Is Money A Terrible Thing

They have no value............except the backing of the world's largest economy. That and their market value when traded with all other world currencies.

 

minus shipping... it would be strictly bartering.. or if it was somewhat local you could always pick it up

 

you can always look for RRFMs
http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2008/04/28/free-market-in-winona/

 

The problem is that the US have no more export economy, they are the worlds leading importer and make horrible debts, economic death is near. Problem is that people in the western countries are way too degenerated, expensive and fat to be a concurrence to, lets say, Chinese workers.

US trade deficit
http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=...a&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:de:official&tbs=isch:1

 

you can always look for RRFMs
http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2008/...ket-in-winona/

nice idea

 

if the US goes down... the whole worlds economy will be shook... even if there are better self sustainable countries than the US if exports were pulled.. but if the US stopped importing from these countries.. they too would feel significant economic loss

 

The only possibility for the US to survive a while will be with its weapons technology, the pre-war propaganda machine against certain countries already works as you can even see in this forums

 

Actually the US was 3rd in value of exports, just behind Germany, slightly behind China. Per capita this makes Germany quite a bit ahead of us, but still has us far ahead of China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports

Per capita though we only rank around 40th

 

people are terrible not money

 

Isnt it amazing that 310 460 000 US citizens produce less export than 81 880 000 Germans?
Is it good to export that much at all? Wouldnt it be better to be more auto- sufficiant?

Anyways, the US trade deficit is so bad it will soon break the back of the country and war is the only solution to survive for a bit more time...

 

I didn't really say that as well as I should have. What I meant to say was that money, although it didn't create greed, definitely intensified it and magnified it in the people.

 

As a store of value, it simply upped the amount of possessions a person could accumulate. Cultures that tended to not have any monetary system tended to put more stock based on reputation based on the giving of gifts.

 

The gathering storm
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-...aign=Feed:+businessinsider+(Business+Insider)

 

yes.

 

And how do you know this?
Do you have evidence of this?

 

I think that money is easier to hoard than things. If we were on a barter system, a person would eventually just run out of room to dispay all the things they own that showcase their wealth. In a monetary system, the amount of money you possess is for the most part a number in your bank account. Its never anything tangible; its not like a billionaire has billions of dollars just laying around the house. I can see how watching that number climb higher and higher could become quite addictive. This is why you hear stories of CEOs who make 7 figure salaries, 7 figure bonuses, and still skim money off the top. If we were on a bartering system, and ..say...wives were a commodity, I dont think that a man would bring into his possession more wives than he could see value in.

thats a horrible metaphor. its late and i should have been asleep hours ago, forgive me. I'm really just playing the devil's advocate anyways; I think that greed for the most part is an inherent human condition and would exist with or without a monetary system.

although interestingly enough, there has existed and still exists in remote places in the world societies that work on a primitive communal level, where no one takes more than what they need and any excess is shared with the entire community. This would indicate that greed or the lack thereof is entirely a learned behavior, in which case the monetary system could possibly be a contributing factor.

 

I actually believe it is just the opposite.
Without a standardized monetary system, hoarding becomes much more prevalent/useful because of the nature of bartering.
Since you never know what another person may want or what may tip the scales in your favor, it is to your advantage to hang on to every little trinket that you believe may be useful or valuable to someone. With a standardized currency however, everything takes on a standard value.
So, instead of hoarding, theoretically I can sell what I don't need, and buy it at a later time if I need it again without any financial loss.

Really?

Key word is "primitive communal level".
That type of system fails when a population gets too large, not because greed is learned, but because trust is lost.

 

Why the FED violates US constitution
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5232639329002339531#

 

I know this because I can look around me. The people that have a lot of money generally want more. A lot of these people display greedy behavior.

I mean, you can never really have too much money. I don't think it's greedy to want more money. I only think it's greed when you impede on other people's lives in your effort to get richer.

I'm not trying to argue this. I absolutely think this is true. The point that I'm trying to make is that even though it would exist without money, living in a system where money is such an integral part of our lives certainly doesn't help get rid of greed. I know it doesn't for me.

I think a lot of the reason that these people don't really display strong signs of greed is because of the fact that they don't really have anything to want. I mean, you're not going to really care to try and beat out everybody when you're fighting for a dead animal carcass. In lands where technology has expanded, people can gain power over other people. They can 'buy' really beautiful women. Amazing houses. Things like that. In developing places, the potential to get that far ahead just isn't there.

I think this is a very interesting point. While I do still think that the monetary system strengthens the power of greed, I agree with you on the statement that you made regarding hoarding in a bartering environment.

I had a really good reply to this, but I've been alternating between browsing the internet and typing up this post. So yeah, I completely forgot it. If I remember, I'll edit this post or something.

Definitely agree with you here. A quick glance at the Mormon communities should be all you need to realize that greed/lust extends to women too.

Trust becomes lost when the population grows enough where it becomes inevitable that there will be at least one 'bad seed'. Once this bad person enters the system, the potential is then there for the 'bad' population to grow, as many other people can potentially go bad having to try and fend off the one bad person. Evil is very infectious.

 

Really money did nothing except help facilitate trade and give people a medium that everyone would want. People were still greedy before then, but had less stuff. Not because they were less greedy, but because trade was harder which made economic growth for everyone harder.