Modern "money" is so bizarre. It's all numbers, stored in different computers, sent back and forth. Long ago, a man would be concerned wealthy if he owned great stores of precious metals and gems. Now, a man is wealthy if there are lots of zeros, preceded by a higher number, in his bank account(s). Of course, he probably buys precious metals and gems and fancy houses, cars and other stuff with those numbers in his bank accounts, but his net worth is all about the numbers. Think of it in terms of us everyday working stiffs. We get jobs. On Friday, we get paid. The "pay" consists of numbers, sent electronically to our banks. The numbers are added to whatever numbers that were left in our bank accounts from previous pays. Most of us have various bills (mortgage payments, utilities, etc) taken directly from our bank accounts. We don't even write a check to pay them. Numbers are just subtracted from our accounts and then added to our creditors' accounts. For the bills that we do pay by check, it's still just transfering numbers from our checking account to the creditor. No actual cash changes hands. If we go shopping or out to eat, we tend to pay by credit card. No cash, except perhaps to tip the waitress. - On the rare occasions we do use cash, it feels like it's tangible wealth; it looks valuable, it has heft. But really, it's just promisory notes from the U.S. government, not backed by anything of actual value. I remembered how shocked I was, way back in college when I was taking Economics I, and I was told that our currency was not backed by gold. Just the full faith and something-or-other of the U.S. government. Those greenbacks in my wallet suddenly felt lifeless. But compared to today's sterile numbers shuffling back and forth over the banking internet, currency still seems somehow more valuable.
- How do you feel about it? If you were to win a million dollars in a lottery, would you feel richer if you were handed one thousand thousand dollar bills, or the number, $1,000,000, printed on your bank statement?
