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What is money.... The happy balance

Consideration 1: What is money?

In the dark ages, there was no medium of money. There was only bartering. Imagine people swapping eggs for milk, or bread for cheese. Imagine people swapping animals for seeds, or linen for food. Those days were reliant upon both parties wanting what the other one had to offer. And with items being perishable, the ability to stock-pile barter-able items was almost non-existent. This was the age of hunting and foraging, and living hand to mouth for survival.

Then people found a medium of value. Something that could be stockpiled, and kept safe. But did you want to carry it on you at all times, and could you really keep it safe out of reach? Trust became a vital ingredient in the bartering process, each using a range of recognised commodities as a medium for exchange

It wasn't long before precious materials were identified as the more reliable commodities for exchange, and perhaps even quicker before the nobility wanted a piece of the pie, introducing taxation on those with anything worthwhile to their name. Kings and land owners becoming the holders of all wealth, protecting the wealth of it's subjects, safely banking money away within their kingdom. The first primitive banks, formed as an alliance between the land-owners and the churches, held the wealth of the land in their hands.

Countries started producing their own precious coins, becoming the first legal tender of a land. Apart from counterfeits, these coins in circulation were all limited in volume, and ownership implied a value, allowing currency and wealth to be expressed in the more recognisable form of money.

Moving from coins to notes, was simply through the written promises of IOU's, by the written hand, allowed larger volumes of money to change hands more quickly and easily, and as different countries traded more and more, each country developed its own unique currency, controlling their own supply.

Just how much wealth in circulation had to be regulated, to avoid flooding the market, and de-valuing ownership. The first signs of regulation were born.

With the banks taking the place of the nobility and churches at holding on to our money, our expectations increased that our money would be there on demand. And as time moved on, access to our funds, and even borrowings, became easier and easier, to the point that money itself is rarely touched by the vast majority of us.

Within centuries, we have seen money moving from its origins in precious metals, coins, and bearer promises, to electronic balances of bank accounts, and the use of coins and notes on a daily basis disappeared, replaced by automated bill payments, and card payments, meaning a greater and greater proportion of the population having no contact with money on a daily basis. And that's still before we have entered our current Milllenium.

Even going abroad, made increasingly cash-less, with plastic cards allowing the buying of goods, and settling of bills wherever we go. With banks handling all debits and credits for each time the plastic was used, access to a currency medium becomes easier by the day.

As we know where we are, secure in the familiarity with our country's currency, we rely upon the banks to securely hold our money for us, borrowing from them with loans and mortgages, and lending to them, in the form of our salaries and savings, under instructions of making regular payments to cover our outgoings from our available funds.

And for many, this is a happy medium, and comfort blanket to always stay within reach of. But for others, there is something sadly lacking.