Dunno if this files under politics, but whoa, a great illustration!

[deeaa]

U.S. Debt illustrated:

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

[Tig]

And such is life!

Money and currency are a funny thing. We give value to otherwise nearly valueless items. Just some paper or maybe metal coins. A common place value system to replace past barter systems.
Gold? Worthless other than conducting electricity or making something pretty.
Diamonds? Great for cutting hard materials.

Ah, so what is worth working for? (not in any specific order)
Time (8 hours a day sure beats hunting or farming every minute of daylight) + leisure time
Health
Food
Family
Education
Shelter
Security
Transportation
Music and art
...

[R_of_G]

Good find dee.

Whatever one's feelings about how the debt was amassed and how it should be addressed, that definitely illustrates how staggering its size.

However, unlike the one caption suggests, I was not surprised by how small a pile the million dollars was. Every moviegoer knows that one million dollars fits inside an ordinary briefcase. :)

There's nothing else I can say that wouldn't run counter to the no-politics standard.

[Eric]

And such is life!

Money and currency are a funny thing. We give value to otherwise nearly valueless items. Just some paper or maybe metal coins. A common place value system to replace past barter systems.
Gold? Worthless other than conducting electricity or making something pretty.
Diamonds? Great for cutting hard materials.

Ah, so what is worth working for? (not in any specific order)
Time (8 hours a day sure beats hunting or farming every minute of daylight) + leisure time
Health
Food
Family
Education
Shelter
Security
Transportation
Music and art
...
Great points. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, as our house is a museum for selling purposes so most of our personal items are in storage. I guess that's not even really your point, as I've already made the mental transition from money to possessions in two sentences, but it illustrates the point to me that even when you strip away the 'essentials' of life, it's amazing how little you miss those things. We get caught up in money as a measure of dominance over others and we use our stuff as a measure of wealth. But really, those things alone are very low importance when you look at life as a whole.

I know I just kind of reiterated what you said, but I guess I'm trying to say "+1."

[Tig]

Great points. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, as our house is a museum for selling purposes so most of our personal items are in storage. I guess that's not even really your point, as I've already made the mental transition from money to possessions in two sentences, but it illustrates the point to me that even when you strip away the 'essentials' of life, it's amazing how little you miss those things. We get caught up in money as a measure of dominance over others and we use our stuff as a measure of wealth. But really, those things alone are very low importance when you look at life as a whole.

I know I just kind of reiterated what you said, but I guess I'm trying to say "+1."

I understand what you are saying.

Money does provide one thing I didn't list: Choice. When you are just surviving, your choices are quite limited. Money increases our choices, like eating better, or buying a car instead of riding mass transit, for instance. It goes on and on.

To take my first post further, money is no longer a physical object. It is all just numbers in a vast network of banking computer systems. You buy stock, and it is just a transfer of numbers to a different location. That number magically goes up or down. You trade a number value for a purchased item at the store, etc. So, electronic money is even less tangible and more "valueless" than currency and coins.

[NWBasser]

Once upon a time, it seemed that money was used as a representation of something physical to facilitate easier exchanges of goods and services.

As Tig astutely pointed out, such is no longer the case. It is now a number in a computer system with no particular tie to anything actually tangible.

If you were to once again assume that money represented something in the phyical world, then the US debt may eclipse the phycial value of pretty much everything in the country.

[Tig]

Once upon a time, it seemed that money was used as a representation of something physical to facilitate easier exchanges of goods and services.

As Tig astutely pointed out, such is no longer the case. It is now a number in a computer system with no particular tie to anything actually tangible.

If you were to once again assume that money represented something in the phyical world, then the US debt may eclipse the phycial value of pretty much everything in the country.

It used to be a note backed by the gold reserves at Ft. Knox, but that was a looowng time ago.

As for electronic money, lose power in your town or state, and you are effectively broke. A store may open for cash purchases only after a hurricane or earthquake, for instance.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread, but the images of stacked money made me thing more about the actual value of things we tend to take for granted.