Introduction
Three memes affect human
lives globally – Money, Power, and God.
In this series I will discuss money and power. Money and Power are linked
together in the lives of people who believe in a god, as well as people who
have no religious beliefs. It goes without saying, that the American lives are
directly affected by how much or how little money and power people have.
However, most people know little or nothing about what money and power are, how
they are created, or how people acquire them.
Amazingly, in light of
the fact of the importance of money and power in a capitalist democratic
nation, our educational institutions, from Pre-K to Ph.D., do not teach the answers
to those questions. Most people enter adulthood with very little knowledge about
money and power.
Why? There are many answers
to that question, but the following should be included in every discussion.
● People with lots of
money and power actively work to keep them.
● People with little
money and power do not know how they can change things.
● As long as most Americans
remain uneducated about power and money, they are easily manipulated by those
with power and money.
Power 101
● Power
means “getting someone else to do what you want them to do.”
● Humans have two
options for exercising power – persuasion and force.
● One of the most
powerful persuasion options is money.
● One of the most
powerful force option is death.
● In America there are
many laws related to power and money.
Laws are compromises
reached between a majority of elected members of government institutions –
local, county, state and federal.
Money 101
● Money has
historically been defined in terms of the three functions or services
that it provides – a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit
of account.
● Medium of Exchange. Money facilitates
transactions. Without money, all transactions would have to be conducted by barter, which
involves direct exchange of one good or service for another. Money is
accepted in all transactions, by sellers and buyers.
● Store of Value. In order
to be a medium of exchange, money must hold its value over time;
that is, it must be a store of value. If money could not be stored for some
period of time and still remain valuable in exchange, it would not be adopted
as a medium of exchange. As a store of value, money is not unique;
many other stores of value exist, such as land, works of art, and even baseball
cards and stamps. Money may not even be the best store of value because money
depreciates with inflation. But, money is more liquid than most other
stores of value because as a medium of exchange, it is readily accepted
everywhere. Furthermore, money is an easily transported
store of value and is available in a number of convenient denominations.
● Unit of
account. Money provides a common measure of the value of goods
and services being exchanged. Knowing the value or price
of a good, in terms of money, enables both the supplier and the purchaser of
the good to make decisions about how much of the good to supply and how much of
the good to purchase.
Power
& Money
● Traditionally, money has been nothing
more and nothing less than a political creation, a promise
to pay between two or more parties, enforced to a greater or
lesser degree by the power of a state.
● Ultimately what
makes money valuable is the confidence that it is backed by
something.
● The US Dollar
is backed by political power, law enforcement agencies,
and military power.
Choose
Life & Demand Transparency,
Jim
Myers
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