What is Money

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by LordSquidworth

I do feel we as a society have lost a large amount of self respect for ourselves. Just look at raising obesity rates, increased partisanship, loss of personal accountability, the way we dress (you'll never find me out in public in my pajamas), etc. We are still the land of opportunity, I feel fewer and fewer people chase that opportunity.

I agree completely.

Originally Posted by LordSquidworth

Socialism has been a staple of this country for a long time. Your fire station/police station is socialism. Your roads are socialism. Your public schools are socialism. for the record, pure Marxism has never been tried in this world.

I think your second paragraph and the first are interrelated. It's been my observation that the easier you try to make things for people, the harder life seems to get. What was once not considered all that difficult in the past is considered too hard a generation or two down the road. That eventually leads to some sort of disaster, or series of disasters.

[PedroMartinez]

Originally Posted by DCforever

Money is a unit of exchange. The alternative to money is barter, which is more expensive because you have to find someone who wants your goods and has goods that you want. Money stores the value of your goods in a universally acceptable intermediate good until you find a final good that you want.

Which is exactly why government manipulation of money is bad.

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

^^Yes, this.

Thomas Jefferson had it right:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Jefferson wrote. " If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertl.../#6eee0c2f2b18

Great quote.

[ChiGeekGuest]

Originally Posted by PedroMartinez

Which is exactly why government manipulation of money is bad.



Great quote.

I like that cautionary quote as well:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies," Jefferson wrote. " If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around(these banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Although here ^, Mr. Jefferson cautions about banking institutions, private banks & corporations. & "the American people" he references most likely would be referring to 'government of, by, & for the American people'.

He probably couldn't have imagined the government being sold to 'the highest bidder' shenanigans that have been all too 'par for the course' since the lessening of the common sense regulations that reigned in the banking institutions, private banks & corporations (Glass-Steagall Steagall legislation/four provisions of the U.S. Banking Act of 1933 et al) after the investigations led by Mr. Pecora revealed the underlying or root causes of the Great Depression.