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What is money?

Money is one half of every transaction in our economy, yet most Americans don’t have a full understanding of what money is, where it comes from, and what gives it value. Even fewer people understand how our Federal Reserve banking system works. Fewer still even give a crap.

Why should I care?

Everyone seems to understand that our economy is not doing so well. But why? Over the past few decades we’ve had tremendous advances in technology and productive capacity, yet families are struggling with underwater mortgages, huge student loan debts, and high healthcare costs; even with two parents working in many cases. Something is clearly not working.

People attribute the struggling economy to a variety of causes- too much government spending, not enough government spending, taxes that are too high (or too low), greedy corporations, excessive regulation (or not enough regulation), etc. However, they rarely look to the root cause of it all- our monetary system.

Austrian economists understand that a sound and stable currency is the foundation of a strong economy. They understand that artificial control of interest rates distorts the market and creates booms and busts. They understand that money derived from debt is inherently unsustainable and eventually collapses. They understand that government guarantees and bailouts of banks and corporations encourages those banks to take excessive risks and repeat the same mistakes at the expense of the taxpayer.

This understanding allowed these economists to predict and explain the dot com bubble, the housing bubble, and the financial collapse. Today, these same economists are predicting that we are on the verge of a major collapse of our money itself.

So… If you don’t want to go broke, you should care about how our monetary system works.

Liberty Insight’s new “Money” page

Liberty Insight is dedicated to educating readers about sound money and ways to protect oneself in today’s extraordinary economic times. To that end, we have created a new page dedicated to explaining the basics of our monetary system and providing resources to help readers learn more.

We view this page as a jumping off point for learning about our monetary system. Please share the link with anyone you think would like to learn more about this topic.

To view the page, simply click on the “Money” link on the Liberty Insight banner at the top of this page or click here.