But you also should keep in mind that money's perceived value lies at least partly in the tension of uneven distribution.

I am not saying it is right or wrong, just trying to keep the mechanics of the system in frame.

meandering into theory,
I suppose it is vitally important that the allure of a currency be kept high.
That dazzling displays, invariably extremely exclusive, are part of what keeps people eating the money dreams.

Money hungry people keep the money in high tension & probably sustains its excitement requirement.

A currency's strength may depend on people believing it will make them 'happy' if they only had more of it.
This is helped when you put a price tag on everything.

We begin to see it as a panacea.
The answer to all problems.

As if someone has created magic stuff, & we don't even have to use our minds/brains, we just have to mindlessly get more money.

The reason we usually want money is that it is a means of getting things from other people with their acquiescence.
Also there is pure egotism involved, where it is more about lording how much one has rather than even enjoying the things it can buy all that much.

It is all so loaded. Credit & debt to draw people in with how seeming easy it is at first, until the hammer may or may not drop.

I think a lot of people who perceive that they have been 'put upon' by the world/Universe/people/persons think they 'deserve' & need to have it. Others born into it may believe they are entitled to it.

The other weird thing is that it registers in the human brain exactly in the place where the most primal drives do. Right where food, sex & drugs excite the brain, money excites it in exactly that same primal place,
which seems weird if you think about it. There is probably some explanation. Maybe it fits some instinctual mystic/magic stuff niche that might be sort of hard-wired into our brains. Probably the panacea niche?

What i believe it is technically is a means of exchange of value. To some degree it sort of communicates what is [at least] available for purchase & what price it is valued at.

Another weird thing about the US & many industrialized countries is that we no longer haggle & barter for prices.
We are so programmed into fixed retail prices that we think/believe it is all very firm & fixed in valuation.

Things that are never offered up for sale are ambiguous in possibly being either priceless or worthless.

From an engineering standpoint it is like a pressure exchange surface/manifold. When buyer & seller arrive at an agreed price an exchange transpires across the/some surface that is the 'market valuation'. Much like an osmotic cell membrane for manipulating & sustaining a steady saline proportion.

What i personally find troubling about money is just how reductive it is.
I want to blame it for 'cheapening' things, but that only happens if we allow it to in our minds. I guess our minds have to be stronger than the seductive characteristics of money. I don't mean morally or virtuously, but logically, factually, practically.

I guess the logical strategy is to try to structure one's life defensively so one is much less disturbed or damaged when the economic/monetary system is going through spastic gyrations, which it seems to do with some random regularity.

If you have sorted out your priorities where you know there are many things all infinitely more important than money you are probably well ahead of the game.

One, in the modern society, has to accept that money is a fundamental part of our lives but not let it be the dictator of our lives.

perhaps the less you use money, the less control it has over you.

[edit on 17-5-2010 by slank]

Your concept is socialism, pure and simple. And that's OK. In theory it is a good thing. However, capitalism teaches us that people in general don't have the slightest clue as to what to do with money. And that's ok.

just take our GDP of 14 trillion and divide by 200 million. Your will get a fair estimate.

thanks for the replies, whatever the case may be, there is a ton of money out there! it would be near impossible to take all the money and riches from some people, who would sooner die than part with and become equal if only for a few hours, with the rest of society.

Money and wealth are hardly synonomous - gold in '71 was 35 and change, and now is 1200 and change...Wealth to my uneducated mind is..if I'm reasonably able-bodied and can provide a
service (snow shoveling, ditch- digging, etc.) and a person who cannot do these things owing to advanced age, can provide fresh bread, or canned veggies, etc. I think that may be a reasonable substitute for fiat currencies (of which even gold or silver would qualify). My rambling point is that we, the humans separate from our beloved gov't., had better start to prepare for the day when even the most altruistic minds run out of ideas.

I understand that it was just a hypothetical thought expirement and I`ve thought of this as well because it`s natural for us to want equality, but I`ve come to the realization many of you have that this wont solve anything. So what will? It doesn`t seem to matter what type of configuration you put the people, the money, the resources and laws in. I`ve spent countless hours thinking about it.

The only way we can win is with our willpower. The paper and the megabytes recording amounts and transaction are barely worth anything. So people will tell you "its the resources" that have all the value. So then you`re like, "ok well THEY still have all the resources, so.." So what then? We are still powerless because THEY have proclaimed that THEY own all the land and gold and oil and diamonds and forests for wood and everything else thats worth anything and they have hired armies of men with guns to enforce their ownership of this planet and everything on it, living or otherwise.

...But!
That`s right there`s a "but"!

The thing people fail to realize is that the most valuable thing of all is you! Your life! And I don`t mean that in the way that you can`t take your possessions with you when you die, or you can`t eat diamonds kind of way. What I mean is that THEY can own all the resources they want. But they need YOU. You`re life! They need you to choose to spend portions of your life doing various things they won`t do themselves. Can you imagine a DeBeers heir in a mine digging for diamonds? Or Cheney and Bush coming home covered in black oil from working a long day in the oil fields? How about Bill Gates putting in 60 hours a week in some cubicle? No, you cannot imagine that happening except in a fairy tale world. Even though Gates may have started out working long hours for other people, the point is he doesn`t anymore, and he also was brought up in a well to do family so he had a leg up from somewhere other than his own genius ideas. People have genius ideas everyday, but if you don`t have the resources to put your ideas in action, or a college degree required before anyone will take you seriously, then it`s no good. Think of how many ideas and smart brains have been wasted because we charge huge amounts of money for education, for information. Information has been strictly regulated and controlled. The internet has helped a great deal.

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We are forgetting our debt. When you add up all the natural resources we owe to the earth the figure goes to 0. Our net worth is zero. Every person on the planet would get zero.

It's relative anyways. If it did end up being this $7,000USD figure, well that wouldn't go too far here in the U.S., but in some other countries it would have a much higher purchasing power.

A better way to look at it is, how much potential is in the world. If we equally worked to build a better world, where could we be? The answer is that if we abolished money, and went to a resource based economy, we'd all be living in a golden age.

That's the goal, but the reptilian instinctual mindset is still in place amongst those in power.

So they need people to work in their factories, restaraunts, mines, labs, etc. Without all of YOU, they would not have anything. And they have somehow convinced you all that your time is not very valuable... I know people who WISH they could make $10 an hour. It`s rediculous. And I know it`s worse than that, I was just referring to here in america in a state where minimum wage is about 7.75 and before the unemployment crisis. Now I know people who wish they could even have a job. Me? I don`t want a job. Call me stubborn, call me lazy, but I refuse to contribute any further to this system which leeches my very life from me, eventually leaving me old, wrinkled and broken... and broke financially, too! And before anyone starts in, I am not on welfare and I did not collect any unemployment when I quit working. I don`t use food stamps either but I do go to food banks, because I know that they actually throw food away if people don`t take it. And I`ve actually met some pretty well off people who go there. And if more people went there, they would just get more donatiopns and of higher quality. Eventually, we would not have to have grocery stores, we could just have food banks everywhere with free food of grocery store quality. People seem to think that if we all stopped goin to work that society would collapse. Native American tribes never had money or jobs with bosses who threaten to dock your pay or fire you. And don`t worry, if we lived in a community oriented society like that, you wouldn`t have to walk around in the dirt barefoot wearing a loincloth living in a teepee with a hole in the top of your roof.

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I watched a special on TV one time about economics and the super rich you never hear about. Anyway, the total global assets for the world totals around $550 trillion. Total global expenditure is roughly $75 trillion.

Their concern was that the economy was not big enough and it wasn't making proper use of total global assets.

no, you get to keep your clothing and you can live in a house if you wish. There just doesnt have to be money. People will gather food because it will be needed, justice will be served because it will be needed, medical care will be provided because it will be needed. Not because there is a "profit" in it. Everything necessary to have a comfortable life: food, shelter, clothing, education, etc., should be free. And even luxery items could be community-owned and shared. Like a boat. People with boats don`t use them every day. So you should be able to go to the lake or wherever and there should just be boats there for everyone to use. People who are boat enthusiasts would work there assigning boats to people who have made an appointment to use one and also to train and certify people to use the community equipment. You don`t need taxes to maintanance it, there will be people who will choose this type of a "job" to do in exchange for all of the benefits of living in the community: free food, clothing, boats, etc. So you don`t collect a paycheck and nobody makes a profit off you. But the community will benefit from your work and you are a part of the community.

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To some degree money is a surface game.

When someone borrows & spends a billion dollars,

Then the lender shows he has accounts receivable [asset] of one billion,
and you have poured one billion dollars into the economy,

making two billion dollars of seeming immediate wealth out of one.

It is really more about sustaining surface tension on credit that makes it seem like there is more wealth about than there probably really is.

Even the Wall street bankers took home millions & in a few cases perhaps a billion, but they dug a hole of Trillions for the rest of us to shore up.

This is like blowing up a nuclear warhead to crack a walnut & eat the good inside part. It is all wildly, very dangerously eccentric.

There is probably almost as much debt holes as there is cash,
& with electronic money it is being hollowed out & repackaged [doubled/replicated] at 3/4ths the speed of light, it can be frightening to contemplate.

The illusion is that it is somehow tangible.
What you value & don't value is far more tangible than money. Money is more often a barrier to what you want than a means of access to it.

I wonder if money is some form of soul drainer?
A vampire of attention, focus, desire & drive?

The vampire so subtle it has no form whatsoever, only a name, 'Money'.

eeww, it just sounds yucky.

Is money inherently unwholesome? Because it plays upon our desires in deceptive ways?

I think money is a chore & sometimes a pain,
albeit a grinding necessary one.

[edit on 19-5-2010 by slank]