Talk:Money/Archive 1 (2002 - June 2006 discussions)

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Info This archive contains discussions from the article's inception until June 2006. The discussions are sometimes not in chronological order. - Mtmelendez (TALKUBHOME)


Contents

old note moved - etymology

how long has the "lonely Hera" story been here? It's pulled out of thin air. The actual origin of "Juno Moneta" were the warning cries of her geese that saved the city from the Gauls in 390 BC. 83.77.216.101 23:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The etymology of the word "Mone tas" is greek. Roman people believed to the gods of mountain Olympus. Juno (Hera) is a greek goddess, so obviously she was worshiped at Rome similar to the way she was worshiped at Greece. According to Aristotle, Pheidon King of Argos invented money (numisma). It is not by chance that Pheidon dedicated the previous medium of exchange (iron sticks) to the temple of Hera. Hera was associated with money, 300 years before Romans discovered "Juno" and "Mone tas". "Mone tas" means "Μόνη τας". Do you claim that "Monetas" etymology is "warning cries of geese"? How comes this?

Discrimination by Financial Circumstance

There are all sorts of different types of discrimination, race, gender, sexuality, etc etc. What about discrimination by financial circumstance??? Money is a good or token used as a means of exchange? I know it is much more than that, and I believe the intoroduction to this article should be heavily reviewed... - Money is a source of discrimination within society. - Money determines your social status, quality of life, health among many other things, in modern society. - Money seperates society in divisions categorised by itself. - Money is a motivating factor in developing and expirienceing the human emotion known as greed. - Money is forced upon a human beings lifestyle, quality of life, right to live, health, wellbeing, etc etc.

Please - fix up this article, it reads as though it has been written by a pro-democracy government body, and as though it is promoting money as these things stated in this article. Please - add my points in one form or another to a section "Undesireable features of money" Please - do not put me in my place, I know I can't spell or convey my neutral point of view as well as others can, It's not my fault my parents and their parents and their parents didnt have as much money as some people, and there are way more people far worse off than me. Please - perhaps create a section on "Discrimination by Financial Circumstance" as I and I'm positive many billions of others feel it is a major issue and must be adressed in a wikipedia article on money. Note: I can think of a million non-NPOV things to say and add to this article but I've tried my best to convey some of the relevant points.

====================

Comments on this section, by EditorASC:

I think it would be a major mistake, to pollute a discussion of what money is, with political agenda comments like this. If that is allowed, then Wikipedia will soon be considered just another political agenda forum, among many on the Internet.

Money is a tool, which men have invented to facilitate commerce. An invention of necessity, because of the inherent limitations of barter.

I have no problem with discussing what are the most common definitions of "money," and "money supply," but I do have a problem with polluting this kind of scholarly discussion with "it isn't fair that some have more money than others." That kind of political rhetoric should be reserved for a section, which deals with various historic economic policies of governments, not in a discussion about what money is and how it is expanded and contracted.

If we were discussing farm tractors, and how they can be used (what kind of "tool" they are), then it would be highly inappropriate (because it is irrelevant) to inject into the discussion, the fact that some farmers have more tractors than other farmers. That serves only to distract from the discussion of what the tool "farm tractor" is.

Thank you,

--EditorASC 06:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


"Money is just a tool" happens to be POV itself: some people have said money is the root of all or most evil, and this POV deserves, if not equal time, time. And maybe women invented it.

Money is not a farm tractor. Instead, money creates a radically different relationship among people when it is introduced including the issues the poster raised.

Money isn't a "tool". It's in fact a set of agreements among people to interpose something of little value (apart in the case of old-fashioned precious-metal money's recursive value that's created by the agreement) between them as a lubricant and promissory note. And, absent a social compact, this tool is worthless.

I conclude that NPOV requires a section on the disadvantages of a money economy that includes a *tour d'horizon* on the many ways throughout history people have tried to escape from the (very real) disadvantages of this tool, from Christ's "camel through the needle's eye", to the hippie commune, and to proposals in today's Venezuela that segments of the economy return to barter to avoid the exploitation of poor people that occurs as a direct result of the necessary granularity of money and the consequent transaction costs-of-entry (as when the migrant can't get a room for 10 pesos when he has 8).

This section doesn't have to be written from a totally Communist, or hippie-assed, basis. It could be quite NPOV in including Third World contributions to "the philosophy of money" from Amatrya Sen, and even the banker Mohamed Yunis of Bangladesh, whose vision of far more widely available "microcredit" directly addresses microtransaction costs (also described by US socialist Barbara Ehrenreich in her book Nickel and Dimed) while preserving a capitalist vision!

I think I shall contribute this section this week, in part because I find the way you, Mr. EditorASC, treat the original poster offensive. His prose reflects more than one generation of a woundedness unmentionable today precisely because our POV is so locked and loaded on laissez-faire as the only "reasonable" approach that 99% of the world and their daily lives are invisible. Your prose, Mr. EditorASC, with its blithely fallacious false analogy, is precisely the sort of crap that people with 8 pesos and not ten have to put up all their lives.

Have a nice day.

What is money? Why do we need it? Why is it meaningful?

  • Why is money so important...to me, an outsider i just consider it 'mental credit' and nothing else. I really don't see the purpose of it rather than to just keep a score card against other human beings.
  • so 1)what is money? 2)Why do we need it? 3) Why is it meaningful. im not expecting to answer all three but the last one is the most important.
  • I dont know how to say this niceley but you really should take an intro econ course to get a clue


  • The definition for money in this article is flawed, although it is a commonly accepted definition. At best, the definition provided in the article describes the effects of money. Here are new definitions derived from the NESARA Institute:

Money: A psychological creation; a concept; the mental image of that which is used as a medium of exchange.

Currency: That which circulates as a medium of exchange; anything that is in immediate, continuous and widespread use as money.

In other words, nobody can physically touch money, no more than they can touch a pound or an inch or a second. Money is conceptual in nature. Currency, however, the thing that represents money, can be touched. Just as a person can touch a scale to measure weight, a ruler to measure distance, or a clock to measure time. Currency is that which is used as money. Over time, the "used as" was dropped for simplicity. If no one objects, I'd like to insert this information in a new section called "Other Definitions". Does anyone have comments on this before I do so? inigmatus 16:41, 30 March 2006 (UTC)


Unit of account: penny or dollar?

I was thinking: money is a unit of account; in the US, the smallest unit of account is the cent. So I was thinking, the US monetary system is not based on the dollar, but the cent. Just food for thought :)

Dullfig 17:13, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

In response, I think that the cent is thought of as a fraction of the base currency; perhaps it used to be used as a base currency, but this use has been replaced by the dollar because of inflation and convenience.--Ahudson 17:17, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Fiat Money is a form of Taxation

I'd like to show why Governments gravitate towards fiat money (money without intrinsic value). Fiat money is a form of hidden taxation. Bare with me, read the whole thing, because I think it is an important concept.

First, I think a recap of commodity money is required (apologies to those who know this already): intrinsic value means the money has value by itself. Value is a combination of desireability, and human labor. In other words, Gold is valuable because it is a pretty, durable metal that everyone likes, and it takes a lot of work to get. If gold was just laying around in big piles, it wouldn't be very valuable. So here is a transaction between two people, using commodity money:

  • Person "A" is a miner. he digs a hole in the ground, and finds a gold nugget.
  • Person "B" makes pottery. he takes some mud, shapes it, fires it, and bingo, he makes a pot.
  • Person "A" wants a pot, goes to "B" and offers the gold nugget in exchange for the pot. They agree to do this. Why? because "B" thinks making pots is easy (he's done it his whole life), but would not even beging to know how to go about digging for gold. So "B" thinks he is comming out ahead, and besides he can turn around and trade the gold to someone else in exchange for food. "A" thinks HE is making out, because he's been digging for gold his whole life, but couldn't make a decent pot to save his life.

So there you have it, a complete transaction. The important thing to remember is this: with commodity money each participant expended his own work to put value into an object. So they are exchanging work for work.

Now let's take the example cited below of a parent handing out business cards in exchange for chores, and later charging business cards for meals. Let's consider one parent, and three kids.

  • Let's asume that each kid does one chore, and in exchange Dad gives each of them one business card in exchange. Did Dad do any work to put value into that card? No. The card is in fact an IOU, in exchange for a meal, provided at a later time. When later the meal is provided, and the kid "pays" for it with a business card, the cycle will be complete; Dad will finally have done work in return.
  • Now here is where it gets interesting. Let's say that little Timmy likes to eat more than his share of food. He will need more than one business card. He can do one of two things:
1 -- He can do more chores, and get more cards from Dad. Or,
2 -- He can make Marbles and sell them to his other brothers, in exchange for business cards. Why would he want to do that? He's found a real easy way to make marbles, so making marbles is better than doing chores for Dad!

So here is where the trouble begins: Timmy makes marbles, and sells them to his other brothers. But his brothers only have one business card each, remember? so his brothers go to Dad and offer to do more chores in exchange for more business cards. Dad gives each brother one more business card. Each brother goes to Timmy, buys marbles and gives him a business card in exchange. Let's do the accounting:

  • Timmy got one card from Dad, and one from each brother, leaving him with three cards. He gets two meals from Dad, pays two cards, and keeps a profit of one card.
  • Each brother worked for two cards each, and Timmy worked for one card. Dad gave out a total of five cards.
  • Dad supplied FOUR meals, two to Timmy, one each to the other brothers, and got FIVE chores. There is a chore surpluss!

In other words Dad got an extra chore for which he will never have to do anything in return!! This is why the people never ASK for fiat money, it is always IMPOSED on them by the Government. Whenever you have a fiat money system, and the amount of money circulating increases (and it always increases ;-) someone is getting something for nothing..


Dullfig 21:03, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Umm, surely if at the next meal Timmy wanted more food, he could use the extra card he has kept for profit and Dad would have to do an extra chore. Your saying Dad is making a profit by pretending Timmy's extra card has just dissapeared! I assume there is some socialist anti-money reasoning that somehow inequality would end if we went back to bartering? Money is just a way of keeping track of bartering and not having to find someone who wants exactly what we have. Using your first example if the miner wants a pot but the potter doesn't want his gold, but something else instead the potter won't want to swap. If the miner sells his gold for money to someone who does want it, he can buy a pot and the potter can then buy whatever he wants. Much easier and more useful. No conspiracy what so ever!Jameskeates 16:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to have to think about that one: maybe the analogy wasn't well thought out, because in real life you cannot give money back to the government in exchage for anything. So the fact that Timmy could get an extra meal from Dad, is somewhat different to how it works in real life with the government. Dullfig 18:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Misc

I added the FACT of taxation or tribute being THE mechanism that gives fiat money value and some person took it out. I see in the "history" a comment questioning the efficacy of taxation in controling the "value" of money -- the desire to possess it. Please follow the links below to help explain this: I have put my very minimal updates back and would appreciate some rationale for removing them BEFORE they are again removed.

http://www.mosler.org/docs/docs/soft0004.htm --------------------------------------- The concept of fiat money can be illuminated by a simple model: Assume a world of a parent and several children. One day the parent announces that the children may earn business cards by completing various household chores. At this point the children won't care a bit about accumulating their parent's business cards because the cards are virtually worthless. But when the parent also announces that any child who wants to eat and live in the house must pay the parent, say, 200 business cards each month, the cards are instantly given value and chores begin to get done. Value has been given to the business cards by requiring them to be used to fulfill a tax obligation. Taxes function to create the demand for federal expenditures of fiat money, not to raise revenue per se. In fact, a tax will create a demand for at LEAST that amount of federal spending. A balanced budget is, from inception, the MINIMUM that can be spent, without a continuous deflation. The children will likely desire to earn a few more cards than they need for the immediate tax bill, so the parent can expect to run a deficit as a matter of course.

Fiat money comes into existence when the elected government spends it into existence (The Fed will create this money in the accounts of the Treasury --- So much for the myth of the "independent Fed"). The government then throws the money into the helicopter blades (Milton Friedman) and it comes to rest as M3. The Treasury _THEN_ offers T-bills to remove the excess LIQUITITY so as to prevent immediate (short term) inflation. But long term inflation (or the deterioration of the value of the money AND THE BONDS/T-BILLS) can only be accomplished by removing some of this money from the world at large and burning it in a furnace --- That is TAXATION that produces a government budget surplus.

This link will reward the reader with insight into how the nuts and bolts of the current system actually do their stuff:

http://wfhummel.cnchost.com/

The "money supply" can be viewed as what we would call the "active" money which IS probably M3. But _real_ money (I know, I know, ya'll think this an oxygen moron) is ALL of the money ever created by government spending and not yet removed via taxation. This includes the interest bearing (less liquid) money called T-Bills and bonds. The _value_ of money is based on its scarcity and if and when a government creates too much of it without taking it back out of circulation with taxation, the money becomes worthless and people start using vodka and cigarettes as money. The Bush deficits (and the Reagan deficits) have dramatically reduced the value of the US dollar vis a vis oil and gold and land. All other currencies have follow suit and it may soon be a race to see who can make their exports cheaper.


--208.54.94.25 03:07, 27 November 2005 (UTC)


There's a lot in here that needs attention. The "Essential characteristics" section, under "unit of account", talks about money being an "equivalent of value" and a "measure of value"; this is nonsense: a trade takes place when the seller values the money more than the thing he's selling and the buyer simultaneously values the money less than the thing -- there's no equivalence or any possibility of measurement. But I'm leaving this alone pending better wording. The idea of intrinsic value is also rubbish.

I am deleting this:

Its quantity should be closely controllable by the monetary authority. This makes it difficult to use commercially used commodities like gold. If there are no significant new discoveries of gold the economy will stagnate and fall into depression due to a relative shrinkage of the money supply. Likewise if there is an increased industrial demand for gold. On the other hand, if there is a massive new discovery of gold this could lead to an inflation of commodity prices.

as it's almost entirely nonsense, and what isn't nonsense is politically biased. And this:

Occasionally, governments also by simple decree changed the amount of gold they would supply in exchange for their notes, and this also often had less effect on what could be bought with the money than the change in the amount of gold should have implied.

since it's meaningless (of course it doesn't affect what you can buy, in the short term, if the government effectively tells people not to adjust prices, on threat of being shot!)

The section about a bank lending out your gold coins as "credit money" is not how the system actually works. When you deposit your coins, the bank adds them to its reserve account; if it has, say, a 10% reserve requirement, that means it can lend out 10 times what you deposited!! This is, obviously, fraudulent, and couldn't happen without government support (i.e., the threat of, ultimately, lethal force)

I removed this whole section as blatant nonsense:

== What is its effect ? ==
Money serves as a command to the economy as a whole - either to speed up (that is to employ more people and to produce more commodities) in the case of an increase that is greater than the increase in the population and existing replacement needs; or to slow down (lay off workers and produce less) in the event of a contraction of the money supply relative to the population.
What happens when there is too much of it? We get a rise in the price indexes. :What happens when there is too little of it? We get a recession or a depression.
For instance, if you have to sell your services for money then clearly the amount of money in the system that will keep everyone, who wants to, working at the equivalent of a living wage is at least close to being enough. When the amount of money in the economy contracts to the point that large numbers of people are unable to find work that is not demeaning or will not pay a living wage there would clearly be too little.
If you had a business idea and needed capital to translate it into a functioning operation or a small business that had an opportunity to expand you would also clearly need the money/credit situation to be reasonably loose and the money supply to be sufficiently large to support new and expanding businesses.
If, on the other hand, you had a large interest in a bank or other unrestricted credit-granting/money-creation institution you might want to see the contraction of the money supply from other sources to enhance your own institution's powers in this area as well as increasing the relative value of financial instruments of all kinds. If you had a lot of money and were primarily interested in hiring labour, the large supply of desperate and hungry people that high unemployment brings might seem to be an advantage.

User:Tacitus Prime, 2004-05-02

The first paragraph was simply wrong, most money today is credit money backed by a military fiat which is only used to back money directly in a few nations (Cuba, North Korea, other embargoed nations who can't participate in markets).

there's no debate about what are the four functions of money or the three forms it takes (commodity, credit, fiat) - although perhaps there should be.

The term "money" is the most general, and I think a detailed current treatment of how it works belongs in "currency" - what belongs here is the historical description of the evolution of empires from commodity traders to fiat holders (for colonies) to credit backers (for a commonwealth etc.), to the present global empire of monetization.

Americans may not like this description, as it basically implies that the US has become a security guard for the real empire, which is still very British. Tough for them, it's true. London rules the financial world.

I'd have to disagree with this comment about London. Obviously London is an important financial centre, but "rules the financial world"?? I think New York would claim that mantle (and I'm australian, so no US bias here). London would be on the 2nd rung, along with Hong Kong and Tokyo - User:MMGB - 2002-04-08
New York claims it, and London shuts up, because London has it. Although it handles less total dollar volume, London is the center of accounting standards, of the insurance industry, and most importantly the laundering of tax-free global contractor money. It also educates the elite of much of the developing world, and has far better relations with the Arab business world than the US (which stakes its claim on political leaders who are easier to overturn). Also most British educated financial people speak several languages, have been to Hong Kong a few times, and are generally a lot more socially acceptable in developing nations than the "hired gun" Americans they use to blow up regimes they dont' like. Remember, the British invented the idea of military intelligence, and what they want the Americans to believe, the Americans believe. If America thinks it runs everything, so much the better, but realistically, given the volatility of American markets and leadership, and belief in bizarre propaganda, they are puppets on a string globally.
another key issue is that London trains its economists in the Marxist as well as classical traditions so they are never surprised in China or Russia or anywhere. This is a huge advantage in knowing when to stop trying to apply neoclassical economics.  :-0

I kept religious arguments about usury and money being evil out of this. I think the green economists are the most rational bunch of critics of the money system, so I cited them. If you want the religious arguments mentioned separately, add them, but they are ultimately the same argument. An article on usury (i.e. interest) is in order, but I don't want to write that right now, as I'm sure it'll be hacked by zealots on all sides. Let's let this one settle down first.

The main purpose of this article is to show that there is nothing mysterious or new about money, and that it works the same now as it always, ever, did, and is still driven by utility and beauty, and still doesn't care what it destroys on the way through. it's an expression of human perceptions of beauty and their desires for "Stuff" or "power", and really not much else - an abstraction of lust or greed, maybe, although I wouldn't say that here.

This comment smacks of tired leftist dogma (but hey it's a comment so you are free to be non-NPOV). To my perpective, money is the tangible and denumerative representation of value.
yes, it expresses a theory of value, certainly, usually via some shared political economy which sets those values culture-wide.
It is not simply an expression of my desire for "stuff" - I work and deliver value, and this value is measured and rewarded accordingly.
measured and rewarded BY WHO? someone issues money - it isn't "earned" in the abstract, which many people seemingly and wrongly believed.
Measured and rewarded by those who perceive the service/product as valuable, obviously.
However, the value scales can be completely screwed - A football player might get paid more than a heart surgeon for instance, though it is much less beneficial to humanity. Money itself is inherently neutral, like fire which can cook a meal or burn a child to death, the end to which it is put is the choice of the user.
agreed, although the neutrality itself becomes non-morally-neutral when a political economy makes weapons easier to buy than gardening tools, for instance.
Aren't you confusing the tool with the user? This is like saying the axe caused the murder, not the person swinging it. How people use money is certainly something open to moral scrutiny, but the money itself is entirely abstract and morally neutral. The morality in your example relates to the political economy, not the medium of value exchange. - User:MMGB
Money is not neutral! How it is issued, by whom, and for what purpose(s) all have profound effects.
While it can be an expression of the value one places on lust or greed, it can also be an expression of love, compassion, or anything else in a person's personal value system. - User:MMGB 2002-04-08
true enough, thus the theory of moral purchasing which holds that people express themselves by what they buy. I'm quite pleased to have this point of view in the article as well, but the more of it we have, the more we face the risk that money-hating anti-usury forces start hacking it up. So I think it's tough to balance. BTW you might like this article on expressing onself via money.
When you say that the "main purpose of this article is to show that there is nothing mysterious or new about money, and that it works the same now as it always, ever, did, and is still driven by utility and beauty, and still doesn't care what it destroys on the way through", I'm inclined to disagree. Isn't the main purpose of an article entitled "money" to tell about money?
yes, the main purpose is to tell about money. And, historically, there have been two stories to tell - one, on how much "more efficient" money makes barter. And two, on how much damage is done by systems where efficiency in this narrow sense is the only or overwhelmingly dominant goal. So I see no disagreement at all. The question is only how much will be said about the damage, and how much about the efficiency or history.
And of course money "doesn't care what it destroys"; it's inanimate. When you write this way, and when you equate interest with usury, and when
that equating of all interest with usury is fundamental to historical Islam and to Christianity - I didn't invent it.

you make flat unsupported assertions that contradict popular belief, you sound like you're trying to drive a point of view. Can you phrase your text in NPoV terms, and provide proof for some of your claims? - Rootbeer 2002-04-07

I do have a point of view, and to enable NPOV I admit that here in talk, but it shouldn't alter the article much except to attract proponents of other views.
if you can find "flat unsupported assertions that contradict popular belief," in the article itself, I want to hear about it, so I can remove them and address whatever popular misconceptions or other beliefs are involved. Or I'd like you to add balancing statements. I don't consider this a very controversial topic - all theories of economics are inclined to agree that money is *ONLY* an efficiency mechanism and that separating its various functions may be sometimes required to enable goals other than efficiency.
there are certainly controversial notions here, like gold being popular not only for its workability and beauty, but also for its utility in trading for weapons. However, I don't think those notions are disputed by modern scholars, it's demonstrable that military power depended on backing of gold up until modern times.

I'm not an economist, but it seems to me that the idea that money must be backed by either a commodity (gold, for instance) or military fiat is incorrect.

that's right, it is incorrect, there's also credit money, which is backed by assurance only. The dividing line between fiat and credit money is obscure largely because it pays off immensely to keep it obscure, i.e. to have more credit circulating than you have power to enforce all those deals by force. Likewise, the dividing line between fiat and commodity is also obscure for the same reason - it pays off immensely if everyone thinks there's gold in or a Swiss Bank or Fort Knox and there isn't - they defend you or at least do not invade you, while you laugh at them and spend their money on weapons, hookers and blow to sabotage their own attempts to become world powers. The moral hazards are extreme.
so, it's *SUPPOSED* to seem to you that money must not have to be backed by those things, that's what creates its power over your behavior, and makes it acceptable as legal tender universally.

What makes an commodity-unbacked currency worthwhile is, to my understanding, a collective belief that somebody else will be prepared to exchange that money for something else you want. That may be that a military force is prepared to enforce its use, it may not.

if not, then it's credit money - you have given your labor as credit to a system that gave you money, and you expect to be able to get it back later in a transformed form. That goes right back to Ricardo and the original political economy.

In any case, the article currently gives the impression that monetary systems are always enforced by generals without the participation or consent of the the populace and their democratically-elected representatives, which is patent nonsense. -- Robert Merkel

I dont' recall EVER being asked how Alan Greenspan should conduct himself, and governments gave up most of their fiat money powers to central banks who agreed not to use them, some time ago. There are no major world powers where the politicians decide when to print money. So, "without the participation or consent of the the populace and their democratically-elected representatives," is true, except to the degree that you consider the appointment of Fed Chairman to be consented. And in about half the world, there is no control even to that level. China's yuan is certainly run that way, without consultation, wouldn't you agree? And Europe has only indirect control over its currency now.
so, you might be saying that AMERICANS get to vote on who controls the US Dollar, and I might agree, but the default is as I put it, "enforced by generals without the participation or consent of the the populace", and the democratic controls you mention are recent innovations of the 20th century.


I wouldn't call it "military fiat", but most monetary systems nowadays (including that of the US and Europe) is valued on what economists call "the float". All this means is that the money has no "real" value other than it being an accepted form of exchange for goods and services. This money is, however, backed up by the perceived strength of the country or countries from where it originates. Of course, part of this perception of "strength" comes from the quality of physical security for that market - and that is where the "military fiat" comment came from.

that *perception* of strength obviously minimizes the need to use military force, but the fiat is still *there*, albeit cushioned by a credit "float".

If fact, just after the events of September 11th there was some worry in ecomomic markets that the US was no longer a safe place for investment - the "value" of our money went sharply down as a result. After a bit of time

yes, proving that military vulnerability is still a driver of value.

went by the markets readjusted themselves and cooler heads realized that most of the strength and monetary security of the US was due to many other factors beyond physical security. Since that time the US has regained much of that lost sense of physical security - restoring confidence in the US market and its dollar. So it is a biased oversimplification to say that "military fiat" does not really play any direct role in the monetary system - it is just an important member of the supporting cast.

the dip and recovery proves the point - in the short term the US looked very vulnerable... who knew if LA would be nuked, Chicago plagued, or if there was radiation in that dust spreading through Manhattan? But once it became clear that there wasn't, and that the only followup was some dinky anthrax attacks, and that the world wasn't turning on the US but backing it, the US looked relatively strong.
Totally off-topic, but while I agree with your assessment that "the world wasn't turning on the US but backing it", I think that tide is starting to turn. - User:MMGB
Likely, it will interesting to watch the US Dollar as the US and Israel become increasingly isolated with this "war on terrorism" nonsense rhetoric. It was doomed from day one - to declare an unwinnable "war" on an abstract noun rather than an easily winnable "War on Al Qaeda" was a serious mistake, and it's humiliating for Bush to be forced to back Arafat against Sharon, but that's what happens when you pick the wrong horse. Top-down force is nothing more than a stopgap against these problems of biowar or "terrorism" - and long term the world will line up as low-tech powers versus high-tech. I honestly think Blair pushed Bush into it for his own reasons, because Blair wanted to cut the 90% of British heroin that came from Afghanistan to keep the socially conservative Labour old boys on his side.
I don't know if Blair pushed Bush into it as such, but there was certainly mutual desire. Speaking of nonsense rhetoric, we have to include the famous "axis of evil". Did you see the classic "axis of just as evil/not quite as evil" post that toured the net afterwards? - User:MMGB
yes, it's been widely ridiculed. However, there is a legitimacy to it, in that the ONLY thing those nations named have in common is "capacity" for weapons of mass destruction and willingness to proliferate technologies useful in asymmetric warfare in particular. So this "axis" is actually technological - and must be said to include the US, Israel, France, the UK, Japan and Russia, who maintain active research programs into such stuff as anthrax and AI. I view AI as by far the most dangerous of these, since the perfecting of scripts for "whispering in the ear of suicide bombers" pretty much ends all of what we know as civilization. We don't have to wait for the gollums to make robots work - "the precious" AI can use human bodies in the meantime... now *that* makes me shudder.

Only in times of crisis does this come into play in developed nations. However, in developing nations and totalitarian states, "military fiat" does play some direct role that varies from example to example. --maveric149, Sunday, April 7, 2002

Cuba and North Korea are the best examples of pure military fiat states. But the less democratic a country is, the more role the fiat plays one way or another - whether private banks proxy for central banks or not. The issuance of the money isn't hte question - it's what backs it. Read the article on the Bank for International Settlements which outlines how it works in the global clearing system today. Clearly military fiat plays the key role in the setting of policy, as states enjoy a "risk free rate" and land is the preferred reserve.

A chronology that could be incorporated Joe Cetina 03:40, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)



Paper Money in China

IIRC Marco Polo reported the use of paper money in china, which predates the 19th century first use as mentioned here. Kim Bruning 09:42, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Checking Banknote gives the first use of paper money as the 7th century CE, in china. Kim Bruning 09:46, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

" Sweden's becoming the first European country to issue paper currency, in 1661." Probably not; Washington Irving's "Conquest of Granada" gives an account of paper money being used in a siege situation in a captured city, and suggests that this was actually the first occasion (of course, that was a temporary expedient).

Also, bank notes did not have to bear interest (see British financial history of the late 19th and early 20th centuries).

The article omits the role of taxes supporting the value and introduction of fiat money (not only paper, but also token coins). This happened a lot in colonial history, using hut and poll taxes etc. or cash composition of labour duties to introduce or enlarge cash sectors of formerly subsistence economies.

Maybe the article should be upgraded to reflect this, once anyone has the references immediately at his fingertips (I would have to look mine up). PML.

Commment moved from article

I (Hadal) moved the following anon comment from the main article here:

  Comment: Having a stable value is a joint product of being difficult to counterfeit and (some wag
  took this out) being under the control of a responsible monetary authority, i.e. the national
  government - hopefully and elected authority.  The other problem is that if it's value is too
  stable i.e. static, we will end up in another depression.  Even the Bank for International 
  Settlements has declared that 2, 3 or sometimes 4% inflation is "good inflation", a sharp reversal
  of their position in the 80 and most of the 90's.  It has to do with something Keynes talked about
  back in the 1930's - "the liquidity trap".   ---SAS Toronto

Questions: (Oct-2004)

Does anyone know about any historic case (any at all) where money as defined by the four characteristics here, was or is not the creation of coercive power?

Does credit money (or fiat money) derive its value from being "legal tender" or does it derive its value from the sole fact that you and I need it in order to pay our taxes (which is not the same)?

This is a very well meaning article but captures very little of the saddening reality of today’s money. Someone should be gracious an give it a fresh try in order not to mislead the public.

Money without debt?

What happens when you use a monetary system in which it is illegal to use the money to pay a debt? It seems the money wouldn't be legal tender, and the system would produce bizarre effects such as having to pay before you received a good or service (and would this count as a donation, or a payment, if there was no debt created by the transaction?) and no legal obligation to give change for overpayment. Is there some existing wikipedia article on this area of economic theory? Thanks. --Chira 09:07, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is there such a system, or would you just enjoy watching us running around chasing our tails? - Taxman 20:26, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
is this navel gazing? Feco 21:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't know of any speculations on anti-debt currency. I'm asking because I don't know, and would be very interested in knowing of any existing theoretical work. I.e., If there was no obligation attached to the currency, would become a system of gratuity only? Would there be any way to work around the limitations of no debt (and therefore no investment?) to finance large expensive projects? How would people in such a system enforce fairness? -Chira 04:24, 12 August 2005 (UTC)


Article Introduction

Um.... should the article's introductiion sound like that? I felt like jumping in a agressive sociopolitical argument thingie or something... the last paragraphs are particularly authoritative. I'm not saying it's not true or something.. just that it seems intimidating. O.o --Signed, Random scard newb from Brazil 21:15, 13 Mai 2005 (GMT -3)


I strongly agree with this, the first three paragraphs feel very biased and set a bad tone for the rest of the article. This is even though if I was to debate it, I would probably agree with the opinions expressed. I noticed in the history that these paragraphs have been removed and replaced at least twice. In my opinion the edit made by Terjepetersen on 1 May was more appropriate, where two paragraphs were replaced with:
  In practice however most readily accepted forms of money are currencies produced by governments.
Points about the military nature of ruling power can be kept for the government page. Points about the emergence of money, and whether it is freely chosen or ceorced can be moved further into the article. At the very least the paragraphs should be left intact, but moved away from the start of the page. Admittedly I'm new around here too, so if I've missed some big debate around this there is no need to stir it up again.
Rattle 00:14, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
Putting stuff like this in the introduction is a bad idea. Contrary to paper encyclopedias, I'd say that in Wikipedia there should be more room for differing views, even to the point of a debate developing (although that should first be held in the talk pages). But the introduction should be a dry paper-encyclopedia-like description of the subject at hand. Also, it's not written too well, but that's another matter. DirkvdM 10:19, 2005 May 23 (UTC)
The paragraphs in question have been removed and replaced again since my last post. I have removed them again, and replaced them with the line about governments above. I also started on a new section Emergence of Money which expressed the original points in a more neutral fashion, to be included further into the article. I did not include it however, since there seems to be some question about it's factual accuracy. This new paragraph is below, I'd be interested in comments on it, or if it could be expanded by adding some supporting evidence. The original version can be found in the articles history for today. Rattle 18:34, 28 May 2005 (UTC)
 History demonstrates that much of the time money is actually a coerced agreement. The ruling power
 forces the community to rcognise them as the ultimate money maker authority. Money material is used 
 within an economy as the exclusive medium of exchange and acts as intermediary market 
 good. Only this "legitimate" money is allowed to take part in trades and exchanges of other goods while 
 any other medium of exchange is prohibited by law.(see Money#Private_currencies).
I notice the paragraphs are back, with a comment recommending discussion. Well lets discuss - why can't the paragraphs be rephrased and moved away from the intro? Rattle 23:28, 29 May 2005 (UTC)
You have to convince us that the above paragraph is false. Many people have read it, may people fixed the article but they didnt alter the intro. Why you think money is not a coerced agreement. If money is not a coerced agreement, why private money is prohibited by law? Do you think that money is not a power share? why? A poor workman blames 07:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
We're not here to discuss what is write and what is wrong, merely to describe the various viewpoints (or where there is consensus, facts). I agree with Rattle that the current intro is way over the top. --W(t) 07:40, 2005 May 31 (UTC)
Agreed, the current intro is far from an NPOV introduction to the topic and a summary of the article as it should be. Everyone should re-read Wikipedia:Lead section again. I think we had a better lead section at some time in the past. I'll try to search through the history to see we do, maybe others can also. - Taxman Talk 15:15, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
A poor workman blames - my main issue is not the whether the statements are true or not, but that the introduction is the wrong place for them. Although others seem to disagree with the points entirely I think they could be put elsewhere in the article, once alternative views are gvien space there too. What do you think of the introduction suggested in the RfC section above? Rattle 21:16, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

There's an RfC going on about the intro right now. Since it appears that an editor is adamant in keeping the questionable content, RfC looks like the easiest channel for getting the content removed for good. FYI- I typed up my "ideal" intro under the RfC response heading on thsi talk page. Feco 17:05, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Responses to RfC Posting

To see the posting on RfC, go to Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment#Article_content_disputes and look for the link to this article

  1. The intro is entirely too long. Keep the classic definition of money (store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account), although make the distinction that money may not have all three functions in all cases. Tighten the prose throughout the intro. Emphasize that money can emerge organically in a bottom-up process (cigarettes in jails, pogs in school cafeterias) or by fiat in a top-down process (central banks, "legal tender for all debts..."). Kill the claptrap about the evil central authority using censorship. Black markets in goods emerge all the time when an authority oversteps its bounds... the same thing happens with money. Also kill the powershare argument. My intro:
Money is any tangible object used by a society to act as a store of value, a medium of exchange, or a unit of account. Money objects can meet some or all of these needs in a society. Since the needs arise naturally, societies organically create a money object when none exists. In other cases, a central authority creates a money object; this is more frequently the case in modern societies with paper money. Feco 16:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
I've given my intro more thought... technically, money isn't always tangible. When it's in the bank, it's just a number in a computer somewhere. But it's still readily convertible into hard paper. But it's possible to have an all-elecronic money system... we just haven't seen one in practice yet (well, in use by a real-world economy... some online games have a functioning fake economy with all "fake" money). How specific/detailed/accurate should the intro be? I don't think commodity vs fiat should be discussed in the intro. However, in light of the controversy in this article, I don't want someone to be able to come along and pick nits with the intro's verbiage. Feco 22:21, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
Was trying to post the same thing at the same time! My original message was: The last suggestion looks fine to me - maybe put Money is a marketable good or token rather than Money is any tangible object to allow for electronic money. Rattle 22:28, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
marketable good/token sounds good to me. Do you think there's enough of a consensus to make the change? Because I'd like to comb through the rest of the article and do some work, but I'm waiting until the dispute is resolved. Feco 22:37, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
I would suggest moving this section down to the bottom to follow the convention of chronological order on talk pages. But more directly the above is a lot better than what the article has now, but according to Wikipedia:Lead section it is too short for an article this length. That says this lead section should be 2-3 paragraphs. There is plenty from the article to summarize, it just certainly needs to be done so in a much more NPOV manner than what is currently in the article. I would also suggest removing the word organically. I don't think it is required to get the same point accross. - Taxman Talk 22:55, May 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Latest stab at intro (attempt to incorporate all previous comments):
Money is any marketable good or token used by a society to act as a store of value, a medium of exchange, or a unit of account. Money objects can meet some or all of these needs in a society. Since the needs arise naturally, societies organically create a money object when none exists. In other cases, a central authority creates a money object; this is more frequently the case in modern societies with paper money
Commodity money was the first form of money to emerge in human society. Under a commodity money system, the object used as money has inherent value by itself. It is usually adopted to simplify transactions in a barter economy; thus it functions first as a medium of exchange. It quickly begins functioning as a store of value, since holders of perishable goods can easily convert them into durable money. In modern economies, commodity money has also been used as a unit of account. Gold-backed currency notes are a common form of commodity money.
Fiat money is a relatively modern invention. A central authority creates a new money object that has minimal intrinsic value. In this case, the public's faith in the money exists only because the central authority mandates the money's acceptance. In cases where the public loses faith in the fiat money, there is little a central authority can do to prevent the adoption of other money objects by society.
Fiduciary or credit money is a form of money where the money's issuer promises to convert the money units into another form of money on demand. It is similar to fiat money, except not issued by a central authority. An all-electronic monetary system (like sci-fi credits) would fall in this category.

Comments? I had problems writing the blurb on fiduciary money, since it's the "newest" and somewhat hazy form of money. Feco 00:47, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Looks fine. I corrected two typos. I couldn't find Fiduciary in the rest of the article, so unless you plan to put something into the article yourself I'd leave it as credit money. Rattle 13:27, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I restored the consensus version of the intro. The fiat money graf had acquired some of the same language we agreed to remove. My read of the consensus here is that there may be a place for such content later in the article, but not in the intro. Feco 21:18, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I count six users in favor of removing the questionable content (their comments span sections 8.0 and 8.1). I count one in favor of keeping the content. It seems like a clear-cut consensus. Feco 15:25, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)


"Intrinisic Value"

The money and commodity money articles use "intrinsic value" quite a bit. Like some other commentators, I have my doubts about whether it helps to use this idea in these articles. If "intrinsic value" applies to commodity money and money, it must include the following:

In commodity money, intrinsic value can be partially or entirely due to the desirable features of the object as a medium of exchange and a store of value. Examples of such features include being divisible, easily and securely storable and transportable, scarce, and hard to counterfeit. When objects come to be used as a medium of exchange they lower the high transaction costs associated with barter and other in-kind transactions.

I've updated "Intrinsic value (numismatics)" with this definition. (There probably should be a new category "Intrinsic value (commodity money)" for this).

I also wonder about the definition "[i]ntrinsic value in general, is the argument that the value of a product is intrinsic within the product rather than dependent on the buyer's perception." I don't know of any kind of value that is not intermediated by buyer's perceptions. Perhaps this should be changed to "intrinsic value in general, is the argument that the value of a product is often due to the objective features of the product, since there is often wide tacit agreement on what features are desirable." If we rigidly stick to the former defifntion, it is way outside mainstream economics and has no place in the money and commodity money articles. -- N

Money map

Someone who has a map of the world with density of money instead of people...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0303/peopleearth94_usda_big.gif




External links

I have removed the linkspam warning template, because there was virtually no linkspam present. I have also removed one of the external links, which linked to a list of articles. If there are linkspam problems, then please discuss them here. Thanks! The Land 18:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I have readded thelink that you removed, because although it is a list of articles, it is a list of articles on that site which presents an outlook from many different angles which isn't covered in one article --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 18:44, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
The articles it links to aren't appropriate resources for an encyclopedia, so I've removed it again. I've also removed a spamlink. Hmm, maybe we do need that template back... The Land 11:42, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Why are they an apporpiate resource for an encyclopedia, they are clearly identified as explaining the Jewish view of money and this is an area that there should be something written about it. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 02:00, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the 'Jewish view of money' is not referred to anywhere in the article (and I would be surprised if there was anything to write about it), so I don't think the link is 'meaningful and relevant' as per WP:EL. The Land 11:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps my title was wrong, when I write the Jewish view of money, I and the articles are refering to the way that Judaism looks at the concept of money, like almost everything else in the world, Judaism has a certain outlook on things which is intergaited into Judaism and the life of every Jew, these article, explain how from a Jewish perspective, money should be used, why is there wealth by some, etc. I hope this clarifies. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 13:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The Land, do you have any further comments or thoughts on this? --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 22:29, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


Cheques/Checks

Now I am not turning this into a spelling debate, however through this article "checks" are in the majority of use [some cheques have creeped in], however the entry in wikipedia is "cheques". I would say cheques should be used throughout this article. Opinions? unsigned

The Wikipedia policy (which I cannot find to cite) is that an article with mostly British spellings should remain that way and the same for American. So, if this article says "check" do not use "cheque" whatever is used elsewhere in WP. Paul Beardsell 01:38, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

POV pushing

Some are POV pushing here. The article now reads, paraphrasing, that the nasty state coerces us to use their horrible money on pain of persecution. This is not a universally held view. Others think that society has clubbed together to put in place structures that many of us want including a central currency. The article did say the state encourages us to use their money. This is true for all readers. Now it says there is coercion. Arguable. Not true for all readers. So I am reverting to the NPOV version. Paul Beardsell 01:52, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all. happy new year to you and to all of you. is your POV true for all readers? How this can be? It is not true for me, it is not true for all the readers before you arrived here. Have a look below, the phrase I recently added "enhanced by a central authority mandating the money's acceptance under penalty of law and demanding this money in payment of taxes or tribute." resides in the second paragraph of the definition. Have you ever read the whole article? Do you think that all the people that drove the article improvement since 27 March were blind? A poor workman blames 06:14, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
"Encourage" is a superset of "coerce". Anyone who agrees with "coerce" must also agree with "encourage". We won't only have anti-state anarchists agreeing with the article. That's why it's a more NPOV word - becuase it is more Neutral and that is what the N stands for in NPOV. Paul Beardsell 08:02, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
I can point you at countless blinding errors that have existed at WP for ages. I find a couple every time I care to have a good luck. Not controversial ones but obvious ones. Or so they should be. We seem to be wired to accept anything in print or on screen as gospel truth. And that is why they must be corrected. Because readers are not reading the obvious error and identifying it as such. Shame on those who saw the error and let it stand. As for what is POV and how to write NPOV material the NPOV article is a good place to start. And being able to accept another's improvement to text one originally wrote is difficult but necessary if our aim is to have a good, free encyclopedia. (Alternatively, the ability to explain why the original version is better could be cultivated.) Paul Beardsell 07:49, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
Coersion is somewhat about a point of view. By stating that coersion is not involved you are taking the view of the state. However the reality is that legal tender laws compel people to accept fiat currencies in certain situations. There is a clear difference between encourgagment and coersion. Laws don't encourage people they coerse them for better or worse. Perhaps the word "compel" might be used as it has less sinister overtones. Terjepetersen 05:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, I agree, better than coerce. But Onassi (and others) have been asserting here and elsewhere on WP that the state compels e.g. the use of "legal tender" for the repayment of debt. Your edit lends credence to that untrue view. The compulsion, as I see you also understand, is for certain limited purposes only! (And in the case of "legal tender" the compulsion is usually a compulsion to accept it as a legitimate form of cash in the currency of the specific legal tender, not a compulsion to use it.) So what the compulsion is needs to be spelt out if the word "compel" is used. Otherwise the incorrect view that I am wondering around WP correcting, that one MUST USE THE STATE'S CURRENCY IN ALL THINGS, is perpetuated. Paul Beardsell 08:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
First up they were not my edits. I have done some edits on this topic (Money) in the last few days but nothing that relates to the word coerce. My only contribution in so far as coerce is concerned is in this discussion section. Governments do coerce a demand for their currency but less through legal tender laws and more through taxation laws. I think your concern about coerce has more to do with some perceived negative connotation rather than some hightened insight. The government coerces many things in an economy (for better or for worse). Denying the obvious nature of government does not seem very helpful in an encyclopedia article. And in this instance the motivation for your edit seems to be heavily tainted by POV. Terjepetersen 08:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
You're right, I do have a POV. However, it may not be what you think! I'm far less of a statist and much more of a libertarian than you might think. I cannot help but take a contrary stance against the unqualified assertion that the state coerces or compels us to use its money. The implication and false conclusion naturally drawn (and this conclusion was drawn at fiat currency and legal tender probably using this article as the authority) from such a statement is that we must use the money for all things and all purposes including the repayment of any loan! This is not true. Surely no one here wants to create a false impression? Paul Beardsell 08:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)




Links worth looking at

Forums online can help someone in need greatly, if they have a question regarding any type of money matter.

Please do not spam the articles on Wikipedia --DV8 2XL 23:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Also don't remove comments from the talk pages, you will get yourself barred. --DV8 2XL 03:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
This isn't spam sir, I don't even own that site. I thought it would be helpful to others to post on a message board, so that they don't clog up this discussion page. Feel free to delete it if you like, I'm just trying to help the community.

NPOV

This article reads extremely POV from the beginning: "since the need arises naturally", "barter is innefficient", etc. It makes no mention of gift economy or other non-money systems and makes no mention of criticism of money.Sumthingweird 15:05, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

There is proof that barter IS inefficent out there. xSTRIKEx6864 05:43, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
That shouldn't impact the page unless the proof can be cited. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), "out there" is not good enough for wikipedia. I don't advocate barter but since there has been so much philosophic and economic criticism of money over the ages, it would seem to me that a Wikipedia article should mention these aspects in order to be balanced and NPOV. The very purpose of money is to keep possessions from people who have not earned them - thus creating wealth discrepancies. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, the facts should not be manipulated to support your POV. Sumthingweird 17:18, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
The purpose of money is to keep possessions from people who haven't earned them? It's more accurate to say it allows people to obtain possessions if they earned them. Without the medium of money there would be even less exchange and even more hoarding. Barter can be explained as inefficient as a simple intellectual exercise, you can have more transactions if you agree on some medium of exchange than if you are only able to make exchanges when two people's interests line up. You can criticize the love of money, but it's hard to make a case that money itself isn't the most efficient means of transaction.--BigCow 05:23, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
This isn't exactly the right place to discuss philosophy, the article should reflect referenced facts. The fact is that money has been criticised, and it is missing from this article. Your first statement "it's more accurate to say..." seems to be the same as my quoted statement, except phrased in the positive instead of the negative. Your assumption is that the only way to naturally obtain an object is by earning it, but this is contrary to the historical development of possessions - nobody "earned" air or water or even food, which could be killed and eaten by whoever took the effort to acquire it. The issue of "earning" possessions came with population growth and limiting of supply (as well as increase in life expectations). So if money allows people to obtain possessions if they haven't earned them, and there is a limit of supply, money also keeps possessions from those who have not earned them. I repeat again that I do not support a barter system because I believe that it creates the same problems as money, albeit a little slower. Again, I can't make a case that money isn't the most efficient means of transaction here, because that is an original research argument that has no place in a Wikipedia article, but economists have certainly made the point that money leads to wealth discrepancy. If transaction were not the goal, and rather providing needs were the goal, the argument that money is the most efficient means of transation is meaningless, whether it is true or not. The fact is, money is valuable in our society as it stands at the moment, but historically that has not meant that people have not criticised it. A full article should include this information, whether we agree with it or not. --Sumthingweird 20:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Your idea that "money also keeps possessions from those who have not earned them" seems ridiculous to me, but go ahead and add it to the article if you can find a reference for it. Tagging the article with NPOV is definitely overkill. I'll leave it up to the next one who reads this discussion to remove the tag. --CygnusPius 21:58, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the tag. Please add a short section "Criticisms of money" instead of tagging it. I don't think the criticisms are such a vital point in this subject, you can add them but I don't think they warrant a POV tag. You have to look very hard in this world for people who don't use money because of these criticisms. Piet 10:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

New Definition of Money

I would like to offer new definitions - perhaps inserted in a new section called "Other Definitions"

Currency: That which circulates as a medium of exchange; anything that is in immediate, continuous and widespread use as money.

Money: A psychological creation; a concept; the mental image of that which is used as a medium of exchange.

Taken from the Nesara Institute.

inigmatus 18:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

questionable "exclusive legal tender for loans" para

I have removed the following para from the article

Though these private, especially digital, monies has had some modest success, governments have established a coercive monopoly on what currency may be used in lending by enacting legal tender laws. One may borrow a private currency but repay the loan with a legal tender that has subsequently devalued against the private alternative, with the lender being required by law to accept it. This large and apparently insurmountable risk to lenders severely limits the proliferation of private money, as the interest rate would have to be exhorbitant to compensate for this tremendous risk premium.

Assertions like this pop up again and again on Wikipedia from the same editor. Others and I have succeeded in removing these and similar assertions from legal tender and fiat currency and elsewhere: It is not true that loans can only be made in a "legal tender", nor is it true that repayment of a loan must be accepted if the repayment is offered in "legal tender". If I loan you a bag of potatoes (or a bar of gold) then repayment must be in potatoes (or gold). Essentially the challenge is this: References required!

Paul Beardsell 14:48, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Add Smithsonian Education link?

Hello! I am a writer for the Smithsonian Institution's Center for Education and Museum Studies, which publishes Smithsonian in Your Classroom, a magazine for teachers. An online version of our issue titled "Revolutionary Money," about the printing of paper currency during the American Revolution, is available for free at this address:

http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/revolutionary_money/index.html

If you think your audience would find this valuable, I wish to invite you to include it as an external link. We would be most grateful.

Thank you so much for your attention.

standard of deferred payments

Why is standard of deferred payments regarded as essentially different from unit of account? And why is it relevant to the definition of money? Surely a "standard" is a benchmark or measure and that concept is adequately covered within the defition for a unit of account. Terjepetersen 11:44, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

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