Money is one of the foundational inventions that makes civilization possible. It enables the efficient transfer of
value from one person to another and a way to store value that doesn't take up much room and wont rot away.

Perhaps it's most amazing function, money can work as artificial co-operation. When someone has an idea for
a big project thats a little hard to imagine the benefits of, money makes it happen.

Go back to 1889, gather a thousand men in a muddy field and explain to them how, if they spend 5 years
building a giant factory where they are standing, then 5 more in that factory making a thousand copies of
your 'automobile' invention, they could all be riding those around instead of horses.

See? It does not work. There has to be some way to motivate people to work on stuff that's not going to be of
near term benefit to them. You may be able to get a hand full of your best buds to co-operate on something
relatively small, but the big projects that make up our civilization require money to work.

Unfortunately, the invention is not perfect. It has a dark side.

The same compactness and mobility that make it work also make it easy to steal. Every idea ever
intended to improve it's efficiency also made it easier to steal larger & larger amounts.

It is supposed to be like oil in a machine, not the reason the machine exists. Banks are only supposed to help
move and store money, not be a money making venture in themselves. The entire financial system is supposed
to be like plumbing - the pipes and valves that get the fluid to where it needs to go, not a wealth
extraction machine.

Money is supposed to work for us, not be our boss.

We are living with the consequenses of allowing our invention to run amok.

There is an ocean of money floating way up in the stratosphere that us ordinary people can hardly see,
let alone reach. It's that BIG MONEY we only see on TV, so it doesn't seem real to us.
We only know it's there, we don't feel it. We don't really believe in it.
It's in the same fantasy world as I Dream of Jeannie.

But it really is there.

We see only glimpses of it with stories of Bill Clinton getting a million bucks to talk for an hour.
Lebron James getting a 77,000,000$ contract. Angelina Jolie getting 30,000,000$ for 1 movie. Bill Gates
on his way to becoming the first trillionaire.

Aside from the celebrities, we only see a hand full of names occasionally mentioned in the financial news.
We do not know the names of hundreds of super rich individuals, thousands of hedge fund managers,
countless overpaid corporate executives and myriad rich for whatever people.

That ocean was created by greedy people with lots of money figuring out increasingly complex and effective
ways to use money to extract more & more from everybody else. They long ago perfected the art & science
of making the wealth created by the workers of the world vanish before we are even aware that it exists,
immediatly materializing in their pockets, only occasionally visible to the rest of us as mind boggling
numbers, lavish lifestyles and crazy expensive merchandise.

A question that I have never heard asked by the media or any politician is this:
What Herculean effort producing what astounding accomplishment resulting in what incredible benefit
to our society can any of these super rich individuals claim to justify the amount of wealth
they have taken from all of us?

We already know the answer is none, so now another question presents itself: What good is the system
that makes their wealth grabbing possible?

Again, we know the answer is none. 'They' will launch into long explanations concerning
capitalism, free trade, supply & demand, market forces, etc. etc. etc. Their condescending lecture will
be full of quotes from PhD experts and long dead theorists to remind you that you are
nobody to be questioning them! But really, it will only add up to how it came to be this way,
not why it is of benefit to anybody but the rich.