or to put it another way... you have some chickens that you dont want to take to market all the time. you want a basket of apples. so you write out
a note promising to pay apple guy one chicken next t ime he comes to your farm. he believes you will and accepts the note. this money has value, cuz
its backed by something of value (a chicken) that people actually NEED to survive... you COULD write your own money, it would probably make more sense
for people to accept it too...(rather than paper money thats not backed by anything, particularly during inflation, which is just what happens when
people finally realise theres a lot of worthless money circulating and suddenly dont attach much value to it)..
yep, and if chicken guy was a banker, he would be writing more notes than he had chickens, and giving them to people so he could buy more goods (and
get rich), and hope that all his creditors didnt come looking for their chickens at the same time...