What is Money?
 

This guy is exactly right...An actual genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y37wn-f5hmE

Younger people are starting to wake up...They may be the first on Earth to be truly free/civilized and not serfs to external authorities and their Ponzi fiat. Ahh, to be 20 again :)

When barter was replaced by coinage, the actual coin, whether gold, silver etc. had the value of its worth in the actual metal.
Later when banks all printed their own promissory notes, they backed their paper amounts with gold.
Seems to me, all currency today, old and new, is based on a nod and hope, but its what we have, and until we don't have it, we just carry on using it.
The whole thing is a pyramid, and take out one bottom brick and it could all collapse.
Even precious metals, diamonds will be worthless, as there will be no actual currency to give it value.
Back to barter!

Even the value of diamonds are falling with influx of man made diamonds into the market.
Now if I could only turn lead into gold….

Funny Money.

because bitcoin only has the value from the full faith and credit of the tech bros. . .

just another store of value based upon belief.

no electricity, got benjamins bro?

Not two minutes in and I get that uncomfortable feeling that the fast-talking, hand-waving guy is trying to sell me swampland.

I can put my trust in the full faith and credit of the US Govt. or I can put my trust in the fast-talking, hand-waving guy who wants to sell me something.

Beads and shells were much better.

Why do you have to put your full faith and/or trust in either?

I don't have full faith in the US Government. But the US Dollar is the money I'm able to use here in the USA to represent my trade of goods and services. So I'll use it. Even though I don't trust it to remain stable indefinitely.

In fact, I know that it's not a stable commodity. It fluctuates. And THAT - the fact that it fluctuates - is really the only thing I have full faith and trust in.

What is your alternative? With my deed restrictions I could never grow enough beans to trade for a dinner at Harvest…and then I would need to figure out the tip.

If you tied his hand behind his back, he couldn't talk. 😦

Must be Italian blood there somewhere.

Correct.

What requires us to use USD as a medium of exchange is the fact that tax remittances must be made only in that medium, at gunpoint. Failure to comply will land you in prison.

Other mediums of exchange might be useful, but as OBB points out, both parties must agree to use said medium. When you have 325 million people and countless commercial entities constantly exchanging, it's really tough to find a common currency.

I have no alternative. That's why I stated that I use it. You don't need to have faith and trust in a thing to know that you have no other option at the moment.

There are people in this country who live 100% off the grid, producing their own food, composting 100% of their waste, with trained medical professionals living right within the community, who use swap-meets to acquire and provide goods and services. There are communities like that right here in the good ole USA.

I'm not interested in living in one of those, but sure - those are totally alternatives to money.

You need oil, metals, rubber and electricity to survive in the modern world. Oil, worldwide, trades in US dollars. The US dollar does the best job of measuring productivity, but it is far from perfect. Bitcoin is the dollars biggest adversary. I really don't understand how Bitcoin can measure productivity any better.