[finasteridonline]

"Gold" is not debt, "money" is debt (whatever it is made of).

In the example above, everything could have been exactly the same, except using certificates written on sharks instead of on paper.

Now, sharks have value, paper has value, and gold has value. When you print money, the stuff you make it out of has some utility separate from its use as currency. But when you are using it as currency (regardless of what it is made from), it is a marker for debt.

You go to work for an hour, your boss gives you a marker that you can trade for a cheeseburger or some gasoline or a ferret or cantaloupes, or whatever you want. That marker is an IOU for the work you did. You give it to the cantaloupe store, and it becomes an IOU for the value of one cantaloupe. They give it to the store employees or the cantaloupe-grower or whatever, and so on.

It doesn't matter what that marker is made out of, its function is the same. If it were gold, you could melt it down and make a ring out of it. If it's paper, you could use it as a bookmark or a shopping list or to blow your nose, if it's a shark you scare people with it in the pool.

N.B., this is totally separate from the question of whether we should be using gold as a currency, which has to do with the fact that the gold supply is a lot more stable than the paper supply, and whether being able to easily print more money on demand is a good thing or a bad thing.