this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
982 points (98.7% liked)
memes
10673 readers
2180 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not the buyer saying "I owe you", but the issuer of the currency (actually, usually just the notes, coins are considered to have value). The first person/entity to get the note gave, or promised, the issuer (usually the central bank) something of value, and the issuer gave them a token (note) saying the bank owes the holder of that note a certain amount of value. The recipient can then trade that note freely, as can future recipients, in the knowledge a vendor will accept it for its face value. So, yes, you're trading debt when you use money, but it's the bank's debt to the holder, not the debt of the buyer.
Typically the bank issue money when someone takes a loan, i.e. promises that they will pay the bank the value of the loan plus interest.