

People on these threads have such a hard time understanding this, and it amazes me too.

All money is "fiat money".

I understand why they have a hard time, though.

It is often very hard to see the philosphical underpinnings that make society run when the reality of practice completely obscures it.

I think that realizing that money is a symbol of wealth, rather than real wealth, is sort of like getting ALGEBRA.

You have that "AHA!!" moment when what was completely unfathomable suddenly makes perfect sense.

Starting from the premise that all human wealth is the result of human effort isn't really intuitive.

When you see an apple on a tree, it appears to be a thing of value intrensically.

It takes some deeper thinking than many people typically do, to realize that the value of the apple lies not in the apple itself, but in YOUR DESIRE to eat it.

 

[expat_panama]

...realizing that money is a symbol of wealth, rather than real wealth, is sort of like getting ALGEBRA. You have that "AHA!!" moment...

That was sort of how I came to it too. Same with getting a handle on how money, wealth, and income are all very different.

 

[editec]

...realizing that money is a symbol of wealth, rather than real wealth, is sort of like getting ALGEBRA. You have that "AHA!!" moment...

That was sort of how I came to it too. Same with getting a handle on how money, wealth, and income are all very different.

Basically you had a shift in how you perceieved the world.

Henderson the Rain King tells us that truth comes in blows.

FWIW it took me a long time for my shift in perception to help understand what Bellows meant by that statement.

Eureka!​

 

[Avorysuds]

The difference between gold silver and copper VS printed money backed by nothing is hundreds of hundreds of years of time tested value. Hell, thousands of years really...

Gold silver and copper can actually be used for important things, and it's rare... The printing of money will change possibly in your life time. Not even getting into inflation due to the never ending expansion of the money supply.

More or less an apples worth might depend on how hungry a person is but even if a printed money is destroyed during a time of war or Depression, the seller understands that gold/silver will one day hold direct value again, possibly even still have great value at the moment while that paper money could be used to build a fire.

Gold/silver has withstood the test of time, paper money backed by nothing has proven to fail over and over again… Just look at the American dollar, today.

 

[expat_panama]

....Gold/silver has withstood the test of time, paper money backed by nothing has proven to fail over and over again…Just look at the American dollar, today.

You mean like, today?

Paper dollars trade for five gold coins for ever four they bought last week. That must mean paper dollars are a pretty good 'investment'.

 

[ShackledNation]

....Gold/silver has withstood the test of time, paper money backed by nothing has proven to fail over and over again…Just look at the American dollar, today.

You mean like, today?

Paper dollars trade for five gold coins for ever four they bought last week. That must mean paper dollars are a pretty good 'investment'.

That reflects the instability of the dollar, not gold.

 

[ShackledNation]

I suspect what most of you continue to fail to realize is tht ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH.

All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

What is money?

It is the respresentation of human work that has already been done.

Human labor is the source of all human wealth.

Money is merely a contrivance that we use to make transferring that wealth convenient.

Money is a tool, not real wealth.

The money I have in the bank is merely a representation of work that was done in the past.

It is not wealth but the PROMISE of wealth that I can purchase in the future.

It is the promise of exchange that gives money any value.

doubt me?

Take all the humans out of the equasion (but one) and what is money or gold, or even natural resources?

They are nothing.

They have no value if no human is there to GIVE THEM VALUE.

I generally agree with much of what you say. When we buy a tv for 500 bucks, the money really just represents our labor or what we sold to get that money. We are trading hours of work for the tv, making an exchange. However, there is a real difference between paper money and commodity money. Gold has value other than serving as a medium of exchange.

Also, all wealth would be meaningless and valueless if humans are taken out of the equation. Value is subjectively created by humans. Not only gold but TVs, cars, even food would be valueless without humans. The point is that true money develops on the market, not by government decree. It will have value for reasons other than serving as the medium of exchange.

 

[bripat9643]

I suspect what most of you continue to fail to realize is tht ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH.

All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

What is money?

It is the respresentation of human work that has already been done.

Human labor is the source of all human wealth.

Money is merely a contrivance that we use to make transferring that wealth convenient.

Money is a tool, not real wealth.

The money I have in the bank is merely a representation of work that was done in the past.

It is not wealth but the PROMISE of wealth that I can purchase in the future.

It is the promise of exchange that gives money any value.

doubt me?

Take all the humans out of the equasion (but one) and what is money or gold, or even natural resources?

They are nothing.

They have no value if no human is there to GIVE THEM VALUE.

That dead wrong. Gold is real wealth. Gold backed currency is a claim on real wealth. Even if your characterization of money were correct, it only applies to fiat currency. That's why fiat currencies are a scam.

currency is not a "representation of work you have done in the past." currency is a medium of exchange. It has value only so long as it can be exchanged for real goods and services. A currency's value is determined by what it can be exchanged for, not how hard you had to work to get it.

 

[bripat9643]

...ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH. All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

People on these threads have such a hard time understanding this, and it amazes me too.

All money is "fiat money".

Wrong, gold and silver are not fiat money. Their value isn't determined by some government regulation. that's why governments around the world have done everything in their power to suppress the use of gold for the purpose of exchange. It's illegal to use anything but federal reserve notes to pay your bills.

 

[expat_panama]

...All money is "fiat money".

Wrong, gold and silver are not fiat money. Their value isn't determined by some government regulation. that's why governments around the world have done everything in their power to suppress the use of gold for the purpose of exchange. It's illegal to use anything but federal reserve notes to pay your bills.

Tell me which step we're not together on:

If the government says it's money and people use it for money, it's money.

If the government makes it illegal and people can't use it for money it's not money.

Gold is not money.

A government can make gold money by fiat.

All money is fiat money.​

 

[editec]

The difference between gold silver and copper VS printed money backed by nothing is hundreds of hundreds of years of time tested value. Hell, thousands of years really...

Gold silver and copper can actually be used for important things, and it's rare... The printing of money will change possibly in your life time. Not even getting into inflation due to the never ending expansion of the money supply.

More or less an apples worth might depend on how hungry a person is but even if a printed money is destroyed during a time of war or Depression, the seller understands that gold/silver will one day hold direct value again, possibly even still have great value at the moment while that paper money could be used to build a fire.

Gold/silver has withstood the test of time, paper money backed by nothing has proven to fail over and over again… Just look at the American dollar, today.

The above IS true.

Gold and silver definitely do have intrinsic value ...the second anybody WANTS IT.

ABout half the gold in the world is used for jewelry, a big but not the majority is used as a store of value (like money) and a much smaller amount is used for industrial uses.

However its intrinsic value is all based on men WANTING IT, and mutually agreeing that it has value.

The value of an apple is in the WANTING of it.

The apple itself has no intrinsic value until a human being wants it.

Money is one step removed (in terms of value) from even that apple.

Money is merely the represenation of work having been done.

Its worth is entirely based on an agreement among men to accept that it REPRESENTS something of value.

ALL specie is FIAT MONEY.

 

[expat_panama]

...half the gold in the world is used for jewelry, a big but not the majority is used as a store of value (like money) and a much smaller amount is used for industrial uses...

Actually, most of the world's gold is at the core, and there's only about 17,000 trillion oz. of gold at the surface. Of that, only 5 trillion oz. has been mined but that doubles every 40 years or so.

...inflation due to the never ending expansion of the money supply...

Last week a truckload of bread could trade for an oz. of gold and this week it's one and a quarter. If gold were money we'd have 250,000% inflation.

 

[editec]

Actually, most of the world's gold is at the core, and there's only about 17,000 trillion oz. of gold at the surface. Of that, only 5 trillion oz. has been mined but that doubles every 40 years or so.

And that undiscovered gold has value?

Not until a HUMAN HAND takes possession of it.

Value is a term that only has meaning in relation to some kind of sentinent being.

A nugget of gold in the ground has no value to man until man GIVES IT VALUE.

Jesus, folks, this is fundamental economic theory.

I am not saying anything that is remotely news in the world of economics.

 

[expat_panama]

...gold in the ground has no value to man until man GIVES IT VALUE...

--and when we throw the gold back in the ground we take that value out again.

There was some sleazy gold commercial that said "gold has never had zero value". Bald faced lie. We throw away gold everyday --the gold lettering on say, the shampoo bottle is 24 carat gold.

 

[Paulie]

...ALL CURRENCY (including gold or silver) is an ARTIFICAL REPRESENTATION of WEALTH. All money is an agreed upon symbol of wealth.

People on these threads have such a hard time understanding this, and it amazes me too.

All money is "fiat money".

Gold and silver can not be created artificially at will. Something will always be used as a medium of exchange in the market, and in the opinion of sound money advocates it would be better if that medium couldn't be reproduced infinitely.