WHAT IS MONEY?

What is money? Stupid question on the surface isn't it? I mean we all know that money is those little pieces of paper and metal that represent... Yeah, here's where it gets sticky. For some reason this is where most people lose sight of what money exactly is. Money is just the representation of the idea of how much service you have given your fellow man. That's all. When you give a farmer on the side of the road five bucks for a basket of tomatoes you are saying, “I value your service in producing these tomatoes five dollars worth.”

So, if you want to be honest and able to look yourself in the mirror realize that your only value is the value of how well serve your fellow man. Set about serving your fellow man in the best way you are able, and the money will follow. If you're good you can serve man as much as Bill Gates, but no matter if you just serve man as much as the McDonald's clerk you will still KNOW how much your service is valued, and you will have the physical representation to prove how much you have served your fellow man. If you're not happy with the amount of that money your service provides, then change how or what you do to serve your fellow man.

Just be aware of some traps. For instance often when when people think of government money they don't realize the cost. You see, no matter how money is routed to you ultimately some service has to have been produced. For some reason when that money doesn't come directly from the person who received the service the person who received the service doesn't value the service. But it doesn't matter if you produce the service, I receive it, I pay taxes, and then you collect from the government, or you produce the service, I receive it, and I pay you directly. Either way ultimately you have had to produce a service and I had to pay. That's a law of nature ranking right up there with Newton's Law of Gravity. For money to be anything more than paper and bits of metal something had to be produced. All the paper and metal bits do is represent that service in a portable form that allows me to transform my service of appliance repair into tomatoes. All getting it free from the government does is put in a middle man that will take his cut both ways. Which is why as Heinlein says, TANSTAAFL. Or for you non Heinlein fans out there, “There Ain't No Such Think As A Free Lunch.” So think long and hard about free money from the government, it's not really free, and it may not really be money if there is/was no service produced to back it up.

Some other time I will get into the evil of government money, but for now realize that all money really does is represent the value you and your fellow man place on your service to your fellow man.