Lyn Alden: Our Money Is Broken
"At its core, money is a ledger," writes the investment analyst in her new book, Broken Money.
This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.
"At its core, money is a ledger," writes investment analyst Lyn Alden in her new book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better.
And if money is a ledger, she says, the most important question to consider is, "Who controls the ledger?"
Zach Weissmueller spoke with Alden about her book, which is a true tour de force that lays out the history of money from its inception to present, takes you deep into the dueling schools of thought around money's fundamental properties, offers a macro analysis of today's global monetary and fiscal situation, and charts a path forward for transitioning the world to better, more sound money in the future. If you care about any of this—and really, who doesn't care about money?—this one is a must-read.
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Ok, she already doesn’t understand money if she’s asking ‘who controls the ledger’.
The point of money is that *money* is the ledger and no one controls it. It’s decentralized, cash is king.
Yeah, I was having a problem with “money is a ledger”. Money in it’s pre technology form: Cash was definitely not “a ledger”. When we were on the gold standard, there was a ledger behind it, that being the gold in store that the cash represented in circulation. But then someone thought it would be a neat idea to ditch that ledger and then just print money.
But ultimately, cash can change hands hundreds, thousands of times and there’s no central ledger on those transactions, or where the money went. The only time money could be ‘found’ by the system was when it passed back into a bank. But once it was back in the hands of the general public, its status was “unknown”.
I had a similar problem. Her photo, combined with the statement of “money is a ledger”, makes me wonder if anyone seen Lyn Alden and Aella in the same room at the same time. My train of thought goes completely off the rails from there and finally comes to rest in my bunk.
Money is a ledger in the sense that it keeps score.
It’s not centralized but it represents what you have been allocated from the total pool of resources.
The government can change this allocation by printing more money and giving it to you, or to someone else.
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Yeah. Moving away from an object anyone can possess or trade is what makes money not money anymore.
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LOL They can take your cash just like when they confiscated gold. You have to be ignorant AF to think no one is controlling the ledger, i.e. the value and supply.
You are starting from an assumption that only Dollars can be money.
Money is not a government thing.
Herbert (Ban-Everything) Hoover wrote the “bank holiday” order with mandatory shutdowns, prison terms, huge fines and confiscation of all gold and handed it to FDR just before inauguration day. Back then, victorious looter politicians took office March 4. It is ironic that Coolidge signed the Jones Five and Ten law making felonies of light beer and watery wine two days before Hoover’s inauguration in 1929. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.
Exactly.
When Obama shipped more than 12 Billion Dollars in $100 all of that was “off the ledger”.
Money is a ledger. What is a woman?
Only a biologist could possibly know such mysteries.
They’re about six feet tall, three-hundred pounds… they make ice and.
I identify as money. Will you accept a pound of flesh?
Money is only a ledger if money is debt
If money is a ledger, then what is property? Just an inventory?
A rental from the government? 🙂
Fuck you for being absolutely correct
Pretty sure the meaning is our money has become nothing but a ledger because it has no legal ties to value anymore. Therefore; who ever controls that ledger also controls all the value (i.e. economy) of the entire nation. Which was completely demonstrated just recently with the massive amount of inflation money just experiences post “ledger” manipulation by the feds.
Or in simpler terms. There’s “no such thing as a free lunch” and “gov-‘guns’ don’t actually make sh*t.”
money is not a stupid ledger.
At its core, money is trust.
Trust that is necessary to go beyond barter, for people to agree on a shared value of things.
And like it or not, money is usually government money because this is the framework we live in.
But if you prefer to live alone in a remote forest and pay the squirrels in Dogecoin….be my guest.
Ihis is the suggestion I always make to no-borders anarco-communists. They invariably retort that inviting THEM to step over the imaginary line in the outward direction is insensitive, unconcerned and deeply unaware. Mystics are a troubled lot.
Actually the ‘framework’ for money in the USA is … “make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”.
Course the USA has been conquered by Democratic [Na]tional So[zi]alists who indoctrinated the citizens into thinking ‘[WE] mob RULERS’ will save us all from ourselves and that awful USA.
But you do hit that on the head as being the median of ‘trust’ in trade. The problem lies in the illegal and untrustworthy government destroying that trust by stealing, counterfeiting and borrowing UN-maintainable public ‘trust’.
People have been brainwashed/indoctrinated to believe ‘guns’ (gov-guns) can make sh*t for them (instead of just being there for justice / maintaining trust) and with that belief the armed-theft will eat the economy alive because there is no ‘trust’ in an armed-robbery baked-up as just being ?free? sh*t with no victim.
Or summarized. The Nazi-Empire conquered and turned the maintenance of ‘trust’ (halls of justice) into an armed-robber / criminal.
Broken? Compared to whose?
Remember when Ron Paul demonstrated that gasoline price hadn’t rose 1-cent over the last century on the “gold standard”.
“…
Money functions as (1) a medium of exchange, (2) a unit of account and (3) a store of value.
…
But what features does your money need? Six characteristics have been identified: Money must be durable, portable, divisible, scarce, uniform and acceptable.
… ”
https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/educate/everyday/money.pdf
Humorously the [WE] mob of gov-gun packers thought “scarce” was the evil and also thought paper was going to make them ?free? shit when really it was all just a big scam to keep slavery alive.