1
What is money?
Swimmer1929
Warning: After reading this, if I leave you in a discombobulated mess, please accept the deepest of my condolences.
I know we take this for granted but... what is money? Think about it, I find it really thought-provoking. If you have no idea what I'm getting at, think of it this way. Sure, cash is some green stuff that you can give to other people in return for goods or services and it’s a form of currency. But not many people are aware of that fact that it’s just a monetary note, meaning that it actually is representing a small chunk of gold in the U.S. Treasury, the paper itself has no value, just what it’s representing. So, to the people who ask “Well, we’re 16 trillion dollars in debt. Y CANT WE JUST UZE MONEY MACHINES?” Every country has a set amount of gold in their treasury, they can’t create more money than gold that they have. Basically, a country’s treasury resembles their economy, finance and revenue. However, cash isn’t the point I’m getting at here. It’s money in credit and debit cards. Have you ever thought about how the money in your, or maybe your parents credit/debit cards are stored? Sure, it’s in a bank, but it’s digital, just numbers displayed on a screen. Wanna know how much money you have? Check online, at the bank, or at the ATM and a number is instantly displayed showing how much funds you have left, or in the event you’re using a credit card, how much left until you reach your credit limit. Think deeper. What is that number being displayed? Well… it’s a number. There’s so many stories on the news about banks being robbed (not cash, the money that’s in a digital form, merely presented to us in a form of a number) but how is that possible? How can you edit a number on one end and increase a number on your end by simply robbing a bank? Seriously, it makes no sense to me? If you don't get what I'm saying, I'll try to explain it one last time. The amount of money present in your bank account is represented by a number, merely a number, am I right? Well, how is this number changed around, edited and yet still has to somehow coordinate with the endless changed being made to it and the treasury. They can't just change a number around, this is money. We know how the money is represented, as a number, but what is it really? It shows up on our screens as a number but is it just digital, something that doesn't even exist in a physical form that somehow coordinates with the real world? GAH... SO MIND BOGGLING. Meh, maybe it's just how one perceives it, after all, perception is reality, eh? One day I hope to find out how these banks to it, after all as I said above the way I see it it’s just money in some way merely presented to us in a form of a number.
Just another feeble and perhaps futile attempt to further educate (or maybe just try to get my thoughts out to) the PMC community. If you’ve read all the way to down here and know what the heck I’m talking about and are pondering my same wonders, cookie for you.
Yours truly,
swimmer1929
I know we take this for granted but... what is money? Think about it, I find it really thought-provoking. If you have no idea what I'm getting at, think of it this way. Sure, cash is some green stuff that you can give to other people in return for goods or services and it’s a form of currency. But not many people are aware of that fact that it’s just a monetary note, meaning that it actually is representing a small chunk of gold in the U.S. Treasury, the paper itself has no value, just what it’s representing. So, to the people who ask “Well, we’re 16 trillion dollars in debt. Y CANT WE JUST UZE MONEY MACHINES?” Every country has a set amount of gold in their treasury, they can’t create more money than gold that they have. Basically, a country’s treasury resembles their economy, finance and revenue. However, cash isn’t the point I’m getting at here. It’s money in credit and debit cards. Have you ever thought about how the money in your, or maybe your parents credit/debit cards are stored? Sure, it’s in a bank, but it’s digital, just numbers displayed on a screen. Wanna know how much money you have? Check online, at the bank, or at the ATM and a number is instantly displayed showing how much funds you have left, or in the event you’re using a credit card, how much left until you reach your credit limit. Think deeper. What is that number being displayed? Well… it’s a number. There’s so many stories on the news about banks being robbed (not cash, the money that’s in a digital form, merely presented to us in a form of a number) but how is that possible? How can you edit a number on one end and increase a number on your end by simply robbing a bank? Seriously, it makes no sense to me? If you don't get what I'm saying, I'll try to explain it one last time. The amount of money present in your bank account is represented by a number, merely a number, am I right? Well, how is this number changed around, edited and yet still has to somehow coordinate with the endless changed being made to it and the treasury. They can't just change a number around, this is money. We know how the money is represented, as a number, but what is it really? It shows up on our screens as a number but is it just digital, something that doesn't even exist in a physical form that somehow coordinates with the real world? GAH... SO MIND BOGGLING. Meh, maybe it's just how one perceives it, after all, perception is reality, eh? One day I hope to find out how these banks to it, after all as I said above the way I see it it’s just money in some way merely presented to us in a form of a number.
Just another feeble and perhaps futile attempt to further educate (or maybe just try to get my thoughts out to) the PMC community. If you’ve read all the way to down here and know what the heck I’m talking about and are pondering my same wonders, cookie for you.
Yours truly,
swimmer1929
Create an account or sign in to comment.
66
1
I think we are all over thinking this just a tad...
1
No, we're not. You're just taking it for granted. ^.^
1
Inherent value is not the same as implied value. Our monetary system works on the principle of implied value, whereas a gold piece is valuable because of inherent value. A piece of money does not have to have inherent value to have implied value in an economic environment. Its inherent value has nothing to do with its implied value and does not (necessarily) influence it.
1
without nesecarrly backing up the inheartint vaule, it will result in a drop in the value in money as did in 1607
1
Whoah bro... deep.
1
I understand. However, gold pieces can also be valuable because of implied value, not just inherent value.
1
money buys chocolate, money is chocolate. ok question answered everybody go home.
1
You guys are overthinking this. Money has implied value. It is the guarantee of credit in a transaction. Whether the physical thing has value is not important.
1
I partially agree, except for that last part. That is like saying that it doesn't matter if the physical you has any value or not. Perhaps you're just a username on the internet.
1
For the purpose of money, it does not need to have any physical value. It is the representation of work done, used in fiscal transactions. None of those things require physical value.
1
Take, for example, a gold coin.
Is the gold itself valuable? I would say yes, wouldn't you? It all depends on how we define "value". If we define it by rarity, then yes, gold is valuable.
Is the gold itself valuable? I would say yes, wouldn't you? It all depends on how we define "value". If we define it by rarity, then yes, gold is valuable.
1
What is page breaks.
1
Properly spacing out your posts for $750.
@OP: As many others have said, money has no direct value. We think it has value.
@OP: As many others have said, money has no direct value. We think it has value.
1
its liek dis thing.. thign dat u buy thing wit.
1
I am aware that you're being sarcastic :3
1
I read the whole thing, and that's actually a pretty good thought.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi dapibus sagittis lorem, et vehicula orci auctor vel. Etiam nec nibh quis sapien feugiat pretium.
heheh I'm too lazy to make a wall of text it's freaking 5:00 AM.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi dapibus sagittis lorem, et vehicula orci auctor vel. Etiam nec nibh quis sapien feugiat pretium.
heheh I'm too lazy to make a wall of text it's freaking 5:00 AM.
1
Wait, what? O_o
1
Robbing a bank... Maybe people actually goes into some sort of weirdass system that is so f*cking advanced, and then edit the amount of digital numbers they have left of their money... After reading this, I aren't quite sure what the digital money, almost everyone uses in these days, actually is...
1
barter system is change something with something.
Example : a cow trade with two sword, 5 bread trade with abow and arrow, etc
Hope usefull
Example : a cow trade with two sword, 5 bread trade with abow and arrow, etc
Hope usefull
1
Yes, but the idea of a universal currency (country wide, at least) is used to justify the prices of goods and services.
You would be willing to give up a lot for something you really need.
Someone that has what you need and doesn't even want it is likely to take the opportunity to sell you out for their own greedy greater good.
Putting a relative numerical indication of value (a price) on something gets rid of opportunity to take advantage of this and make life, living, surviving, and trades, more 'fair'.
You would be willing to give up a lot for something you really need.
Someone that has what you need and doesn't even want it is likely to take the opportunity to sell you out for their own greedy greater good.
Putting a relative numerical indication of value (a price) on something gets rid of opportunity to take advantage of this and make life, living, surviving, and trades, more 'fair'.
1
"What is money?"
It is a numerical representation of worth.
'nuff said?
It is a numerical representation of worth.
'nuff said?
1
If we just print more money, our money would just become less valuable as there is more money to go around.
1
brawley12 says :
Money is just a way to "stabilize society". Yes its just numbers. Yes dollars or other physical forms of currency is just cotton or paper. Yes we thrive to have more. But what if we didn't have currency. First off, chaos. Its a balance to an uncivil world. Its like our very own security. With the right amount anybody can do anything. With close to nothing, you are basically "nothing". But it also regulates a human's everyday needs for them. We need food, water, electricity, education, and etc. But of course nobody is willing to give it away for free due to our own greed or "hard work". So money was created. It may be a number but it is the very chains that may just keep this world from falling into the depths of chaos and damnation.
The history of money start from barter system (or trade something with something), And few years more a civilization was use shell for the exchange of the barter system.
After the years of "alexander the great" money turns into gold coin. Now, money became paper to easily change something and not too heavy.
Money is just a way to "stabilize society". Yes its just numbers. Yes dollars or other physical forms of currency is just cotton or paper. Yes we thrive to have more. But what if we didn't have currency. First off, chaos. Its a balance to an uncivil world. Its like our very own security. With the right amount anybody can do anything. With close to nothing, you are basically "nothing". But it also regulates a human's everyday needs for them. We need food, water, electricity, education, and etc. But of course nobody is willing to give it away for free due to our own greed or "hard work". So money was created. It may be a number but it is the very chains that may just keep this world from falling into the depths of chaos and damnation.
The history of money start from barter system (or trade something with something), And few years more a civilization was use shell for the exchange of the barter system.
After the years of "alexander the great" money turns into gold coin. Now, money became paper to easily change something and not too heavy.
1
money is something you should give to the unfortunate, because if no one does they will starve, only if this world was balanced, and there was no such thing as rich, or poor, no such ranks such as "Queen", or "Admin", and Member....
1
Society will never truly be balanced nor perfect, people are greedy, forever and always. We basically are the seven deadly sins wrapped up in one.
1
Money is just a way to "stabilize society". Yes its just numbers. Yes dollars or other physical forms of currency is just cotton or paper. Yes we thrive to have more. But what if we didn't have currency. First off, chaos. Its a balance to an uncivil world. Its like our very own security. With the right amount anybody can do anything. With close to nothing, you are basically "nothing". But it also regulates a human's everyday needs for them. We need food, water, electricity, education, and etc. But of course nobody is willing to give it away for free due to our own greed or "hard work". So money was created. It may be a number but it is the very chains that may just keep this world from falling into the depths of chaos and damnation.
1
Capitalists. Capitalists everywhere.
It must be tough when your new pokemon game costs $70 but you haven't saved up enough in the year. Tell me how bad your money issues are.
It must be tough when your new pokemon game costs $70 but you haven't saved up enough in the year. Tell me how bad your money issues are.
1
Gold and silver are no longer behind each piece of currency, they stopped doing that after the great depression..
Suppose you have a cake. You hand out tickets to people so they can each get a piece. If you hand out a thousand tickets, either you're going to have to slice the pieces very, very thin, or a lot of people are just going to have worthless tickets. If you hand out just two, each person can have quite a bit of cake. The value of the tickets, then, depends a lot on how many you hand out.
That's basically what money is. It's a promise to pay from the government. You get the money and you can trade it with people in that country for stuff. And just like with the cake, if suddenly tons of people have money, either the money ends up being worth very little or most of the people with money get nothing for it.
~Sua
Suppose you have a cake. You hand out tickets to people so they can each get a piece. If you hand out a thousand tickets, either you're going to have to slice the pieces very, very thin, or a lot of people are just going to have worthless tickets. If you hand out just two, each person can have quite a bit of cake. The value of the tickets, then, depends a lot on how many you hand out.
That's basically what money is. It's a promise to pay from the government. You get the money and you can trade it with people in that country for stuff. And just like with the cake, if suddenly tons of people have money, either the money ends up being worth very little or most of the people with money get nothing for it.
~Sua
1
EVERY ONE IS WRONG! It's cotton
1
[deleted]
1
Speaking about money... the federal government shutdown could potentially result in a few billion dollars in economic damage! Yay ._.
1
Surprised you didn't mention pre-WW2 Germany. They tried just printing more money to fix their economy, and look how that turned out... one of the main contributing factors to WW2
1
The numbers in the bank are equivalent to how much money (which is pretty much gold) that somebody has. When somebody hacks a bank account, they transfer the location of the gold from the person's account, to their account. Now at the bank, it says victim has 0 gold, and hacker has 999999 gold. Therefore, they get the money, and the digital numbers make sense.
It's mainly changing the location of the gold.
It's mainly changing the location of the gold.
1
1
What is money....What is love.
Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more. (And yes, I had too.)
Baby don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more. (And yes, I had too.)
1
Wow swim... You never cease to amaze me with your logic...
O_o
O_o
1
I'll take that as a compliment.
O_o
O_o
1
Interesting really. But I think the true answer, we have to obey by what is demanded for us to live as a society. Basically i'm saying that the money we have 'green stuff' is what we live by.. In the sense that we pay for food,drink healthcare and other materialistic things. We are like a mouse in a cage. Nice or crappy, it's still a cage. Point being is, I say go with the flow and live in what we have created for ourselves.
Little bit off topic. But I feel that the way we live was understandable back then, when we actually had dangers to our well being. But the problem now is that our way of life produces overpopulation and our 'no human left behind' mentality will probably be our downfall. With limited resources it will not matter how much money you have as people will care more about what really matters, family,guns,food/drink,friends and of course toilet paper.
Little bit off topic. But I feel that the way we live was understandable back then, when we actually had dangers to our well being. But the problem now is that our way of life produces overpopulation and our 'no human left behind' mentality will probably be our downfall. With limited resources it will not matter how much money you have as people will care more about what really matters, family,guns,food/drink,friends and of course toilet paper.
1
Humans are lazy and everything we are is based on some kind of reward system. no reward, no productivity. we only really care about what makes us feel good so why would one want to actually work? there needs to be some kind of motivation for our intelligence. we are not smart because it feels good. we are smart because we have gotten very clever at finding ways to be rewarded. infact we are so clever that we came up with a way to reward everyone with the same thing for many reasons. money. the only thing that gives money any power is the fact that people believe in it. think about if there was no reward for having money. it would be worthless.
1
That was a rather good read. My opinion on this matter is slightly hard to word out but I shall try to do my best.
Money is...... Currency right?
Currency is basically any object used to get another object.
We then use that object, then sell that objects for another object.
If you think about it, money is nothing but trading objects.... That just it. Trading objects.
Although bills and coins are special, these two objects seem to value more because of what they represent.
There are many other topics just like this one such as....... What is life.
Just wondering if we should make a thread for all those philosophical questions.
Money is...... Currency right?
Currency is basically any object used to get another object.
We then use that object, then sell that objects for another object.
If you think about it, money is nothing but trading objects.... That just it. Trading objects.
Although bills and coins are special, these two objects seem to value more because of what they represent.
There are many other topics just like this one such as....... What is life.
Just wondering if we should make a thread for all those philosophical questions.
1
And the worst part is that the gold that is represented by the paper doesn't really have much value either! It really is just a yellowish-colored rock, with just a couple of uses besides decoration, and most of them not money-related.
1
Well, we have to have some form of currency, right? With your logic, everything is just a colored object that has no value. Not really. Scarcity, and thus demand for something increase its value; Gold is valuable.
1
MISSCHAT
1
Cookie taste like computer chips
1
Money is filthy bits of paper and metal we use to buy stuff, including computers. What is a website, or a videogame? Just pixels on a screen. Photons constantly being shot AT YOUR EYES
1
Not sure about that. I think you're talking about Cathode Ray Tube style televisions. It's just pixels on a screen right? Just like viewing bad stuff on a school computer is just pixels, right? But, on a serious note... yeah it's more than mere pixels O_o
1
That's right. It's the patterns behind the pixels that are important. Still, I think getting too deep into this stuff is possibly not the best idea.
Humans have an obsession with sqaures.
They also have an obsession with dirty bits of paper and metal.
They like killing each other with metal tubes.
Bad stuff on school computers... Excuses, excuses. The sort of thing a student might say. The sorts of things you're viewing there are smaller than the stone file in my texturepack, and yet they're still harmful for you. Point taken.
There are roughly 1.2 quadrillion possibilities for a 512x512 image. Most of the images make no sense, so many could be considered conclusive proof of something or other.
Humans have an obsession with sqaures.
They also have an obsession with dirty bits of paper and metal.
They like killing each other with metal tubes.
Bad stuff on school computers... Excuses, excuses. The sort of thing a student might say. The sorts of things you're viewing there are smaller than the stone file in my texturepack, and yet they're still harmful for you. Point taken.
There are roughly 1.2 quadrillion possibilities for a 512x512 image. Most of the images make no sense, so many could be considered conclusive proof of something or other.
1
You... I like you...
1
Money is an object that humans have given value in exchange for goods and services. It's based on faith that it's value will remain steady as supply and demand increase and decrease respectively. The origin of money started in Roman times when soldiers were paid salt which, at the time, was considered a rarity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money
The US is still based off the gold standard and therefore at the mercy of the economy. If the amount of gold doubled, the value of the dollar would decrease in value. Other countries have dropped using gold as a unit of measurement for the value of their currency, thus relying on the value of what is printed on the bill alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy
Money is nothing more than paper, fibers, non-precious metals used for everyday tasks such as delivering a package or buying cereal at the grocery store. People have given a value to money because that is the number printed on it. In reality, it's actually valueless, nothing more than paper and metal exchanged between two or more people..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money
The US is still based off the gold standard and therefore at the mercy of the economy. If the amount of gold doubled, the value of the dollar would decrease in value. Other countries have dropped using gold as a unit of measurement for the value of their currency, thus relying on the value of what is printed on the bill alone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy
Money is nothing more than paper, fibers, non-precious metals used for everyday tasks such as delivering a package or buying cereal at the grocery store. People have given a value to money because that is the number printed on it. In reality, it's actually valueless, nothing more than paper and metal exchanged between two or more people..
1
Oh, you're "that guy" at parties, aren't you?
view more replies ( 1 )
view more replies ( 5 )
