Adam Curry's Daily Source Code DSC-743-2008-04-04

Adam, do you realize that 2waytraffic is a company that produces an awful lot of phone-in quiz shows?

We spied on 36,000 customers using the internet, admits BT

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The Global Warming Debate...

A PDF
"Abstract: The Theory of Money"

World Bank accused of climate change "hijack"

I've been wondering if I understand what money actually is after what Adam says.

Adam seems - from my estimation - mixes up money and wealth. He seems to talk about one, when meaning the other.

Money is a medium for the exchange of wealth, a unit of measurement of wealth and a store of value of wealth.

So if money is really about wealth, where does wealth come from?

Well this is what I thought: Wealth doesn't come from gold or any other precious metal per se, or anything like that. It comes from producing things or more exact, people offering services that are wanted by other people. If you do something that is not wanted - or not valued - by anyone else then that product or service is worthless.

Some people serve coffee, some people tend to you when you're sick, some people host MTV. All of these things are valuable and therefore create wealth because other people want these things.

Since comparing the wealth of coffee making, tending to the sick and hosting MTV are difficult to compare directly, we therefore need money to make that decision of which is more valuable.

The more we produce and the more services we offer (that people want), the more wealth and therefore more money a society has.

While done by the same organisation, controlling the money supply (ie that amount of wealth flowing in an economy) and the printing of money are two completely separate things. But I won’t get into that - This comment is already too long.

Reviewing the Deletion of M3:
Fed kills a key inflation gauge

Thanks for the interesting comments, as usual, CSB.

Adam,

I don't think your money supply credit crunch commentary is providing much in terms of educating the audience:

The idea that coinage (issuing new coinage) has a significant impact on the economy and the credit crunch in particular is silly.

Everyone needs to start by understanding the difference between currency and the "money supply". Start here:

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed49.html

The Fed stopped reporting on the M3 measurement because it reveals too much about the scam.