What Kind Of Money Game?

Money is for saving. Money is for spending. Money is for loving. Money is for hating. Take your pick. Money moves the world. George Bernard Shaw called it " the most important thing in the world." Some social commentators say we live in a mad world where for money we sell our soul.
Indeed, these are strong words that arouse strong passions.

Money which itself essentially has no value , exerts more power over human lives than any other single commodity. It destroys marriages and family. Money motivates fraud, robbery and kidnappings and you read about such criminal acts in the newspapers on a daily basis. Organized crime has become a big industry. Nations and their intelligent services are preoccupied to rein in the criminals, bring them to justice and put them away. You could ask, how come this situation? After all we can't live without money in the modern world. Money brings out the best and the worst of human personality.

Glyn Davis, emeritus professor of economics at the University of Wales, in his essay "Origins Of Money And Of Banking" takes you through what money is, its functions and much more. In the earlier times, money of different forms and kind was used. Amber, cowries, leather, cows, yarns and several other items were exchanged for the value of goods and services. Thus money became anything that is widely used for making payments and accounting for debts and credits.

The power of this money has been used to build and destroy, to create empires, to wage war, to save lives and to kill. Money is used to go the moon , conduct scientific research to improve life for millions and it also provides the means for mass destruction.

The course of history, for better or worse is continually changed by the power of money. People have fought for economic reasons as much as they as have done for ideological reasons. Thus money is a controlling factor in the political stability of the world.

At the macro econoimc level and in the global context, you can now imagine what money can do. It affects peoples lives and determines the quality of their life. Going by the rumblings of history, we know that motivated by greed the alchemists tried to convert cheaper metals such as iron into gold.

With the internet and in the age of connectivity, the electronic version of money, the E-money has emerged. What games that can now be played will not be limited to items and physical boundaries but to the cyberspace, the development of which is still in the infant stage.