Obvs in the 80’s money was real and now its not
Money has never been real, and never will be. Money is a little like Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell, it does not exist if people do not believe in it. Money is all about confidence. Confidence that a token called money can be exchanged for goods and services, and that monetary debts will be repaid in one form or another. Money is only a promise, the only things that have real value are those you can eat, drink or use as shelter. UK bank notes even have a meaningless promise written on them:
‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of … ‘
Which of course means precisely nothing!
When no one believes in a currency you get hyperinflation, and the only way out of it is to restore people’s confidence in the currency. For a real world example of this read about Germany’s (Weimar Republic) hyperinflation in 1923. Towards the end it cost more to produce a banknote than the note was ‘worth’.
Sanity was restored almost over night by the introduction of a new currency the Rentenmark backed by the price of gold but not redeemable in gold. i.e. backed by a sleight of hand!
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