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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kaparthy, post: 13064, member: 57463&quot;]&quot;Money is not simply anything which might be exchanged for something else.&nbsp; &nbsp; Almost any physical thing could fit such a definition.&nbsp; One meaning of barter, in fact, means an exchange not involving money.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>You are right: direct exchange is barter.&nbsp; Money is indirect exchange: accepting something you do not want to consume because you intend to trade it for something do want.&nbsp; So, yes, &quot;anything&quot; can be money (salt, tobacco, goats...).&nbsp; And it does not have to be physical.&nbsp; Phonecards are how we measure the service of telecommunication.&nbsp; Ithaca Hours and other &quot;time dollars&quot; are moneys denominated in labor, rather than goods.&nbsp; Of course, nothing at all stands behind the US Dollar, in that there is no good or service held at the Treasury.&nbsp; So, the dollar is almost perfectly abstract.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The essential characteristic of money is that is widely accepted as a medium of exchange within a broad community, and that someone who accepts money can reasonably expect to exchange it for something else of value in the future.&nbsp; In addition, money can always be used to satisfy debts and taxes, and here is where most governments get involved.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>Those characteristics of money are pretty much common sense and just as pretty much arguable.&nbsp; I would like to stick with a definition that at once (a) derives from logical principles and (b) is supported by evidence.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>How &quot;broad&quot; does a community have to be to be &quot;broad enough&quot; to satisfy?&nbsp; There is no objective way to know.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>I agree that EXCHANGE is the sine qua non of money.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>The third element -- debts and taxes -- is actually two different things.&nbsp; In American history, we had the time of the Specie Circular, when the government refused anything except GOLD in taxes, but the people broadly used all kinds of things for &quot;money&quot; from local banknotes to Mexican Silver.&nbsp; In fact, local bank notes in Tennessee, Ohio, etc., showed pictures of Spanish or Mexican silver coins as &quot;dollars&quot; rather than US federal money.&nbsp; (See <a href="http://scoan.oldnote.org/" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://scoan.oldnote.org/" rel="nofollow">http://scoan.oldnote.org/</a> &quot;Spanish Coins on American Notes.)&nbsp; So, federal silver coins were not &quot;money&quot; because you could not pay your taxes in them. but foreign silver coins were &quot;money&quot; because a broad community accepted them.&nbsp; I guess that does not make sense to me, so I would say that BOTH federal and foreign silver coins were money, even though you could not pay your taxes in them.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then you have local currencies today - the Ithaca Hours; etc. - which people use among themselves as currency, but which are not &quot;legal tender&quot; and cannot be used to pay taxes (generally).&nbsp; They are nontheless money.&nbsp; (You might call them money substitutes.&nbsp; I am not sure how I evaluate the validity of the term.&nbsp; A poker chip is a money substitute.)</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Thus, subway tokens and grocery store coupons, among other things, are not money ... &quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>If we were to apply a consistent definition, we would have to rate those items as &quot;money&quot; but admit that they are not the best forms of it (or even good forms).&nbsp; The Yugo might have been a poor car, but it met the definition.&nbsp; Except in the movie &quot;Mr. Mom&quot; where he plays poker for grocery coupons, I had never seen anyone use coupons for money -- then our local food co-op facilitated just that, the swapping by members of coupons.&nbsp; So, again, store coupons are limited, but they are money by definition.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Neither are stock certificates, they are certificates of ownership.&quot;&nbsp; In the olden days, a gold certificate or silver certificate was just that: a promise to pay to the bearer on demand, but also a statement that the gold or silver was owned and on hand at the Treasury. Stock certificates are perhaps more like real estate in that they require a formal transfer, however, how then do we identify checks (drafts) as money, since they, too, must be endorsed, etc.&nbsp; </p><p><br /></p><p>All in all, your points are well made.&nbsp; They are common sense.&nbsp; Getting to the root of the matter, finding the ultimate truth means getting some perspective that includes &quot;common sense&quot; as an easy element.</p><p><br /></p><p>One thing that might be true universally is that we all have our own individual preferences for kinds of money.&nbsp; Here in the USA and around the world, the $20 bill works all right.&nbsp; A Japanese Y1000 note is not so spendable on the streets of Chicago or Houston.&nbsp; Both are money.&nbsp; I personally would rate a 1-ounce silver bar highly, probably higher than the nominal &quot;spot&quot; price for the day, if you offered to pay me in silver for my labor.&nbsp; That is not a deal you will find everywhere.&nbsp; We all have preferences.&nbsp; As noted, most people in the US mostly accept Federal money most of the time because you can pay your taxes with it.</p><p><br /></p><p>Michael</p><p>ANA R-162953[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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