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Money is Just a Tool

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What is money?  Your answer may depend a lot on how much of it you have.  Ultimately, the main purpose of money is convenience.  A system of barter works pretty well when two people have things each other need – someone with chickens meets up with someone else who recently slaughtered their pig and both have bacon and eggs.  But if you can also exchange those eggs for money you can save it up to buy something different or bigger.

As we’ve concluded before, Adam Smith was right – money is a matter of belief.  Whether it’s gold, Euros, or Canadian Tire Money it’s worth whatever you believe it is worth.  Our own US Dollar is backed by the “Full faith and credit of the US Government”, which is scary if you think about it.

But money is more than convenience and faith – it’s what it takes to make things happen.  And that’s worth thinking about some more.

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Why Economics?

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For all the thousands of words forming complex observations, theories, and predictions it takes a really simple question to stump Barataria. Buried within just the right blank stare of a few words is often hidden some basic wisdom that questions the assumptions long taken as unprovable facts. Isn’t the Emperor naked after all? Such a question came in response to a recent post, as posed by “kikila”:

Finally (I hope) someone who can explain why the economy is important to me!

It’s less of a question than a question about the fundamental underpinnings of our world. Why does economics matter? He elaborates, “I have a theory that this is intrinsically linked to ideology and the false concept that a free economy = freedom (the mainstay of the neo-liberal line for decades). Moreover, that ideological systems have coopted the notion of democracy, linking the idea of political involvement directly and indelibly with the idea that one day, eventually (you say 2017) the economy will begin to benefit (the) people.”

More like centuries of not-so-neo liberal thought, but let’s dig in. Why should we care?

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A Tale of Two Worlds

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As good as things are in the US, there is one threat that remains to the strength of our economy – the rest of the world.

Europe is flat, Japan is a basket case, and Russia is just beginning what should become an epic collapse mirrored only by their experience 25 years ago. China may be hitting the wall, which for them is a rate of growth less than 8% per year – it’s a catastrophe when everyone has financed today based on huge expectations for tomorrow.

Yet, for all that, the total product of the planet is expected to grow by 3.8% in 2015. The developing world is picking up the Great Convergence and with US leadership should still take us into the next boomtime in 2017. But there are risks all around us.

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What is Europe?

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What is this thing we call the “Europe”? Is it an aspiration or a government? Is it a business agreement or a marriage? Is it simply a mass of land that many different people share?

While Ukraine fights a nasty civil war over the desire by many to join Europe, the UK is starting to question whether it belongs. Where the European Central Bank (ECB) has given its stamp of approval or withheld it for many important banks a scramble has taken place to comply at all cost.

Whatever it is, Europe has always moved in many directions at once. The last few months even moreso.

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Credit Card System: Fail

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As we head into the holiday shopping season, one thing that everyone is looking forward to is the flash of plastic sliding out of wallets all across America. It’s the make or break time for retailers everywhere and season for dedicated shoppers to show their prowess for hunting down bargains. All of it is fueled by credit cards, both online and in person.

But before you whip out the card is there someone waiting to give the term “swipe a card” a different meaning? You may think you can trust a retailer, but can you be sure that they aren’t already a victim of a hacker? The short answer is no, you can’t be sure of anything this year. And a series of high profile hacks throughout 2014 have shown us that the entire credit card system needs to be judged as insecure by everyone.

And hardly anyone in the mainstream media is talking in these terms, probably to avoid the reasonable panic that would ensue.

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