Isn't money a big mystery and bullshit invented by people?

[Anonymous]

It is just a digital numbers or a paper. But a very very hard to get it in this world. And when you get it, it can change everything in life. But to get it, you have to put your everything to the table, so hard, and it is still not guaranteed to make it. So weird. I can not figure out the logic of money in this world. Why is everything depend on this bullshit.

[Syntosi]

The history of money is basically as long as society itself and there has been many transitions during it. To oversimplify this A LOT lets just take a basic exchange.

I am a farmer. I have produced food. You are a blacksmith. You have no food and wants some. Since I have extra food I would be willing to trade some of my food for something that you have that I want as a form of a fair exchange. Luckily for us both, I need to repair my tools which is a service that you can perform in exchange for food.

This is the basic barter system where you exchange items or services of value directly with each other.

Days pass, you become hungry again. You want to exchange some more food from me. The problem is that my tools are still okey and I dont need anything that you have so we can't trade. Luckily, everyone in the village happens to like salt for seasoning and preserving food. While I already have enough salt for myself, I know that I could go to anyone else in the village and trade for anything that I want using only salt so getting some extra from you in exchange for food is still a good trade for me.

This is a commodity based currency of sorts. It is easier to trade in salt, gold or silver than it is to try determine how many bags of wheat it would cost to repair an iron plow. If I know how much salt my bags of wheat is worth and you know how much salt your services are worth then not only can we get a more exact exchange but also exchange when one party does not need something specific from the other.

Days pass. My farm has been very successful and now I have to store a bunch of salt at home which is somewhat inconvenient since it can get wet and all that. Luckily, the government has started a bank that can store my salt for me and when I deposit my salt I get a number of paper contracts that reaffirms that they are storing my salt. Next time I go to town and buy something I instead hand over one of those paper contracts instead of lugging around a bunch of salt to hand over. The person I traded with can then go to the bank and take out the salt that I put in by showing them the contract that I gave them.

This is commodity backed money where every bill represents something else that has value.

Days pass and trading these contracts has become more popular than trading with anything else because of how easy they are to exchange. However, if nobody takes out the salt then is it really required anymore? Everyone trusts that everyone else will accept these paper bills as something of value. The government therefore decides that they are going to make a new bill that does not represent a deposit of salt, instead the government guarantees that this bill is worth "1 dollar" each. Furthermore they decide that they will only accept these new dollar bills when taking out loans or when you have to pay your taxes. Since my farm has produced a lot of food I need a lot of these new bills so that I can return them to the government as my form of taxes. As such, I have to trade in some food and salt that I have to the bank or to other people who has these new bills so that I can have them enough for paying my taxes. And since everyone needs to pay taxes, everyone will also need some bills and accept them as payment.

Furthermore, the government is being very careful to not make too many of these new bills so that there will always be more people who wants the money than those who actually gets it. This way there will always be a demand for them and by extension they will maintain a higher value in salt or food etc..

This is a fiat currency. This type of currency is entirely based on the trust that people have in the one who controls it, usually the government, and the supply of currency that is in circulation. There is both a natural form of demand for it such as with the demand for bitcoin but a government can also induce an artificial demand such as demanding that you have to pay taxes using their own currency.

This is a brief overview of how currencies have evolved. As for why? Because trading wheat for graphics cards is very complicated and not very likely to work.

[Miristheiss]

Well it just represents trading power, like how we used to give something for something, like textile goods for sugar or corn for coffee.

Money just allows you to trade something of value for something of value. You can take Apple mo ey to get a phone instead of 2 cows or 30 pounds of fish or 100 pounds of sugar.

It allows trade.

[Amy_Mi]

Money is a system, a tool created to measure value, exchange energy, and organize society.

It isn’t inherently good or bad, but human behavior around it can distort its purpose.

Understanding its rules, respecting its influence, and managing it wisely turns a “mystery” into leverage for freedom, choice, and impact.

[exitseven]

Yes, US currency is not backed up by gold anymore. It did not seem to bother anyone. Now we have crypto currency. It is not regulated by any government and is just an abstract concept that people believe is worth 100K +. . I feel bad for the people who buy it at the high.

[OneViewpoint]

I believe that money is a mystery to you. I believe that you will go to your grave still trying to unravel the mystery of money. Like so many other things in life.

[BonzoInBitburg]

You'll never have enough money if you work for someone else trading your time for money. You need to make your money work for you through your investments.

[TonyMetal___86]

It's a trading system, it just changed overtime and to keep the order between people...

Money is important but not important as a human, even though in today's world they make it look as if it's everything...

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

Capitalism is a pyramid scheme

[noohair]

Take an ecomonics class.

[Anonymous]

No….