July 5, 2008

Give me a flippin break...

Can anyone answer something for me ? How did we come to value money made out of paper so much ? Throughout history we've had currency in the form of gold, silver and other various precious metals and jewels. How did we end up with stupid, flipping paper as a currency ?
The price of the dollar goes up and down, it's value becoming more or less according to how the economy is doing. Heck, if things got bad enough, in theory the dollar could become worthless.
At least with precious metals and jewels you had something that was worth something no matter where you went or how the economy was doing. And now we're talking about getting rid of money in it's physical form completely. How in the hell does that sound like a good plan ?
Let's put everything on a card so that it can be easily misplaced, swiped, and can be hacked into. They want to make it so I can't even hide a few bucks around the house, just in case. They want to make it so the control of our cash is completely in their hands. Because, you know, the government is doing such a good job of keeping track of and spending their own money. I'm sorry but putting all of my money on a government controlled "debit" card doesn't sound like a great plan of action. I wouldn't hand my wallet to a gambling addict, why would I hand it to the equivalent? Think about our national debt( which is, by the way, currently $9, 477, 856, 190, 576. 85. That's right, over NINE TRILLION DOLLARS IN THE HOLE!!!) next time the idea of getting rid of physical money and toting around a government issued "money card" sounds like something you'd support. I'm not trying to say that the government is irresponsible with money, I'm saying for a fact that the government is irresponsible with money. Check out the National Debt Clock at the top of my blog for updates, it's changing constantly...

1 comment:

  1. Well, originally paper money was used to be a promise of payment from one client to an other. Gold being the most valued material at that time was being too heavy and easy to steal (not as obvious to transport as a check) so thieves did not attack a guy who did not have carts of gold. When paper checks were being used as currency they decided to associate it with gold. As much gold yo had was as much money you could use. Next it was nationalized, government owned all the gold in the state and that amount of money it had represented the amount of money that he could use/lend/transfer to other states or democracies. When gold reserves became scarce and heavier to move (think of a billion dollar in gold ingots) money was used as a mean of day to day payment as it reflected the amount of trust you had. A 5$ bill represented 5$ the state owned to the merchant.

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