Thinking out loud - What is money?

We spend a quarter of our lives studying to obtain it.
We spend half our lives working to save it.
We then spend the remaining quarter of our lives enjoying having it.

Money.
Just a piece of paper, and tiny metal discs with paint on them.
So, what is money anyway? Why do we deem it so important in our lives? Why is every thing's worth revolving around money?

They are nothing but numbers whose value is made up by man, yet we fight over it, and sometimes kill over it. Money has become the centre of our lives and everything we do revolves around it.
How can we spend more than we have? Why do we value it?

We compete against others,
We threaten others,
We work for others,
We kill others,
We argue with others,
We fight with others,

for a rectangular sheet of paper and a handful of metal discs that put a value on our lives; something we're all entitled to.

Quite silly if you think about it.

we value it because capitalism gives us no other choice
money is power and who in power would ever want to relinquish it

Money makes it simpler to make mutual trades between two parties. That's all there is to it. Otherwise we'd still be arguing if three chickens are really worth that box of wheat.

Money is the reason all the corrupt systems we have in this world is so jacked up. Money is a reason why people let their greed get the best of them. Money is a reason to why people murder other humans if they see a profit in it. Money can make mankind evil, and it has for a lot of people.

In America the USD is basically worthless now. Trillions upon trillions in debt so technically nobody in America owns money, it's China's money. The whole monetary system will collapse when China wants their money back, and they will. It's just a matter of when.

Well money is one of the most important thing in our life. Without money people will die. Because if there would ever be something like "Go live yourself Money is banned from the world" Then people will have only one thing, that is rest, rest and rest. And by resting there will be no people doing a thing. Food will disappear, Stores will be gone. and every thing will be gone. And people will die. XD I think of some weird thing ! xD but really without Money there won't be a life worth living.

I have been thinking about this matter for last some years. And I have been in this conclusion. Money is something that makes the life to live worth of.

Money is just a tool that allows the economy to go past the mere barter and basic survival stages. Without money, we'd have to be growing our own food since there wouldn't be a way to "pay" for it. Without money, there wouldn't be such a thing like "saving" for the future, and no industry to be spoken of. And obviously no services- why would I seek a career as a journalist when my first objective is securing food to eat?

Money is a tool. What people have done to get more and more of it is not the money's fault, but the people's.

ShinyUmbreon189 said:

In America the USD is basically worthless now. Trillions upon trillions in debt so technically nobody in America owns money, it's China's money. The whole monetary system will collapse when China wants their money back, and they will. It's just a matter of when.

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The dollar is worth exactly as much as people who want to take dollars as payment and the issuing Government say it is worth, and currently the dollar is the default currency used for all key international transactions, meaning it's the worthiest currency in the world. China can't just "ask for their money back" at random times because the debt, you know, has set repayment dates, so it can be planned around.

Incidentally, China just owns 8% of the US debt- the rest is held by Japan (also the same 8% as China!) and friendly countries such as the EU, Canada or Mexico. Of course, over 60% of the debt is kept inside the US borders: the US Government, federal departments and private US citizens and companies, who obviously aren't going to allow the country to go bankrupt for their own good. So yeah, over 60% of that money is, indeed, owned by US citizens, not just "China".

And the magic of money is that you can be in debt and still own it. After all, if we count all the countries who have defaulted on their debts in the last centuries and are currently doing pretty well, we could go on for a while- Germany twice in the 20th Century, for instance. And the Spanish Empire which held half of Europe and America in the 16th Century managed to default on their national debt four times in 50 years. And bankers would still give us money!

But again, the magic of fiat money is that it is worth as long as someone is willing to take it as payment and the Government accepts it as tax.

Money isn't paper. Remove the paper, and there would still be money. Money is the best system we have. Money is the assigned value of something. It's just a a tool to compare apples with pears. Because without money, then how would you express the amount of hours you must be filling in excel spreadsheets to own a piece of dead cow? Money will is crucial to civilization. Also, the paper doesn't make people corrupt, just the fact that you can buy stuff with it does. Even if we were to decide that money was the source of evil and would eradicate it, I hypothesize something similar will have developed within a month.

Money is bizarre, that's for sure.

A lot of good points here. Money is not a physical object, but a mental concept, a mutual agreement. Money is a useful tool. Money grants power, and as we all know, "power corrupts". Its corrosive effect is especially noticeable in government: political leaders rise to power on investments from third parties, and as a result, those politicians are indebted not to the people, but to their investors.

But here's something that hasn't been mentioned. Since money is power, and since 60% of the US economy comes from consumer spending (heard that figure on NPR, don't remember exactly where it came from), we can say - perhaps for the first time in human history - that the power rests largely with the people.

The power does not come from the democratic process, for the reason I mentioned above; ours is a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The people have the power because we can choose where to spend our dollars. As long as there is competition between corporations, we can bend those corporations to our will by spending our dollars elsewhere. At the least, we can make their lives hell if they screw up.

Money has saved humanity a lot of times, seriously. It doesn't make people corrupt, and although it is the cause of conflict between two parties, it's the people that are letting greed get ahold of them. Money has many uses, you can even manipulate people with ease, all because of one piece of paper which is hilarious, it's using money without spending, really.

Money gives you a reason to: work very hard, improve yourself, become successful, be happy, and etc.. So, I'd say money is very beneficial to us in a way that is not associated with spending.

Oh, and I do admit that money is a ***** most of the time.

I feel that nowadays, money is something people want to make because of how the economy has been recessing over the recent years and we're eager to keep what of it we can. While I want to say that it usually doesn't mean anything, it does, because it's what we need to be able to live for ourselves and hold ourselves up between getting around and obtaining our resources. At the same time, people might get greedy and devote their lives to collecting money, but one day they may realize that all the money they acquire has not gotten them anything worthwhile.

So while money does place value on certain objects, if we want to collect it we should have a real reason for wanting to collect it other than being greedy.

PokéLoco said:

They are nothing but numbers whose value is made up by man

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As human beings, we like to be rewarded for our labour. We used to trade and barter. Arbitrarily. The value of those exchanges were determined by man, by the parties involved. With currency and money, we can attribute value for goods and services across the entire process of conception to delivery. The value of these components is determined by markets, not man.

Unless, you're really asking why do we strive to profit and not just break even?

TRIFORCE89 said:

As human beings, we like to be rewarded for our labour. We used to trade and barter. Arbitrarily. The value of those exchanges were determined by man, by the parties involved. With currency and money, we can attribute value for goods and services across the entire process of conception to delivery. The value of these components is determined by markets, not man.

Unless, you're really asking why do we strive to profit and not just break even?

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As I think I said, we strive to profit because we want to be able to hold for ourselves. But I feel it may be more the companies that place value on their components than the markets, but some objects may obviously have more of a value to them than others, so it's likely what you're bound to expect either way. Or at least that's what it's like with entertainment based items such as games, music and film. But with household appliances and such, those things are what the value of may vary, particularly if that specific brand is not as common as another.

TRIFORCE89 said:

As human beings, we like to be rewarded for our labour. We used to trade and barter. Arbitrarily. The value of those exchanges were determined by man, by the parties involved. With currency and money, we can attribute value for goods and services across the entire process of conception to delivery. The value of these components is determined by markets, not man.

Unless, you're really asking why do we strive to profit and not just break even?

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Do markets exist without people buying and selling? They do not. People determine the value of the goods and services they offer. It makes no sense to say otherwise. Maybe I'm not understanding you?

Also, there's nothing arbitrary about a barrel of oats. It will feed you for a certain amount of time, and that's what determines its value. Seems to me that bartering is primarily concrete, while markets are much more conceptual (arbitrary).

Tek said:

Do markets exist without people buying and selling? They do not. People determine the value of the goods and services they offer. It makes no sense to say otherwise. Maybe I'm not understanding you?

Also, there's nothing arbitrary about a barrel of oats. It will feed you for a certain amount of time, and that's what determines its value. Seems to me that bartering is primarily concrete, while markets are much more conceptual (arbitrary).

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By "market not man" I think Went means that no one person can arbitrarily set a price too different from the market-determined value without suffering repercussions to his business (unless unless unless he has a degree of monopolistic or monopsonistic control of the market). It's not that literally no man is involved in any step of price determination.

And on the other hand there's a lot of arbitrariness (can't believe that's a real word) about products. The value of a barrel of oats isn't just determined by how much it can feed you, it also depends on whether people think oats are appropriate human food (vs. wheat or barley), whether the oat harvest was bountiful or poor, whether oatmeal is a thing in a certain culture (because we know that things cost differently in different places), so on and so forth. It's like you said, people determine the value of the goods and services they offer (and use might I add!).