Money was originally a very clever invention that saved you from dragging all your cows around with you every time you needed to buy some pots and pans. Also, making change is much easier. After that it got much more complicated.

I have had this conversation a couple of times with various kinds of people. In Bodh Gaya with a well read and very talkitive shop owner. Money is always being accused of being the root of all evil, but we know human attachment and greed is the root. Money, since it represents value, gets the greed assigned to it as well. But money is just these shells, gold coins, stone wheels etc.

The evil is that people simplify their world view so that money is the only value system. Is Dick Cheney immensely happy with his wealth ? Has he acheived nirvana, alleviated of all of his suffering and dwelt completely in bliss by the pleasures of his Military contract money ? (everywhere there is war, there is Bechtel and Halliburton making money off of it)

The evil is still attachment, ego-obsession and power (to dominate, subjugate). Money is just a complicated phenomena that is used for that. In Auroville the stated goal of the Mother is that there should be no money internal to the City. So now they have this computer system where you make a deposit and then just use a PIN code everytime you make a purchase. And when you leave they have to fuss over paperwork to give you your change back. There is so much paperwork and obsession with procedure in Auroville. They have taken money and replaced it with something much more annoying and time-labour-consuming. This they have done so they can have the illusion that there is no money. (Actually the annoyance is only for us transients; if you live there then you earn credit through work and it works great).

These days money is traded continuously in real time on hyper-liquid abstract markets. Money is an abstract computerized entity, long ago divorced from Value. Instead of simply trading money for a pig, we now have Pork Belly Futures. And stocks (in which Value is a matter of opinion and you can make money off guessing what everybody's opinion is going to be).

So as if Money wasn't already sufficiently abstracted from Value, we have invented more games that allow the clever (ie. the empowered) to extract more Money from a given transaction. The weird thing is, these games really do invent more money on the planet. Wealth really does exist beyond the amount of physical resources (like gold) that underpin it. The markets move hotter and hotter, and that creates wealth. Trading always creates more wealth. And this fake reality, this relative dependancy actually manages to keep going and people can extract more Value out of it then was put in. None of this money inherently exists, but in the relative world of international finance, this "appearance" of money does in fact affect the other material phenomena on earth. Barring the occassional bursting bubble, uncontainable hedge fund or crashed currency. People like me love to point out that its all going to collapse and we all be naked again and without electricity, but its more likely that it will just keep getting weirder.

I tried in vain to explain to this shop owner what a future or derivative is. And to answer your next question: You buy a contract to sell something in the future--usually stocks. You essentially borrow the stock and sell it immediately. Then you wait for the price to go down (which you expect to happen), buy the stock again and give it back to the lender, thus pocketing the difference that the stock dropped. This is known as a Put option.

On the week of 9-11, some person or persons placed millions of dollars of Put options betting that the stock of the two airlines involved would go down. Very abnormal levels that had to have relied on knowledge that a major event was going to occur. Airlines were going up then, it was an odd play.

The US news immediately reported this and said that perhaps Bin Laden was making money off of the attack. I remember this. The next day the story disappeared and has never surfaced in the mainstream media again.

http://fromthewilderness.com if you don't believe me.

Bin Laden, in one of his speeches, rants against derivitives (which is one reason why nobody thinks it was Al Qaeda that made the stock plays; its most probably Japanese, Russian, Israeli intelligence agents who had the information but couldn't do anything else with it. Or it was people in the US gov't. Nobody collected the options because it was too dangerous at that point). This has been a major muslim-jewish issue for a long time. Stocks are okay with muslims, but if I understand correctly derivitives are not. That's just going too far.

The financial world is a huge joke and everybody knows it. Especially the players. They are trying to find new ways to make the joke bigger.

In India if you want money or financial security, you give offering to the godess Lakshmi. At the Aurobindo temple I saw blessings being given to 6 mopeds: they drape flowers on them, circle them with incense, annoint the chakra (the headlight of course!) and the owner drives off crushing two limes under each wheel. I'm sure its the same routine for cows.



The other day I accidentally got onto the wrong moped, turned the key (it worked) and drove off. When I returned the rental I found out it was the wrong one. I drove around for several days looking for the correct one. I came across 3 guys with Afros collecting money from a cart covered with deities and playing music. This was right in front of the rental shop. That day the moped showed up. The rental place immediately said: its because you gave that 50 Rs. Of course. That's how you get things done in India.



I should also note that India has 7% growth and 8% growth projected for the next year, which makes it the fastest growing economy. SENSEX is off the hook, the middle class is growing and the richer are definitely richer. I'm not sure how much of that Lakshmi gets.