Once upon a time, people invented money on a small island, lost in the Pacific. They carved out huge circular stones, and used them for trading whatever commodity and services.
After buying or selling something, the new stone owners rolled their stones back to their bush huts. After many generations of stone rolling they became tired of rolling around big stones on the little island. They stored the stone money in distinct places, a kind of stone bank. Everybody knew, which stone belonged to which stone owner family.
With modern times having arrived, the islanders abandoned the stone rolling. They are becoming fat.Westerners have paper and plastic money. In previous ages, gold, silver, pearls, salt, were common legal tenders. Today, a financial transaction doesn’t require physical exercise. There is nothing left to carry or to drag over the mountains, and everybody is getting fat, too. Money, first of all, is an agreement.
• It is an agreement with all potential users, and the Central Banks of country X and Y, that some printed, colored paper can serve as a legal tender to trade services and goods.
• If we do not use paper, we use tenders such as gold coins, gold lingots, silver, diamonds etc. Here, talking about gold, we agree on the value of the metal, which can easily be diagnosed through its yellow glow (during day time, or in the light of a torch). Lead is as heavy as gold, and doesn’t shine in darkness. Money also contains elements of magic. Am I serious? Yes, I am. Take a One Dollar note from your handy-dandy wallet, and look at the stuff, which moves through your hand every day.
• Turn George Washington around, and – what is this! To the left of ‘In God we trust’ and ‘ONE,’ there is a circle with a pyramid, and a floating triangle in the sky with a watchful eye. Above the pyramid appear the words ‘ANNUIT COEPTIS’ and below, on a banner, ‘NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, THE GREAT SEAL.’Money has also to do with licensing.
• 007 and some presidents have the license to kill, to loot, and to take other people’s money. Both elected and non-elected presidents believe they have acquired the right to loot ‘their own’ treasury, which maybe a smarter move than looting other countries’ treasures.
• Money also means the license to print. Yahoo! Here goes the dollar. It’s called depreciation.
• Money is the license to pump (someone’s or nobody’s oil or water).
• A shop license (from nail polishing to catering, body to body massage, and funeral services) means the right to trade services for money.
• Money may be a license to own, stock, hide and hedge. Some commodities (such as diamonds) are hoarded and deliver a high, artificial value. The hoarders tell you, that diamonds are forever (unless you opt to smash your sparkling wedding ring with a sledgehammer. Try it and you may find out it won’t be forever).
When robbers loot the bank, they infringe on the license for trading money against services and goods. Somehow they believe, however, that the broken license is still good for them.Money is the blood of a world economy.
(c) Franz L Kessler 2004
