The History of Money

(Disclaimer:  You might not want to cite this in your bibliography for an economics paper.  So for that reason, just feel free to just steal any or all of this without any credit whatsoever…you’re welcome)

We’ll skip over all the boring stuff from ancient civilizations up to the 1600’s, the main point is that currency in some form or another was developed to represent a given amount of goods or materials, such as grain or wheat, or whatever.  Then man developed coins, each coin was made out of gold or silver and was literally worth its weight in that metal. 

Then, in the 1600’s in Europe, people started saying “Ya know, carting all these heavy ass coins is a real pain in the ass.  And we gotta carry them in these faggy little purses (Europeans in the 1600’s were very insensitive toward homosexuals, sorry).  Why don’t we store all this shit somewhere and get paper certificates for it instead?”  

And so it was.  All the gold and silver went to the banks and the government and the people didn’t care because they didn’t have to lug all that stuff around anymore. 

“Can we come redeem these notes for the gold they represent?” the people asked the government.

 

“Well yeah”, said the government, “but you can also trade them for ale and wine, so why would you?” 

“Ahh…good point…can we buy weed and hookers with them?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Ahh…ok then”

And so the people were happy.  And the governments started amassing stockpiles of gold and silver.  And then the governments had to defend those stockpiles, so they had to pay Soldiers to defend them and buy equipment for the Soldiers to use.  

So…in the 18^th century they just started printing more of these certificates, paper that was not truly backed by gold.  As more currency was injected into the economy, the value of it fell, causing inflation.

“Hey government…what the fudge is going on (18th century people never actually swore.  That practice never caught on until the advent of video games)?  These notes don’t buy near as much ale and weed as they used too”

“Yeah we know.  It’s called inflation.  It’s all Jimmy Carter’s fault.”

“Jimmy Who??”

“Never mind…sorry…gotta run”

By the beginning of the 20^th Century, just about everyone was on the “gold standard”.  But for generations the people spent their whole lives trading currency for their ale, wine, and weed, and really didn’t care what the currency represented.  Governments around the world realized “hey, screw this gold standard mularkey.  Let’s just print as much or as little money as we want, then we can manipulate the economy!”.  

Surprisingly, the US was one of the last to abandon the gold standard, when Nixon took us off of it in 1971.

“Dude, can we still buy our Schlitz and our Night Train and our weed?”

“Not the weed…you know better than that”

“Ahh right on…well we’re gonna do it anyway”

“Yeah Yeah we know”

And of course since the dollar really wasn’t worth anything anymore, inflation skyrocketed in the 1970’s. 

“Dude…it’s that inflation thing again…”

“We told you before…it’s Jimmy Carter’s fault”

“But he’s not even going to be president for a couple more years”

“Doesn’t matter, still his fault”

“But beer and wine is still cool right?  How about online poker?”

“It’s 1975 for crying out loud”

“Oh, all right man….peace”

And so it has gone.  These days we rarely even see those pieces of paper anymore.  They have been mostly converted to numbers stored in computers.  We buy something, swipe a card, and our number in our banks computer goes down a little and the store’s number in their banks computer goes up a little bit.  Seems pretty stable to me.

By the way, the man did let the dude use his money for online poker for a few years, but then in a brilliant move, swept in and shut down all the websites and took all the money.  Doesn’t really matter though, since it’s all imaginary anyway…

American Sniper and heroes

Well I haven’t opened up the Rant Box in quite a while, much to the dismay I am sure to the dozens of people who would accidentally stumble on it while searching for something else on google, but I thought I would today.  My reaction to American Sniper didn’t really quite fit into a Facebook post so this seemed about as good a spot as any.

So here’s the thing, I don’t see what the anti-war, anti-gun, anti-Clint Eastwood anti-everything, left-wing extremist hippies are all upset about.  I walked out of that theater thinking “what the hell were we doing over there in the first place?”  I saw a lot of busted up, broken people, broken lives, broken psyche’s, broken families, and lives lost and/or destroyed.  And for what?  So that now we have a group running around the middle east that’s even worse than the ones we tried to sweep out of there.  The place is a bigger mess than we found it, that’s what we have to show for the sacrifices that Chris Kyle and all of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and their families have made over the last 14 years.  What a goddam waste. 

I want to be crystal clear…I have the utmost respect for all of those I served with during that time.  The same to those who made those ultimate sacrifices.  When I chose to go back into the Army it was because I believed the line of bullshit I was being fed by our government.  I still believe the cause was just, but back then I also believed that going to war over there was the best course of action.  Now, hindsight as clear as it is, I realize that while my intentions were good, as were those of all who volunteered, the goals of the government were NOT peace and prosperity in the Middle East and the safety and security of our citizens and interests.  It was to perpetuate the chaos over there that so many profit from.

We’re all such sheep.  Myself included.  We bicker politically amongst ourselves under the illusion that we are advancing one ideology or another when in fact all of that has already been decided for us.  Our political arguments are brilliantly orchestrated by the Democrats and Republicans to keep us occupied and blissfully unaware that at the end of the day shit’s gonna go the way they want it to.  We’re like 3 year olds whose parents turn on Sponge Bob to keep us occupied and out of the way.  We will keep having wars that cost money and lives because that is how they stay in power.  That’s how their wealthy buddies stay in power.  The politicians and those they work for (which isn’t us) will keep finding new enemies to fight and if they run out they will just create them.

I think those of you who know me know that I am far from a tree-hugging, peace-nik who just blindly hates war and therefore all who are involved in it.  The military has been a big part of my life, I acknowledge the many benefits I have derived from it personally and that our country has benefitted as well.  I believe in a strong military force to defend our nation and protect the lives, property, and freedoms of our citizens.

Well this is getting long and boring as shit but I want to leave off with one point.  The next time we start thinking about intervening in foreign affairs, we need to tally up the costs of doing so before we take action.  How many American lives are we willing to destroy?  How many of our sons and daughters are we willing to watch get maimed and crippled?  How many families should we allow to be torn to shreds, how many great young minds turned to broken, PTSD crippled mush?  How much is it worth, especially if the true agenda is lining the pockets of the wealthy rather than truly defending our nation?

Chris Kyle was an American hero.  So are all of those who served in combat, risked their lives, and made all the sacrifices that were made in hopes of protecting each other and our nation.  You got a problem with the wars, attack the wars.  Attack the politicians that got us into those wars.  But don’t ever attack those who risked everything to protect us.