What Does Money Represent?

[Kwing]

What is money? What does it represent and measure?

First, let's think about how society worked before money. People traded, typically with items that they procured themselves such as food, clothing, or furniture. Why didn't that last? Partially because it wasn't always convenient to carry around a goat to trade, you couldn't depend on having what someone else wanted for a trade, and partially because some commodities like fruits would have a limited shelf life even though supply and demand fluctuated.

Enter money. You could carry a lot of it on your person, the people you dealt with didn't need to purchase whatever particular commodity you produced, and it couldn't expire. That said, money was representative of what you had.

Fast forward a bit and we find ourselves in the middle of the industrial revolution. Here, factories began to create the same goods faster and cheaper, rendering homemade goods obsolete. As this shut down small, independent manufacturers, workers were funneled into these factories where they were paid for their labor, and this is a big change. Money no longer represented something that you had created individually, but rather it was a metric for the amount of work you had done.

The problem is, this metric isn't consistent. The conversion factor between time and money - namely the salary - varied from company to company and from person to person. Sometimes you could determine how hardworking someone was by how much money they had, but oftentimes not.

This also raises the question of what you're really being paid for. Are you paid for the time spent, regardless of productivity, or are you paid for how productive you are, as is the case with commission? This makes a huge difference when you talk about technology like the cotton gin, which increased the efficiency of cotton production. Who should benefit from such inventions? The inventor that created them, the company that purchases them, or the workers that use them?

Look at it this way. You work 8 hour shifts for $20 an hour. Suddenly a machine comes along that doubles your productivity. If you continue working the same amount, your employer gets twice as much work out of you while you work the same amount. Alternatively, you could work the same amount for $40 while the company's productivity stays the same. Or, you could work for the same amount, but the company gives the additional $20 to the inventor of the machine rather than purchasing it outright.

I understand that these are false dichotomies; certainly happy mediums could be found where all three parties benefit, but I frame them in these terms for the sake of illustrating the overall impact of such technology.

This raises a philosophical question about what technology does to labor. Who benefits? Who should benefit? Most technologies in the vein of the cotton gin or the personal computer were invented for the sake of convenience. In their conception, some naively believed that such inventions would mean that the average worker would only have a three day week.

Technology isn't the only factor in play here. We also decide a salary based on a person's training and responsibilities. Under communist rationale, these people work the same amount and all roles are necessary, which is why everyone should be paid the same amount. The capitalist rationale places incentive on ambition and training, hence skilled labor and management positions offer greater benefits, even for the same amount of time put in.

On some level, people still want these technologies to lessen the extent to which we have to work, approaching a Utopian model where everything is taken care of for us. But in practice, the opposite seems to have happened. Why?

Reason 1: The Protestant work ethic is still alive and healthy in our society, which is likely why we have opted to use technology to increase productivity at constant labor rather than maintain constant productivity and decrease labor. Laziness is seen as morally reprehensible. This might also explain why so much work is required to earn a living wage even with the aid of our technology. After all, if you aren't working hard, you don't deserve a living. This mentality has not yet assimilated the impact of technology.

Reason 2: Ego and self-esteem likely play roles in this as well. When technology allows us to execute complex tasks at the cost of almost no work, being paid a living wage for doing so little is going to feel emasculating. If you define yourself by your work, working less (or not at all) might give you an existential crisis.

Reason 3: Employers. To the surprise of absolutely no one, CEOs and managers want to increase productivity because that directly reflects their own income.

So my question to all of you is this: What does money represent? What can a person's income say about them? What SHOULD money represent? Finally, who should technology benefit?

[orangebomb]

Money is a lot like technology and religion in the sense that it becomes an easy lightning rod of criticism and disdain when one person or group abuses it to their own ends. I think most of us agree that money shouldn't be the be all, end all when it comes to how we live our lives, but it also shouldn't be something to be scorned or looked down upon either, after all, much of the finer things in life don't come cheap.

Simply stated, it's a mix of supply and demand and honest day's work, (which I do admit tends to be stretched sometimes) and few people are going to get out of their way to change that mentality.

[AcidX]

Time.

In a word. Money = time
Time is money, right?

The average citizen trades their time for money. However, it gets a bit confusing when you get into higher ups. Money is almost an entirely different concept when you have a lot of it. More akin to power or control. People will start trying to take it too. People want a slice of that pie for themselves, or even just some crumbs.

Safe to say that money is basically a curse.

[kyrtuck]

To me, money equates well being and relevance.

Money means being able to own cars, houses, being able to provide for families, being able to join gyms or health clubs, being able to own a gun to defend oneself, being able to own computers, Netflix, cellphones and all that other crap. Being able to support people or works that you enjoy, having your voting voice be heard in the Free Market.

Inspite of all the fairy tails about love being the most important, money actually is.

[Troisnyx]

The more of it you have, the more is demanded of you. If you are not going to be taxed for it, or openly asked to donate with it, if you are going to be a miser with it, you will still have the added pressures that come with being filthy rich -- family troubles, and just a blackened inside. Making money out of thin air doesn't work; it only causes economic collapse, as we have seen in the last decade with the recession that we haven't really recovered from.

If there's one thing I agree with Gene Roddenberry on, it's the desire of a society to move past money, and especially the greed thereof. I cannot help but think that the initial bartering systems that led to money in the first place, they were made as a sort of security, a means to ensure a fair trade. There will have been a lot of suspicion and distrust (much like today), which leads me to think "I'll give you X if you give me Y" sounds like a way for someone to keep to his word.

Of course, conventional money kinda strips that away a bit. Sure, you can be paid in gold the amount of money you have if you delivered your notes to the central bank, or whatever. But that trust is not a constant anymore. No one tells you the status of money each second unless you looked at business news, or the stock exchange. And unless you were actually a businessman, you wouldn't. No one would update you on the condition of their money like they would update you on the condition of their goat. The feeling of mutual benefit is lost.

[PanzerJig]

Money are a little vouchers labeled "we want you around" ( regardless of the reason )

[masheenH3ad]

“Money is the god of our times, and Rothschild is his prophet.” – Heinrich Heine

[calicrazedbeats]

Very Interesting Concept. i Believe money is a form of control over the popullation to do dirty biddings like war. Soldiers are paid to be made to believe that the War was started by the enemy. Getting paid they are taught to obey without question. If they got paid in goats and fruits, would they still go to war?
How do we teach humans value of a person without the use of money?
For example there are humans that have surpassed this human dimension and are attaining ancient and sacred knowledge. If these soldiers infiltrated countries with this sacred responsibility what will be left of the world.
I became a strong believer in God and His Army of Angels when I saw an angel attack a demon possessed body. The person that was possessed was in shock not wanting to believe what had happened, and neither did I but seeing as we both experienced the same event, I am glad God and His Army of Angles is on my side.
How does God put a value on Money? Does money even exist to him? Does he only value your soul?
Isnt money made up by a human mind? What makes one country more valuable than another, if we most can reciprocate the same basic skills like maintenance, cashier, etc.

Indeed the level of skill and career based training should matter in the tools that you will have available to you. If you come from a rich family you will most likely be in the circle. If you come from Mexico, Africa or any other 3rd world country, you can see how money is used to corrupt the minds of the people by those with corrupted power. Mexico is #2 for having the most killings world wide. This is a problem not only their but for other countries striving for a better way of living. Thus Latino's tend to travel to the United States where they will either get deported or get hired for below minimum wage.

If we all decided on a world wide registration based system instead of seperated by walls like the one Donald Trump Built, would it be easier to process monetary payments on a level basis?
Would criminal organizations be easier to catch?

Overall don't lose your soul over money. God values most your soul as should you. Once you reach a level of understanding of awarness and ethics you will see how you evolve throughout time without the use of money.
Y do you think people are no longer taught how to fish or farm in schools? It seems that in schools now adays they are teaching how to manipulate others with money. Just look at all the Governments worldwide. Why are their more deaths in some countries than others? Who is ranked the most valuable country in the world and why? Is it Gold or is it the Ancient Sacred Knowledge beign misused?

At 5/6/17 10:11 PM, Kwing wrote: What is money? What does it represent and measure?

First, let's think about how society worked before money. People traded, typically with items that they procured themselves such as food, clothing, or furniture. Why didn't that last? Partially because it wasn't always convenient to carry around a goat to trade, you couldn't depend on having what someone else wanted for a trade, and partially because some commodities like fruits would have a limited shelf life even though supply and demand fluctuated.

Enter money. You could carry a lot of it on your person, the people you dealt with didn't need to purchase whatever particular commodity you produced, and it couldn't expire. That said, money was representative of what you had.

Fast forward a bit and we find ourselves in the middle of the industrial revolution. Here, factories began to create the same goods faster and cheaper, rendering homemade goods obsolete. As this shut down small, independent manufacturers, workers were funneled into these factories where they were paid for their labor, and this is a big change. Money no longer represented something that you had created individually, but rather it was a metric for the amount of work you had done.

The problem is, this metric isn't consistent. The conversion factor between time and money - namely the salary - varied from company to company and from person to person. Sometimes you could determine how hardworking someone was by how much money they had, but oftentimes not.

This also raises the question of what you're really being paid for. Are you paid for the time spent, regardless of productivity, or are you paid for how productive you are, as is the case with commission? This makes a huge difference when you talk about technology like the cotton gin, which increased the efficiency of cotton production. Who should benefit from such inventions? The inventor that created them, the company that purchases them, or the workers that use them?

Look at it this way. You work 8 hour shifts for $20 an hour. Suddenly a machine comes along that doubles your productivity. If you continue working the same amount, your employer gets twice as much work out of you while you work the same amount. Alternatively, you could work the same amount for $40 while the company's productivity stays the same. Or, you could work for the same amount, but the company gives the additional $20 to the inventor of the machine rather than purchasing it outright.

I understand that these are false dichotomies; certainly happy mediums could be found where all three parties benefit, but I frame them in these terms for the sake of illustrating the overall impact of such technology.

This raises a philosophical question about what technology does to labor. Who benefits? Who should benefit? Most technologies in the vein of the cotton gin or the personal computer were invented for the sake of convenience. In their conception, some naively believed that such inventions would mean that the average worker would only have a three day week.

Technology isn't the only factor in play here. We also decide a salary based on a person's training and responsibilities. Under communist rationale, these people work the same amount and all roles are necessary, which is why everyone should be paid the same amount. The capitalist rationale places incentive on ambition and training, hence skilled labor and management positions offer greater benefits, even for the same amount of time put in.

On some level, people still want these technologies to lessen the extent to which we have to work, approaching a Utopian model where everything is taken care of for us. But in practice, the opposite seems to have happened. Why?

Reason 1: The Protestant work ethic is still alive and healthy in our society, which is likely why we have opted to use technology to increase productivity at constant labor rather than maintain constant productivity and decrease labor. Laziness is seen as morally reprehensible. This might also explain why so much work is required to earn a living wage even with the aid of our technology. After all, if you aren't working hard, you don't deserve a living. This mentality has not yet assimilated the impact of technology.

Reason 2: Ego and self-esteem likely play roles in this as well. When technology allows us to execute complex tasks at the cost of almost no work, being paid a living wage for doing so little is going to feel emasculating. If you define yourself by your work, working less (or not at all) might give you an existential crisis.

Reason 3: Employers. To the surprise of absolutely no one, CEOs and managers want to increase productivity because that directly reflects their own income.

So my question to all of you is this: What does money represent? What can a person's income say about them? What SHOULD money represent? Finally, who should technology benefit?

[Yioryos]

This raises a philosophical question about what technology does to labor. Who benefits? Who should benefit?

Imo better technology equals more manual labor in less time. People say that machines "take" their jobs by replacing hand labor but someone could argue that machinery creates even more positions that need to be filled (technicians, engeeners, operators etc)...in the end my opinion is this, there's always work to be had if you're willing to work and not be lazy.

On some level, people still want these technologies to lessen the extent to which we have to work, approaching a Utopian model where everything is taken care of for us. But in practice, the opposite seems to have happened. Why?

Work (by today's standards at least) is something unnatural, we must not forget we're only animals deep down, far away from our natural habitat and with no natural enemies to fight against we have been reassured in our society. It's only natural for us to try and look for ways to be free of this unnatural labor, technology is simply a convenient way to achieve this with as little sacrifice as possible (progress-wise)

Reason 1: The Protestant work ethic is still alive and healthy in our society, which is likely why we have opted to use technology to increase productivity at constant labor rather than maintain constant productivity and decrease labor. Laziness is seen as morally reprehensible. This might also explain why so much work is required to earn a living wage even with the aid of our technology. After all, if you aren't working hard, you don't deserve a living. This mentality has not yet assimilated the impact of technology.

I have to disagree here, manual labor was significantly decreased when technology came into play. Can you imagine waking up at 5am everyday just to work on the fields till 9pm? That shit was reality back then dude. I'm not talking about 16th or 17th century here...I'm talking 20th century, not even 50 years back...my grandpa used to do that!!

Reason 2: Ego and self-esteem likely play roles in this as well. When technology allows us to execute complex tasks at the cost of almost no work, being paid a living wage for doing so little is going to feel emasculating. If you define yourself by your work, working less (or not at all) might give you an existential crisis.

At some point i agree, but on other hand we must remember that the definition of work nowadays is very different from what it used to be. A person may seem to be sitting infrond of a computer all day doing nothing, but in actuality he could be working mentally, sometimes in the point of exhaustion. Computers are just computers after all (no hal2000 yet thankfully) YOU have to tell them what to do. My point is, nowadays ideas are much more valuable than muscles, if you catch my drift.

So my question to all of you is this: What does money represent? What can a person's income say about them? What SHOULD money represent? Finally, who should technology benefit?

And now to the good stuff 3:)

It's obvious that every person has his/her own beliefs about this.
Nowadays everything runs with money (at least if you wanna interact with modern society..but that's really a whole other subject). What does that mean?
-You wanna eat, you gotta have money
-You wanna dress yourself, you gotta have money
-You wanna take a shit, you gotta have money!

What does money represent?
Honestly...freedom...a smart person enriches his life through them, a smart person will travel, eat exotic cuisine, drink unheard of beverages, not only that but with money you can have the best teachers enlighten you about culture, math, physics with money you can freefall from the stratosphere and be sure to live...heck if you got enough money you can even go to space man! If you got no money at all, of course, you can also experience many of lifes pleasures, that's certain, even though you can't do it all, also it's a given that you'll have to fight x100 and deal with many many negative emotions and experiences that could easily break you...and to be frank...you'll probably die in the process...it happens...

What does a salary say about a person?
For most people, i want to believe, nothing. Personality can decimate any negative, mainstream idea like "oh he does not make enough money, he must be a shitty person". If not, those people are obviously stupid and you should not associate with them. Besides that (and by taking many-many factors out of the equation) a salary could be a good sign of a persons willingness to live to the fullest. But generally, salary is irrelevant to character imo.

In the end I just wanna say this; money is the means to your lifes' ends. By itself money is pretty much worthless, but they are the means non the less...Happiness in money comes to those who know how to use them ;)

[developous29]

POTENTIAL. Pure and simple. The form of money is just a symbol like all the rest, and how it's applied should be based on discipline and wisdom.

I believe that one all-powerful currency is inherently flawed due to the fact that there's no checks and balances in the system, due to it being just a number of power.

Power must be backed with wisdom. So, money should be divided not in material substance, but applying knowledge.

A single word can have value. Apply the right words at the right times, and you have a value based on/off switch. But this doesn't justify greed on it's own.

So.... a word AND number system is the only logical solution to truely justify money.

Put simply, RATINGS. Take those on/off switches, add a number, and you will guarantee ANY kind of potential.

The spectrum system in a nutshell.

[TomFulp]

This is probably all irrelevant but I've been thinking about how as technology advanced, people were able to create more leisure time for themselves. For decades it was normal for people to be able to make a reasonable living working 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week. Technology and automation SHOULD have continually driven that time down, if everyone is truly benefiting from it. Some European countries have already standardized a shorter work week. What if in this age of automation, everyone agreed that you should only work four hours per day and receive a living wage? Would it all balance out? After all, working 40 hours a week has been pretty arbitrary. What if the majority of workers just put their foot down and said "I'll only work 20 hours per week from now on and demand a living wage for that."

Of course I would never get this game done if I did that. :(

[Camarohusky]

At 5/10/17 10:07 PM, watertemplefml wrote: money = higher percentage of fuck chances

Personally, I've always found that perfectly timed Futurama quotes are a better method at raising fuck chances.

Either way, both are a measurement of public worth, the difference is measurely what type of worth they represent.

[Kwing]

At 5/7/17 01:02 AM, watertemplefml wrote: real question: what do lawyers represent?
fuck amount of money = fuck amount lawyers = i do whatever the fuck i want

For sure - legal representation and the stock market enter really messy abstractions of money. It's probably redundant to say that court cases can be decided as much by the lawyer as they can be by the actual evidence. So then we're exchanging units of value or units of work (or neither, see below) not for a fair trial, but for legal immunity.

In stocks, a person gives their money to someone else, yet generates revenue back without having produced anything on their own. One could argue that these people are job creators (though you could also argue the opposite) but as we've already discussed, jobs in and of themselves are somewhat artificial. In a concrete sense it might make sense for you to give a baker some eggs and for them to give you a loaf of bread made with some of the eggs - both of you effectively turn a profit, as you gain a loaf of bread and the baker gains eggs in excess of the amount that were required for that one loaf - he can make more bread to trade. But the difference here is that if you're trading in eggs, you probably did the work of managing a chicken coop.

At 5/7/17 06:16 PM, orangebomb wrote: Simply stated, it's a mix of supply and demand and honest day's work, (which I do admit tends to be stretched sometimes) and few people are going to get out of their way to change that mentality.

I suppose that's true, but now the paper (or digital) representations of money are completely arbitrary, which means they can also be arbitrarily created. The more money is in circulation, the higher prices are going to go, meaning inflation and deflation self-balance the actual supply. That, and since money is our general-purpose trading unit, there's always a demand for it. It doesn't matter what the demand for oil or gold is because any commodity can be purchased. So in that sense money's supply and demand are both constant.

At 5/8/17 07:37 AM, AcidX wrote: The average citizen trades their time for money. However, it gets a bit confusing when you get into higher ups. Money is almost an entirely different concept when you have a lot of it. More akin to power or control. People will start trying to take it too. People want a slice of that pie for themselves, or even just some crumbs.

Right. Once money is no longer being accrued and spent by an individual, it muddies the waters. Does a government's or corporation's money represent the work it has collectively done? Not exactly. It may receive a salary in taxes or sales, but it doesn't spend money quite the same way as a person does. It may provide services such as healthcare, defense, or road maintenance, but it's unclear how much each individual relies on each of these particular services, so the federal budget doesn't always represent the services people need or receive.

The problem, of course, is that privatization means everyone has to fend for themselves. Some like the Darwinian approach, but such a system is inherently punitive and also disadvantages anyone who just happens to wind up in a poor financial situation. For instance, maybe they had a health concern and couldn't work for several months. That's going to eat into their savings, but should that person be screwed over simply because their health didn't improve? There's also the problem that the more private entities take over for government services, the more inheritance will play a role in what services you can afford.

Regardless of whether you're talking about a trade economy or a more modern one, this is a problem. If your parents die and leave you a gigantic dairy farm, you're in control of a huge amount of resources you didn't earn or work for. Granted, something like a farm has to be maintained, so one could argue that if you're able to hold onto it and continue maintaining it you deserve it. However, that's not as easy to say about cold hard cash.

[Kwing]

At 5/10/17 01:41 PM, Yioryos wrote:

Reason 1: The Protestant work ethic is still alive and healthy in our society

I have to disagree here, manual labor was significantly decreased when technology came into play. Can you imagine waking up at 5am everyday just to work on the fields till 9pm? That shit was reality back then dude. I'm not talking about 16th or 17th century here...I'm talking 20th century, not even 50 years back...my grandpa used to do that!!

I'm not talking about the actual numbers here so much as I'm referring to the cultural temperature. Republicans - the ones that are hypervigilant about not supporting a lazy welfare state - are 55% protestant, significantly more than democrats, which are 39% protestant. (source: https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/09/15/religion-and-race-among-democrats-and-republicans/) Note that correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, but it really wouldn't surprise me if there were some religious root in that mentality.

At 5/10/17 03:48 PM, developous29 wrote: Power must be backed with wisdom. So, money should be divided not in material substance, but applying knowledge.

So.... a word AND number system is the only logical solution to truely justify money.

Put simply, RATINGS. Take those on/off switches, add a number, and you will guarantee ANY kind of potential.

I'm not sure I understand this. When you're referring to words, do you mean that those would be credited to your person, or you would actually have words printed on a bill? Could you give an example of how you might walk into a store and buy something?

At 5/11/17 09:10 AM, TomFulp wrote: 40 hours per week. Technology and automation SHOULD have continually driven that time down, if everyone is truly benefiting from it. Some European countries have already standardized a shorter work week. What if in this age of automation, everyone agreed that you should only work four hours per day and receive a living wage? Would it all balance out? After all, working 40 hours a week has been pretty arbitrary. What if the majority of workers just put their foot down and said "I'll only work 20 hours per week from now on and demand a living wage for that."

I definitely feel like that should happen. Of course, the other question is whether or not it CAN happen. Technology has an endless appetite for progress, and I think the reason for that has to do with population growth. The resources we have now enable us to survive circumstances that we normally wouldn't, and that means our population balloons to levels at which there is no longer a surplus of resources available as a result of our technology. No matter how advanced technology becomes, population growth will always grow an equivalent amount, negating societal progress. This is one of the reasons I'm a believer in eugenics - people with disorders that are passed down genetically put a greater strain on the medical system, and though I think it's fine to treat affected individuals, allowing them to reproduce unnecessarily exacerbates the problem.

[Camarohusky]

At 5/13/17 12:54 PM, Kwing wrote: In stocks, a person gives their money to someone else, yet generates revenue back without having produced anything on their own. One could argue that these people are job creators (though you could also argue the opposite) but as we've already discussed, jobs in and of themselves are somewhat artificial.

This is absolutely not true. Stocks only assist the named company during the public offerings, and collatrally duing later public offerings. When not buying from the inital offering, you are not giving the company any money to invest with. Sold on the secondary market, stocks are mere speculation instruments. The money you spend doesn't go to the company at all, rather only to the prior owner of the stock. You are essentially trying to gamble on the market value of the company should a buyout, merger, liquidation, or other stock ending event occur.

The collateral boost to the company is that if everyone is willing to pay $50 for stock the was $25 at IPO, that company an now sell its new stock for $50/share (share splitting and extra complicated shit aside.) That's ALL buying stock on the secondary market, of which more than 99.9% of stock are traded, does to benefit a company and allow for investment.

Just clearing up the widely held misconception that Joe Blow buying stock on E-Trade actually assists the company or creates jobs/investment.

[berdthenerdy]

Money represents the trust in the economy.

banks were set up so you could go to a place without being robbed (usually by highwaymen in Britain). Money is pretty much a cheque that everyone excepts (it's a universal I.O.U note).

In some places, like England, each pound actually represents real gold in the bank of England. But for some places like America, it means nothing.

[NeonSpider]

Money is slavery, plain and simple.

Essentially those with the least money are the slaves of those with the most money. And those with the most money just want more money still, so they're also slaves to money.

If people weren't greedy we wouldn't even need money. But this does require everyone taking or using only what they need and not being wasteful nor selfish. And in general most people are not good enough people for that to work.

We need a higher general caliber of human.

[RadicalGames]

At 5/6/17 10:11 PM, Kwing wrote: What is money? What does it represent and measure?

Money represents you are in debt to someone or someone is in debt to you.

When you trade your labor or something you produce for money you receive a piece of paper that represents your value of your labor is based on a Fed bank and a Fed debt.

Money was created by bankers or at that time called lenders so they could make money off the transactions of other people and they use your money to lend to more and more people so that all people end up in debt to the lenders.

I am not a religious person but that Christ guy was pretty smart when he said do not be a borrower or lender and lenders must not take advantage of people and the lust for money is the root of all evil.

That being said, a large society needs some form of currency to make trade easier and our ancestors used shells, rocks and then coins and paper money to make transactions easier. The problem exists when banks decide they need to profit from those transactions and even charge you interest to give you your own money.

Bitcoin and other currencies might be a better system or barter if you have enough people to do it but unless you can produce everything you need for yourself you will still be trading your labor or what you produce for some form of currency.

Personally, I cut up my CC and closed my banks accounts years ago and I barter and trade for a lot of things and I have had no debt in over 20 years. Because of that I was able to retire at 48 and focus on doing what I love not what some boss or government wants me to do and I am a pretty happy person.

[Camarohusky]

At 5/13/17 08:37 PM, RadicalGames wrote: Money was created by bankers or at that time called lenders so they could make money off the transactions of other people and they use your money to lend to more and more people so that all people end up in debt to the lenders.

Actually money was created by governments to allow for easy business. In a purely barter economy, most basic transactions are very wasteful. A blacksmith could need to go through numerous trasactions to turn a knife into bread and milk, or they could trade the knife directly to the baker and then the baker would trade an unneeded knife for a supply of theirs,and so on and so on in a long daisy chain of wastes transactions.

Money allowed for people to carry a sign of value that they could use to go directly to the desired person for purchases and sales.

[RadicalGames]

At 5/13/17 08:52 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 5/13/17 08:37 PM, RadicalGames wrote: Money was created by bankers or at that time called lenders so they could make money off the transactions of other people and they use your money to lend to more and more people so that all people end up in debt to the lenders.

Actually money was created by governments to allow for easy business.

Well no. There was currency in the form of shells and other objects long before there was government.

Governments took over the production of money because they seen a way to be a middleman in trades and make money for themselves by controlling the currency.

There is no government in bitcoin and those currency systems.

[leonylyner]

Money = Time & Hardwork

But there is inflation?

So Time & Hardwork degrades overtime?

[morefngdbs]

What you all consider to be money these days & worth something is in fact no longer the case.

There is presently no world currency that is backed up by anything substantial beyond a "promise to Pay"
Which is Exactly like someone writing you a check , as long as the check is honoured , it has value, when it isn't it is worthless ,hence the phrase not worth the paper it is printed on.

Fiat currency (what you spend each day ) is worthless & backed up by the present financial system, is a debt based currency, so all your hard work gets you paid in a currency that could be worthless tomorrow.
When the currency becomes over inflated its true worth becomes evident. Please research Zimbabwean dollar, Pre WW2 German Mark, A few years Ago the Argentinian Peso. Present day Venezuela's Bolivar ...I believe they are worth about 1 USA penny now.

To give you an idea for you people to lazy to do an internet search, when Zimbabwe became independent from Great Britain, its dollar traded on par with the British Pound. It was called & was the bread basket of Africa. With Robert Mugabe's fine leadership , at one point the Zimbabwean dollar was worth around 100 Trillion Zim dollars to 1USA dollar
Today tat country uses US dollars and is one of the poorest in the world for its citizens.
Yet it has the worlds largest known reserves of Platinum & many other valuable resources. The farms are pretty much a ghost of their former selves, thanks to Mr Mugabes excellent leadership.

A friend of mine who has recently passed away explained to me why a currency back by something like gold was a better system. But years & years of the present Government system & the proper application of misinformation taught in schools has made the majority of people either completely against this idea or so out of touch they can't get their heads past what fast food place they are eating at today & if a diet soft drink would be healthier than a regular one ...not to mention the other opiate of the masses "There's a game on tonight go 'bullshiter' or whatever completely unimportant team name you have chosen"

[Camarohusky]

At 5/14/17 10:29 AM, morefngdbs wrote: There is presently no world currency that is backed up by anything substantial beyond a "promise to Pay"
Which is Exactly like someone writing you a check , as long as the check is honoured , it has value, when it isn't it is worthless ,hence the phrase not worth the paper it is printed on.

This is the very nature of money. ALL MONEY is fake under your definition. I will get into this in a secod, but first...

A friend of mine who has recently passed away explained to me why a currency back by something like gold was a better system.

Gold is worthless. Let me repeat. Gold is worthless. It has been given value by humans because of its shiny and its rarity. Other than that, it's worth no more in any other rock. In fact, I could name a whole host of rocks that have far more actual value than gold. Once humans stop assigning a value to shiny things, gold will lose value.

I know your response: fiat currency this, Fed Reserve that, followed by Mises Mises Mises.

Guess what, ALL money is fiat currency. Sure, non-tied money is made solely by fiat of the government, but things like gold are made only by fiat of society (think "ooh, shiny!" when it comes to gold). Money is meant to represent value. It is not meant to be value. The only way to have a full value based economy is to go solely on the barter system, and then you have the mess of waste I described in an earlier post.

So in short gold, like money, is only worth something because someone says it is.

[Kwing]

At 5/14/17 07:25 PM, Camarohusky wrote: Gold is worthless. Let me repeat. Gold is worthless. It has been given value by humans because of its shiny and its rarity. Other than that, it's worth no more in any other rock. In fact, I could name a whole host of rocks that have far more actual value than gold. Once humans stop assigning a value to shiny things, gold will lose value.

Gold is worthless now because it's soft compared to what we have at our disposal, but there were times in the Middle Ages when it was one of the more useful metals to keep around. Some other forms of currency have also had practical application, such as salt. And of course, commodities have always been recognized as a hefty bargaining chip in trade even after the invention of money, whether coffee, tobacco, tea, cocoa, alcohol, opium, oil, etc.

[morefngdbs]

At 5/14/17 07:25 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

So in short gold, like money, is only worth something because someone says it is.

;;;
Explain why humans in all past cultures & present ones like gold ?
Just because you & modern bankers love it ( & thats only because) paper 'money' can be created cheaply & gold coins cannot.
Here is a good explanation.
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/071114/why-gold-has-always-had-value.asp

So far it cannot be counterfeited , sure you can mix it with other cheaper metals to make a larger amount, but its purity is easily tested and anyone with a rub piece ( a tile, a piece of slate etc & some acid (nitric & or nitric hydrochloric mix)
The purer the gold the stronger the acid content required to disolve it.

But as a rare , but not too rare noble metal & that still unexplained human fascination in it , gives it its value.

Plus, if what humans really need is what one places value on , things like food, drink, clothing/tools aka manufactured goods.

Then there is a certain amount of labour required for those things.

There is a certain amount of labour required to mine & process any material & golds rareness, beauty, physical properties & unlike other materials doesn't corrode /rust like iron, copper, or poison us from handling it like lead or mercury etc.

So it makes a good medium for exchange

Unlike your fiat currency where its value is 6 cents to make a dollar bill, 6 cents to make a 10 dollar bill, 6 cents to make a 100 dollar bill.

So there are reasons, why it is better. as a currency with an actual value as opposed to one that is so much easily inflatable & or deflatable, counterfeited manipulated & unlike fiat currencies history tells us quite clearly, it has had & held value for thousands & thousands of years.
No fiat currency has come anywhere near doing that.

[developous29]

What REALLY should be evaluated with any form of money is how much work you put into your values and how many people want the commodities in the first place. The system should be based on time, effort, resource availability, demand, and wisdom. But those greedy syndicates only greedily inflate the standards based on population growth and expecting more out of everyone.

The greed and ignorance is a problem, but the first step is to realize your ignorance THEN deal with the greed. The money is not the problem, it's the PEOPLE that make it a problem.

[VicariousE]

Isn't money the root of all evil? Or is it the ultimate aim of evil? Is it control, a measure of trade or both?

http://www.zerohedge.com/

Money must be morally managed, the big corporations and banks that keep our world going are never going to stop wanting more of it, instead of reinvesting in the Earth and humankind (limited resources, unlimited labor), which is where all the wealth is created. If they continue unopposed, they will crush us, and we will be forced to live without money, 'cause they have it all.

Ask JFK what money is, and what it cost him. He tried to legitimize our currency, outside of the Fed Reserve's book-cooking, and they popped him for it. As soon as LBJ got comfy, he pulled JFK's executive order.

Money is a unit of measurement, that is highly susceptible to manipulation and theft. If you haven't seen 'The American Dream' 1/2 hour cartoon about US money and wealth... well, you should watch it.

[jamesalan1985]

Money only can not make you happy, until you do not want to be happy yourself. For me money is just for daily living.

[scootwhoman]

Money is a symbolic representation of work. All value involves work at some point, either in collecting, refining, shaping, or hauling. Many people insist that money is a store of value, but value is relative, so what was once valuable may become worthless.

There is not enough gold in the world to back all the currency in circulation. Gold would be several billion dollars an ounce if we were to go back to the gold standard.

The problem with money today is that it can be created without work. And the other problem with money is that too much of it is chasing more money, in that so much wealth is invested in ways which do not bring about actual improvements in the lives of people. Currency manipulation, futures markets, flipping houses, these are all ways to increase wealth without creating anything of actual value.

People are always looking for ways to represent work symbolically, because carrying around the products of your labor is wasteful. Carrying around gold in tiring, dangerous, and pointless, because gold will not keep you warm, nor can you eat it. People buy gold when times are looking sketchy, but they are betting that things will eventually get better. Which would you rather have if the government collapses, a blanket and some food, or two pounds of gold? Most people will say "gold", but then they have to find someone to trade for a blanket and some food. And how much is gold worth in that situation?

The problem is not with money, the problem is with the greed that is distorting our society. People who have more money than they ever could spend are using their money to make more, instead of sharing it with others, which will actually create more value. Money in a bank doesn't do anyone any good, it has to be in circulation.

Capitalism has a basic flaw: All the money ends up in the hands of a few, and the economic activity comes to a stop. This is why governments are always seeking ways to redistribute the wealth, which is why we have taxes.

[implicitelyhuman]

Money is a measure of time, rarity and effort.

It's an embodiment of philosophy. It's an attempt to model and quantify what people value.