I will edit this stuff later - just sitting at the desk in the Buzz cafe (internet access in the library) - taking my quiet moments to surf about, here's Shann Turnbull, demystifying some economic terms:

"Faith by economists and the major political parties in the existing monetary system cannot be supported by analysis. Nor can it be defended by the experiences of small businesses, farmers, Third World debtor nations and the once rapidly growing "Tiger" economies that have suffered a financial "meltdown". The system is imposed upon the world by an intellectually inbred elite of monetary priests who ridicule any who question its operations, while admitting that its operations depends upon confidence.

For religious people, the existing banking and monetary system is the biggest confidence trick perpetuated in the history of civilisation. For non-religious people, it is the second biggest confidence trick, as religion becomes the biggest trick.

Modern money is a confidence trick because money cannot be defined in terms of goods or services, yet it is used in market economies to organise the means of their production and consumption. In other words, an unreal artificial totem controls the real world. All national currencies have become "fiat" money as none can exist without being defined to exist by a government."