That is an oversimplification, of course, but what good Ole JP meant (I think) was that Gold wasn't someone else's obligation but paper money depends on the existence of an issuer. That is, show up with Gold in your hand anywhere in the world and you can do business whereas if all you have is (fill in the blank currency) then maybe not.
For all of my life money has meant dollars. I remember travelling when I was younger how amused I got to exchange my US Dollars for other currencies - they didn't seem "real" lol!! The US Dollar has been the worlds reserve currency now for over 70 years so there aren't many people alive today who remember any other world-wide currency. The Federal reserve can print as many Dollars as they wish because they can count on foreign governments to continually demand Dollars; they need them to pay for cross border trade especially Oil.
This last point, the Dollars exclusively for Oil agreement, was called the "petro dollar" for a reason; in 1971 the United States took the Dollar off the gold standard and the US desperately needed some other powerful reason to compel the rest of the world to own Dollars - Oil was the perfect fit because everyone always needs oil.
So, you see the world governments have to go to great lengths to ensure everyone accepts and uses their currency otherwise they will go bankrupt even if they have lots of resources- like Venezuela. If, instead of issued paper currency the country had large reserves of gold they wouldn't have to put on dog-and-pony shows or make agreements. Everyone would already know they're loaded.
We are now at the point where the Dollar party is over and soon, the US currency will be relegated to a similar status as all the previous world reserve currencies like the British Pound and French Franc.
That is, no privilege anymore....the Saudis' announced last week they will accept other currencies besides the Dollar. Mic drop.
"The importance of the Saudi announcement cannot be overstated; this is the beginning of the end of the dollar. The dollar’s world reserve status is largely dependent on its petro-status. Without one, you cannot have the other. This is almost the exact same dynamic that led to the implosion of the British Sterling decades ago as the global petro currency which resulted in the rise of the dollar to take its place."
This is going to put the degradation of our buying power in Dollars on the fast track.
"If the dollar is no longer the primary international trade mechanism, the trillions upon trillions of dollars the Fed has created from thin air over the years will all come flooding back to the US through various avenues, and hyperinflation (or hyperstagflation) will be the result."
My father is 93 years old and one of the few people I know who actually lived through "hyperstgflation". As a young boy in Athens Greece under Nazi occupation, my father ran a small street vending operation to support the family while my grandfather was imprisoned. He told me he would by cigarette cartons and sell "loosies" (single cigarettes) and make a profit. His greatest anxiety came once he had sold all his cigarettes and had a huge wad of cash in his hand: He needed to rush to buy a new carton to sell the next day before the price inflated so much as to wipe out all his profit.
If your anything like me, you look at your financial position regularly to measure what resources are available to you at any given time for any purpose. Everything is priced in Dollars but the dollars' purchasing power keeps dropping.
It's like tying to measure your house using a shrinking yardstick, you'll always come up short.
"The fed has created untold trillions of dollars since the 2008 credit collapse. They conjured over $8 trillion in 2020 and 2021 alone in the name of the covid economic response, all because of pandemic lockdowns that never should have happened in the first place. The amount of dollars floating around the world is epic and inflation is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Case in point – The US housing market has seen at least 10 consecutive months of sales declines as rates increase, yet prices remain extraordinarily high. In fact, nearly every sector of the consumer market is suffocating from high prices, and climbing interest rates have done little to pull them down. The Fed has room to declare a rationale and a mandate for tighter credit for many months to come."
My original position stated: "everything you think you know about money is wrong" because we've all been brainwashed to think that only government issued currencies are money. They are not. But it's quite easy to understand why those who issue currencies don't want you to consider ANYTHING else as money:
"Imagine if you had that kind of immense power?
You could create something with little to no effort and then force everyone else to accept and use it as money. You could create paper wealth out of thin air and cut your enemies off from the economy. You’d be very powerful.
That’s why all governments treasure their monopoly on money."
Monopoly is right, try "making" money any other way and end up in Federal Prison lol.
"Governments reap enormous power from their racket of printing fake money out of thin air and forcing their citizens to use it. Whether it’s Venezuela, Lebanon, Argentina, or the US, it’s the same scam. It allows governments to act like vampires and feast on their citizens’ savings."
Here's my point: how we view money is going to profoundly change very soon. Not because the world will discover something new but rather that there will be an awakening to what money really is and has always been.
I have always said that this looks more like a controlled demolition than reckless incompetence. There are copious amounts of evidence that show the folks in charge are fully aware of what they're doing and why. Soon there will be some new push to get everyone to use the "Digital Dollar".
Is it money? You tell me!