Money is Debt in the modern system

[the other one]

This video will explain why a Federal Reserve System exists to enrich bankers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc3sKwwAaCU&feature=related

No I don't think we should go back to a gold standard. I believe the only bank should be a national bank. A national bank would make all private loans, and a national bank would finance the workings of government without charging interest to the citizens.

[FarCenter]

1. Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Before there was money, there was debt

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems—to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it.

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years is a fascinating chronicle of this little known history—as well as how it has defined human history, and what it means for the credit crisis of the present day and the future of our economy.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6617037-debt

[lunasun]

2. Check out public landesbank in Germany

They have already been screwed over and damaged with debt too!!!!

[hunter]

3. Money is the gift you give someone...

... when you yourself don't have anything they need or want.

Modern economies are absurdly cart-before-horse dysfunctional. A large fraction of our population doesn't even get what they need even though there's more than enough production capacity to provide good food, shelter, and medical care for everyone.

90% or more of our total economy is no more substantial than a fantasy football league, played at the physical expense of those who are excluded from the game.

To get the economy working for the benefit of all we must create money where the need is greatest, and pull it away from markets where it stagnates.

You do this by setting up a generous welfare and retirement system, a single payer health care system, and a steeply progressive tax rate.

People who have very little money or nothing spend what money they get in ways that benefit everyone in their communities. Extremely wealthy people who get money build empires to the detriment of all but themselves and their cronies.

[banned from Kos]

4. Don't believe that. Cash is an asset -- it is not "debt"

Your debt is an asset to someone else. A dollar is your asset and the liability of the Federal Reserve.

There are two aspects to everything in finance, at least since the Medici invented double entry accounting.

So is money "debt"? Depends on whether you owe it or hold it.