"Hawke" wrote in message
...
I sure wish they would stop printing so much money. It's
getting to be worthless. I bought a loaf of rye bread today. It was $3.27.
The money is getting worth less and less every day.

Hawke


OK, I posted a message asking if you were joking about this, but I later
thought it would make more sense to specify what part I am stuck on.

So here's the part I get, and the part I don't get.

Let's take the example of iridium, the element. It's price is around that
of gold (I'm not sure if that's accurate, but this is just an example.)
But, gold is much more common. The reason iridium isn't much more expensive
than gold is because there's not much demand for it.

So, a thing's value is based on how many people want it (and how badly they
want it) vs. how common or scarce it is (or more accurately, how easy it is
to get.)

So, if gold nuggets the size of golf balls suddenly appeared on every square
foot of the earth, the value of gold would drop to nothing, because if you
want some you can just go pick some up. I think you agree that this is
simple reasoning, I just want to set this as a starting point.

Money is probably the most desired thing there is, because it can be
exchanged for just about anything. So, the varying factor in its value will
be how easy it is to get.

If all the tree leaves and blades of grass became various denominations of
money, then money would be worthless. Not because there's more OF it, but
because it's easy to get. If the government printed five hundred trillion
dollars tomorrow and sealed it all away so no one could get to it, the value
of money wouldn't change even there's a hell of a lot more of it because
it's no easier to obtain. Do you agree?

Now, do you see where I'm going with this? When the government prints
additional money, how does that extra money make it easier to obtain a given
amount of it? Let's say the government opened the vault with the 500
trillion in it and did with it whatever they do with all the extra money
they print (which is what? I don't know.) How does that extra money make
money easier to obtain? Do all companies suddenly give raises when they
find out there's more money in the economy, so that money becomes easier to
obtain? I think the key here is in finding out what the government does
with the extra money. I'll be grateful to anyone who can explain that to
me.