[chii]

only true if money they had actually represents real work that somebody created then transferred as money to them.

The current status quo is that a bank creates money out of thin air, which they can then profit off. This money they create _might_ represent value, but only after the loanee does some work for the debt. Therefore, all interest payment on such created money are essentially a "tax" the banks leeches off the people who did the real work.

[penguindev]

Correct, but that's been the case for a very long time. Banknotes and fractional reserve lending have been around the block many times, even under a 'gold standard'. It's a banker's world; we just live in it.

"Gold is money. Everything else is credit". - J.P. Morgan

[gundy]

Money is simply a manipulation of language backed up by force. The paper coerces sharing (whether fairly or unfairly) of resources (whether labor or physical resources like trees and oil) in a way that does not spontaneously happen without the paper.

A simple example would be without money you barter which is also a manipulation of language expressed through physical items. You need this I need that so we exchange. With money the equation becomes you need something, and you can buy it with money, here is some money, now give me what I want. The intermediary form of this was gold, because people can agree that gold is reliable. We replace that with simple language backed up by force, a dollar. A piece of paper that initially will stand in for gold to establish its value, but eventually will stand in for itself. Eventually we replace this with something like Bitcoin, no coercion simply an agreement in language justified through a market.

Quid pro quo.