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@mustardness
Thank you so much the link about Sumerian economics is positively fascinating. I look forward to checking out the sources in the bibliography.
I will bet you.
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@secularmerlin
SM, welcome as always.
Greenback, penny, nickel, dime, quarter etc are all money irrespective of their changing values for bartering/trading consumers living or killing goods.
If they have too little or no value, then another medium ---ex digita/crypto-- will take their place. Just as valuble metals --for making swords etc--- took the place of real wealth cows, sheep, goats, lambs for barter/exchange.
Payment-in-kind stems from german 'kinder' as in kindergarten i.e. you will pay me back with the first born young calf ---young calf is kinder-- of the cow I have given you
..."Payment-in-kind (PIK) is the use of a good or service as payment instead of cash. Payment in kind also refers to a financial instrument that pays interest or dividends to investors of bonds, notes or preferred stock with additional securities or equity instead of cash"...
Real { royal } wealth stems from real estate i.e. land or cows the king{ royal } gives you.
Real wealth is what you can eat to sustain your days forward.
Money aka virtual/fake wealth is a temporary holding space, that can later be used --hopefully--- to trade/barter for real wealth{ food-water etc }.
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@mustardness
Oh they may be money but money doesn't have intrinsic value. It only has the value of whatever it represents or the value we agree it has. So you owe me ten money. But the link was awesome.
Oh they may be money but money doesn't have intrinsic value. It only has the value of whatever it represents or the value we agree it has. So you owe me ten money. But the link was awesome.
It has intrinsic changing value and I stated that via a couple of differrent statments.
Money aka virtual/fake wealth is a temporary holding space, that can later be used --hopefully--- to trade/barter for real wealth{ food-water etc }.
"intrinsic" value. Well again, metal has had and still has intrinsic value to humanity, as to many other substances.
Paper as greenbacks have intrinsic value for wiping our butts, and more so if the greenback has lost all of it 'money' value.
Paper greenbacks also have intrinsic value as a fire starter underneath the kindling wood.
Paper greenback also can be used to blow our nose on, or write a message on if no other medium is avaiiable.
Also paper can be used for its insulation value and more so if shredded and sprayed in with boric acid treatment to make bug proof.
Magicians do tricks with paper and metal.
Children always inventing games ex paper football that we kick through fingesr-thumbs goal post or paper airplanes.
metal coins can be used as sinkers on fishing line for catfish and more so if the coins are melted in to other specific sinker-like shapes.
If a ten-spot, truly had no intrinsic value, you would not be so interested in recieving it from so many posters in your thread :--D
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@mustardness
Not a ten spot. Ten money. Virtual/fake wealth (which is the same as saying not really valuable).
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@secularmerlin
Not a ten spot.
Ten money.
Money aka tender ..."Legal tender is any official medium of payment recognized by law that can be used to extinguish a public or private debt, or meet a financial obligation. The national currency is legal tender in practically every country. A creditor is obligated to accept legal tender toward repayment of a debt."...
Virtual/fake wealth (which is the same as saying not really valuable).
As I stated in one or more ways.
If a ten-spot, ---irrespective of what you want to call it-- truly had no intrinsic value, you would not be so interested in recieving it from so many posters in your thread :--D
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@mustardness
It's the principle of the thing ebuc. Just don't want to think you are a welsher.
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@mustardness
Also not necessarily ten dollars any ten money will do
52 days later
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@secularmerlin
Oh they may be money but money doesn't have intrinsic value. It only has the value of whatever it represents or the value we agree it has. So you owe me ten money. But the link was awesome.
If you're trying to say that money is symbolic because the material which it's made of has no value (obviously, it's a piece of metal or paper, it's not made of gold anymore), you're quite correct.
But in the past money used to have intrinsic value until we decided to "trust" the US in order to use its dollars instead of gold to trade internationally. I wonder if the US is still trustworthy.
Il Diavolo
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@IlDiavolo
Even if money was made of gold its value would only be what people agreed on. If civiliation collapsed then having a stack of gold would not be much use to you - you'd be better off holding a stack of baked beans or potato seeds or maybe even clean water.
Without money the only mean of trade would be direct barter.
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@keithprosser
I think you're wrong. Many countries are choosing gold and not the green bills for their reserves nowdays because the US is not trustwrothy anymore. Gold is the metal of reference when it comes to money and economy since it has an intrisic value (if I understand correctly whta "instrinsic" means). Besides, neither people nor governments decide how much the gold costs, it's the law of supply and demand that fixes the price, or in other words it's the market that do so. So, if society collapses, what it's going to increase its price is for sure the things that have more demand and less supply, as food and water, and probably the gold because its production will decrease.
Il Diavolo
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@IlDiavolo
i don't tnk gold has intrinsic value. if I want you to dig me a hole 6 feet wide and 6 feet deep woud you do it for 1 gold piece or hold out for 2?
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@keithprosser
It depends on gold price and the wage for a digger.
I'm asking you. If gold has an intrinic value either inepiece is a fair reward or it isn't.
Of course it is not possible to say if it is afair wage - it depends on what it can be exchanged for. Society will establish an equibrium position but whetether tht equilibrium sets 6x6 hole digging at 1,2 or 10 gold pieces is not defined.
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@secularmerlin
Are you referring to fiat currency? If so then yes you are right, it's as worthless as two tits on a hog. People believe in currency much in the same way one would believe in god. The govt (GOD) tells them it has value but in reality it is worthless paper that isn't even worth the paper it is printed on. That also applies to all the coinage that is made of zinc. So yes money is an abstract. Gold and silver on the other hand, a totally different story. It never loses value. For example 150 years ago a fine tailored suit cost what was then a twenty dollar gold piece. That same suit still costs the same as that 20 dollar gold piece. But really it's even more expensive because gold should be around $10,000 an ounce not $1500. That is how worthless the US dollar really is.
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@sadolite
Gold and silver on the other hand, a totally different story. It never loses value.
Why not? People might wake up tomorrow realising that gold was nice and shiny, but not actually much use or valuable. if it was useful people wouldn't lock it away in vaults where it's not used. Gold has some industrial uses, but it's not vital.
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@keithprosser
I'm asking you. If gold has an intrinic value either inepiece is a fair reward or it isn't.Of course it is not possible to say if it is afair wage - it depends on what it can be exchanged for. Society will establish an equibrium position but whetether tht equilibrium sets 6x6 hole digging at 1,2 or 10 gold pieces is not defined.
I'm not economist, but from what I've learnt in the only subject I took in the university about economics (Basic Economics, lol), prices are set up by the market, unless the govenment intervene the economy to adjust prices. But even so the government is just putting money (a subsidy) to decrease prices. Nevertheless it's possible to get an agreement to control prices, like the Arabs once did with oil, but this is not right and it's actually forbidden in any country because it would be monopoly.
Coming back to your question, digging a hole that big, I would need an entire day without the use of any machine, only by hand. A builder earns in average US$10.00 per hour, so 8 hours per day means US$80.00 per day. Gold is at present US$41.87 per gram, so if you want to pay me in gold to dig this hole, you need to pay me nearly 2 grams of gold, or a coin with that weight.
Il Diavolo
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@IlDiavolo
I would argue that you would agree to dig the hole in exchange for a brand new motorcycle. The guy who wants the hole dug doesn't have a motorcycle so you ask him to give you for something you can exchange from a motorcycle from someone else. We can assume people with motorcycles agree that motorcycles are a fair exchange for digging 6x6 hole.
So how many dollars (or how much gold) do you ask for? It could be any amount - that is to say the amount will be whatever people agree on as the 'common denominator'. It would work if holes and motorcycles were both priced at $1 or $100, or 1 oz of gold or 1 pound of gold. All that matters is people agree - there is nothing intrinsic making a hole or a motorcycle worth 10 or 100 'units' whether the unit is dollars or gold.
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@keithprosser
You're assuming prices come from agreements. Nothing could be further from the reality.
You likely don't know of costs and budgets, and less about the laws of market. Every company has one department devoted to it. So, to get a price people usually make a cost analysis, and then apply the profits the company expects (considering of course the competition), getting as a result the final price. This is how things work, prices are not made up or agreed.
As to gold, this is not something that falls from trees, there is a whole process to get it though. You need people, equipment, materials, services of many kinds, etc. Eventually, companies know how much to invest and evaluate if that investment is worthwhile in a particular market. Naturally, gold price is affected by the laws of market which are really complicated to determine because it's associated with currency and stocks.
Wages, on the other hand, are also affected by the laws of market. For example, inmigration affects the wage of workers because there is more labour force supply. Sometimes it happens that there is not enough specialised labour force, resulting in an increase of wages so to attract workers, which yields in a higher price.
There are wages that are agreed of course, because we know companies are greedy and usually abuse people. The minimum wage is probably the exception.
Il Diavolo
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@keithprosser
Not now it isn't, but when fiat currency fails, which it does 100% of the time every time it is used in place of gold and silver it will be valuable. You wont be able to buy shit with your worthless fiat currency. See Weimar Republic, The most recent example of it failing. The American dollar is 90% of the way there. When the US dollar ceases to be the world reserve currency which will happen, the federal reserve will no longer be able to issue worthless currency to pay for never ending deficit spending. Gold and silver will become king.
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@sadolite
It's still interesting to ponder why gold and silver are considered valuable and what sets the level of its value.
if you have a bar of gold it is of very little actual use to you - its only 'use' is that somebody else also thinks its valuable. If nobody wants your bar of gold you might as well throw it away.
Gold does have some minor industrial uses but I don't that explains why it is so highly valued.
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@keithprosser
Gold is valuable because of the law of market: demand and supply. At the beginning people used to demand gold for making clothes and accesories (watches, rings and all this shit). It was the most demanded metal as it's the most beautiful. So if you have something pretty demanded, its price would increase as much as people desire it. You might understand why people get crazy when see gold, you know you can sell it at a good price.
Now gold uses have expanded to other areas, which increased its demand and hence its price. One of them is as currency, because gold will always be a good object to exchange at a high value. So in times of inflation and crisis, it's natural gold price increases because everyone want to get protected with gold and not dollars. The green bills, on the other hand, is also valuable, but not because it has an intrinsic value but because the US economy gurantees its value.
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@keithprosser
Do you ever read or learn from history. Your view of gold and silver is so short sited and as of today. What part of fiat currency never lasting don't you understand.
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@sadolite
Fiat money has no intrinsic value by definition!
The only issue is whether gold and silver is much better.
IMO it depends on how much civilisation remains after the collapse.
20 days later
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@sadolite
Is gold money? If not then the intrinsic value (or lack thereof) of gold is not really what we are discussing.
10 days later
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@keithprosser
"intrinsic" value. Well again, metal has had and still has an intrinsic value to humanity, as to many other substances.
metal can be used as sinkers on fishing line for catfish and more so if the coins are melted in to other specific sinker-like shapes.
Shiny metal can attract fish to bite. Shiny metal can be used to reflect light for seeing into caves.
Metal can be used as a paper wieght to keep greenbacks from blowing away.
Calcium is very stable non-magnetic metal ---composed of 20 electron, 20 neutrons and 20 protons--- an is valuable to human existence and health.
Paper as greenbacks-$ have intrinsic value for wiping our butts, and more so if the greenback has lost all of it 'money' value.
Paper greenbacks-$ also have intrinsic value as a fire starter underneath the kindling wood.
Paper greenback-$ also can be used to blow our nose on, or write a message on if no other medium is available.
Also paper greenbacks-$ can be used for its insulation value and more so if shredded and sprayed in with boric acid treatment to make bug proof.
Magicians do tricks with paper and metal.
Children always inventing games ex paper football that we kick through finger-thumbs goal post or paper airplanes.
Money aka virtual/fake wealth is a temporary holding space, that can later be used --hopefully--- to trade/barter for real wealth{ food-water etc }.