@11112011 All money is an abstraction of actual wealth, which are the goods and services that we need and pay for with money.
Different fiat currencies are like gift cards to different baskets of goods and services. Some are more accepted than others and sometimes people trade them.
In the end, only the actual good and services purchase to enhance your standard of living are real. Everything else is just an abstraction to get from production to consumption as efficiently as possible.
@11112011 If you trade a giftcard to a store you don't want to shop at for one you do, and then use your new giftcard to buy the goods/services you wanted, what happened to the original giftcard?
Presumably, whoever took the other side of that trade, valued that giftcard and intents on using it himself, so both parties benefit in the end, hence the magic of free trade.
However store A doesn't benefit from your transaction, only store B does.
Money is just an abstraction of labor for trade.
@11112011 You can price goods and services however you want. I'm sure you've plaid mobile games that have the same items for "gold", "gems", or what other currencies they use in game for various items and stuff. These items may have a convertible value (i.e. 100 gems cost $10) or not (i.e. you earn gold in game that has no real-world value).
In Team Fortress 2, you use keys. In prison, you use cigarettes. There are endless forms of abstractions.
@11112011 Saudi Arabia is joining BRICS my dude, the petrodollar is dead. It's Biden's fault for weaponizing the dollar against Russia. womp womp
Here's an older article from earlier in the year when Saudi Arabia was considering Chinese yuan for oil.: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/598257-saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-instead-of-dollar-for-oil/
The petrodollar was based on the US being Saudi's unofficial military, but we're weak, broke, and gay. Saudi Arabia is altering the deal, pray they don't alter it any further.
