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What is the value of money?

Do any of us ever think about what money is, What it does? Whence its value comes?
Depending on the reactions, I may or may not answer my own query. Thx 😉

CapriKious 7 Feb 10
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18 comments

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0

The value of money is the willingness that you are going to commit seconds, minutes, hours, and physical years of your life...to trade that in a conversion for goods/services...called money.

0

Money, at least paper currency, doesn't have intrinsic value. It's a promissory note that only has value because it's accepted in exchange for goods and services. The value of money is whatever buyers and sellers (to simplify the economic system) agree on.

JimG Level 8 Feb 11, 2018
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If I have 10 dollars it is worth exactly 10 dollars, thats almost 10 pounds, think of that

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what you can buy.

If you take a piece of gold out of the ground, stick it back into the ground, and pull it out 10 years later. Nothing has changed. Stick a potato in the ground and your returns are 10x in a single year.

Money is a bet in the area that makes it. It is looking at all the various people doing their various jobs making and building and repairing and serving and saying "I bet these people will do alright and the money I have that they made I can use with them".

1

It's not worth the paper it's printed on

0

Where do you place value? The market manipulates its value to a point of constant fluctuation. The Fed also controls the value as it prints during recessions leading to bailouts. Then there's the national interest rates. This all leads to a value point on consumerism. World currency games anyone? Some argue we are merely a number in the banking system. Which means all you're worth is the weight of steel change you own. Should we all convert our paper money to change? When the next world war starts we have something to take to the nearest scrap mill to get a voucher card for some food. Now more weapons can be made to finish off mankind. No, money has no real value. The currency system is merely a measure of the existence you're allowed if you play well within the rules of the deep state. A lot of people have found themselves uprooted and tossed aside by this system. Whether it be because of their race and or placement in society.

@Fanburger [thebalance.com]

@Fanburger Exactly. Even reading the article shows that they don't print money. The article implies that the fed somehow increases and decreases the amount of money in existence when in reality they just manipulate the amount available to the market by converting T-bills to cash and vice versa. Only the BEP prints money, and only at the direction of the US Treasury.

2

Just my 2¢: Money has no inherent value, as it can't be reasonably consumed as food or fuel or technology. The perceived value comes from market forces that are difficult to quantify and predict because there are so many facets. The amount of money that people have available to spend is a factor, as is the performance of the market overall. And because our brand of capitalism relies on ostensible growth, there is built-in inflation that erodes the value of money. And, ultimately, faith in the economy plays a large role, and when confidence drops the value in the long run can be affected negatively, and when confidence is too low for too long it can lead to recession, depression, and/or complete collapse.

2

I look at money as representing labor.

Probably the largest problem with that idea is that the very rich don't have to actually labor for money, not like most of us worker bees.

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It's a tool of trade, period.

0

Of course I think about money! And where it comes from and where it will be going! But, as I have said before, your photo color cannot be resisted! It is like a magnet to me! But, back to the money...if I bartered for a living I would be just as happy! I have always lived within my means...when there wasn't much, I lived with little! If I had more, I lived with more, but never beyond, though! I really may not have a very good appreciation for money, because I wouldn't do just anything for money! I would probably starve, instead! Money has never harmed me and I have no idea why I have developed into this mindset!

1

The value of money is what the culture says it is. It is simply a regulated and agreed upon medium of exchange.

3

Let's look at money form a different angle! Sure it is a medium of exchange, easier than barter. You give me your gourd and I give you my shekel. If that is the going price for a gourd all seems well. In a month if I have done nothing with the gourd, it is rotten and useless. The shekel is still worth something. Money allows people to create and store wealth. Pass it down through the generations. How much of the wealth of Bill Gates comes from slave labour 200 years ago as wealthy people have bought Windows? How much past environmental destruction is stored in our bank accounts? The land is raped, poisoned, people take their profits and run, profits go in the bank, but the damage is done. Sorry I cannot explain things more clearly, I see it, but words elude sometimes. And I am actually a fan of Bill Gates and a member of his foundation I just chose him as a wealthy well known person. Take money away, go back to barter and it is harder to be greedy. Yay, I made a profit of 3000 pigs this year, where do I put them? How do I feed them? Or 500 blocks of cheese. hmmm, much of the incentive to be greedy vanishes. You end up with heaps of land, you have to maintain it, defend it. Money makes greed so easy. Again, I expose myself as a heretic.

Bill Gates wealth stems from the idea of information being owned, and his wealth doesn't go back past the creation of Microsoft.

If you were talking about real property in the South, that would be a totally different picture.

I totally understand why some countries don't honor intellectual property. I think that copyright for software has really crippled the entire tech industry. It has made a few very very rich and stifled innovation across the entire industry.

The patent system, even as flawed as it is, is far better than nearly perpetual copyrights. Copyright is for artistic works, not functional inventions.

At least people are moving away from copyright in software with open source.

@arnies I realised when I was writing I wasn't explaining myself well. All the accumulated wealth in the world has come from somewhere, many places. But mostly it is the result of some form of profit. Profit is from selling something for more than it has cost to produce or obtain. Much of human history, profit has been made possible by slavery and other systems. In Oz we'll will dig anything anyone wants and sell it for a deemed profit. This is possible due to cheap extraction processes, but if mining companies had to restore the land to its original condition rather than leave behind a wasteland, the process is less profitable if at all, maybe it would result in a loss. So companies export the ore, make their profit and buy software. Indirectly the money has come from the mining operation. I boycott products, companies and countries, imagine if say Microsoft refused to sell software to our mining companies? You would have families and companies in the states where the wealth was made in less than honorable ways. Agree totally re licensing of software, if I buy an operating system, I want to be able to continue to use it of I replace my machine. Beware he next level of cloud computing, looks like we are heading toward domination by application servers.

0

Money is a tool I use to get the peace I want in my life.

A friend and I were talking about waiting for a rich relative to send us money when I had the unsettling realization that in my family I AM THE RICH RELATIVE.

1

The idea of exchanging money for goods came from greed. Humans were perfectly fine bartering and trading for thousands of years. Trading a service for a service. In the service of others we find humility. But in the service of money, we find more greed. I think money is only as valuable as you let it become. If you spend all your time obsessing over what you have and what you don't have and what you'd like to have, money must seem pretty valuable. But in the grand scheme of life and the universe, its as useless as we are. Men like the Koch brothers and George Soros live lives consumed by greed and in return have very little compassion for other humans. Money has little value to me other than keeping the lights on. So I guess, what does money mean to you?

1

Priceless !

Tomas Level 7 Feb 11, 2018
1

Money is just what people believe it is if they don't believe in it it's worthless. Like people that try to get me to buy gold or silver I ask can I eat it will it be reasonable to shelter me from the weather if not why would I get it for hard times.

2

Money keeps us slaves. I’m not a fan of this system. I don’t have any solutions, though.

5

Money is an agreed upon medium of exchange. It represents the amount of time I spend at work that I can exchange for stuff I think I need, food, shelter, movie tickets. Money is a tool, it has no characteristics of being good or bad. It can be used for good or bad, just like a hammer can.

Damn it. You beat me to it.

@NeoXerops 😉

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