But even though questions of currency policy are never more than questions of the value of money, they are sometimes disguised so that their true nature is hidden from the uninitiated. Public opinion is dominated by erroneous views on the nature of money and its value, and misunderstood slogans have to take the place of clear and precise ideas. The fine and complicated mechanism of the money and credit system is wrapped in obscurity, the proceedings on the Stock Exchange are a mystery, the function and significance of the banks elude interpretation. So it is not surprising that the arguments brought forward in the conflict of the different interests often missed the point altogether. Counsel was darkened with cryptic phrases whose meaning was probably hidden even from those who uttered them. Americans spoke of 'the dollar of our fathers' and Austrians of 'our dear old gulden note'; silver, the money of the common man, was set up against gold, the money of the aristocracy. Many a tribune of the people, in many a passionate discourse, sounded the loud praises of silver, which, hidden in deep mines, lay awaiting the time when it should come forth into the light of day to ransom miserable humanity, languishing in its wretchedness. . Ludwig Von Mises
About This Quote

The concept of “money” is one that has been widely misinterpreted. Many people, including politicians, bankers and members of the public, believe that money is just any thing that you use to buy things. However, this is where the misunderstanding begins. According to the philosophy of Mises, money is a means of exchange that allows us all to engage in mutually beneficial transactions. The value of money is based upon how useful it is in facilitating trade.

In short, money does not have intrinsic value . It only has value based upon how useful it is for our lives. In turn, its value can be traded on a market place, where supply and demand dictate how much it should be worth. Money’s origins are unknown but it has been around for a very long time.

Money was first invented by the Sumerians around 5,000 years ago and used as a medium of exchange by many different civilizations until today. There are many different kinds of money used across the world today but they all have one thing in common: they are all assets . They are assets because they have been created from nothing and have been exchanged for goods or services at some point in history. In contrast to these assets, gold has been around for thousands of years too but it does not have any other purpose than being a medium of exchange . It cannot be used to create anything new so it has no other function than being a store of value .

Gold is considered a commodity , a commodity because it can be traded on a market place for other commodities such as food or shelter. So what happens when you accumulate gold? When you accumulate gold over time then the more gold you own the less useful it becomes in trade with other people. This can be seen through looking at two examples: (1) when the US government wanted to reduce the debt in 1932 by selling off all their gold; and (2) when Britain tried to pay off their debts during World War I by selling all their gold reserves; or when we bailed out Lehman Brothers in 2008; or even when we started taking down all our gold reserves in 1971 and 2008 respectively and in recent times when we were forced to sell our gold reserves in 2013 and 2014 respectively?  The result was that each time we sold off our gold reserves we bought back into the market with more worthless dollars! If you own $100 worth of gold then you would need $1 worth of dollars before you could trade with someone

Source: The Theory Of Money And Credit

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