Money

Would that be salt, gold, or what?

Paper, just nice paper. You gotta be kidding, right? Not so long ago, currencies were backed by gold and silver. The kinds of things you can put your hands on. I liked that. Now, money is paper, although a nice quality with some neat tricks. None of the tricks are valuable. Why would they, you know they, all countries switch to paper money that is not backed by something of intrinsic value. Actually, when one of the big countries does it, everybody has to, or they will wind up giving all their gold and silver to someone in exchange for paper currency that is not backed by any gold and silver. So if one country does this, like us, everyone has to. So what the hell good is this paper money? Very good, if people have confidence in it. You know, confidence, like in a con game, or confidence game, as it's called when a crook does it. That would be a con-man.

The name does not carry over to governments. Everybody thinks the governments are honest, even when they know they are run by politicians. This baffles me, but I can live with it. For instance, the Federal Reserve Notes distributed by the US are very popular money. Not directly backed by gold or silver, but if you're a foreigner with a few billion extra US dollars, you can buy gold and silver mines. Good as gold. You could buy a factory. You could buy Delaware from the DuPonts. Yep, good as gold or some kind of "I want."

What stops the governments from printing money like water? Nothing. That may be a problem. Economy slow? Print and distribute more money. Hell, print a little extra to boost an election year. Federal Reserve charges a percentage to put it in circulation, not to worry, more they put in circulation, more they make. Are they the ones who keep them honest by saying you've printed all that you have collateral for or do they say, "keep it rolling, we're getting a percentage here?" I shouldn't ask that question, because I do not have the answer. The Federal Reserve Corporation is a corporation with stockholders. That would be a stock type company with stockholders. That would be the very wealthy from about 1914. I wonder if they made money on their investment, or if it is still making them money. When you make big money with big money, you wind up with even bigger money.

What would you invest that in? When you finance governments, you must think big, really big. I ain't smart enough for that, but the possibility of multinational international types of investments comes to mind. I'd invest in distributon of basic wants and needs. Is there a point to this? Fair question. Do you think that this size of big money investment might try to control world finance, because they would become world finance? They wouldn't do anything Machiavellian would they? Some questions answer themselves, you just have to learn to ask the right question.