Personal finance and government regulations
Part 1: Who owns the money?
Contrary to what is commonly believed, you do not “own” your money. Money is a government created and regulated commodity. While it is illegal for you to print your own currency, everyday people create “money,” when they create profit. The government recognizes the difference between currency and profit, and it taxes your profits rather than arresting you. You do not need to be in a business to generate a profit. When a laborer works for somebody else, his labor generates a profit called “income.” Different terms have been created to describe profit, based on how it is created. All money originates from profit, and the government constantly regulates it.
It is important to recognize that the government and the people both behave similarly in regard to the creation and regulation of money. Even when the government spends money it does not have, it is not behaving differently than individuals who regularly go into debt to purchase homes, automobiles, etc. Every organization has the same infrastructure needs as the individual. Personal finance, business overhead and government regulations are intimately linked.
The government is like a balloon. Any pressure at one point will divert the pressure to another point. The government passes laws to regulate the economy, with the hopeful desire that everyone and every organization will thrive, but most laws are primarily written to adjust the effect of previous laws. The government is in a perpetual state of crisis management, trying to regulate the currency that it created.
Democracy gives everyone an opportunity to petition the government for relief of burdens created by the currency, but it is important to note that the currency system under democracy is the same as it has been for thousands of years. The American Revolution is part of a wave of political change, but the underlying economic philosophy was unchanged. New faces adorned the money, but money remained a government created and regulated commodity. Communist and Islamic revolutions made similar political changes regarding who and how decisions would be made, but the underlying concept of money also remained unchanged.
There are two powerful abstract ideas at work in the world. One is the belief in the existence of God, the other is the belief in the existence of money. Almost everyone believes in the existence of money and that they “own” it, but money is just a form of barter. Money has no value unless other people accept it. Money is an intellectual agreement. It is real because we believe it exists.
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