Let’s forget for a moment everything we know about money and define it in the simplest way possible. Money is defined as a unit of account, store of value, medium of exchange yada yada. Those are the academic terms we learn in economics classes.
But I like to define what money is in a relatable way. What it means to you and me as an everyday worker. My definition of money is:
“Money is a measurement”
Just like how we use inches or centimeters to determine height and kilograms or pounds to determine weight, money is also a measurement. But what does money measure?
“Money measures the value of our work or our job”.
Just like a weighing scale or a tape measure, money is a tool we use for measuring. If I asked you why do you work? You might answer for the money.
That is technically true but that is not the true answer. After all, money is just a paper. Why is it that almost everything we do is influenced by how much money we can get?
We study in school, to get good grades and to get a good job to earn good money. What is it that we want with a piece of paper called money? It’s not the money itself that we want, it is what money can buy.
And that will differ per individual. Money is not the end goal. So it is not accurate to say that we do our work for money. We do our job so that we can exchange it later for something that we need or want. Money is just a measurement tool to value our work.
By looking at money as a measurement tool, we will realize how money that inflates steals from us. Money that has inflation is like having a weighing scale that can be adjusted or a ruler that can be shortened or lengthen.
Imagine buying 2 kilograms of apples from me but because I can adjust the weighing scale I can say that it measures 2.5 kilograms instead. You will pay more than the actual weight of 2 kilograms. Or imagine buying a land from me that is 100 square meters but I will say that it is 120 square meters because I can change the way I measure things. You will think you’re buying a bigger land but I just changed the numbers because I can.
Because I have the power to change the measurements, I can steal from you. This is how inflation works too. Inflation is theft.
The sad thing is this is not obvious. They don’t teach this in school. We also don’t often stop to think about how money works. We’re often busy thinking about how to earn more money so we can buy this and buy that.
Whenever the government prints more money, they are changing the measurements. Whenever the government adjusts the money supply using their tools, they are distorting the reality of everyday workers like you and me.
The more they print money, the more money chasing few goods making the price of everything more expensive.
By printing money, they are making our work or our job worth less because the money we earn from our job will buy fewer things. We will need to earn more just to keep up with everything becoming more expensive.
All of this because we have money that can be printed. A money whose measurement can be changed. It is just not visible to the naked eye because we were taught to believe that:
“money printing = inflation” is good.
But in reality “money printing = everything becoming more expensive” is bad especially for workers.
You might say that you don’t care if money is increasing in supply because you earn more than the average individual so the increase in basic necessities like food and rent doesn’t affect you that much. But that is wrong because most people suffer from the effects of money printing (except maybe for the richest of the richest).
Even if you do earn a lot, by having inflationary money, you are being robbed of your time and energy.
⚡Money is stored energy
Almost most of us work to earn money. Unfortunately, most people earn just enough to get by. If you're lucky enough to have money left after basic necessities like food and shelter, you either buy things you want in life or you save that money.
Money is a tool we use not just to buy what we need or want but also to store our energy. Receiving money for your work is analogous to charging a battery. The electricity you put to a battery is the work you do. The battery itself is the money. It’s your stored energy for later use
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