Money, Money, Money

Blog Preview: So, just think - all of our toils, our worries, our blood, tears, and sweat, all of the theft, murder, war, rape, dashed hopes, crushed dreams, pained nights and lover's quarrels, and what's it for? A bunch of pretty shiny rocks.


Well, dear readers, it's Christmas time (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Solstice also), and in this time of year one phrase is used more often than any other. Can you guess what it is?

"How would you like to pay for that?"

For this special time of year, I've presented a very unique blog: a notion that has tooled around my head for some years - you will note, that there is a clear warning that this blog may be the ramblings of a dilettante.

Here, now, my friends, is Marshall's History of Money


Let's not start this off like a college essay, defining money. We all use it, to some degree or amount, we all have some. Life on this planet, now, is nigh impossible without it. But what is it really?

In this day and age, money isn't money. It isn't anything you can hold. Sure, you may have something in your pocket, but that didn't come from nowhere. Today, money is essentially a series of ones and zeros - binary code - that signifies a particular amount that is possessed by a nation, a company, a bank, a family, a household, a person, etc. Over your heads, under your feet, and - thanks to the many waves and signals floating through the air - in you, through you and around you, binary codes flow signifying a constant transfer of money.

But, we're getting technical. Let's keep it simple, shall we? All the various forms of money were, at one time, over-complicated IOU's. You could trade a dollar, or any coin for it's equivalent in something useful (back when there was a true equivalency). A good example of this is a scrap metal dealer. You could exchange a dollar for any metal that you needed to, say, build your home, or you could exchange metal for it's worth in dollars. This continues to this day, in theory. Of course, the gold, silver, jewels, and precious metals which once guaranteed these paper IOUs are nearly depleted in some countries.

America, for example, doesn't have nearly as many of these items, and instead some of the IOUs signify America's corporate, technological, and industrial resources to back them up. But we passed the point where we could keep pace with that decades ago.

By now, you probably know that I'm getting to the bartering system. Where, instead of trading a piece of paper that's a guarantee for it's worth in metals, jewels, or even food, water, etc, you could just trade the item itself for another item(s) of equivalent value. For protection from robbers and thieves, people exchanged these precious items that were instantly usable into paper IOUs from governments. At some point, the paper IOUs became equally as valuable or important, although in and of themselves, useless.

To recap - people lie, steal, cheat, murder, destroy lives, families, homes, cities and countries for useless IOUs that are no longer viably supported by anything and have now been turned into a series of signifying ones and zeros that float around in the air.

Let's keep going, eh?


By now, you're saying, "Marshall, you want us to go back to carrying bags of diamonds, and toiling in indentured servitude to serve your notion of Christmas season anti-Capitalism?" My response to that is, "Stop using so many big words, you pretentious fuck."

In all honesty, though, I'm not offering any solutions. Just a theory, and a story. The story comes in but a few moments.

So, bartering - "You want some chickens? Well, I've got some gold. Let's trade." Wait a minute-
Why the hell would anyone want gold? I can't eat gold, and if I do, it ain't gonna taste good going down, or feel good coming out. What good is gold? Did you ever think of that? Precious metals? Unless you're going to make something useful with them, why need them? Let's take our way of thinking back to the pre-tech days of 1000 years ago. Why did people need gold? It was good for bartering for things, and it looked pretty. You could maybe melt a precious metal into a roof, but that's all. You could do a hell of a whole lot less with precious gems.

Did anybody notice my (supposed) hitting the nail on the head? No? Let's take it back a few more million years.

THE DAWN OF MAN - Que 'Thus Spake Zarathustra' from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A hairy fellow named Grog steps out of his cave with the lush straw carpeting that his bitch loves when they make the beast with two backs. It's before dawn, still dark, and he's about to begin his morning hunt before Grogette begins to nag him in her pre-syllabic way that's just goddamned annoying.

Then, as the sky brightens, a shimmer of yellow light catches his eye. From the sky? NO! From the ground. Tentatively, he steps to it, not knowing what it is. It shines like the sun, true, but it's not as hot as the sun. It looks like an ordinary rock, but it shines like the sun.

Grog throws it in the air, and it falls down, just as the the Sun's real rays begin to shine through the morning clouds.

For Grog, there is only one logical conclusion, "A piece of the Sun fell down, and I HAVE IT!!!"

'Callou, Callay!' he exclaims. His yelps get the attention of other Cro-Mags, as they look from his yellow rock to the sky and back and forth and back and forth like babies looking between the ketchup in the ketchup bottle and the mustard in the ketchup bottle and believing that they're pondering one of the great mysteries of the universe.



Ah, but Grog is about to get a brutal lesson in humanity that is out in force today - greed. That's right. There's no reason why Grog should hog all of the ground sun. Why shouldn't Ug, Non, Adam, Eve, Lilith, and Dick Clark have some? So they grapple for the sun, but Grog waving his fire-stick over his head and with nothing but disdainful, possessive pride wins them out. Why? Grog probably couldn't give a shit about the sun, but with ground sun, Grogette will start dressing like this...
...and that makes Grog glad.

Time and again, do the others try to steal the ground sun rocks in and around Grog's cave. He even gets wild dogs and bees to guard the outside. Hell, he even promises someone a few of the rocks if he'll watch his place. This makes that Cro-Mag's wife dress like Raquel Welch, too.

Time goes on, and the others resent Grog, but go about their lives. But, time and tide respect neither rocks or wealth. Winter comes, and Grog realizes that he spent so much time protecting his rocks that he forgot to hunt for food. No matter how good Grogette looks, she'll be a bit less attractive if she's skin and bones. But there's no food to be had. To survive, Grog is going to have to give one of his pretty rocks in exchange for a meal and a pelt to keep warm.

To the others, this makes Grog special. Surely, he was meant to find the rocks. There must be something special about him. Maybe, just maybe, there's something up there that wanted him to have the pretty rocks. Maybe, just maybe, the Sun wanted him to have the pretty rocks, and if they're nice to the Sun, the Sun will give them some too.

Okay, this has gone on awhile, and you probably get the point, so let's sum up Marshall's history of money

From ones and zeros in the ether to paper that signifies precious metals (that almost no one has) to precious metals in exchange for precious goods. And these metals are precious than for no other reason than because they're pretty, shiny rocks. So, just think - all of our toils, our worries, our blood, tears, and sweat, all of the theft, murder, rape, dashed hopes, crushed dreams, pained nights and lover's quarrels, and what's it for? A bunch of pretty shiny rocks.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Oh, on a separate note, I shall be arriving on the Friday before New Years, and I shall need a place to sleep and shower. I solicit brazenly, in hopes that I will get an offer.