Do you think that money should be left to the free market and not controlled by government? I had not thought much about it before until recently it was brought to my attention and I started doing some research. When we think of money we probably associate it with the government. Governments like to control the money as that gives them a big advantage, but this usually winds up leading to inflation as the government tries to find a way to expand that money so that it can pay its own debts and expand. This became much easier in modern times with paper money, especially when a government goes off the “gold standard” so that the money is no longer backed by anything. Then the government is pretty much free to print all the money it wants as long as the people have confidence in the government’s money. But things can get out of hand where you can have out of control inflation and the money becomes worthless, which it really always was. This happened in Germany: http://www.usagold.com/germannightmare.html and is happening now in Zimbabwe: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6751671.stm Now maybe, hopefully, things will not get that bad here in the US and in other countries that use such systems, although the US dollar is certainly not as strong as it use to be. Even so, the current system continuously eats away at our money, making it worth less and less as each day passes. What do you think about private currency such as the Liberty Dollar, www.libertydollar.org ? Or just bartering in silver and gold? Bartering with currency that is actually backed by something of value that does not lose value very day? Or bartering with things that might be important to your community but not necessarily else where?
It is still linked into ''real money'' but I see some advantages. I think you may have a few things skewed here I dunno. But i'm only a quarter of the way through my ''Economics 2007'' . I don't think the goverment ''controls the money'' as such . It responds to outside influences - I thought. I think in the UK the Bank of England is ''independant'' so our goverment does not ''control the money'' per se. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_Policy_Committee Anybody who can clarify any of this ? much appreciated.
money should be eliminated and the people of the planet should be let free of the financial slavery that the governments have imposed on them
I do not know much about the banking system in the UK. The details might be a bit different but I think it is similar in general to the US. The central bank is private, but it is over seen by government officials, or it is suppose to be. It is also given a monoloply, so it might be private but it does not operate in a free market. If the government wants money, it askes, the central banks prints some up and lends it out. So that basicly all the paper money is really a debt. This can come about due to "outside influences", but does that really matter? The governmet is great at finding "outside influences" when it wants something.
Bartering is still alive and well and works when the paper money fails, such as in Zimbabwe. The government money there is worthless but people are getting by without the government by bartering. So would things be better without the middle man at all and let people barter with whatever they want? Technically we still can for most things, atleast at this time in the US. Just don't expect Walmart or other corporations to be willing to do so.
I understand your point and to a degree I agree. The problem is paper money is just the same as anything else it has value. It in principle works just the same as having stones or bananas. Imho it all works in principle but then you get the problem of when somebody works for another - people ''value'' that in differing ways. You also have the problem of some countries [especialy Zimbabwe] not being able to ''create'' everything they need - there needs to be and always has been a need to trade with the 'outside'' to sustain large grops of people. Then the ''outside'' might not value the same things you do so then you are screwed. Not even getting into a health care system and all the infrasctructure needed to sustain people today [it all might have been easier a long time ago].
This is why over time gold, silver, and other precious metals became such popular currency. Most people want them for one reason or another. Even if you don't care much for them, you know that you can trade them because so many other people do. Granted, gold and silver may not be very important to some local economies, but as you stated you usually need to trade outside and if this is the case then precious metals become even more important. If the paper money is not back by anything such as gold, then what confidence does someone on the other side of the world have in trading with that paper? I do understand what you are saying. Paper money, like anything else, is only valuable if other people want it. But paper money not backed by anything else has not stood the test of time. It is only worth anything as long as the government that prints it says it has value and the people that use it accept that it has value. Precious metals on the other hand developed over time in the free market because people wanted these things. The same can be true of other things in other areas and that is fine for them. What ever works for that area over time. It might change but should it not if the need be? Even though paper money is in such wide circulation, if I offered you silver or gold for something would you turn it down?
MBWorkRelated - The only reason you think that the world would be shitty without money is because so your used to the way it is now with the rich being better than the poor, one nation fighting another for no other reason but the increase of wealth it will bring, etc... GET OVER THE OLD WAY!!! It's kept you a slave ever since you were born and it's time to free this world!
Hey Walker......nice thread. Paper money is backed by faith and confidence in The Goverment and in The System. The Bank of England just raised its interest rate to member banks to borrow reserves. The Pound is very strong this week vs other currencies and is more valuable against the American Dollar than at any time since 1981. Yeah, goverments can create inflation and play games and certainly Zimbwabe is playing all sorts of games. But if the goverment is reasonably straight then inflation will not be a problem. Goverments like to overspend, bribing constituent groups with pork barrell largesse. Accross the pond we have this war which is wasting money and lives. We have the farm bill and energy bill that do a lot of corporate welfare and yeah we have some inflation. Financial markets are too sophisticated to be bullshited for long. everyday the US Treasury bonds are bought and sold on open auction by a huge market. Performance of The Dollar, or The Pound is public knowledge. Good politicians have to pay attention. Backing of currencies by precious metals is less important than in the past. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=ahzfGOUEf60U&refer=currency
No absolutely not - if you mean in a our society - the rich are rich and the poor are poor for a multitude of differing reasons. You on the whole gain wealth and generate wealth from actions. You are poor because on the whole you fail to do this. Everybody in our society's can do that or not do that - we live in a meritocracy rather than a plutocracy. This is not the case through out the world though - I accept that. You would still have ''rich'' and ''poor'' whatever system you have. The rich and the poor are no better or no worse [on the whole] as each other. In recent times it is very rare for ''nations' to fight each other because of money - they fight each other for social political religous ideological reasons. The notion it is about ''money'' is yours and other peoples prejudices - that is the simplistic answer like Brown = Blair = Bush or ''Accross the pond we have this war which is wasting money and lives. We have the farm bill and energy bill that do a lot of corporate welfare and yeah we have some inflation.''. . I think ''paper money'' and the system we have now should be kept because it is a better system than say bartering. Sure that works on a small local level and works in a certain criteria. It is not the silver bullet to ''free'' us. If I have nothing to barter with i'm screwed. Not everybody can have a piece of land to grow food and not everybody can give their time and ''skills'' in way of a ''trade'' - it also is not very alturistic. So you get rid of money and you tell me what could be a better solution. Did you understand much of Piney's last post ?. It went sailing over my head. I think ''confidence'' is not generated by what the money is backed with or not backed with. It relys on the social and political realities of each country - that is what imho is used in the way of ''confidence''. Where are you getting this silver and gold from ?. ''Paper money'' is better imho because everybody can earn and trade/buy/sell with it.
What Piney is saying is that, atleast here in the US, the money is backed by confidence in the government, officially. So that as long as the government is in good standing all around the money takes that on as well. Though like you said, mbworkrelated, it is really more about what the people have confidence in. If the people have no confidence in the paper money backed by the government then it is meaningless. As such, how does this make paper money any better? It all depends on what the people value. If they value the paper money then great. If they value gold, silver, corn, wood disks, etc does it really matter. Should the people have free choice in deciding what is of value instead of the government telling people what to use as "legal tender", which over time is generally what happened in many parts of the world with people using gold and silver. For in worse cases paper money that has no confidence is worthless. It is just paper with writing on it. If you have gold or silver, you can atleast melt them down into something you find useful, such as silverware.
Are you talking about a system that is totally moneyless with no "equal" exchange? Such as, I want an orange so I go to the orange farmer and get an orange, simple as that with no exchange. In a few days the orange farmer wants three apples and comes to me to get them while I receive nothing in exchange for them. Where people give and take as needed? Or are you talking about barter or something else?
I think that it is absolutely necessary for "money" to be backed by something of value... No exceptions in any case. One size fits all paper money is degrading to any society on many levels. In America's case our money is backed by nothing but it's people's sweat, blood, and tears. It works out fabulously for the people at the "top" who can benefit easy from such a fluid form of wealth transfer... These people sit behind big desks and dictate to their Number Twos, while watching his profit digits tick upwards on his computer screen generated by the Number 15 Thousand and Some Odds working 2000 miles away. Number 17,894, on the other hand works 16 hour days on the construction site and is given what the people at the top deem to be valuable at a standard rate per hour. His kids are hungry and his wife is lonely. Number 20,014 works 8 hour days checking out groceries for the same standard rate, but she can't afford her prescriptions. Ad nauseum. If money were less fluid(yeah, it's a good thing if you think about it), backed by what is valuable within a relatively small community/economy, the larger majority of the population would benefit. Wealth would have to circulate in smaller circles, locking it in area to be cycled among the people who generated it benefitting those people directly. And when it comes to commerce and trade with other community/economies, something that can be given a quantifiable and recognized value that everyone understands such as gold or silver can be used easily. When you think of it in those terms, there is NO REASON for money to be standardized and regulated by any institution outside of an economy... Unless of course there are people who may benefit from jacking around with the currency, i.e. governments. The more expansive things become, the farther they deviate from what they were originally intended for. It shouldn't be important for money at point A to be recognized at point X when most everything needed at point A can be found there or at points B,C or D. "Barter" worked for thousands of years before standardized monies came into play... It can and does work just as well today.
................................................................................................ Hay Walker....good day People Do have a choice. Well thay can't choose how thay are paid or how they spend but they can chose to Invest in gold or other non-paper assets or comodities. People in The West invest more in paper assets because there is a higher level of trust in the goverments there. Folks in The Middle East or in Asia tend to go with gold or jewelry or other comodities or even in Western paper assets because goverments have not earned thier trust. Think Saudi Arabia, with all of that oil, one might imagine a benchmark currency but no. Some invest in livestock or oil or others. So these Real Asset investments are always offering a competitive measure of the power of our Pound / Dollar, every day in Commodities markets. Its important for nations to respect the private property of its residents Nations like Argentina or Venezuela are having a tough go because people fear confiscatory politics. One can just go on line and see how gold futures stack up against the value of any given currency. This week The Pound is soaring against gold and against other currencies. Canada's Dollar is strong. The Japanese Yen is loosing steam. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/markets/currencies.html http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601012&sid=avlr7FpsCaHg&refer=commodities Peace.........
Oh I see - thanks. It is a very complex question I am finding. I figure out one thing and another hurdle is just around the corner. From what I have been reading: The U.S. Economy is in Transition to a Sustainable Growth Path - well it is back on track to that. This means ''money'' is it seems a direct result of ''confidence'' in a goverment. The economy can rise and fall depending on how the goverment act or do not act. Though is more or less stable even ongoing seemingly never ending wars can deviate from this projection - the only thing that seems to effect it is ''global trends''. I could be horribly out with that but that is how it seems to me. I think because none of us are fully aware of the whole process we can throw around points and see wich one stick -well that is what i'm doing . I think some sort of universal system is required such as it seems we have now - even if they are segmented into differing but connective entities i.e North america - South America - ''Europe'' - Sub Saharan Africa - Asia etc etc etc. Goods it seems have value based on how they were made i.e the craftmanship plus how much people are willing to pay for them. In the past poor labourers would create beautiful silk garments - being given a small amout in return for their labour. As the these garments moved away from there origin a mystique was created - imbueding these garments with more value. The skills to produce such goods dimished the further away from the source -thus creating more value for these goods. In a way imho -we have that now with ''slave labour''. We also do not have all the skills needed to sustain ourselves or create everything we need or want. The sad bit is we are all fully aware of the conditions and the ''real'' value of these goods - be that milk production or Nike shoes - we still pay a huge mark up for them. Everything WE NEED has a intrinsic value but that value is increased exponentionaly based on ''supply and demand''. This is imho why we moved away from the ''barter system''. So yes we could have ''money'' such as gold and silver but how long is that going to last ?. You can't realisticaly barter with a finite resource imho. Remember there are over 6 billion people on this earth. I think i need a nap now.
