INTRODUCTION

The author does not claim originality as one of his virtues or any other virtue as one if his virtues. The author has simply put together a host of ideas he has picked up along his life and compiled them in a manner so that these ideas form a coherent answer to the questions he has asked himself. These ideas essentially relate to the value of money.

NATURE OF MONEY

So what is money? What exactly is the wad of notes that nobody seems to have enough? Is it a means or an end? If it's just a means then why don't we seem to be looking for the end and not the means? Money is simply a medium of exchange invented to overcome the difficulties faced in the barter system; it is simply a store of value, a means to buy all the wants that we may have. You exchange the commodity that you desire with money.
What is store of value? . This means that money represents the power to purchase the commodities within the value that it represents. For instance a hundred-rupee note will buy the commodities that are worth hundred rupees or less.

HOW DOES ONE BECOME RICH?

The answer to that one is simple. By making money at a faster rate than losing it, and how do we make money, by producing or rendering some service. And how does one become poor? The answer to that one is simple as well, by losing money and losing it at a faster rate than you are making it. And how does one lose money by consumption of course (theft and robbery are deliberately left out).

WHO PAYS YOUR BILLS?

Is it really you who is paying your bills? Lets say you are a government employee and you consume electricity, at the end of the month the department sends you a certain bill and you pay it with your salary, but wait, who pays your salary? The government of course and where does the government come up with the taxes, from suckers like you of course. Now lets say you are working independently to produce electricity, but not everyone who produces electricity will get it for free some will have to pay the bills as well. Suppose you are the kind who pays the bills, where do you pay the bill? Your salary of course and who pays your salary, why the company which produces electricity, but who pays them, the people who consume electricity, who else. And who is consuming electricity why you of course so essentially you is paying your own bills.
The above is an oversimplified and watered down version of an entire closed economy, the only difference being that you consume a lot of different things and pay for them and your fellow beings do the same thing. For instance you need bread so you go to the grocer and buy the bread from him, the grocer keeps his profit and sells the bread to you, but where does he get the bread? The wholesaler who keeps his profit and sells the bread to the grocer and where does the wholesaler get the bread? From the establishment that turns wheat into bread, they buy wheat add value keep their profit and sell it to the wholesaler. And what about the workers who work in this establishment? The factory pays them, and their cost naturally is added to the bread and the machinery which theses guys use well its cost has been added as well, so the guys who make that machine also enjoy your patronage. Now these zillion people use electricity and they pay their bills with their salaries or their profits and who makes these possible why you of course for you bought the bread didn't you and without you these guys will be unemployed. Do you feel like Mother Teresa?
Well don't, because your salary comes from a similar cycle as well.
MORAL: We are all paying each other's bills.

ROB THY NEIGHBOUR ?

If we are all paying each other's bills then why are some rich and a lot poor. This is because what we have to offer and how much profit we can make on it the larger the profit the greater the wealth, this is a simple logic and is accepted by all. But what about the converse, isn't one man's meat another man's poison so if one man is making a profit isn't it the loss of another for he has to pay more for the same goods and thus his income diminishes. This is even true of countries for the rise of America coincides with fall of Great Britain during the Great War. Rob thy Neighbor? How did Indian software make millionaires, by cornering work from America and other countries and earning greenbacks and isn't it true that people in the United States lost jobs because it went to other countries. Take an example if the price of bread increases without any corresponding increase in the price of any other commodity or service. What this means is that people who are deriving profit from the bread would have a windfall and others will see a decline in their income, in other words some will pay more than their fair share of bills. But even the bread manufacturers can lose money if people stop eating bread if it has become out of their reach. This of course would depend on the price elasticity.

CHEAPER COKE OR DEARER MONEY ?

From ten rupees a bottle coke has come down to seven or eight depending on where you buy it. Word is that coke has gone cheaper, but isn't it true that money has become dearer as well. It has become more valuable, hasn't it? Now fourteen rupees can buy two bottles instead of only one before and rupees twenty one can buy three now instead of only two earlier so hasn't money become more valuable now. So you save three bucks on every bottle, in a country of one billion how many bottles are consumed annually and how much money is saved is anyone's guess. Do this if you can, count the money you save on aerated drinks and see where you spend it and how many people benefit from it. For instance if you buy a packet of chips from the money saved, then the retailer, the wholesaler the factory owner and the potato grower are better off and at the same time the retailers etc. for the soft drink lose. In some cases they might even be better off if the number of people buying soft drinks increases substantially and sets off their loss. An entire economy will benefit when the number of losers and the loss is smaller than the number of people who gain and their gain.

ROBBING YOUR NEIGHBOR OR MAKING HIM WEALTHIER ?

The whole idea of robbing someone is true as long as money does not become dearer. Why no one delves on this idea is because the whole host of financial interactions we make is so complex that it becomes very difficult to pinpoint exactly who is losing as sometimes these people can be in far off countries.
But to generate real wealth we have to make money dearer or make it more valuable or simply put make cheap goods.

INDUSTRIALIZATION

Invariably the only way to make goods cheaper is to get hold of a new technology based on powerful machines that can do the work of tens of workers in one-tenth the time thus making money dearer. True this will lead to unemployment in the beginning but the money now saved will be spent on other goods the industries of which will spawn up thereby absorbing the number of job losers initially and many more, of course this will take time but the result will be a million times better than the existing condition. This is evident from the fact that the progress that mankind has made in the last three hundred years is many times greater than the progress that we made in the thousands of years before that and this has been made possible only because of rapid industrialization which led to cheaper goods and dearer money. So the money one spent on buying food became lesser and so the he had surplus which with he bought clothes for himself ultimately leading to the growth of cloth industry and cloth became cheaper sparing more money for other indulgences. Until ultimately aerated drinks became a commonplace commodity and an industry which employs millions of workers across the world.

TRANSPORTATION: A REVOLUTION WAITING TO HAPPEN

Each and every commodity that we consume has got added to it some transportation cost. If some bright chap comes with a novel idea, which could make transportation cheaper almost every if not every commodity we know will become cheaper and people will become richer because the value of their money will become greater as it could buy more with less. This would lead to a situation where people earning the same amount of money would have more to spare now. And they will spend it leading to still more consumption which will stimulate demand and industries will be set up providing still more employment and still more wealth an more riches.