Musicmystery
Posts: 30259
Joined: 3/14/2005 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Real0ne quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery Dude, You have an astounding capacity to complicate based on basic miscomprehensions. Start by looking up the economic definition of money. From there, the rest is, as IB accurately put it, silly. Sigh. Again, you lack an understanding of basic fundamentals, and it makes the rest of your rants silly. You discuss money as a thing. It's not--it's a concept. Whether gold, shells, coffee beans, IOUs, beads, whatever, if it's widely accepted for purposes of exchange and repayment of debt, then it has (and can store) value. That concept is the ONLY thing that gives any money value. Now, go back and look at your claims. You'll see why they don't make sense. Ok I am conceptualizing........................................damn all that conceptualizing and I dont have one red cent more than I had before I started. How do you do that "economist" trick anyway? You are correct in that is is used for exchange you are incorrect that is can be used for "Payment" of debt. If you think you can PAY a debt with a frn I cant wait to see how you plan to support that bullshit. oh yeh and it cant "store" value it can only represent value (even though it has none). Like I've told you several times already--it's a matter of definition. Look in any economics text you like. Aren't you the one who went howling after PoliteSub "I already told you the book, look it up"? If you don't like the definition, that doesn't change reality. But this right above highlights again clearly that you don't understand that. You are using "money" to interchangeably represent currency, tangible assets, wealth, and savings, all of which are different things. And yes, of these, only tangible assets are real things, the others only concepts. Useful concepts, as mathematics and accounting are too, but concepts. Money is, in fact, an IOU in a very real sense. Pete works three hours for Joe. Joe gives him a note acknowledging that. Next month, Joe works on something for Pete for three hours. Pete gives him back the note to clear the payment/debt. What exists between them is an agreement, a system of accounting for who did what and how much of it, a concept. If we piled all the U.S. currency together, it wouldn't equal but a small fraction of the money supply. None of it is real. It's the acceptance of IOUs to facilitate trade by cutting transaction costs of bartering in some widely accepted medium--whether paper or gold or wampum or tortoise shells. Because it's widely accepted, it can be used to store value. Because it's a concept and not a physical thing, it can exist as a number. I have a few hundred thousand saved. I've never seen it. It's still there, and it's still an asset I can draw against. How do I get paid? By check--an IOU with numbers, which I give to the bank, which in turn credits more numbers to my account. Yes, it has no intrinsic value. It's not a thing--it's a concept. You can scream at me all day, all week, all year. Pick up any economics text. There's nothing theoretical or controversial or even debatable here---it's a matter of definition. Why do you suppose economics is a social science, not a hard science? It deals with social constructs and human behavior, not physical realities like chemistry or earth science. Your outrage at the monetary system is indeed rooted in a complete misunderstanding of what money is and does. Any economics text. At all. Your choice. Go see for yourself.
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