This is very interesting about money and how it is created, from a US perspective but still good:

 http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3550

I'm afraid you are confused : money does not represent anything. How much money a person has does not represent how much work this person does. How much money a country has does not represent how much natural resources a country has.

Money is an abstract system for managing exchanges, but in itself it does not represent anything. Because it doesn't represent anything, it can be, and *always is*, created out of nothing. This is not in itself a problem because stockpiling money is not a good thing - at best it leads to stronger inflation, making that money worth even less. Money is only worth something when it is used for it's purpose : managing exchanges. When a bank creates money, as you suggest, they are creating the opportunity for more exchanges (you will use your 1000 euros to buy something, etc.), they are not however creating more wealth.

This is just how money works - you should not confuse money and wealth.

I'm not saying banks are nice, or that money is usefull (I think we should abolish money) -- I'm just saying this is the way things work, and there is nothing abnormal about it.

is an alternative money backed by real silver.

Take a look at:  http://www.bilderberg.org/bis.htm#Quigley

The ECB (Euro Central Bank) recently underwrote the banking system to bailout hedge funds who were in crisis as the financial markets paniced 2 weeks ago, pulling something like 95 billion Euro out of their magic hat like a white rabbit - a measure of the banking system's ability to appease the shortfall of capitalists to secure their speculative venture capital. Ultimately, it is a class-issue in that all that money goes unconditionallly to prop up the lunatic casino-gambling of a rich elite who have over-extended themselves - not the millions in relative poverty living hand-to-mouth in prison-like housing estates with limited opportunity to lift themselves economically in wage-slave jobs. That said, the problem is that the hedge funds get access to massive credit in the first place; the lending of money 2 weeks ago by the ECB served to buy the whole financial system more time - to prevent a massive global financial crash where virtually all of us would be losers (economically, that is). As always, the real "losers" have access to unlimited credit from dodgy banks.

Class War and some other anarchists avoid this issue because their critique of capital and the state means they deny the reality that one would necessarily in-part have to replace the other for the public to take control of the money system once again. That is why Class-War have traditionally been more part of the problem than the solution, with their appetite for violent upheaval without offering any alternative solutions being, in the same way, the logical conclusion to their intellectual kop-out which would see them happily bearing witness to the big crash and resulting chaos (the very same likely culmination of the inherent crash-and burn of the world financial system after the powers-that-be refuse fundamental structural changes to the privatised hegemony at the heart of the system).

SWP avoid the issue, I know not why (sarcastic tone). They could explain it away because of sensitivity to the anti-semite overtones of anyone who dares raise the issue.

The cause is not helped by the fact that the film "The Money Masters", an excellent expose of the history of money, produced by the US Christian centre-right Campaign for Monetary Reform, disasterously use quotations from a far-right sympathisers Gary Allen and Charles Lindberg. (them quotes aside, though, this 9 hr expose is a must-see documatary for everyone ... AF obviously agree, since they have been distributing it for some time).

In the end, just saying the problem is one of capitalism is too abstract - we need details, with banking hegemony getting as much scrutiny as PFI, carbon trading, corporate domination. They all inter-relate - they are also interdependent mechanisms.

The ECB (Euro Central Bank) recently underwrote the banking system to bailout hedge funds who were in crisis as the financial markets paniced 2 weeks ago, pulling something like 95 billion Euro out of their magic hat like a white rabbit - a measure of the banking system's ability to appease the shortfall of capitalists to secure their speculative venture capital. Ultimately, it is a class-issue in that all that money goes unconditionallly to prop up the lunatic casino-gambling of a rich elite who have over-extended themselves - not the millions in relative poverty living hand-to-mouth in prison-like housing estates with limited opportunity to lift themselves economically in wage-slave jobs. That said, the problem is that the hedge funds get access to massive credit in the first place; the lending of money 2 weeks ago by the ECB served to buy the whole financial system more time - to prevent a massive global financial crash where virtually all of us would be losers (economically, that is). As always, the real "losers" have access to unlimited credit from dodgy banks.

Class War and some other anarchists avoid this issue because their critique of capital and the state means they deny the reality that one would necessarily in-part have to replace the other for the public to take control of the money system once again. That is why Class-War have traditionally been more part of the problem than the solution, with their appetite for violent upheaval without offering any alternative solutions being, in the same way, the logical conclusion to their intellectual kop-out which would see them happily bearing witness to the big crash and resulting chaos (the very same likely culmination of the inherent crash-and burn of the world financial system after the powers-that-be refuse fundamental structural changes to the privatised hegemony at the heart of the system).

SWP avoid the issue, I know not why (sarcastic tone). They could explain it away because of sensitivity to the anti-semite overtones of anyone who dares raise the issue.

The cause is not helped by the fact that the film "The Money Masters", an excellent expose of the history of money, produced by the US Christian centre-right Campaign for Monetary Reform, disasterously use quotations from a far-right sympathisers Gary Allen and Charles Lindberg. (them quotes aside, though, this 9 hr expose is a must-see documatary for everyone ... AF obviously agree, since they have been distributing it for some time).

In the end, just saying the problem is one of capitalism is too abstract - we need details, with banking hegemony getting as much scrutiny as PFI, carbon trading, corporate domination. They all inter-relate - they are also interdependent mechanisms.

Don't buy it from here:  http://www.themoneymasters.com/

Steal it from here:  http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3739839/The_Money_Masters_-_A_MUST_SEE_%5BAVI_-_Conspiracy_-_Sept_11th_-_9

" There is an alternative money backed by real silver."

But silver is not something particularly useful. You get the disadvantage of money (eg. it doesn't represent any actual wealth) without it's advantages (you can add/remove some when needed to make sure the exchange mechanism continues to work)

You can't actually use anything useful to back money -- because you need useful things. For instance you couldn't use oil to back money, because you want to burn the oil. And if you can't back money on anything useful, you might as well not back it on anything.

klio said:
" if you can't back money on anything useful, you might as well not back it on anything."

What complete and utter bollocks!

Money is and always has been backed by underlying productive resources - it is a system called economics. Unfortunately, banks' use of fractional reserve has gone out of control - they no longer bother about sufficient reserves and money has been lent over generously to a now dangerous level. A crash is inevitable. When it happens will be at a time of choosing convenient to the interests of the biggest monopoly capitalists on the planet....

Larry Bates (in the Money Masters): "There is going to be a crash of unprecedented proportions....."

"Money is and always has been backed by underlying productive resources"

So why is it that countries that do not produce anything can be very rich - such as the UK ?