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The talk about bitcoins motivates me to discuss money. What is money? When it comes to bitcoins, my opinion is with Mr. Peter Schiff...I believe it holds little or no value. When I evaluate what I get paid for my 50 hours or more a week on the job, I weigh the costs of items and services relative to that effort to earn that net fiat currency. Here I agree with Stefan that price stores a lot of information. For example, I priced a single microphone audio jacks in the U.S. at $12. A packet of 10, shipped from China via ebay is $22. The Chinese one is a good value. With that jack, I can wire an adapter that will make a proprietary mike port accept a standard mike input. This provides a lot of value. I needed a plumber wrench to fix a leaky facet. The U.S. made is $32, the China one is $14. The China made is a good value. If you deal with Chinese, you know they will shop for the rock bottom priced item or service. Having said that, you can understand why Chinese manufacturers need to manufacture to price on the cheap. My point is the service you provide, or the product you create is the basis from which you will gauge the value of an item you need relative to the price and the value you put on item you created. The roots of this is a bartering mentality which fractionalizes the value of things you need or want relative to the value of time, effort, ingenuity of the product or service that you bring to the marketplace. Fiat currency is collateralized debt that we as a nation theoretical are on the hock for. We therefore theoretical accept this claim voucher (paper money) since all of us collectively are responsible for the debt that is in the name of the nation we are part of and have a sake in maintaining the solvency of. When a man buys a house, the lending bank hocks his purchased home until the debt is repaid. The seller of the home is given fiat currency based on the buyer's financial integrity to repay the loan. The seller spends the newly acquired fiat currency the same way that the government workers and contractors spend their fiat currency after the government borrows from the federal reserve bank in exchange for its i.o.u.'s (i.e. treasury bonds, notes, or bills) and just in case it puts U.S. citizen's and the unborn's future earning power on the hock. (That's one major purpose of the census taking.) When it comes to global trade, it's a matter of each country evaluating the U.S. dollar priced item or service relative to what is offered worldwide. Each country has its own natural resources and human resources that can generate solutions and value in the global marketplace. For instance, Japan, Germany, and now Korea have engineering acumen in the designing of its car and products. This weighs into the value of its exports. China, I mentioned, produces low, low cost functional goods. Africa has many sought after minerals and metals. Canada has oil, shale and Stefan Molyneux. And the U.S....no comment. So you can see how money is a medium to assign a fractional value to things relative to an individual's or nation's productivity. The final point of this blog is: if you want to protect your wealth from the possible financial crash, then acquire marketable skills and knowledge. That's the most reliable currency that will always hold its value.