MONEY

Although I have always loved money, I never really have understood it.  When people decided that gold would support the value of a piece of paper, that took a great leap of faith.  The fact that you could exchange the paper for physical gold still is not something I see as giving anyone more confidence in the paper.  When bartering was popular, at least you received something useful to you and the other party received something useful to him..  I know you can't carry tons of stuff around in your pocket to barter so some alternative had to be devised.  Some item, small enough to carry in your pocket which represented something of value was needed. 

When we decided gold would no longer be that thing which supported the value of money, what gave people confidence in that piece of paper?  Think about it.  You exchange a cow for a pocket full of money.  The other guy has a cow and you have a pocket full of paper.  Say what!  When you sold that cow, the paper was worth, let's say, a hundred pennies.  Something mysterious happens and when you try to spend that paper, it suddenly is worth only ninety pennies.  Who got your other ten pennies?  Did it just disappear or did someone else get it?

This is what has happened to our money now.  When you earned it, it was worth more than it is now and the decline continues.  Although it may not be a tax in technical terms, when our government prints more money, there is not something of value to support it but the money you have is automatically worth less.  It seems to me that they stole your extra pennies.

Please, if you understand money, don't be too critical of my analysis. After all, I began with a disclaimer which specified that I knew nothing about money except that you can buy things with it.  I'm also reasonably certain that no matter its value, it's good to have a lot of it.