Global Economic Intersection Article of the Week.
Readers put on your thinking caps and learn something new about money.
Modern money - not the old fashioned, greasy kid's stuff - follows uber modern rules, rules which have been misrepresented/misunderstood in the coverage of Washington's debt-ceiling hysteria.
First things first: no matter how much money we're talking about, there's nothing there - not gold not silver. At best, a few reams of green paper.
Follow up:
For some folks the fact that there's nothing there is intolerable. "How, they wonder, "can money be so important, and so insubstantial?
That's modern money. When was the last time your pay (if you still have a job, there are 29.2 million unemployed or underemployed in the US today) was cash in an envelope? Like 99.9% of Americans you get paid by check or a direct deposit.
Someone working for your boss tapped on a keyboard (just like the keyboard I'm typing on now), to initiate a transaction that put 'money' in your checking account by taking 'money' out of your boss's checking account.
That money is just a click, an electronic blip, your ability to keep bread on the table and a roof over your head, an ineffable nothing, and the root of all evil.