The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Ultimate Meaninglessness of Money

    By EmmaZahn on Mon, 11/21/2011 - 3:40pm |

    If you haven't already seen today's xkcd cartoon, I hope you will take a few minutes to look at some interesting, some amusing and some appalling information about how much different things cost in 2011 dollars.  

    If, like me, you think that dollars or whatever token form money takes represent human time and energy, then xkcd has seriously underestimated the total economic productivity of the human race so far at $2,396,500,000,000,000.

    All this reminds me of a question:  If we trade something that is consumable or perishable or ephemeral for money, why do we expect the money to be eternal?  to forever be savable and exchangeable?  With 7 billion people harboring such expectations, is it any wonder the accumulations are suffocating us?