Most people are simply put off with politics. Even for those who have a passing interest, many conclude that
nothing can be done to make any changes. Then there are those who are relatively content with society, how it works and their
place within it. Finally, there are folks who are totally disgusted with government and are engaged in politics to alter the
system. All have one thing in common. Money bonds everyone together, even those unwilling to function in society, are moved
to bow to its reality.
Traditionally, money is any asset which gains general acceptability in performing the "functions of money".
The functions of money are:
Medium of exchange
Avoids the inefficiency of barter
Unit of account
Simplifies the expression of an item's value
Store of value
Its advantage is "liquidity", and its disadvantages are low rate of return and loss of real value when the
price levels rise. But in today’s world, money has become whatever the STATE tells you it is.
A medium of exchange seems to be a self evident fact. All buying and selling has at its purpose an exchange
of something. In most cases money is the instrument. Commerce is not charity, so for any business to be conducted a transaction
must take place.
Barter is an option but people desire efficiency and ease in satisfying their needs and wants. Few are able
to secure all their requirements solely by trading. Most don’t produce items that are marketable to allow for barter
as an effective alternative.
So society seeks a unit of account in their instruments for exchange. How many defined assets does it take
to conduct the transfer is a basic element of money.
Its value is crucial since all transactions depend on the worth of the defined unit for exchange. Therefore,
at the core of the nature of money, a cost/price relationship is intrinsic.
Lastly, a store of value, its worth over time and changes in economic circumstances, is the optimum goal to
maintain and to preserve the usefulness of money.
While money combines these clear conditions, our economic and political system is designed to confuse, compromise
and co-opt its distinct meaning. The reason is simple. Business has never been about something for nothing, and government
has never been about organizing public functions that benefit a society. If you fail to appreciate this maxim, the subject
of money will elude your understanding.
Since we are all condemned to exist under the demands of worldly needs, we are subject to the requirement
to USE money. In whatever form it takes, we need enough of it to sustain our life. How we acquire it is
a political question. Government wants you to believe that they will give it to you if you conform to their demands upon your
behavior. Businessmen will tell you, you will need to earn it by working for their company. Thieves will convince
themselves that they have a right to take it from those who already have it. And entrepreneurs claim they create
it from the fruits of their genius and determination.
Sincere and honest citizens know and will admit that all governments are inextricably involved, and have their
own vested interests, with the creation and control of its particular version of money. Central banks may be private, but
all have silent partners in the STATE, as they apply their alchemy inventions of debt contrived currency. We all know that
inflation is a tax and that it violates the “expression of an item's value” of money. Government levies have less
to do with funding public services, than compelling approved behavior from the taxpayer. Legal tender laws force the individual
to observe the State endorsed money monopoly, under penalty of criminal sanction.
Investments are fleeting and transparent as the true worth of money is wrecked from the fabricated forces
of diminished purchasing value, overt and concealed taxation, designed deficits, pre-determined international currency variance,
equity speculation, bond manipulations, induced business cycle swings, ‘constructed’ housing bubbles, expanded
government expenditures, pension bribes, empire building, war expenditures, foreign aid and banking and business frauds. This
is the normal condition, before your Federal Reserve note starts to function as a “Store of Value”. Gold, diamonds,
art or oil are all subject to the whims of lawmakers, the arbitrary bureaucratic enforcers, the ‘hall of justice’
courts and capricious executive fiat.
Think you can avoid many of these pitfalls by owning your own business? Become independent from the national
and international economy, buy doing business within your own community? Once it might have worked, now it is a mirage. Regulation,
lawyers accountants, insurance, utilities, rent, property tax don’t take a vacation from a down economy. And that is
before the first customer walks in the door, or the latest hired help punches the clock! If you can survive all this - never
be late paying the sale tax . . .
Now you need to borrow that worthless currency to buy, keep and grow that business. Bank loans require collateral,
debt service demands cash flow and franchise competition drives the mom and pop from the marketplace. Nope! Better strive
for a corporate career. Better yet, becoming one of those government toadies - the only growth industry left.
Friends, this is the ultimate Catch-22. We need the Money. But the domination from an all powerful STATE,
over every facet of our lives, requires us to obey or you “Won’t be Shown the Money”. You know this account
is true. But you sit back and deny that Limited Government - is the solution. The economic dilemma can be
licked and real money restored. But that will require the risk of Freedom, a price that so few are willing to pay.
We need relief from the command and controlled economy, that is designed, directed and perpetuated by the force of
an illicit, unlawful and an un-American system. This nation was settled to avoid the tyranny that exists on the backs of serfs.
Now it has become the model for the most sophisticated economic manipulation in history. It is built upon the sham of a bogus
currency that doesn’t remotely serve the "functions of money". Are you ready to take back your country, or are you still
content to pay and pay and pay?
SARTRE - January 16, 2002
