With news of several coutnerfeiting occurrences in my local paper, medical bills piling up, and my incessant need to collect comics, I’ve been pondering the nature of money and value in our society. What’s the real issue with counterfeit money? If no one ever finds out that it’s counterfeit, doesn’t it have the same value as a real bill?

In other words, if I make a counterfeit $20 and pass it. The person who I give it to passes it as well. Say this happens 20 more times. For those 20 people, that bill had a value of $20, regardless of whether it was real or not.

It all falls back on the supposed idea that the government has enough gold and silver to back up every dollar on the planet. Well, seeing as how about 40% of US bills are outside of the country, the government doesn’t even own enough storage for the gold they would need.

So, my point is that money only has the value that we all agree it has and if we all agreed, knowingly or not, that my fake $20 was worth $20 in goods or services then it is in fact, true.