How much money is there?

[FriendlyFire]

Shouldnt the sum of money on earth be eqaul to the value of everything that is owned on earth

No cause wealth can be created or destroyed.
Whether it discovering a large oil reserve or a natural disaster which destroys infastructure and lives

 

[Xenocrates]

Sidhe and others have hit the nail on the head.

Money is worthless and it's value is only what the average potatohead believes it to be.

It's a capitalist device to persuade the weak of mind to get of their backsides. Religious men will sacrifice themselves for their God, but all it takes for the average American Joe to sign up is a few metal discs.

The prevailing economic ruleset is arbitrary and is based on the ideas of Herbert Spencer, who was influenced by Darwin's version of evolution theory. A good metaphor is this:

We are all on the Titanic and it' sinking, but we can't stop our game of monopoly in the smoking room..
The engineer bursts in and demands that we hand him all of our monopoly money to patch up the hole in the ship.
We look at him like he's crazy.
"But we'll all be poorer as a result" we yell.

If anyone disagrees with me: 'Off to the re-education chamber with you!'

 

[Sidhe]

Sidhe and others have hit the nail on the head.

Money is worthless and it's value is only what the average potatohead believes it to be.

It's a capitalist device to persuade the weak of mind to get of their backsides. Religious men will sacrifice themselves for their God, but all it takes for the average American Joe to sign up is a few metal discs.

The prevailing economic ruleset is arbitrary and is based on the ideas of Herbert Spencer, who was influenced by Darwin's version of evolution theory. A good metaphor is this:

We are all on the Titanic and it' sinking, but we can't stop our game of monopoly in the smoking room..
The engineer bursts in and demands that we hand him all of our monopoly money to patch up the hole in the ship.
We look at him like he's crazy.
"But we'll all be poorer as a result" we yell.

If anyone disagrees with me: 'Off to the re-education chamber with you!'

here here. You don't have to be a communist to agree with the idea that the capatalist money machine is simply that a self repairing way of keeping the money moneyed and the poor down in there place. Now explain why interest is a bad thing. One thing Arabs do well is banks. No interest, there is a very very good reason for that. Interest keeps the dogs from discovering the fact that exploiting humanities weakness is good capatalist practice, and damn it profit from human suffering is good too

 

[Sahkuhnder]

here here. You don't have to be a communist to agree with the idea that the capatalist money machine is simply that a self repairing way of keeping the money moneyed and the poor down in there place. Now explain why interest is a bad thing. One thing Arabs do well is banks. No interest, there is a very very good reason for that. Interest keeps the dogs from discovering the fact that exploiting humanities weakness is good capatalist practice, and damn it profit from human suffering is good too

Bold added by me.


Doesn't the Koran specifically prohibit interest payments?

 

[Rambuchan]

Doesn't the Koran specifically prohibit interest payments?

Yeah but it says nothing of adminstrative, processing and engagement fees.

 

[Sahkuhnder]

Yeah but it says nothing of adminstrative, processing and engagement fees.

That's great! If there is one universal thing that humans truly excel at, it is finding a way to circumvent the rules.

 

[Xenocrates]

I laughed long and hard when a Muslim friend told me he had obtained a "Halal" mortgage.

 

[Leifmk]

Currency in and of itself is worthless but it is a promise to pay the bearer the amount in gold or whatever given by any government. Inflation is a way to take your inherent wealth from gold gems or whatever and make it go further.

Not even that, really. Gold (or gems or whatever) doesn't have any intrinsic worth either, and when paper currencies used to be based on a gold (or whatever) standard that was just one more layer obscuring the essential arbitrariness of their value.

 

[Leifmk]

That's great! If there is one universal thing that humans truly excel at, it is finding a way to circumvent the rules.

Yeah. Back when Christians used to agree that their religion prohibited the charging of interest, the methods used to circumvent that were basically either:

1) Get the Jews to be moneylenders instead, or

2) "Business partnerships" where one partner (i.e. the moneylender) only contributes financially in return for a fat share of the eventual profits (or takes over a greater percentage of the whole business in the event of too low profits).

 

[Sidhe]

Actually that's the reason why the Jews were hated so much in Europe in history because everyone hates money lenders or Banks. Pretty much true that. They got rather wealthy off an unchristian act being a hypocrit doesn't have to make sense to the self righteous. Damn it their rich because of us poor slobs

 

[Leifmk]

Actually that's the reason why the Jews were hated so much in Europe in history because everyone hates money lenders or Banks. Pretty much true that.

I'd say it was merely a contributing reason, the major reasons being old-fashioned tribalism and xenophobia. It's depressingly common to hate those who are "the others", and religious affiliation remains one of the most usual ways of defining who "the others" are. In those areas which had high Jewish populations and the most virulent antisemitism among the rest of the population, most Jews were plain old farmers and craftsmen, anyway.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's true that money only works because we let it, but the fact that it works is a good thing.

I'd rather give a car dealer $10,000 (or a cheque) for a car than barter him for my services. My services, while useful, are not worth $10,000 to one person. But, my services are a little useful to a lot of people. So, instead of asking them all for loaves of bread (which I guess I could give to the car dealer) I just get them to give me money.

It's amazingly portable, and it facilitates specialization and trade ... and that's a good thing for total wealth.

 

[Abaddon]

I laughed long and hard when a Muslim friend told me he had obtained a "Halal" mortgage.

Yeah, its like me and my flatmates have a chippy on the corner.. we often have A "Halal" Chip buttie!

 

[Leifmk]

It's true that money only works because we let it, but the fact that it works is a good thing.

Of course, which is why it was invented.

On the other hand, I never fail to be amused at people who keep ranting about how we should go back to the gold standard because then our money would be based on something of "real value". Um, no, gold is also only valuable because people think it is.

 

[El_Machinae]

Sadly, it also has industrial uses (but not as much as platinum). If we could get people to start selling their gold, we could have those goods produced more cheaply.

 

[Xenocrates]

So we are all agreed that money is arbitrary.

Let's start movement against money?

All donations to Xenocrates@civ4_mostly!

This is part of the argument about evolution; that it's impossible to change one part of the system without changing the rest in sync; hence the argument for ID (which sucks- obviously).

How do we get off the capitalist merry go round without scraping our knees?

I think environmentalism is part of the answer, but it won't work on its own. It's hard to believe but China is where this might happen.....

 

[Xshayathiya]

lol, the poor guy asked a question, and one person gave him the answer. everyone else just ranted about economic theory and capitalism and etc etc.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Shouldnt the sum of money on earth be eqaul to the value of everything that is owned on earth

Money is not a measure of value.

 

[El_Machinae]

Um ... yes it is. When you ask 'how much is that worth?', the answer will be in currency.

 

[jameson]

This is actually a rather interesting question, but after looking through the IMF and World Bank sites and 40-odd pages of google search results, the only figure I encountered was a completely unsourced $4.5 trillion, and no clue whether it was in the narrow or broad definition of the word either.
I'm guessing it was narrow ( M1) money, since broad money supply in the US last year was $9.7 trillion. Here's your Wiki link on the different definitions used for money supply.

Theoretically you could of course go and aggregate all the M1/M2/M3 figures published by central banks around the world, but it looks like no-one's so far made that effort.