June 27, 2008 9:28AM

The World Revolves Around … Cash

By Robert Ray

10:57 PM

Definition of Money: Money is a good that acts as a medium of exchange in transactions. Classically it is said that money acts as a unit of account, a store of value, and a medium of exchange. Most authors find that the first two are nonessential properties that follow from the third. In fact, other goods are often better than money at being intertemporal stores of value, since most monies degrade in value over time through inflation or the overthrow of governments.

Well, there it is, the definition of money.

I spent the day at the Morningstar Convention in Chicago. You may have seen our broadcast, and if you did I hope you gained insight from the dynamic interviews conducted by Dagen McDowell and Jeff Flock.

This convention/conference is all about cash and advice about cash.

At about 2pm today I thought of something, the definition of money. Before I tell you why I must ask you to pause…please look away from the screen…look at something in the room that means a lot to you…did you find it?…Ok, now that you have located your item or object, please ask yourself, is it worth a transaction that will include another person or major corporation or is it just worth something to you, only you?

A unit of account, a store of value or a medium of exchange? Which one is it?

At 2:04pm today I realized that the world revolves around cash. But, I know that the human spirit revolves around people, not loot. Having said that, today Crude Oil hit another all time high, the Dow Jones went south, Presidential campaign debt was mulled over, and don’t forget that people in the Midwest are still trying to figure out what in hell they are going to do with their business or farm operation that was destroyed buy the flooding.

There is not one aspect of your life that does not include cash. Not one. Even if you are naked with no clothes lying in the middle of a desert with no possessions you still had to come up with some sort of greenback to get there or get something on the way.

You may have used some of these words on your way to the desert where you are naked;
Argent, bankroll, bequest, bill, blunt, boodle, booty, brass, bread, capital, cash, cent, change, chattel, chips, clink, coin, coinage, currency, cush, dinero, dough, dump, finances, funds, gelt, gilt, gold, gratuity, greenbacks, green stuff, grig, handsel, hansel, hard cash, income, jack, jake, kale, legacy, legal tender, lettuce, livre, long green, loot, lour, lucre, mammon, mazuma, medium, mina, moola, moolah, moss, oof, ooftish, pelf, proceeds, profit, property, purse, rebate, reimbursement, resources, revenue, rhino, riches, rocks, scratch, specie, stipend, swag, tender, tin, wad, wampum, wealth, wherewithal, windfall.

Holy cripes…Have a sip, i just did.

So, when I realized that the world revolved around cash I realized the world will never be simplistic and thus I and you must find that small object in the room that means only something to us and our inner thoughts…..look at it one more time…it’s nice, especially in a society that’s kicking bucks.