Saturday 18 July 2009

Money and the Entire World Economy System


No, I have not gone off my rocker. Yet. Yes, I'm about to launch into a rant about money. What? It's not like I'm the first person to do this!


How did we get here? How did money get elevated to this position? Who decides what it's worth or if it even exists? I repeat, contrary to what some of you might be currently thinking, I am not losing my marbles. Let me walk you through my thoughts.


How did we start off? Barter perhaps? I've got this slab of meat, you've got that hefty club, let's exchange and be happy? Perhaps. I do know that somewhere along the line, some things began to be valued for their practical benefits. Salt, for its value as a preservative, and perhaps for its taste, gold for its use in ornaments, diamond for being virtually indestructible and very pretty... and so on. At some point, some clever fellows decided, why should we drag heavy bags of gold about when we can store them in a bank and just carry some paper from the bank proving that we've got the gold? Yet more time passes, and folks are prepared to trade using just the paper promising to pay the gold to the holder. We've moved on even further now. No paper required. Just figures on a computer screen. Here's my question: WHERE'S MY GOLD?


Okay, let's be serious. You say Mr. A has a million pounds (of gold presumably). Does he, now? Says who? It's a fiction isn't it? We've all bought into this fiction and are building our lives in one gigantic game of make-believe. If the majority of the world's citizens decide, "That's it, enough of this nonesense, I don't want to play anymore" then the money becomes worthless. I say we demand to see the gold, get back to barter, or purchasing with some other practical item of value, e.g. oil. Or groundnuts. Who's with me?