Money as an exchange medium is a fabulous invention. To fully understand its significance, just imagine a modern society relying on barter instead of money. Newspapers would probably be much thicker than they are now, and most of it would be classifieds like: "Hungry tailor is seeking freezing baker" or: "Unmotorized doctor is looking for ill car maker - patience required". Money, in a nutshell, solves the issue of finding trade partners with matching needs and allows us to perform asymmetric trades. In doing that, money is also the main prerequisite for the type of division of labor that makes modern production so efficient, and which allows individuals to leverage specialized talents without having to worry too much about basic needs.
Unfortunately, the money we are used to also has severe flaws. The root of the problem is that, although money is a limited resource and its continuous flow is absolutely essential for every modern economy, anyone who has it can simply withdraw it from circulation by not spending it. To keep money owners from doing just that, the traditional financial system allots a premium (also called interest) to money owners to motivate them to release their money and allow its return to the business cycle. Other market participants pay that premium (plus bank fees) so they can borrow the money and use it as the exchange medium it was meant to be.
But interest rates only serve to further aggravate the problem. Because of the effects of compound interest as well as the fact that pretty much all money is issued through bank credits, the amount of total interest due in any such system rises at an exponential rate. It is a common misconception that the borrowers of money simply have to work hard enough to pay back their credits, because by definition, there isn't actually enough money to do that in such a system - therefore, paying back the debts plus interest may work for the individual, but on a larger scale, the equation can never be satisfied.
As a consequence of this constructional defect, more and more money is sucked out of the real economy and has to be reactivated again by paying even more interest. The result is a vicious circle, revolving at an ever increasing rate until the system ultimately collapses. Typical "solutions" - most notably the extension of government deficits and the mad chase for ever-increasing economic growth - only serve to drag out the inevitable: The former (while giving individuals a higher chance to actually pay back their mortgages - that's because the total assets in any economy always equal the amount of debt) simply shifts the burdens from individual credit rates to tax hikes. The latter ignores the well-established fact that permanent economic growth isn't environmentally sustainable and leads to the destruction of the planet.
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