CLOSED - Video Announcement: Contest #1
April 14, 2008 – 7:00 am
Welcome everyone as I present the very first official contest of HelpMyCashGrow.com. I’ll provide all the details right here in the show notes but, if you haven’t already, please feel free to take a look at the video announcement if you have the time.
This month’s contest is going to be focused around a Discussion Question that I would like to see everyone participate, if possible. I ran into an excellent question that I hope to stir some excellent conversation and debate.
The prize: A copy of the 2008 Edition of “The Neatest Little Guide To Stock Market Investing†by Jason Kelly. You can win it here or you can purchase your own copy by clicking the image to the right.
Now before I present the question remember the winner will be chosen by their answer, the discussion, and the activeness of the reader. I would like to see what type of discussion we can surround ourselves with. Now for the discussion question.
The Question:
Since money has no intrinsic value. Why did we start developing a system and evolved around money? Was our government worried we would run out of gold as a resource? How important is the control our government has over the money supply?
Contest will end and winners will be announced on May 14, 2008.
Good luck to everyone, have fun and let’s see some great answers presented.
CONTEST PRIZE UPDATE - 04/14/2008: Thanks to the graciousness and generosity of Jason Kelly, the author of the contest prize “The Neatest Little Guide To Stock Market Investing”, the prize will now be an autographed copy of the book mentioned donated by Jason Kelly, himself. So be sure to take part in our contest and I wish you all the best of luck! Please be sure to visit his website at “JasonKelly.com”.
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We developed money because we were trading, but if you had cows to trade, they were very heavy and difficult to carry around. So we invented paper money it was light and convenient to carry for trading.
We have been off the gold standard for many years now but the governement is so worried about gold that they are funding treasure hunters to search for gold. The government never really had control of all the money but they would like to gain control.
Best of luck to all who enter. Many Thanks SW
The reason we started a system around money is so we can use it anywhere we go. Also so we can make sure that we will never run out. Also when we consumers make money we use other sources that increase the value of our money investing money in the stock market can increase your income. However going to a bank, you can take out a loan for any price to pay for your car or college tuitions. Then just pay the bank back for what you borrowed. Our government knows that gold holds value people buy and sell gold for more money. However gold bricks are usually kept in banks and usually worth a lot of money and we will never run out. The supply of money is important if we are short then it would cause problems. There would be countries with short cash and banks would not be able to run. The economy would not be able to spend as much paper money because there would not be enough cash to make easy transactions. The whole world uses money if there would be a country short of cash then there would be major problems. Many people would not be able to use any to purchase goods. How our government keeps these control over money so we as consumers won’t have to worry if we have money in our bank accounts. It is also important that incase there is a war the government won’t have a problem coming up with the money.
Hi
As I understand it, monetary systems developed, yes, because the true items beyond them were too hard to carry back and forth (altho this still exists in the form of barter) - but also it was a symbolic system in which money represented a certain amount of value which could be translated into goods. This has worked pretty well, you have to admit, miraculously, in as much as far-flung countries agree to accept each other’s currency - with limits and charges along the way, of course. In the beginning this value system was propped up by the value of the currency itself (i.e. gold or silver) which was intrinsic. Then the gold shifted from the currency to the vaults when paper money entered the scene.
When they needed to have more money in circulation, they took the country off the standard of precious metals, although they kept some in reserve and the system became more of perceived value. Again, this works fairly well, except in times of upheaveal (see the worthlessness of Confederate currency in the Ante-Bellum South) or rapid inflation (see Germany post WWI where a barrel of paper money would buy a loaf of bread.)
There are all sorts of complicated financial mechanisms out there - run by governmental and international agencies - whose goal is to keep the whole system of currency circulation afloat.
Now, this obviously favors governments and big business rather than the individual - a fact which we always have to keep in mind. It’s not such a bad idea to have some precious things - art, jewelry, etc. - on hand to use if the currency system gets in trouble. Those things will keep their value.
The jist of this all is that we cannot take the monetary system at face value or just go along with the flow. Look at all the stock market losses. The saw was never to invest more than you could afford to LOSE, and I think it’s still a good one. The stock market had indeed been very profitable - and if you are a trader, could continue to be so - but for the small investor who doesn’t have the time or expertise to truely enter into the exchanges, I don’t know about that.
The other lesson is that there are forms of value which never go away - Take bartering, for example - on a micro level that is still a powerful mechanism which anyone, no matter how small a consumer, can utilize. I used to say when I was a very small theatre producer that “All exchanges are not monetary.” People will do each other favors - like picking you up or driving you somewhere if your car is down, because they know that you are ready to return the favor in kind. That sort of exchange creates community, and has been too much neglected by our present culture, which tends toward narcissism. That’s fine when everything works well - but when the going is tough, people need to stick together.
P.S. Could I have another financial book instead of the stock market one? I can’t afford to lose $ I would invest!
i would say that money has no intrinsic value but if money had no value then we wouldn’t be living the way we live today. every thing evolves around money, yes thats rite some things you cant buy from money but here in United States or any where you go there is nothing you can do if you don’t have money. Because we had to develop a system to evolved money so we don’t spend it too much. Yes our government is worried that we would run out of gold, because money is like gold in now days. people don’t think before thy spend their money on some thing it is like money has no value to any one. Our government is always worried about some thing for example lets take gas prices some people make mistakes and others have to suffer for it. Bush made mistake and the citizens are suffering. the control of government over our money supply is high, because more then half of our money governments eat it specially in taxes and all that. the government should protect the citizens not hurt them or cheat them. people need to get more smart and understand economics and fight aganist their believes thas all.
We started developing a system that evolves around money in order to replace the way humans originally traded, which was barter. The reason why the gold standard was replaced by fiat currency is it can be inconvenient as a medium of exchange due to the transport and storage. With a gold standard, a government could run the risk of running out of its gold reserves. It is more convenient to back fiat money by the good faith of a government which maintains and backs the money supply, than it is to maintain it with a heavy metal. By constantly controlling the money supply, the government attempts to stabilize the economy, without the Federal Reserve Bank, the US economy would fail.
We start developing system around money as people need something much more easier to carry than gold and silver. Money represents the amount of gold that they have in the bank’s vault, but the banker found the hole to manipulate the usage of the money in their vault and the usage of the paper money by giving loan. So they create the money out of nowhere and start giving people credit and loan. As the money system triumph, the bankers triumph as well. In my opinion, our government doesn’t worry that we would run out of gold as resource as people trade and the gold will recirculate among the market itself. The amount of the gold that revolves in the market will be the same as the amount of the goods and services in the market so there will be no inflation. The amount of gold discovered can keep up with the amount of goods and services as people cannot create gold out of nowhere like paper money where Federal Reserve can just print it out of nowhere. How important? So important! The government should control the money supply by limiting the money that Federal Reserve can print. The more money (dollar) supply we has, the dollar value will goes down, as what happening now. As the real value of dollar goes down, that what makes the price goes up thus inflation occurred.
That it’s right, money has no true value. Money itself a piece paper that you can burn or tear it off. The purpose of money is to buying goods, but why cannot we have it for free? What happen to the earth if everything we can get it is free? The answer is we are not producing goods anymore, because no one would go back to work in early the morning, ten hours per day. We developing a system that evolved around money, because money creating a trade system for living. with the trading system people will produce goods and service. A trading system that forcing people to produce goods and service for exchanging other goods and service that they want. People will come out new goods and service to create more resource and replaceable goods to keep the community grow. That it is why our government should not worried we would run out of gold as a resource. Why do we still need gold? And how much gold actually exist in the earth? Gold is not meaning for anything. The earth will not end if there is no gold left. At the beginning, people trading with gold because they found gold are easy to carry and most important gold cannot be duplicated and disappear. Now this day, we do not use gold to buy goods nor earning gold for our works we do. Most gold now we use in jewelry. Why should government worried we would run out of gold as resource, that we use gold for luxury goods? If taking gold as a money resource, then we should not worry either. Money is something to make, not to discovery. The money we use today is flowing everywhere, and next to each one of us. We do not have to go discovery where is the last piece of gold located. What we need is to discovery is how we can catch that piece of money that flowing out there. In my word, money is all about numbers. It is something that does exist, but not an intrinsic value. The true value is what money can turn into. Government wants to create more money by controlling over the money supply. For example, the oil shortages make the gas price increase. At certain point, things will increase their value because of shortage. People would not stop using oil even they know there is shortage or the increase of price. We still burn out tons of oil daily today. It still takes same amount of work for same amount of oil as before. Why today government cannot lower the oil price while the demand still high? The answer to this is to create more money, make the money system growing. If the oil stays in the same price all the time, people can purchase without any hassle. The government wants to keep the money system going. The oil price increasing, then we need to increasing money in our package. How to increase the money we have? This going back to the money system, creating more good and service.
Our government came to the conclusion that we could not prosper with such a limited amount of gold and silver. By deciding on this we created paper money and coin to make up for the limited abundance of gold and silver. When paper money first came into use within our nation it circulated efficiently with little to no problems. This didn’t last long before our nation fell into debt and decided to make or borrow money with nothing to back it. We thought we would simply create it and eventually pay it back. This was not the case and shows why we are in an enormous amount of debt. The Federal Reserve Bank holds a large amount of power in the way it distributes money to our nation’s government. It will always be around with strong force and a key customer (our nation). We lean on it like a young boy and his father. We simply take and barely give back to compensate for it. On the other hand our debt continues to grow with of course the infamous interest rate.
We started developing a system evolving around money because it was the most convenient way for the consumer to barter and paper money became the legal form of tender to settle debts. Our government goes further with this saying that there is no argument that the dollar cannot be refused as a way to settle debts. This goes to show that the idea of money is instilled on us as the consumer, and gives the banks a means to operate from. The paper dollar is a symbol of wealth and this is what we work hard to earn in order to achieve other things in life, such as purchasing a new home or car. Our government wasn’t exactly worried we would run out of gold as a resource, but was influenced by private banks and individuals that fiat money was a means to exponentially increase the money supply and therefore the government benefits from a faster growing economy and the banks that create this money in the form of debt now rather than gold, stand to profit because there is more money going around that they can charge interest for. Control over the money supply by our government is very important because too much money can devalue our dollar and send the cost of importing goods to rise. It can also lead to inflation, which makes our dollar less valuable and makes basic necessities harder to afford because inflation is rising at a rate that is higher than our income. The affect of our dollar value going down can been seen as oil prices are increasing, because it costs us more to import the same amount of oil than it used to. Counterfeiting is something that must be controlled and enforced by the government or their paper dollar will be devalued further and a black market of currency emerges.
Money used to weigh equal to gold, it was used as a substitute. But not today because money actually represents debt, it doesn’t hold any value. But it still is the most important aspect of our society. Everything depends on money, because it has been established as the most convenient method of exchange for goods and services. I don’t think the government is worried about running out of gold as a resource. Gold is acquired by many just because it holds its value, unlike dollar which changes according to inflation and deflation. The governments control over money supply is important because without that the economy will be unstable the more flow of money in economy will cause the prices to drop and hurt everyone so the government needs to maintain control of the money supply.
The monetary system is easier to use and understand than the gold system. A currency can be broken down in dollars and cents, whereas gold is broken down by bars. It is also a lot easier to carry money around than gold. The government has the power to regulate the monetary system, because the monetary system controls the market. Thus, the gold standard is not as sufficient system as the market progress towards globalization. The economy demanded is a better and easier exchange system in the form of currency. Also, the amount of money circulating in the economy is what moves the market.
Money serves both the seller and the buyer. I may have a cow for sale, but only need a new cart. How to find just that one person who has one so we can trade? Then there is the question of worth for worth. The cart may need repair to one wheel. My cow may be of prime quality. By coming up with a standard, I can get rid of my cow, and using money, obtain that cart, and something else to make up for my more valuable cow.
Money servers both the buyer and the seller. The problem arises with the midman, who gets their cut to complete the transaction. If the midman gets too much, then both buyer and seller are reluctant to do business. So it is in the midman’s interest to keep the cut as low as possible, but enough to justify his or her effort in the transaction.
While everyone decries the midman, these bankers and financial agents are the grease that keeps the money machinery working. So there you have it, the three spokes that keep commerce working.
yah, money has no instrinsic value, it is a part of development.. before people live with bartering, but exchanging products don’t really have the same value, one is greater one is least, so they formed money to be fair, and i think there is a law and it’s not allowed for the government to make money even it’s very easy because they will break the rule… if there is money, more competition
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