Money, Gold, Paper - What is money?

The funny thing is that this is more well known today than prior to the internet, though not because of the internet. When banks started pushing for purely electronic funds people started thinking about this very question a lot, and eventually figured it out.

But there are still many who make the common mistaken assertions, like saying we should return to barter and trade or abolish money completely. The thing is, money is barter and trade, always has been, always will be.

Think of it like this, a dollar is a mark that represents the value of what you have created and traded to someone else, but you don't want what they have to offer so you take that marker to a different person and then trade it for what they have. In essence it's a miniature loan between several parties.

So to keep this up, the original method was to use gold as the marker, a valuable metal that was rare and otherwise useless at the time. That was when this marker system started, but at that time it was primitive and rather unsteady, that gold may be of great value in a place with no mining operations, but in a mining town everyone had a lot of it, making its' inherent value less that standard.

So then banks collected all the gold and printed paper markers to represent this gold they now controlled. Well, not really controlled, governments still had more say in the matter than the banks, they were paid to maintain the value estimates and manage the marker system.

But then something amazing happened, which upset our original system completely, we found a use for gold, other than as jewelry or status symbols. Technology makes use of this once rare metal so much that the value of gold sky rocketed again, but for it to be valuable it had to be used. This meant it could no longer represent the marker value.

That was when people got confused, the banks and governments had to admit the entire system was nothing more than an arbitrary one, where value was just estimated based on supply and demand. This caused businesses to begin adjusting the prices of their products based on what they thought people would be willing to pay, instead of how much there was of it.

So without the wool over our eyes we all learned one hard fact, money is only worth what we say it is, it's arbitrary and has always been so. The latest generation is exposed to this early on, but some of the older generations are still in shock about this realization. Don't be too harsh on them or it, we had been made to believe money was more than arbitrary for a very long time, as a method of keeping us from asking other, more difficult, questions.

So the next time you get your paycheck, just think of it as equal to the amount of work you did for other people, not your value as a person. It represents what people think your work's value is, for which you can then give to someone else to match what you think their work is worth. Yes, it's all arbitrary, and that's why electronic funds are no different than paper funds.

Actually, electronic funds are superior, they can be adjusted based on their increase in value, while the paper one will only depreciate.

Comsumerism - Ignorance Abound

I am known to beat a dead horse quite a bit, and this is almost an exception to that rule. However, the entire reason the USA will not become a Capitalist society is because of how inundated our culture is with religious nonsense. If a child is not offered the chances to make decisions as they learn, they will not learn to make decisions well as an adult, this holds true for society as well. For too long people have been given answers to questions that benefit only those in power, and people became too use to having someone else watch out for them.

This phenomenon has been the primary reason Capitalism cannot take root in the USA, people are slow to learn how to make smart decisions and thus still need someone else to tell them what to do. This "someone" is often a government agency, such as the FDA. This has opened a path for criminals to take advantage of people, instead of being smart and looking up information to validate claims and businesses, people just accept what information is handed them as fact.

In true Capitalism, the consumer has the power, businesses must please the consumer or fail due to a lack of profit, and failed businesses just get replaced by better ones. The consumers make the ultimate decision in which businesses are healthy, and which are bad, making for a very powerful, and stable, form of society. The problem is that this requires the consumers to become educated, to know what they are buying, why, and how it's made and sold. It means the consumer must ignore the figurehead "masters" and be responsible for their own decisions.

This is a difficult task, because people are still stuck on "now now now," they want quick answers, quick results, and even quicker paybacks. In the past we had little time, as a species, to think on matters, and having someone who looked out for us was of some benefit. But in this day, everyone has access to all the information required for any intelligent decision. This means we can ... relax. For the first time in history we are able to actually learn, study, and analyze every decision, every product, every service we need or want.

So I challenge anyone who reads this, ignore the advertisements, ignore the government's opinion, ignore the opinions of others, and investigate everything you buy. Turn to scientific research, to actual facts and figures. Turn to the things that can actually inform you on matters, the opinion of a perfect stranger can often be more valuable than that of a friend for such matters, because the friend will worry more about your relationship than the facts, while a perfect stranger will just tell you what they think.

Scientific papers are the most valuable sources of information, and now, thanks to the internet, you can buy these papers or acquire them from friends at the click of a link. The thing about scientific papers is that they go through a rigorous method of peer review, make sure you check for that specifically to make certain it's valid. This process eliminates errors, almost flawlessly, in the data, making the information more accurate and thus more valuable.

Try it yourself, you will find that many of the products you have been ignoring due to false information are some of the best products you could have been using. You will find that many of the companies you have been avoiding are some of the best companies as well.