Money

From The Encyclopedia of Pointless

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Money is stuff that people use to represent resources. It is also one of the Big Three Things of life. Money's arrival brings happiness, and its departure takes happiness with it.

Contents 1 History 2 Modern Currencies 2.1 US Dollar 2.2 British Pound 2.3 Japanese Yen 2.4 European Euro 3 The Future of Money

History

Money started back in the day when people faced the problem of trade. Sure, it's easy enough to ask your neighbor for a goat and give him a couple hens in exchange, but what if you don't have any hens? What if, in fact, you don't have anything but a pile of gold the size of a pony? Well this guy was pretty charismatic and he convinced his buddies that since gold was rare and pretty cool looking there had to be a certain amount of it that was worth a goat.

This of course didn't work. This was before people invented Logic, but they could still figure out with common sense that a bunch of shiny rare stuff couldn't possibly compete with the incredible worth of a goat. So the man with the gold fell back to the old standby: He killed a bunch of people and told the survivors that his gold sure was worth a lot of goats. This time people believed him.

Thus the Gold Standard was formed for the first time. People would mine gold out of the ground and use it to get stuff they wanted. Then the people with the stuff would use the gold to get other, different stuff, thus creating Economy. Sometimes leaders of countries would stamp their face on little disks of gold because they were raging narcissists. Ironically enough this stamping tended to make gold worth even more, although it was generally because the leaders demanded that their people only use the stamped gold, and absolutely forbid the use of other leaders' stamped gold. Gold also makes for good jewelry, so it has that going for it.

People also figured silver was nice, and more common than gold, so that was used too. Mostly for silverware, though, since it wouldn't really be silverware if it was made of say brass, tin, or oricalchum.

Then sometime around the eighteenth century something odd happened. People started using paper for money. Now, unlike gold paper isn't particularly worth anything. It's not common, it's not shiny, and nobody kills you if you say otherwise. What paper has going for it, though, is the fact it has words written on it to the effect that somebody, somewhere, says it's worth something. So as long as you believe this guy that wrote on the paper the paper becomes worth stuff. People liked this idea so much that pretty soon governments were using it and narcissistic leaders printed their faces on it, thus confirming its place in society.

At first these peices of paper said they represented a certain amount of gold someplace, and promised if you could just find this place you'd be able to exchange it for the gold. People liked this since gold was really worth something and paper was much easier to keep in your jacket pocket than golden tablets. Then the government decided that gold was getting to be worth too much so they changed it to silver and people grumbled a bit. They liked gold, because after all these years since the first guy waged war for gold people had gotten used to the idea and really believed gold was worth something. Still, they had silver , which nobody could deny was still worth something.

The government did something REALLY crazy and said no more silver, now money is going to be worth stuff simply because We Are Awesome. A lot of people hated this idea. Without any physical thing to tie money to its worth would fluctuate too much! And what happened if the government suddenly collapsed? Who would honor the paper then? They demanded that money be tied to something--anything--be it brass, tin, or oricalchum. Just as long as money was worth more than the paper it was printed on.

These people were quietly rounded up and executed, as per the orders of the Secret Societies that Rule the World. Thus, money continues to this very day.

Modern Currencies

US Dollar

The US Dollar is so named because the founders of the fledgling nation wanted to make a currency that spoke of superiority over the British Doll. They contemplated the "Dollest" for a while but reckoned it was too egotistical and went with the "Doller" instead. They did however go ahead and stamp their faces all over it in a most narcissistic manner. Thankfully none of these founders could spell a darn thing, so they wrote "Dollar" on early drafts of the bill and the name stuck.

British Pound

After the collapse of the British Doll in the mid-1800's Queen Victoria went about arranging a new, more powerful currency. Since the two countries had settled their differences several times over the years she rejected the obvious choice of "Dollest" and instead went with "Pound", as in, "I'll pound you if you don't honor this new currency". She was a rather imposing woman, so the currency stuck. She even made sure to plaster her face all over it, thus making certain she would be elected Queen for the rest of her life.

Japanese Yen

After World War Two and the collapse of the traditional Japanese "Emperor is Awesome Badge", Japan was in dire straits. They needed a new currency, and fast. The current Prime Minister, Shigeru Yoshida, hastily set up a new currency, basing its value on the price of a single grain of rice. This practice stuck, meaning that to buy anything in Japan you have to have like five hundred thousand million "Yens" on your person at any one time. This has had the unexpected but not undesirable concequence of making foolish tourists believe they are fabulously wealthy, and as a result spend a lot more money.

European Euro

Despite the entirely uninspiring name, the Euro was created in an effort to counteract the monetary might of these other currencies on the market. It replaces such old standbys as the Danish "Krone", the Italian "Lira", the Irish "Punt", the French "Franc", the Spanish "Spanc", and the Portugese "Pork". Instead it makes all these countries work together for the common good, and some economists think it's a good idea. Britain, of course, thinks it's all a load of rubbish and insists that anyone who messes with their currency will be Pounded.

The Future of Money

Many futurists insist that money isn't a key part of future society, and someday people will put aside the concept of money and live at peace with one another. They figure that someday technology will become so amazingly awesome that our every need and want can be instantly fulfilled without an expendature of resources, thus the format for the exchange of theses services will become obsolete.

Most rational people see this as being utter bunk, however. They argue that no matter how awesome technology gets there will still be some things that cannot be commonly obtained, and these things will require money. Futurists reply by saying perhaps this will be the case, but there won't be any set medium for these exchanges, and perhaps people will complete these transactions with promises to be nice, or by administering sexual favors. Rational people then incredulously shout "sexual favors!", sigh exasperatedly, and storm out of the discussion, muttering things about crazy futurists. The futurists then declare themselves the winner by default, pat themselves on the back, and go on to discuss the implications blue-skinned space women with odd-numbered mammaries will have on society.

-- Mr. Encyclopedia

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