An Honest Introduction to Money

[virasog]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

Of course, methods like Paypal and other electronic and digital methods do the same thing. Since the gold standard was lost several years ago, there seems to be little method to control the overall money scheme.

[Sweetbtc]

For fiat money, "it is backed by government bond" is very simple and easy to understand for everyone, so they never question further.

The grandeur of the bodies that invest in a fiat currency's success (e.g., those of government and government contractors) inspires confidence in third-parties about that success.

Ofcourse the government controls how much is printed and rarely adds to the overall lump sum. Many people ask why we do not print more money and the answer is always that it will devalue the current supply. But, there have been several times when the government has issued fresh supplies.

[Qunenin]

For fiat money, "it is backed by government bond" is very simple and easy to understand for everyone, so they never question further.

The grandeur of the bodies that invest in a fiat currency's success (e.g., those of government and government contractors) inspires confidence in third-parties about that success.

Ofcourse the government controls how much is printed and rarely adds to the overall lump sum. Many people ask why we do not print more money and the answer is always that it will devalue the current supply. But, there have been several times when the government has issued fresh supplies.

If this were not true, then we would still be using the same couple of millions dollars that the countries got started on. While digital currencies seem to be the future, the finite supply is the last hurdle that BTC will have to face.

[Sweetbtc]

Without forking, side chains, or other methods, there is always going to be that same total of BTC and as time passes, if the price balances after the last of it is mined, then the value  will become unable to withstand inflation. It will be interesting to see.

[BobK71]

Without forking, side chains, or other methods, there is always going to be that same total of BTC and as time passes, if the price balances after the last of it is mined, then the value  will become unable to withstand inflation. It will be interesting to see.

The famous 'need' to expand the supply of money is only because of modern elites' desire that a state-issued money become a tool of imperial power and/or exploitation. For better or worse, Bitcoin may or may not become part of such a scheme even if it is itself limited-supply.

[OROBTC]

...

Ahh, money...  For me, money really plays three roles (I did not come with this, but this makes the most sense to me):

1) Money should be a Unit of Account, a measure of how much something is worth, currency is good here.

2) Money should be a Medium of Exchange, you give money to someone for something in exchange (currency is great in this role)

3) Money should be a Store of Value, worth about the same a month, a year or a decade from now, currency is NOT good at this.

Therefore, I would like to see a different "system" (for lack of a better word at the moment), where something like gold is freed from its role as "backing" a currency.  Why should gold back anything?  It is its own worth, an independent value vector if you will (as an asset or investment).  Gold is the best Store of Value, and has been so for 6000 years.  NO currency has long survived...

Currency for marking value and conducting transactions, gold for store of value.  Currency cannot perform all three roles of money.  

Currency != Money, as it fails as a Store of Value.

Reference: extensive & long articles by anonymous blogger "FOFOA".

[BobK71]

...

Ahh, money...  For me, money really plays three roles (I did not come with this, but this makes the most sense to me):

1) Money should be a Unit of Account, a measure of how much something is worth, currency is good here.

2) Money should be a Medium of Exchange, you give money to someone for something in exchange (currency is great in this role)

3) Money should be a Store of Value, worth about the same a month, a year or a decade from now, currency is NOT good at this.

Therefore, I would like to see a different "system" (for lack of a better word at the moment), where something like gold is freed from its role as "backing" a currency.  Why should gold back anything?  It is its own worth, an independent value vector if you will (as an asset or investment).  Gold is the best Store of Value, and has been so for 6000 years.  NO currency has long survived...

Currency for marking value and conducting transactions, gold for store of value.  Currency cannot perform all three roles of money.  

Currency != Money, as it fails as a Store of Value.

Reference: extensive & long articles by anonymous blogger "FOFOA".

The division between money and currency is IMO an artificial one but feels so natural because it has gone on since the 1600s, and only stopped (though some say not really) in 1971.  Physical gold and silver served fine for all 3 needs before that, and explicitly risky assets like credit served to drive growth.

In an ideal world, money should be money, and debt should be debt.  Since the elites created what was really a form of debt, but which they successfully passed off as money for a while, some of us were forced to develop a new concept, currency, to describe this world.

Gold backing of currency has always been a tool for the elites to prop up the value of their paper 'money', whatever their public-relations organs (read: professional economists) said the purpose was.

There is a (probably growing) voice among the elites which wants to go back to precious metal backing of currency (and thus back to the dual existence of money and currency,) though the backing may take a more sophisticated and modern form than the classical metallic standards.  (See India's new gold-bond system for a peek at that possible future.)  Not to spur any conspiracy theories, but your reference may be in line with this voice.

If it happens, it would probably be a little better than today's world, since metallic standards in any form do slow down financial inflation, but it wouldn't be essentially different from the elite-designed system of exploitation of today or the metallic-standard periods.  Only the elites would ultimately benefit from this system, besides those few of us who get into precious metals early enough.

[BobK71]

Money is undefined currency that holds and gives power!!

thats true, it is the main reason why people want to be rich all the time, but it is also a really bad thing in my opinion

Yep thinking to be rich will not lead you do that. If we need to become rich you need to perfect in money management with your business. So do that first. I think as i see your post you will do that.

Agreed that managing your money is very important, but it's a delicate art.

The system is designed to take wealth from you in two ways: if you keep your savings safe, you lose wealth through inflation.  If you invest in risky assets, you lose big when the bubbles (created ultimately by the state-bank alliance) burst.

And if you spend too much, the classic problem of not having enough money will bite.

When my head is being punched from both sides, I don't live by extremist investment ideas that tell me to be very safe or very risky.  The art is charting a middle course where you get hit from both sides, but neither side gets bad enough to kill you.

There are of course temporary situations you can profitably bet on, and by temporary I include multi-decade favorable environments for betting on assets of a rising imperial power, say postwar US.  Good luck with those.  Over the long run these will only partially compensate for the systemic design for the average person to be exploited by the top elites.

[sildyas]

Money is undefined currency that holds and gives power!!

thats true, it is the main reason why people want to be rich all the time, but it is also a really bad thing in my opinion

Yep thinking to be rich will not lead you do that. If we need to become rich you need to perfect in money management with your business. So do that first. I think as i see your post you will do that.

Agreed that managing your money is very important, but it's a delicate art.

The system is designed to take wealth from you in two ways: if you keep your savings safe, you lose wealth through inflation.  If you invest in risky assets, you lose big when the bubbles (created ultimately by the state-bank alliance) burst.

And if you spend too much, the classic problem of not having enough money will bite.

When my head is being punched from both sides, I don't live by extremist investment ideas that tell me to be very safe or very risky.  The art is charting a middle course where you get hit from both sides, but neither side gets bad enough to kill you.

There are of course temporary situations you can profitably bet on, and by temporary I include multi-decade favorable environments for betting on assets of a rising imperial power, say postwar US.  Good luck with those.  Over the long run these will only partially compensate for the systemic design for the average person to be exploited by the top elites.

Maybe for the bitcoin, it is not so complicated. You can just buy the bitcon at low price and hold for long term.

[BobK71]

Maybe for the bitcoin, it is not so complicated. You can just buy the bitcon at low price and hold for long term.

I tend to agree with this conclusion.

Bitcoin is a non-state-issued asset.  These assets generally compete with state-issued money and associated assets, so the elites generally suppress their values.  (The classic example being the gold and silver standards which gave holding the metals a return of zero while the central bank could keep the system stable.  Today gold and silver are being pushed down by strange derivative trades that seem not worried about losing money but determined to see gold/silver prices go down.)

That said, the elites know that they may need to peg their money against a non-state-issued money to stabilize their own issue, when things go really badly for them.  This is why they don't want to destroy non-state assets totally, even when they can.  Compared to gold and silver, faith in Bitcoin is relatively weak among holders of non-state assets, so I believe the elites tend to want to help it gain acceptance and confidence, at this stage of its life.

I'd like to start a thread for this topic, but there's a difference between the 1860s and today -- back then, the elites wanted to promote gold as the single non-state asset, and to minimize faith in silver.  This was only because of the condition of the British Empire, the leader of the world system back then.  Today, I believe it is actually in the elites' interest to be inclusive.  The more non-state assets out there that are trusted by the public, the stronger the total backing when they need it, and at a lower price point in state currency.  That may explain why silver has (partially) come back to life from a couple dollars per ounce, and why Bitcoin has a stable and slowly rising value.

Over the longer horizon, I still believe gold is a better bet than Bitcoin.  Since Indians hoard gold, and India is slated to be the next global empire (not China which is less friendly to the existing system,) gold should profit from more scenarios than silver or Bitcoin.

My advice would be: hold all three, and diversify among them, in proportions that feel comfortable to your view of how the world will evolve.

[OROBTC]

Maybe for the bitcoin, it is not so complicated. You can just buy the bitcon at low price and hold for long term.

I tend to agree with this conclusion.

Bitcoin is a non-state-issued asset.  These assets generally compete with state-issued money and associated assets, so the elites generally suppress their values.  (The classic example being the gold and silver standards which gave holding the metals a return of zero while the central bank could keep the system stable.  Today gold and silver are being pushed down by strange derivative trades that seem not worried about losing money but determined to see gold/silver prices go down.)

That said, the elites know that they may need to peg their money against a non-state-issued money to stabilize their own issue, when things go really badly for them.  This is why they don't want to destroy non-state assets totally, even when they can.  Compared to gold and silver, faith in Bitcoin is relatively weak among holders of non-state assets, so I believe the elites tend to want to help it gain acceptance and confidence, at this stage of its life.

I'd like to start a thread for this topic, but there's a difference between the 1860s and today -- back then, the elites wanted to promote gold as the single non-state asset, and to minimize faith in silver.  This was only because of the condition of the British Empire, the leader of the world system back then.  Today, I believe it is actually in the elites' interest to be inclusive.  The more non-state assets out there that are trusted by the public, the stronger the total backing when they need it, and at a lower price point in state currency.  That may explain why silver has (partially) come back to life from a couple dollars per ounce, and why Bitcoin has a stable and slowly rising value.

Over the longer horizon, I still believe gold is a better bet than Bitcoin.  Since Indians hoard gold, and India is slated to be the next global empire (not China which is less friendly to the existing system,) gold should profit from more scenarios than silver or Bitcoin.

My advice would be: hold all three, and diversify among them, in proportions that feel comfortable to your view of how the world will evolve.

That is a very interesting commentary, BobK71.  Especially the part I highlighted.

I have read other analyses that also argue that smart states would encourage people to own gold (but that would include other assets that would count as "capital") for when the time comes to rebuild the country.

Rumor has it that within the Deep State there are some smart people with the USA's longer-term interest at heart.  It's not ALL "House of Cards" (although a lot is).  I worked for a while within a very deep part of The State, and although it was long ago, some of these are very traditional and durable attitudes.

The fact that there are SOME in .gov who are somewhat benevolent and smart is a little reassuring.

My judgement is that most of The Elites are pretty bad, but there are pockets of old-style patriotic hard-asses to be found here and there.  And it looks like some of the smartest are perfectly OK with citizens owning assets as savings...

*   *   *

Agree 100% re holding percentages of one's assets in gold, silver (or platinum) and BTC as personal circumstances permit.

[BobK71]

Thanks for sharing, OROBTC.

I don't doubt there are good people in every walk of life (and especially when you're so successful already, how much more do you really want for yourself, if you think normally?)

But I believe there's a strong element of 'involuntary behavior' at the highest levels, under the modern system.  Let's say Obama was truly committed to rebuilding a great country.  If he is smart, he would realize that if he acted like Carter, ie prescribe the necessary bitter medicine, he would only get himself blamed for the pain.  Carter's bravery stabilized the dollar and set the country up for a couple decades of harmony and prosperity, but the workings of the system invariably drags it back down anyway.

The rest of the elites took a free ride on Carter.  Most citizens believe his policies were terrible.

You see how gravity works in this system?  It's basically a social addiction, where the addict might fight back for a while, but faces a losing battle.

You might be partially protected if you save in non-state assets, but real progress will only come when the public wake up.

[BobK71]

For fiat money, "it is backed by government bond" is very simple and easy to understand for everyone, so they never question further.

The grandeur of the bodies that invest in a fiat currency's success (e.g., those of government and government contractors) inspires confidence in third-parties about that success.

Ofcourse the government controls how much is printed and rarely adds to the overall lump sum. Many people ask why we do not print more money and the answer is always that it will devalue the current supply. But, there have been several times when the government has issued fresh supplies.

If this were not true, then we would still be using the same couple of millions dollars that the countries got started on. While digital currencies seem to be the future, the finite supply is the last hurdle that BTC will have to face.

If you compare today's prices and salaries with 100 years ago at the founding of the Fed, you can see how much money has been created.

Most modern money starts out as credit issued by commercial banks (but are really borrowed from depositors.)  The Fed props up this system, but doesn't directly create much money.

We may own our money outright, but if you trace down who paid you that money, and who paid that entity, etc., you always end up with debt.  The vast majority of credit comes from private parties who believe they will be paid back.  But the only way that can happen is that both the economy and the mountain of debt keep growing.  If, for whatever reason, the creditors collectively decide that they won't be repaid, there will be hell to pay, unless the elites keep lubricating the system with centrally planned goodies of one kind or another.  But central planning, over the long run, sucks the life out of the economy's vigor, the very thing the system ultimately depends on for survival.

So, you see how this thing makes no sense, except to enrich the elites for the time being.

[Zedpastin]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

That is right. The money is just a medium. So the bitcoin can be the best money as it has limited supply.

[BobK71]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

That is right. The money is just a medium. So the bitcoin can be the best money as it has limited supply.

Money *should* be simple but is made complicated by the elites, because the complexity enables them to take wealth from everyone else.

In a poker game, if you play straightforward and don't second- and third-guess your opponents, you're at a disadvantage.  Poker games are designed to be a sport of the mind.  Money should not be like a poker game in an ideal world, but it is.

[MingLee]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

That is right. The money is just a medium. So the bitcoin can be the best money as it has limited supply.

Money *should* be simple but is made complicated by the elites, because the complexity enables them to take wealth from everyone else.

In a poker game, if you play straightforward and don't second- and third-guess your opponents, you're at a disadvantage.  Poker games are designed to be a sport of the mind.  Money should not be like a poker game in an ideal world, but it is.

Playing economics like a poker game is like showing your opponent your entire hand every second of the game, and having to out-think them when they stop paying attention to you is like relying on what amounts to random chance to win. It's possible, but you're competing against someone who has their hand tucked away and you can't see their face.

[Shady]

Money is thought of differently between people who have lots as well as those that don't.

In due respect, intro is just the start so once the idea of how money can operate, work for you or be obtained there's much to add about the value to it all.

[Oralmat]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

Money is a thing of a great value and it is only because we humans have made it valuable and trade everything for money.

[BlueStackz]

In my opinion, money is just a tool to make our deals and trades easiest and successful. And also its a powerful tool to get good level of living .

In addition to what you mention, money is a tool that is meant for exchange to take pace and legally accepted by the government of a particuar territory. This is because if a government did not regard an item as a means of exchange, then it cannot be regarded as money.

[BobK71]

Money *should* be simple but is made complicated by the elites, because the complexity enables them to take wealth from everyone else.

In a poker game, if you play straightforward and don't second- and third-guess your opponents, you're at a disadvantage.  Poker games are designed to be a sport of the mind.  Money should not be like a poker game in an ideal world, but it is.

Playing economics like a poker game is like showing your opponent your entire hand every second of the game, and having to out-think them when they stop paying attention to you is like relying on what amounts to random chance to win. It's possible, but you're competing against someone who has their hand tucked away and you can't see their face.

I didn't intend the poker analogy to be carried this far.  My idea is that an institution (money) that is normally beneficial to society has been transformed by the elites into something like poker, where the terrain is complex and only the powerful and complex thinkers can possibly win.