What is Money?

[Urine_Sample]

Here is my attempt at some critical thinking...(lawl)

 

I believe everyone is poor if we are to measure the success of our lives by the amount of money we have or stuff to show what we've done with our money. In the end, the reality is that the paper wealth that has been distributed by our central banks is not real. It's ficticious. A reciept which only creates more debt in the end due to the central banks excessive printing of the paper and the ever so increasing demand for the currency which only devalues it more than it already is because the world is tied to a particular currency through money market accounts

 

but what is money?

 

IMO, as absurd as it may be, 'money' is an arbritary value given to any given medium we agree upon as a society(kind of like the Gregorian calendar) and hold percentages/denominations of value to it. So whether it's seashells, paper reciepts, plastic cards, bonds/T-Bills, tally sticks etc, money doesn't really exist except for in our minds.

 

lawl

[I3lessed]

Agreed, also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpN60KKBAjc&feature=avmsc2

Edited July 30, 2010 by I3lessed

[Papito]

[AntiThought]

True making it even worse though is that (at least here in the US) when the Federal Reserve bank prints money to loan to the Government it prints that money with interest owed on it. Basically if there was not enough money before the loan where is the money going to come from to pay back the interest on this loan? Either from the people as higher taxes or another loan to pay the interest of the first one.

 

The first method will slowly drain the middle and lower classes (and eventually the upper classes) and leave the elites with all the money (yes money at this point will collapse but the power gained by this form of slow take over will be sustained). The second method creates a cycle of debt with unpayable interest eventually all the money in the country would have to be used to pay on the principle with nothing left to fully repay the interest. There are several options from that point, I will not bog down this topic with unless asked, but whichever path you look at all the money and power shifts to the elite banking families. Greed will be our downfall and I believe our foot just missed the first step on the stairway to destruction. Look at the global economy it is clear we are stumbling the only important question left to answer is will we look down to catch ourselves before we fall or will we continue wearing the blindfolds of lust and ignorance?

 

Personally I am preparing for when society breaks its neck on the last step as it falls.

[jaie]

Money is the medium of exchange.

[GoodKarme]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXb-LrVkuwM this is one of 22 videos if u have the time watch it it's very good film on history of money and central banks around the world

[PHANTASM]

Until 1971, money was a guarantee from the government that it would back the bearer with a certain amount of gold.

 

So money = gold.

 

In 1971, President Richard Nixon decided to transfer the basis of money from gold to oil. We went from a gold standard to an oil standard. In exchange for denominating all oil prices in US dollars, and forcing the world to buy dollars to buy oil from the major producers, the US provided the Saudis with US military protection and protection from any UN action (i.e. human rights violations). Since Nixon's decision, the US has been printing and borrowing money as fast as possible, because the devalued currency is spread globally and therefore was relatively immune to inflation. The money is no longer connected to gold in any meaningful way. It is now connected to oil.

 

Not even a staggering financial imbecile like Barak Hussein Obama can ruin the US dollar. It was actually a great decision by Nixon, in a strange way, as long as the US controls the world's oil supply, which it still does.

 

So now, money is oil. This is why controlling the Middle East (and Colombia and Venezuela) is so critical to the US. This is also why the US propaganda machine is so fixated on Iran. There are many worse nations than Iran (see North Korea, Sudan, Angola, Myanmar, East Timor, Chechnya, PKK-ruled Turkish Kurdistan, Gaza, etc etc yawn).

 

In 2000 another brilliant leader (lol), Saddam Hussein, decided that denominating his nation's oil exports in euros was a great idea that would allow him to simultaneously annoy the US government and sell more Iraqi oil on the black market to prop up his collapsing police state. He even got UN approval to switch to the euro for his oil-for-food program. This was one of the main causes of the Iraq War, along with WMDs, human rights violations, September 11th, and Saddam's ridiculous belief that Russia or France would stand up to the USA militarily to protect his regime.

 

This is also why hybrid vehicles still use oil, even though purely electrical would be better.

 

Money is oil. Remember that.

[AntiThought]

Until 1971, money was a guarantee from the government that it would back the bearer with a certain amount of gold.

 

So money = gold.

 

In 1971, President Richard Nixon decided to transfer the basis of money from gold to oil. We went from a gold standard to an oil standard. In exchange for denominating all oil prices in US dollars, and forcing the world to buy dollars to buy oil from the major producers, the US provided the Saudis with US military protection and protection from any UN action (i.e. human rights violations). Since Nixon's decision, the US has been printing and borrowing money as fast as possible, because the devalued currency is spread globally and therefore was relatively immune to inflation. The money is no longer connected to gold in any meaningful way. It is now connected to oil.

 

Not even a staggering financial imbecile like Barak Hussein Obama can ruin the US dollar. ......

 

So now, money is oil. This is why controlling the Middle East (and Colombia and Venezuela) is so critical to the US. This is also why the US propaganda machine is so fixated on Iran. There are many worse nations than Iran (see North Korea, Sudan, Angola, Myanmar, East Timor, Chechnya, PKK-ruled Turkish Kurdistan, Gaza, etc etc yawn).

 

In 2000 another brilliant leader (lol), Saddam Hussein, decided that denominating his nation's oil exports in euros was a great idea that would allow him to simultaneously annoy the US government and sell more Iraqi oil on the black market to prop up his collapsing police state. He even got UN approval to switch to the euro for his oil-for-food program. This was one of the main causes of the Iraq War, along with WMDs, human rights violations, September 11th, and Saddam's ridiculous belief that Russia or France would stand up to the USA militarily to protect his regime.........

 

Money is oil. Remember that.

 

No offence Phantasm I like you and all but I would like to see your sources for an oil standard. Nixon ended the Gold Standard but did not institute an oil standard (although as you mentioned things involving oil appear to have influenced his policy) the price of the dollar is not pegged to oil but rather a complex set of factors ranging from the GDP, CPI, to bundles of resources controlled/owned (yes one of which is oil) also if it were backed by oil we could exchange our dollars for an equivalent value of oil from the government which we can not do.

 

Furthermore I agree that Obama ( I despise him as well) can not ruin the dollar but for a different reason, as that process began when the government gave up control of the currency to an organization seperate from the government known as the Federal Reserve System in 1913 under the Federal Reserve Act. This allowed an outside group to not only control our currency but also to print needed currency with interest and fees already attached to it.

 

Also you need to recheck the reasons for the Iraq war...... 9/11 was not a cause of the Iraq War it was the cause of the Afghnistan War (Al-Queda was based primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan), there has been no credible evidence that Iraq had at the time WMDs we now know that evidence was flawed, but I will agree with one thing you hinted at it did have to do with oil control. Oil does not equal money it, like money, it equals power.

[PHANTASM]

No offence Phantasm I like you and all but I would like to see your sources for an oil standard. Nixon ended the Gold Standard but did not institute an oil standard (although as you mentioned things involving oil appear to have influenced his policy) the price of the dollar is not pegged to oil but rather a complex set of factors ranging from the GDP, CPI, to bundles of resources controlled/owned (yes one of which is oil) also if it were backed by oil we could exchange our dollars for an equivalent value of oil from the government which we can not do.

 

Furthermore I agree that Obama ( I despise him as well) can not ruin the dollar but for a different reason, as that process began when the government gave up control of the currency to an organization seperate from the government known as the Federal Reserve System in 1913 under the Federal Reserve Act. This allowed an outside group to not only control our currency but also to print needed currency with interest and fees already attached to it.

 

Also you need to recheck the reasons for the Iraq war...... 9/11 was not a cause of the Iraq War it was the cause of the Afghnistan War (Al-Queda was based primarily in Afghanistan and Pakistan), there has been no credible evidence that Iraq had at the time WMDs we now know that evidence was flawed, but I will agree with one thing you hinted at it did have to do with oil control. Oil does not equal money it, like money, it equals power.

 

Well Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, then set up our current system where we protect the Saudi Royal Family and they keep their oil sales denominated in dollars. And we violently attack anyone who sells oil in other currencies. That's the basis of the oil standard argument.

 

Yeah I know Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11. I know that was just propaganda.

 

I know he did not have WMDs too. More propaganda, and bad British intelligence (they told us he was trying to buy uranium from Africa).

 

I'm just listing them along with the euro thing as reasons people (Republicans) wanted to justify the Iraq War.

 

The Federal Reserve is another story lol.

[PHANTASM]

One minute on google and I found this paragraph which explains it better than I can:

 

There is a direct relationship between Dollar value and oil prices. All crude oil purchases worldwide have been conducted exclusively in U.S. Dollars for over thirty-five years. [1] When Dollar value falls via inflation (i.e. the creation of money by the Federal Reserve and other banking mechanisms), oil prices rise. [2] [3] [4] This phenomenon could be called Petrodollar Inflation; it occurred during the 1970′s oil ‘price shock’, and it is occurring right now. [1]

 

Oil is a critical economic and strategic resource – because every country needs oil to develop and prosper, they also need U.S. Dollars. This has raised the demand, and value, of the Dollar worldwide for several decades. [1]

 

However, the U.S. Dollar is continuously devalued (inflated) by Federal Reserve and U.S. government monetary policies. [5] Due to recent ‘super-inflation’ of the Dollar, oil producing nations are losing money – or rather, wealth – by selling oil in Dollars. To prevent losses, oil producing nations will sell some or all of their oil in other currencies (Euros, for example). This further devalues the Dollar, since oil buying countries no longer need them to purchase oil.

 

The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement solidified the dollar as the preeminent world reserve currency, replacing the British pound… the world readily accepted our dollar (defined as 1/35th of an ounce of gold) as the world’s reserve currency.

 

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

 

Elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed†the dollar with oil.

 

/endcopy

[PHANTASM]

No offence Phantasm I like you and all but I would like to see your sources for an oil standard. Nixon ended the Gold Standard but did not institute an oil standard (although as you mentioned things involving oil appear to have influenced his policy) the price of the dollar is not pegged to oil but rather a complex set of factors ranging from the GDP, CPI, to bundles of resources controlled/owned (yes one of which is oil) also if it were backed by oil we could exchange our dollars for an equivalent value of oil from the government which we can not do.

 

This paragraph explains how oil and US dollars are pegged, and also what Iran is doing to set up a euro-based exchange that could threaten US oil dominance:

 

[from http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CLA410A.html]

 

To date, one of the more difficult technical obstacles concerning a euro-based oil transaction trading system is the lack of a euro-denominated oil pricing standard, or oil ‘marker’ as it is referred to in the industry. The three current oil markers are U.S. dollar denominated, which include the West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), Norway Brent crude, and the UAE Dubai crude. However, since the spring of 2003, Iran has required payments in the euro currency for its European and Asian/ACU exports - although the oil pricing for trades are still denominated in the dollar. [4]

 

Therefore, a potentially significant news development was reported in June 2004 announcing Iran’s intentions to create of an Iranian oil Bourse. (The word "bourse" refers to a stock exchange for securities trading, and is derived from the French stock exchange in Paris, the Federation Internationale des Bourses de Valeurs.) This announcement portended competition would arise between the Iranian oil bourse and London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), as well as the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). It should be noted that both the IPE and NYMEX are owned by U.S. corporations.

 

The macroeconomic implications of a successful Iranian Bourse are noteworthy. Considering that Iran has switched to the euro for its oil payments from E.U. and ACU customers, it would be logical to assume the proposed Iranian Bourse will usher in a fourth crude oil marker – denominated in the euro currency. Such a development would remove the main technical obstacle for a broad-based petroeuro system for international oil trades. From a purely economic and monetary perspective, a petroeuro system is a logical development given that the European Union imports more oil from OPEC producers than does the U.S., and the E.U. accounts for 45% of imports into the Middle East (2002 data).

 

Acknowledging that many of the oil contracts for Iran and Saudi Arabia are linked to the United Kingdom’s Brent crude marker, the Iranian bourse could create a significant shift in the flow of international commerce into the Middle East. If Iran’s bourse becomes a successful alternative for oil trades, it would challenge the hegemony currently enjoyed by the financial centers in both London (IPE) and New York (NYMEX), a factor not overlooked in the following article:

 

/endcopy

[AntiThought]

I'm just listing them along with the euro thing as reasons people (Republicans) wanted to justify the Iraq War.

 

The Federal Reserve is another story lol.

 

Sorry Phantasm I thought you believed those were the reasons. I misunderstood you completely my apologies and thanks for posting the other info very interesting read.

[PHANTASM]

Sorry Phantasm I thought you believed those were the reasons. I misunderstood you completely my apologies and thanks for posting the other info very interesting read.

 

That's fine lol. I could have written it better.

 

I oppose Republicans and Democrats. Both parties have zero credibility.

 

Good to have someone to debate with actually.

 

I think we scared everyone off the thread lol.

[AntiThought]

lol too bad I love this sort of debate. Good Thread UrineSample.