Money is Time

For approximately 4,500 years mankind has been using money as a form of barter. Throughout history
there have always been five attributes that make money what it is; it has to be:

• Divisible
• Desirable
• Durable
• Easily transportable
• Hard to counterfeit

Let's say we used fish as our form of money. We would go to the marketplace, (think Nordstrom's,) and make all our purchases with fish. Note that none of the five attributes mention anything about smelling great. Fish wouldn't fit any of the above criteria. Yes, you can divide them, but it makes a mess when you do. And while they might be desirable to some, they aren't desirable to all, unless we're buying from our cat. Not very durable either; personally, I haven't been able to keep a fish alive for more than a month, and if it is indeed divided, well, not very durable subsequent to the slaughter. They jump around too much to be considered easily transportable, and since it's hard to tell one fish from another, (at least those from the same species,) they would be easy to counterfeit. So much for fish.

All that said, what exactly is money? It is a form of barter, and a very convenient form at that. But how does it manifest? It isn't manufactured by the ATM, nor does it grow on trees. It comes from time. We trade our time and our talent to our employer, and money is given in exchange. We've all heard the expression, "Time is money," they got it backwards; time is money. Until now, you've never thought of money as the physical manifestation of the intangible commodity of time. So, here's some food for thought the next time you go to the store to buy something: instead of thinking of your purchase as $200, think of it in terms of how long you had to work in order for the $200 to get into your pocket.

Time for Money™

By doing this, any amount of money has a unique meaning to everyone. That $200 means something totally different to everyone who reads this. It may take you only one hour to earn $200; however, it may take someone else a full day to earn it. Stated another way, the price of an object is the same for everyone, but the cost is totally different. The cost to you is the velocity at which the $200 flows into
your pockets.