Money is everything. Money is not inherently good or evil, however, the lack or excess of money causes a lot of strife in the world. Depending on your world view, you may see money is the ultimate evil or the ultimate force of progress. Money can buy food to feed starving orphans in a third world country, but it can also buy an AK-47 or an explosive device that creates more orphans. Money can uplift an impoverished community or helps empower warlords and tyrants. Money can enable free speech and be used to silence the voices of the oppressed. But what do you know about money?
Saint or sinner, we all love money. We love it and we hate it. We can't live without it... And yet, we know so little about it. The topic of money and wealth is damn near banned in most K-12 public schools. There are no classes to teach our children about money and how it works and history professors never talk about it much. There are no financial educational course requirements to obtain a high school degree or even a college degree. Most students and young adults never learn about money until they are already in debt and feel the negative consequences of not having enough money.
Do you know how money works? Where does it come from and why? Who controls money and what give's money value? And what is the digital currency revolution?
Money is defined as anything can be used to represent value. Something that can be used as a payment for something else. In simple terms, money is a universal thing we all agree is valuable enough to trade for other stuff. Money has existed since the beginning of civilization with recorded history of money going back to the Bronze Age (3000+ BC). Most students of history will tell you that the exchange of goods (trade) is the driving force of humanity throughout history and trade systems would not be possible without the concept of money or some form of universal value representation.
What are the characteristics of money? What make's pieces of paper and metal coins so special?
- It must create a standard of value that can be applied to all good and services
- It must be divisible into many units of different value
- It must be unique and resist counterfeiting
- It must allow for the creation of credit and debt
- It must be easily transportable in large quantities
- It must be able to store value for undetermined periods of time (durable)
How is money created?
About 97% of wealth and money in the world is created by major banks in the form of credit and debt. Through fractional-reserve banking banks are able to take the money you and I deposit into our accounts and issue out loans to create 'new money' based on their total reserves.
So, when you deposit $100, they can loan out your money repeatedly by only keeping about 10% of the original $100 in their reserves. Eventually, by the process of repeat deposits and new loans, a $100 deposit can be turned into $900 of wealth!
Money is also created by central bank's (also known as National Reserves). Central Banks print money and add it to the total supply at regular intervals and control annual inflation to maintain it's value. Simply put, if you print too much money too quickly it will be worthless. The African country of Zimbabwe is an excellent example of what happens when inflation goes out of control. The video below explains how the annual inflation in Zimbabwe hit over 471,000,000,000% in just a couple of years (2007-2008).
What gives money value?
Historically, the value of a nation's currency has always been directly tied to a valuable commodity like gold. The more gold a country had in their vaults, the money their paper or metal money was worth. However, most nations today have abolished the gold standard and rely on monetary policies to control the value of their currencies. That means the real value of money, in the modern day and age, is based on government backing which in turn relies on the peoples trust and backing.
So, these days the only thing giving your money value is YOUR trust in your own government. Without you trusting that your paper money is worth something, your paper money might as well be just toilet paper. If tomorrow everyone decided to take out their US dollars out of their bank account and trade them for something else, it would cause the USD to plummet in value and the USD based economy to crash. Of course there are far too many safeguards in place to allow a run on the banks, but none the less the threat is always out there.
What the is the digital currency revolution and why are the banks so afraid of it?
Money is controlled by governments and banks. They print the stuff, control inflation, and set monetary policies. Digital money like Bitcoin and Ethereum was created to by the people to take back control over money from governments and financial institutions. Currencies that are ruled by the consensus of the people and smart algorithms, not greedy bankers and politicians.
Andreas Antonopoulos is one of my favorite speakers on the topic of money and the digital revolution of money. If you have the time please watch the video below. It is very fun and informative and you will not regret the time you spent to watch it.
Just imagine if you were in the business of selling water in the middle of a desert and you and your friends controlled ALL the water around. You get to control who gets the water and how much of it. What the price of water is and how much of it can be distributed to the people in any given period of time. Then some anonymous traveler comes into your territory and sets up a non profit next door to your business that offers water at the cost of obtaining it!
What would you do? Do you work with this new competitor that is not even trying to get rich? Do you spread lies of contamination to promote the value of your water? Do you try to destroy your competition?
That is essentially where we are at in the world. We are at the precipice of something unprecedented and the story is only starting to unfold. Like all the major revolutions before this time (Industrialism, Nationhood, Democracy, etc) this revolution will be driven by the people. Unlike any other revolution, this is not limited to just one nation or continent, this time it's global.
The dirty secret is that in the end all governments and banks fear the people. If the people rise up and demand something, the banks and governments can only hold out so long before they risk an uprising or a civil war. Or worse yet, the people doing what they want (despite their rules) and crashing the economy in the process.
The revolution is just beginning and the most powerful weapons in this war is propaganda and mass manipulation of public opinion.
Some people say there is simply too much at stake for this revolution to work, but the same arguments were made during Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Daunting achievements that seemed impossible because there was so much power and money at stake... and yet the people demanded it and it happened.
There are conspiracy theories abound about the REAL power behind money and secret organizations, but no organization can stand up to the power of the people when we are united. If we unite we can force the digital currency revolution to happen no matter how much some people want to stop it.
Thank you for reading and please upvote, follow, and resteem if your enjoyed my article. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of money. Those of you who have followed me a while know that I always welcome your opinions and insights even if you think I am wrong or my ideals are flawed. I welcome criticism and try to learn from my mistakes instead of just getting defensive. I hope you have enjoyed reading my article and it gave you something to think about.