money
money is a funny thing. a long time ago, money was a real life tangible thing: coins and later paper. today, money is a number in a computer. all of the goods in the world have a value relative to each other. divide up the total money in the world among all the goods and you get a price for each thing. the value of goods isn't constant. goods are created and consumed. they appreciate and depreciate. generally, there are more goods in circulation each year than there were in the previous year. if the total amount of money stays the same then prices, rather counter-intuitively, go down. however, prices generally go up. ie inflation. the only way that can happen is if total money goes up more than goods. this new money comes from the government. and it's totally and completely free. the government doesn't have to do anything to earn the money. it just one day says it has a billion dollars in the bank. and it's real money. it's just as real as yours and mine. the government pays for services and buys things. the tricky part for the government is to create the correct amount of money. if it creates too much we have inflation. too little and we have deflation. both of which are bad for business. the people of the world will use whichever currency behaves the best. traditionally this has been the dollar. but recently, it has been getting some competition. heh. timmer for treasurer.