@Neo-Tech Language? Hmmm...that's a strange one? Some of these things will hurt you, for sure...like gubbermint, if you should do the wrong thing. As to language, I suppose someone could call you names and you might be offended by that language. Your feelings could get hurt, doncha think?
Are fairy tales a threat?

@Neo-Tech Of course language is invented. It's a tool. It aids communication and thus understanding between each other.. I wouldn't call it a fairy tale though. It has a necessary purpose.
As do most things we invent. It might be better to think of the things you mention as having a purpose. Fairy tales often have a moral attached to them that teaches proper social behavior.

We still haven't figured out the why of everything. What's the purpose of it all? Atheists are sort of at the bottom of the barrel thinking there is no meaning or purpose to the existence of anything. Sure enough physicists are attempting to prove everything is a fairy tale. Reality doesn't exist. The whole physical universe is not real.

I am of the opinion that perhaps it is just a big puzzle that does not need solving and we need not worry our tiny little minds about it.

Have fun!

@Neo-Tech Wouldn't dreams be a fairy tale? Until they come true. Perhaps that is what life is all about, to make dreams come true and of course helping others make their dreams come true. It's all good.

@Neo-Tech One should be able to discern what is in the realm of possibility. It's how your children figure out their parents are Santa Claus. Should I help you realize your dreams or are you just trying to inform me that a few others are just trying to control me? I know that already. They are called socialists. Trying to buy allegiance with other people's money whom they extract from the productive and create a dependency on the meager benefits they provide while they assume the throne of moral superiority and tout their concern and compassion for the poor and destitute which they trot out as one would a trophy. Yeah, I know what you mean. They don't give a fuck.

@Neo-Tech The poorer one gets. The more real, money appears.

@Neo-Tech You may be right about the dollar being little more than glorified food stamps but it doesn't take much financial education to realize it is the accepted medium of exchange, The dollar was originally a money substitute until it became the money. It is a less sound form of money as its creation and distribution is controlled by individuals.

@Neo-Tech It wasn't forced. People, especially politicians stupidly accepted it over time as the legal money of the US . It took me about ten years to figure out what money actually was. It's such a confusing (purposely, in my view) subject. Money in varying historical societies used seashells, sticks, beads, precious metals, copper, feathers, large, carved, limestone rocks,salt, sugar and myriad other things. The commodity didn't capture the essence of what money was though. All those things had varying degrees of soundness in the characteristics of money. Some are obviously better or more "sound" than others. Gold and silver probably being the most sound as it was accepted in trade by practically the whole world at one point. Then bankers stepped in and started using banking principles that started a devaluation of money. Today it is just an electronic digital entry and they still print some cash but we are headed for a cashless society. But the thing about money is that it is just the confidence and trust in it that it will keep it's value in the long run. Trust it will remain exchangeable in the future. There are other qualities and characteristics, of course.Like it has to be fungible, divisible in different sized quantities, and be a method of account.

@Neo-Tech

no no from my understanding, to qualify as money, it must be a store of value.

Correct.
I believe I captured that concept here:

But the thing about money is that it is just the confidence and trust in it that it will keep it's value in the long run. Trust it will remain exchangeable in the future.

A store of value in other words. The strongest characteristic that keeps any form of money "sound".
Maybe I could have phrased it more clearly.

Although the dollar is exchanged, it is worthless and not a store of value.

For as long as the Public has trust in their federal government and the Federal Reserve their money has a store of value. We have seen trust and confidence erode over time and now they are just creating money because they want to which creates inflation and devalues the money and destroys confidence in government and thus confidence in the money. The money is losing all characteristics of money except for as a method of account, the only one the government is interested in, so it can track all financial transactions and know where money flows to, who should have it and who shouldn't. At this time it is simply a token and has zero value.
So your statement is correct but it took about fifty years to sink to almost zero today. There is nothing backing it, as the public has totally lost confidence in the economy and the government's ability to restore fiscal responsibility with a 33 trillion dollar debt.

Once the gold standard was totally removed as backing the dollar, trust and confidence in the dollar was totally transferred from that gold backing to government and the central bank.
So at the time the gold standard was removed and the currency, i.e. the dollar, became the money many people supportive of the gold standard thought, as you do, that the dollar was worthless. But you used it as money for another fifty years and you still do. It's value decreased over time and is about to reach zero. Where Voltaire predicted the value of all paper would eventually arrive.

More accurately though it isn't confidence in government or the central bank that maintains the value of paper money. It is the individuals in government and the central banks that destroy its value and use.

Essentially, the difference between money and a currency is that money facilitates exchange and a currency offers further facility by reducing the cumbersomeness of money. Essentially, a currency is a promise to pay in actual money, signed as an agreement or contract. The Dollar bill originated as a contract between the Fed and the holder of the dollar to exchange it for money.

@Neo-Tech

here's the flaw: confidence in a currency does not give it value.

Are you using gold or dollar bills to purchase your goods and services? Whatever you use in your daily activities, I'll bet it isn't gold. Trust and confidence in the dollar's characteristics gives it all its value; if it is assigned any at all.

Value is subjective, not objective. If you are starving and can trade a meal for a dollar bill but you can't with an ounce of gold then which has more value to you at that time? You might feel the other person is a fool because he prefers the dollar bill over the gold. Why would he value the dollar bill?
Because in his economic circle he has confidence he can trade the dollar bill. You think because you still have your gold that you made a steal.

Mark Dice had a video a few years back where he offered people on the street the choice between a chocolate bar or a 10 oz bar of silver. Most people chose the chocolate bar.

?

Is trust fake, honor, integrity, faith, belief, confidence, character, personality? Are they all fake? These are qualities of each individual. You judge them according to these qualities more so than their physical appearance if it is necessary for you to associate with them.

You have even called law fake. Obviously, you have lost trust and confidence in law. It has no value to you. It's purpose is order and I too have lost some trust and confidence in law as it is used as a cudgel instead of fulfilling its purpose of establishing order.

Maybe I don't understand what you mean by "fake". Is everything you have lost trust and confidence in "fake"?

You do know more about economics than most people. I'm no economist myself but what I know covers over a decades worth of self-taught slogging through a lot of BS or "fake" knowledge.

@Neo-Tech

The silver bar clearly had more value than the chocolate bar
Not to the people who chose the chocolate bar.

your analogy that you cannot buy food with gold is false as well.

It's an analogy. Use your imagination or is imagination "fake"? Silver's value today is only in its value as a commodity. It is not used as money. Money is defined as a medium of exchange. So it follows that whatever is being used as a medium of exchange in an economy is the money in that economy. If we ever go back to using gold and silver as a medium of exchange then it will be money. Dollar bills, when they came into existence, were currencies. Have they not replaced gold and silver as the medium of exchange.
A transaction of exchange using dollar bills used to be completed only when the dollar bill was presented at the bank and redeemed for money. Now you can't redeem it for money. Give a 5 dollar bill to the bank and tell them you want to redeem it for money and they will give a new or different five dollar bill.

Gold is sound money, dollars and currencies are fake money.

Yes, gold is "sound" money. Much more sound than anything that an individual with the power to create "money" could ever be. Money is not fake if people are using it as a medium of exchange. There is only a difference in how "sound" the money is. Money is an invention of convenience in order to facilitate trade.

Hope you get the point this time.

I was more interested in what you thought of this:

You have even called law fake. Obviously, you have lost trust and confidence in law. It has no value to you. It's purpose is order and I too have lost some trust and confidence in law as it is used as a cudgel instead of fulfilling its purpose of establishing order.

@Neo-Tech
Laws are imaginary?? Are all creations by men imaginary?

Imagination is a tool.
Yes, It helps you create things in the physical universe or dreams of thing you'd like to see, have or do in the future.

There are plenty of retarded laws on the books.

Can't argue that.

It doesn't make them any less a law. They only have effect when they are enforced though. Then you get to meet a real police officer, a real judge, a heavy loss of fake money (what does that matter it's fake?) or possibly a comfy fake jail cell.

Are you a robot? You are sounding like a fake human.

@Neo-Tech Sorry. We have reached an impass. No use talking past each other.

@Neo-Tech I suppose lots of things are not real.

[facebook.com]

Real. Fake. What's in a word? Everything is fake.